‘ACE OF HEARTS’

Please feel free to comment on my review.

The Seventh Doctor meets Ace as Baby Dorothy

This story called ‘Ace of Hearts’ is by Robert Perry and Mike Tucker. It features the Seventh Doctor. It also features Ace as a baby under her given name Dorothy, as the Doctor visits her and her family, including her mother Audrey and her grandmother Kathleen in East Acton, London in February 1971.

It was interesting to check out this story, as it takes place directly after the events of ‘The Curse of Fenric’ where the Seventh Doctor had betrayed Ace during his manipulation exploits in that story. This is also another one of the shortest stories in the ‘Short Trips’ anthology since ‘Mondas Passing’. 🙂

This is also the second contribution made by Robert Perry and Mike Tucker in the ‘Short Trips’ anthology, as their first was ‘Stop the Pigeon’. I enjoyed how Kathleen Dudman is depicted in this story and how she interacts with her daughter Audrey, when sorting out an annual reunion dinner. 🙂

This is of course an older Kathleen compared to the one we saw in ‘The Curse of Fenric’. Kathleen is troubled by nightmares from the events of that story. When the Doctor visits Ace as baby Dorothy in her cot, he apologises for the times that he’ll betrayed her in ‘Ghost Light’ and ‘The Curse of Fenric’.

I like how this story ends with Kathleen checking up on her granddaughter Dorothy, only to find that a picture of her in a photo-frame has been replaced by a card – the Ace of Hearts. It’s then that Kathleen realises who the Doctor is, and she met her granddaughter in 1943 in ‘The Curse of Fenric’.

‘Ace of Hearts’ rating – 8/10