The Last Dodo

Doctorwhobook
title=The Last Dodo
series=New Series Adventures
number=14


featuring=Tenth Doctor Martha Jones
writer=Jacqueline Rayner
publisher=BBC Books
isbn=ISBN 1-84607-224-3
date=April 2007
preceding=Sting of the Zygons
following=Wooden Heart|

"The Last Dodo" is a BBC Books original novel written by Jacqueline Rayner and based on the long running science fiction television series "Doctor Who". It features the Tenth Doctor and Martha Jones. It was published on 19 April 2007, after the television debut of companion Martha Jones, alongside "Sting of the Zygons", and "Wooden Heart".

DWspinoff See New Series Adventures Canonicity for more details.

Plot

The Doctor and Martha go in search of a real life dodo to note in the I-Spyder book the Doctor gave her, and are transported by the TARDIS to the mysterious Museum of the Last Ones. There, in the Earth section, they discover every extinct creature up to the present day, all still alive and in suspended animation.

Preservation is the museum's only job - collecting the last of every endangered species from all over the universe. But exhibits are going missing...

Can the Doctor solve the mystery before the museum's curator adds the last of the Time Lords to her collection? And will the Doctor be able to survive something else as well?

Continuity

* The novel takes place in the year 2062.
* Martha's I-Spyder e-book mentions the Sea Devils.
* Exhibits at the Museum of the Last Ones include: Mondas ("The Tenth Planet"), Refusis II ("The Ark"), Varos ("Vengeance on Varos"), Raxacoricofallapatorius ("World War Three"), and Tara ("The Androids of Tara").
* Martha mentions having previously seen dinosaurs on her travels. This occurred during the Tenth Doctor New Series Adventures novel "Made of Steel".
* The museum is never updated with the last of the Daleks because they "wink out of existence in the far distant past, then suddenly emerge again as if from nowhere." This references their apparent extinction in the Time War (last of their kind seen in "Dalek"), followed by their sudden re-emergence in "Bad Wolf"/"The Parting of the Ways" and subsequent extinction again, then their appearance from The Void in "Army of Ghosts", before an Emergency Temportal Shift to 1930 New York ("Daleks in Manhattan"/"Evolution of the Daleks") followed by the last Dalek in existence escaping.
* The Doctor names the dodo "Dorothea". Dorothea was the real name of former companion Dodo Chaplet.
* When "imprisoned" in stasis, the Doctor's feelings are described in a cryptic flashback to his time exiled on Earth during his third incarnation.

Outside references

* Martha's I-Spyder book bears many similarities to the I-Spy line of books.
* The Doctor and Martha reference the good things that come in fours, including: the Fab Four (The Beatles, who had been enjoyed by the First Doctor and friends in "The Chase"), four seasons pizza, the Four Yorkshiremen sketch ("At Last the 1948 Show"), "The Four Just Men", The Four Tops, the Fantastic Four, Radio 4 and the Four Tenors (until Martha reminds him that there are only three of them – and he claims he had had to turn them down).

Publication notes

* The novel was originally announced for September 2006 as "The Last Museum", before being replaced with "The Price of Paradise". This happened because the writer had not finished writing the book.Fact|date=August 2007
* The book was originally going to feature Rose.Fact|date=August 2007

Audiobook

An abridged audio book was released in July 2007. It was read by Freema Agyeman (Martha Jones in the television series.)

External links

*(The Last Dodo is also a musical script by Peter Dizozza. http://www.cinemavii.com/projects/thelastdodo.htm)