Ghost Ship

Shortly after leaving Gallifrey, the Doctor is sinking into an odd sort of mood, a darker place than he seems to have gone before. He attributes this to maybe being on his own as Sarah is no longer with him. He does not get sufficient time to mope, however, as the TARDIS arrives on the Queen Mary in October of 1963 during a crossing of the Atlantic, and after a night spent watching the sea the Doctor realizes that the ship is haunted by ghosts from the past and the future. Whatever force is holding them there is also holding the TARDIS, and the Doctor must discover what it is in order to gain his own freedom and that of the imprisoned ghosts.

Not bad. I'll admit that my immediate recollections of this Telos novella are a bit on the sketchy side, but I do remember enjoying reading it and seeing how the Doctor coped on his own once more. Tom Baker himself is on record saying that he would have enjoyed going it alone for a while, and here we get a chance to see what might have happened with the Doctor operating without a companion to help him out with whatever mysteries he comes across. Baker has recently gone on to say that he would only consider working with Big Finish audio for one of their productions if he could reinvent the fourth Doctor and make him a more dark, brooding character. Ghost Ship touches on what might have been in that regard as well, hinting that the Doctor might be on some kind of road into strange territory, reverting back to his more distanced original ways before his extended exposure to humans (Barbara and Ian specifically) started to soften him.

By the end of the story, though, his resolve is restored somewhat, and he carries on. Good old Doctor. Still lonely, but still the Doctor.

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