Whether I go with the DW Reference Guide or The Complete Adventures, my Pertwee season 1 venture is going to be fairly short as there are no novels and I am forgoing the Big Finish stuff. It's the 4 TV stories, several comics, and some short stories. Next up is "The Multi-Mobile", another TV comic.
The Brigadier has brought a thoroughly uninterested Doctor along to a demonstration of the Multi-Mobile, a new mechanical marvel which is a squat, flat tank, basically. It reminds me of the creepy crawler hoolie that NASA uses to haul the space shuttle to the launch pad. The Doctor is suitably unimpressed as the demonstration of the vehicle's mad brush burning skillz comes to an end and the crew of the hulking mass of steel take a well-deserved pee break.
But leaving the vehicle unattended opens a window of opportunity for three scofflaws who commandeer the behemoth. U.N.I.T.'s initial attempts to stop the beast with a tank and some armored vehicles prove ineffectual. The same goes for an aerial strike.
Soon enough the Doctor figures out that the hijackers' destination is the British Nuclear Defence Centre. A little bit of cipherin' later, he calculates that the Mobile will run out of fuel a few miles short of its target. A plot is hatched whereby U.N.I.T. would lay in wait at the petrol station most likely to be visited by the Mobile and ambush the villainous hijackers when they attempt to refuel.
Things don't go according to plan but the Doctor comes through in the end by dropping a couple sugar cubes into the fuel tank. The sucrose sabotage proves successful.
I was impressed with this one in that it seems its creators actually watched the show. Or had better notes. Or read what they were given. When the Doctor is all pouty and in a huff about being at the demo when he could be back at the lab chillin' with Liz, Lethbridge-Stewart reminds him of the Brigaderian bargain they struck at the end of "Spearhead From Space": the Doctor helps U.N.I.T. in exchange for spare parts to tinker with.
While none of these TV comic have been good, at least they've become largely inoffensive. No, that's not totally fair. The Third Doctor in these comics so far really isn't too far removed from one seen on TV, er, bluray. Hopefully the ones in the Annuals follow suit.
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