Wolfsbane

Responding to a summons by the Brigadier, the Doctor, Sarah and Harry are en route to Earth when the TARDIS materializes prematurely. Harry goes outside into the November air of 1938 England, and the TARDIS dematerializes almost right away, leaving him behind. When the Doctor and Sarah return for him, it is two weeks later and they find he has died. As they try to unravel the cause of Harry's death, it comes about that Harry fell into the company of the local upper class and meets another man called the Doctor, although this man does not know Harry, has never heard of the planet Skaro, and does not posess a TARDIS as such but does have a large blue box in a makeshift lab in his cottage. And this Doctor is involved in an investigation to discover what is happening to local livestock on nights when the moon in full and wolves are heard in the fields...

This story can almost stand on its own without the presence of the fourth Doctor and Sarah, but the paralell plotlines of their efforts to find out what happened to Harry and his own adventures with the other Doctor run together very well, coming together in time to resolve the storyline. And the end actually makes sense.

But before we go further, a bit of backstory. Other Doctor, you ask? Yes. The eighth Doctor. Owing to his own adventures in his series of novels, the eighth Doctor becomes an amnesiac and is separated from his companions, Fitz and Compassion, and lives on Earth for a period of roughly 170 years with no memory of his past, and without the TARDIS as it is healing from their adventures. As serving editor of the BBC Books range during that time, Wolfsbane author Jacqueline Rayner has crossed the time lines of the marooned eighth Doctor with his own selve's (although he would also be on earth during his third incarnation's forced exile by the Time Lords) and given Harry Sullivan a chance to be his own man for a change.

Poor Harry. I mean, really. Always the bumbler, always suffering from the fourth Doctor's gentle ribbing and always fighting his inner desires for Sarah (although we find out here that she is far too independant for him and he needs a lady who will let him rescue her). That's no way to live. Granted, being effectively abandoned in 1938 is no way to live either with a world war about to erupt and werewolves running amok and a German chick looking to get citizenship by marrying a Brit is not the life either, but being away from the Doctor and Sarah allows Harry a chance to go it on his own, be resourceful, be brave... and still be a bit of a goof. But a more endearing one. He knows about the Doctor's ability to regenerate but finds the reality of the eighth Doctor a bit hard to take, and after a while starts to realize that time travel is not really for him, effectively retro-planting the seeds of his eventual decision to leave the TARDIS crew. Clever woman, Ms Rayner. She does it without being obvious, letting Harry say it in his own words rather than spelling it out for us in narrative.

But Harry didn't die, as one can guess. I'm not telling how he didn't though, but it's clever. And on he goes with the Doctor and Sarah, heading for their rendez-vous with the Brig.

Well, eventually.

NEXT EPISODE : THE VORTEX CRYSTAL