Between the time when he dropped off his companions – the newlyweds Amy Pond and Rory Williams – and the time in which he traveled with them and his future/past wife/it’s complicated River Song, there was a span of time in which The Eleventh Doctor traveled alone.

Of course the being referred to as The Lonely God can only stand the solitude of being The Last Time Lord for so long. Hence his choosing another stout soul in need of adventure – library assistant Alice Obiefune – to accompany him as he explores the wonders of the universe, meets interesting people and saves them!

The Doctor and Alice have grown closer over their time together, with The Doctor now affording Alice a level of trust rare to even to his closest companions. Alice proved her bravery during their last adventure, in which they were thrown back into the midst of The Last Great Time War in their efforts to avoid a temporal bounty hunter, charged to bring The Doctor to justice on charges of genocide!

They won out in the end and are in need of a long overdue vacation. Unfortunately, the universe – as always – has other plans for The Doctor. And his time-traveling ship, The TARDIS, has a somewhat annoying habit of always taking The Doctor where he needs to be if not necessarily where he wants to go.

As our story opens, The Doctor and Alice are on a remote futuristic outpost, chasing after a one-of-a-kind collectible vinyl album and annoying the local inhabitants. In that order…

Rob Williams’ script for this issue is a real treat. The writing here is reminiscent of many stories from the Classic Era of Doctor Who in which The Doctor was treated as a strange being of mystery, his thoughts unknowable. There’s also a fair bit of not-so-subtle social commentary akin to that in the scripts of Barry Letts, but since when has Doctor Who ever been accused of subtlety?!

The artwork proves equally skillful. I.N.J. Culbard sports an exaggerated style that well suits the cartoonish Matt Smith Doctor yet proves capable of conveying terror when appropriate. In this regard, some of the colors seem ill-chosen at times but Triona Farrell dazzles the reader in the brighter scenes.

All in all, this is a wonderful start for The Eleventh Doctor’s third year. The story is appropriately action-packed, silly and serious in equal measure with the artwork matching the tale beat for beat. Fans of the Matt Smith era of Doctor Who will find this book enjoyable.

Doctor Who: The Eleventh Doctor: Year Three #1 will be available for purchase on January 11, 2017 from your local comic book store (Don’t know where that is? Here you go.) or digitally via Comixology.com.