I’ve lost track of how many years now Mum (sorry, Santa) has been giving me the year’s Doctor Who Annual for Christmas. I think it’s impossible to now stop. So here we are. It’s hard to judge the Doctor Who annual, of course. It’s not particularly designed to withstand critical appraisal. I know it’s the kind of thing I would do, but reviewing a Dalek-shaped word search with a straight face just doesn’t massively hold value. But one thing I can speak to, oddly, is this - a few years ago (2020?), the annual that year contained short stories by Dave Rudden, which were actually… kind of good? Better than they had any right to be. And every year since then has been a let down. This year’s in particular contains much less concentrated prose, instead preferring to focus on bitty “in-universe” fluff. There’s one short story, by Jasbinder Bilan, which holds its own, and that’s about it. I’m aware of what I’m writing here. I appreciate it’s ridiculous. But yet I have opinions on the comparative quality of Doctor Who annuals and if not expressed here, where? The rest of these will not be this. I would hope.