As the 60th Anniversary of Doctor Who is almost here, I thought it’d be a great idea to travel back in time to 2013 – and check out what IDW did for the Doctor’s 50th Anniversary.

IDW’s year long celebration was a pretty clever idea: a 12 issue storyline featuring all of the numbered Doctors that had appeared until that point.

That meant getting an issue a month, each of which focused on a different Doctor – from the First to the Eleventh, in order – with a final issue tying up the storyline.

The first issue was, therefore, a First Doctor (played in the TV series by William Hartnell) story, with a framing story featuring a shadowy villain whose plan was to entirely isolate the Doctor by removing his companions – with every version of the Doctor falling prey to this nefarious scheme.

In this issue, the Second Doctor (Patrick Troughton) and his companions arrive on a commerce planet and soon run into an alien species known for their ties to slavery.

With bait – in the form of one of the Doctor’s companions – being dangled in front of the slavers, the Time Lord sets about freeing the poor slaves from their captors.

Just like the first issue, the majority of the story feels self contained – and it’s only in the sudden resolution to the story that the main premise makes an appearance; even then, it doesn’t really feel as if it’s part of a crossover.

Despite the clever overarching premise and the promise that it’ll encompass the then-50 years of Doctor Who history, it does feel a little too stretched – perhaps the ambitious nature of the project was a little too much for it to bear.

That’s not to say there aren’t fun moments of course – and it is great to spend time with incarnations of the Doctor and his companions that are less familiar – but it feels at this stage as if this could have just been a year long series of standalone stories.

You can buy the full collected edition of Doctor Who: Prisoners of Time from Amazon here.

Enjoyed what you’ve read? Want to support my blog? There’s no pressure of course, but every penny helps to keep this site running, as I earn no income from my writing here (though I may earn small fees from affiliate links posted on my pages).

However, I’d be truly grateful for any support that you could offer – and it’s easy to do so at either of these links: Ko-Fi.com/geekmid or PayPal.

Any donations are truly appreciated – and I also appreciate you taking the time to read my articles. Thank you so much!