Perceptions (comic story)

Perceptions
Doctor:	Eighth Doctor
Companion(s):	Stacy, Ssard
Main enemy:	Shapeshifters
Main setting:	London, Victorian era
Key crew
Publisher:	Radio Times
Writer:	Gary Russell
Artist:	Lee Sullivan
Colourist:	Alan Craddock
Letterer:	Elitta Fell
Release details
Number of parts:	10
Printed in:	RT 3805 - RT 3814
Cover date:	4 January 1996 - 8 March 1997
Format:	Comic
Radio Times comic stories
← Previous	Ascendance
Next →	Coda

Perceptions was a Radio Times comic story featuring the Eighth Doctor, Stacy Townsend and Ssard.

Summary

The Eighth Doctor and his friends, Ssard and Stacy Townsend, arrive in Victorian London, where they discover a spaceship which is invisible to the people of the time. They meet the ship's occupant, P'fer'd, an Equinoid. P'fer'd tells the Doctor his wife M'rek'd is missing. Stacy and some street urchins rescue M'rek'd from a freak show. However, the owner of the freak show is not himself human, but a shape-shifting alien; Stacy and the urchins are attacked. P'fer'd is re-united with M'rek'd and the Doctor and Ssard with Stacy... apparently.

Characters

• Eighth Doctor
• Stacy Townsend
• Ssard
• P'fer'd
• M'rek'd

Worldbuilding

• Ssard joined the TARDIS so he could "see the universe."
• P'fer'd disguises his ship and himself with a Mark III Image Inducer, which takes up too much power.
• The Doctor says without the arrogance of the British Empire, humanity would have never progressed and ventured out into the stars, and Stacy would never have been born.
• Stacy complains about Victorian London's smells, fleas, cold, and germs.
• P'fer'd's ship got lost and ran out of fuel because his wife had the stellar map upside-down.
• M'rek'd is captured and put in a freak show in Kennington Park.
• Equinoids have knowledge of Galactic Law.
• The Doctor calls P'fer'd's tactic of employing street urchins "very Holmesian.”
• P'fer'd's ship is disguised as "Binns, Beech & Evans Solicitors", with P'fer'd as "Mister Binns".
• Stacy says the urchins smell bad, talk badly, and have walked straight out of Oliver Twist.
• The Doctor offered Stacy to see the universe, "one trip round the outer rims."
• The shapeshifter electrocutes and kills a young boy.
• The Doctor gives P'fer'd space energy cells.
• The surviving street urchin fears being sent to Carfax or Bedlam if he speaks of the aliens he's seen.

Notes

• The Equinoids match the description that the Third Doctor gave in the television story Frontier in Space of a race attending the third intergalactic peace conference.
• Perceptions was intended to be continued in Deceptions, where the shapeshifters would be revealed as Zygons. Instead, the final story made was Coda.

Continuity

• The Doctor mentions the body bepple fad of the late 29th century. (PROSE: Original Sin)
• Ssard calls a policeman a "blue guard." (TV: The Talons of Weng-Chiang)

External links

• Perceptions at the Doctor Who Reference Guide