Fear of the Future (comic story)
Fear of the Future was a comic story published in Doctor Who Magazine starring the Thirteenth Doctor, Yasmin Khan and Dan Lewis.
Summary
With the Doctor's TARDIS parked along a sandy beach surrounded by cliffs, Dan prepares for a fun and relaxing day, complete with T-shirt, shorts, and sunglasses. However, as he looks out across the sea, he spots Yaz floundering desperately and rushes in to save her. When he gets there, she is nowhere to be found, so he sprints out to find a lifeguard, only to encounter Yaz and the Thirteenth Doctor relaxing calmly on the sand.
Confused, Dan goes to join his friends in a picnic. They are quickly set upon by wasps, and as Yaz flails at them, she spills her drink on her bathing suit, deciding to go and clean it off in the sea. Despite Dan's protests at what he saw, the Doctor tells him to simply let her go. When she gets in the sea, Yaz does begin floundering as Dan saw, but not because she is drowning; she is simply batting more wasps away.
Returning to the shore, Dan begins to deeply worry about his supposed clairvoyance. The Doctor admits she has no idea of the cause, but insists it will likely never happen again, just as Dan sees a vision of a man falling off a nearby cliff despite nobody actually being there. Yaz insists that Dan should return to the TARDIS, but when he spots the man he saw walking up to the cliffs, he rushes after him. Dan yells at the man to save him, but this just spooks him into inching away from Dan, further towards the cliff edge. Only when the Doctor and Yaz arrive, shouting at them to stay still, is the situation resolved.
With the tourist's life saved, the Doctor sheepishly admits to Dan that the supposed visions were her fault all along. The sunglasses that Dan picked up from the TARDIS were actually a pair of Preventacles - a type of psychic spectacles designed to prevent accidents by showing the user the near future, but were since banned in the Five Galaxies for causing more problems than they solved. Back at the beach, Dan stomps the Preventacles into the sand, remarking that they do not need any extra help at finding trouble, unaware that the cracked glasses are now showing the time travellers in battle against a giant wasp.
Characters
Worldbuilding
- Preventacles show the wearer visions of the future.
- They are banned in the Five Galaxies.
- A Product Safety Recall was put out for them.
- The safety recall notice promises customers a refund or an exchange for a pair of Telepathy Socks.
- The Preventacles show Dan a vision of Yaz drowning.
- Yaz wonders if Dan is having a sunstroke.
- The Doctor offers her friends cheese and pickle and jam salad sandwiches.
Notes
- Oddly, Yaz is depicted in this story as having uncharacteristically light skin.
- The Doctor's TARDIS is positioned in a gap between beach huts numbered 12 and 14, in reference to the Thirteenth Doctor.
Original print details
- (Publication with page count and closing captions)
- DWM 579 (6 pages): To be continued...
Continuity
- After being promised such during Eve of the Daleks [+]Loading...["Eve of the Daleks (TV story)"] and Legend of the Sea Devils [+]Loading...["Legend of the Sea Devils (TV story)"], Yaz and Dan finally get their beach holiday.
- Whilst relaxing, the Thirteenth Doctor wears a Panama hat of the style favoured by the Fifth and Seventh Doctors in such stories as Castrovalva [+]Loading...["Castrovalva (TV story)"] and Time and the Rani [+]Loading...["Time and the Rani (TV story)"].
- The Preventacles depict the Doctor and friends encountering a giant wasp, not unlike the Vespiform seen in The Unicorn and the Wasp [+]Loading...["The Unicorn and the Wasp (TV story)"], or the giant wasps created by the Quarks in The Killer Wasps [+]Loading...["The Killer Wasps (comic story)"]. They go on to encounter these wasps in The Everlasting Summer [+]Loading...["The Everlasting Summer (comic story)"].
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