Endgame

[Original blog post on Tumblr: October 26th, 2016]

Some highlights of the last EDA I’ve read (Endgame).

I took these screens while reading, along with my reactions. As usual, this is full of spoilers.

And to think that arc was going so well.

There’s nothing downright wrong about Endgame, but a combination of things turns it into a subpar book. One, the three previous books in the Earth Arc generally avoided giving us a direct idea of Eight’s point of view on his current situation, and this one does that all the time. Two, this is another espionage story right after the previous book delivered the best Doctor Who espionage story ever. Three, the pace is very slow but instead of using it to gain momentum or at least build some atmosphere, the plot drags until it just ends. And four, the Doctor doesn’t care about anything in that book, so why should we care, really?

But still, it confirms something we briefly gazed at in the early Lucie audios and at the very beginning of Dark Eyes: when Eight is completely out of f█cks to give, you should run. Just run. 3,5/10

---

Goddammit I lost The Game and it’s only page 1.

Wait WHAT

I WAS WONDERING HOW LONG IT WOULD TAKE FOR EIGHT TO RUN INTO ONE OF HIS PREVIOUS SELVES IN THAT ARC ASCFDGHFHFJK

Of course neither of them recognised the other one, but still, I’m glad it happened because it needed to.

“What, after all, was the point of anything?”

Seriously, so far the Earth Arc looks like a slow descent into hell. I mean first Eight was lost and confused, then he was melancholic, then utterly despaired, and now we’re somewhere during the Cold War, and his only chance to leave Earth has failed, and the rare friends he made are probably all dead, and he doesn’t care about anything anymore.

Save him

What did you expect Vladek

I don’t need these feelings, put them away

“He just sits there and lets everything float by”

If the Doctor doesn’t care and if the author doesn’t care and if I don’t care then who is flying this plane

Eight I don’t want to alarm you but you have every single symptom of depression I can think of

Is he going to be mistaken for a spy all over again? We already talked about this in the previous book, guys

Also please don’t make me think about the previous book because I don’t want to cry again

Okay so basically, he lives in a small appartment and kills time by reading books and sitting in the same café every day, just waiting for 2001 to happen eventually. Get him out of here.

I wonder how he’s paying for the appartment though.

Also the TARDIS is still dead. The letters are starting to reappear, though.

SOMEBODY PLEASE SAVE HIM

Well I’m not going to argue with that

Holy shit Eight

HOLY SHIT EIGHT

I think you should listen to him.

I’m having flashbacks from some (rare) audios where Eight was completely out of f█cks to give, and, among other things, broke the TARDIS rotor with a pickaxe, smashed an expensive vase on the floor without batting an eye to get somebody’s attention, and made someone’s head explode.

DOCTOR NO THIS IS A TERRIBLE IDEA

Hello yes could you please stop reminding me of the previous book we already talked about this and I don’t need this pain

Great job Rurik 10/10

Doctor no

Of course they accidentally killed Oskar so now they’re going to get the info from Eight, except he doesn’t know anything, this is bad

But again, he doesn’t care about anything so why should I

Told you

Ah! Good thing he remembers that trick, at least.

Oh shit oh f█ck oh no

HOLY

SHIT

DOCTOR

As usual, whenever Eight ends up in a hospital, his first priority is to locate the exit and leave as soon as possible

Told you Eight was terrifying when he was out of f█cks to give

This entire arc can be summarised by this comic, I think

HAHAHA he really didn’t want to stay in that hospital

Axel stop this meme is incredibly old

Do not mess with depressed Eight

Do not mess with depressed Eight

I don’t care if you’re a trained spy or an assassin or a serial killer, if you value your own life in any way you DO NOT MESS WITH DEPRESSED EIGHT

“Did he use that precise phrase?” “Yes he did and he was also wearing a Guy Fawkes mask for some reason & he was very ridiculous”

Hahaha

Haha

Ha.

At least it will give him something to do for a couple of weeks

Don’t mention Turing please, please, I mean we’re in 1951, he’s going to die in three years and I don’t think Eight wants to be reminded of that fact

...

...You asked for it

Close enough.

azsdfghjkla he cut his hair

Okay so I know this is supposed to be ominous but

They used the word “shrubbery” and the only thing I could think about was

Okay so Axel is some sort of immortal being hell bent on creating chaos and he really, really wants to kill Eight and whoever works with him

And Eight doesn’t give two f█cks and just dropped him in a ditch

Here he is again

Yes, perhaps you should.

Honestly so far Axel is the only entertaining thing in that book

Eight just f█cking murdered Axel without batting an eye holy shit

He’ll be back, you know he will

There is zero typo and zero weird phrasing in this short dialogue in French and isn’t it incredible that this subpar book gets this right while the incredibly good previous book couldn’t?

Unexpected feelings about that little Short Trips story, “Model Train Set” by Jonathan Blum ; basically if you were wondering about that train set in the TARDIS in Vampire Science you should read it, also it’s surprisingly sad

Shots fired

So far this is the best scene in this book

What a wonderfully terrible pun

My heart

So far the villains of the story sound like a much more boring version of the Eternals from Enlightenment, which is incidentally my favorite Classic Who episode so you really need to go the extra mile to make that concept boring as far as I’m concerned

This running gag stopped being funny a few pages ago

And that name doesn’t sound ominous at all, of course

YOU DON’T SAY

He’s 100% chill about the whole thing haha

Actually Myrek you should just run, forget the “kill him” bit

Wait what

Axel keeps dying and coming back like a murderous version of Mr Gosh from the Lenore comic and Eight keeps killing him without caring about it for more than five consecutive seconds and honestly this is by far the most entertaining thing in this book

Meanwhile that unfunny gag is still running

Just a guess

The kind of sentence I never expected to read anywhere

My point exactly, stop this madness at once, book

So they met before, uh? That was in a book I haven’t read, then.

LEAVE HIM ALONE

EXTREMELY RELATABLE 10/10

Well if this is the climax of that story it’s underwhelming

Okay so this was even more underwhelming than I expected

Axel didn’t even get to do anything

To be fair he had almost hit rock bottom at this point, it would have been difficult to continue in that direction

Only less than 50 years left, now, Doctor. You can do this.

10/10 summary everyone can go home