This seventh chapter of the Doctor Who: The Lost Dimension event continues two trends that have proven true for almost every issue of the series so far. First, it stands on its own remarkably well for a crossover tie-in book. Conversely, none of the stories contained in this volume are entirely essential reading for anyone interested in the events of the crossover.

The least essential of these stories is the first one, which is focused on Professor River Song and continues the tale started in Doctor Who: The Lost Dimension Special #1. This story sees River, currently employed as a freelance archaeologist (i.e. grave robber) attempting to recover an ancient artifact while contending with hostile natives, a sarcastic guardian and her cowardly assistant who is more comfortable in libraries than ancient dig sites.

While Emma Beeby’s script for this story does a good job of capturing River’s character, it is rendered nearly unreadable by the terrible artwork. Ivan Rodriguez’s layouts are confusing and hard to follow. On top of that, Rodriguez is barely able to draw a River Song who looks human, let alone resembles actress Alex Kingston.

The colors by Thiago Riberio are also problematic. Riberio renders River’s fair skin in golden-brown and red-brown tones that are darker than her dirty blonde hair. In some panels River is distinguishable from the red-skinned native aliens only by the fact that she is the only character with any hair!

Ribero redeems himself in the later chapter focused on Jenny, The Doctor’s Daughter, which features some fantastic color-work. Despite being drawn by four different artists, the artwork here has a more unified look and better story-flow than the section solely illustrated by Ivan Rodriguez. Once again, Emma Beeby does a fantastic job capturing the main character’s voice as we learn what happened to Jenny between her last appearance on the Doctor Who television program and her first appearance in the comics in Doctor Who: The Lost Dimension Alpha.

The final story of the book is a quick two-page tale with solid art by Doctor Who: The Eleventh Doctor artist I.N.J. Culbard. The story focuses on The Eleventh Doctor’s companion in the comics, library assistant Alice Obiefune, and how she escaped from where we last saw her, stranded on Ancient Gallifrey. Again Emma Beeby does a great job capturing Alice’s character, though the action of this story is limited.

Despite a shaky start and some truly atrocious art, Doctor Who: The Lost Dimension Special #2 will satisfy those Whovians following the story so far and anyone who appreciates good stories about strong women. Hopefully we’ll see more of Emma Beeby’s writing in a future Doctor Who series and far less of Ivan Rodriguez’s artwork.