The Dr Who Annual 1973

http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/1490084.html

I very much enjoyed the 1971 Annual, but there was a gap of two years before the next in the series was published and unfortunately the improvement in quality was not maintained. Most of the stories appear to be by an author with little knowledge of the show - the Doctor is repeatedly referred to as 'the scientist' (except in the one story featuring the Master, where the fact that they are both Time Lords in exile gets slipped in) and Jo at one stage is described as having dark hair. The plots of the stories rather weakly reflect those of the first half of the Pertwee era, though have a tendency to end rather abruptly and sometimes limply. One is set in Australia, presumably to compensate Aussie viewers for their loyalty (hang on another few years, folks, and you will be further rewarded, if that is the word, with Tegan). The artist who produced the copious illustrations did a very good Pertwee, if rather obviously copied from various pulicity stills, but the depictions of Jo, Yates, the Brigadier and the Master are pretty unrecognisable (though at least Jo is blonde in the pictures if not in the text). The total page length has dropped down to 80 from 96, so all in all I think I would have felt a bit ripped off even at the time. ( )