--- title: "Doctor Who: Only Human" subtitle: "Book review" author: Seth publish_date: 2026-02-18 02:00 date: 2026-02-18 02:00 hero_classes: text-light title-h1h2 overlay-dark-gradient hero-large parallax hero_image: doctor-who-tardis-controls-1600x800.webp show_sidebar: true show_breadcrumbs: true show_pagination: true taxonomy: category: culture tag: [ scifi ] --- This is a book review of **Only Human**, a novel by Gareth Roberts featuring the 9th Doctor (Christopher Eccleston) with Rose Tyler and Captain Jack Harkness. This review contains spoilers. In this exciting adventure, the TARDIS crew discovers an actual caveman in Southam Hospital (present day). The caveman is alive and well, aside from being displaced in Time, and surprisingly eloquent. The caveman makes some reference to some scientists back in his own time, so the Doctor decides he'd better go and investigate. At this point, Captain Jack is basically written out of the story, relegated to babysitting the caveman here on present day Earth (of course, our present day is Jack's past, but he's pretty adaptable.) I'm guessing that while the book was being written, there was probably one or no episodes with Captain Jack actually in it, so the author was likely comfortable with him as a minor character. The Doctor and Rose go _way_ back in time and, sure enough, find an encampment of research scientists apparently monitoring the local populations. The scientists are from Rose's future, and they're all on constant doses of various drugs that are tuned to flatten specific emotions. When anyone starts having a "wrong" emotion, they dial in a code to a badge that pumps drugs into their bloodstream and gets them back to normal. It's a highly regulated facility, and it's all run by a woman called Chantal. Among the scientists, there's one researcher who refuses to take the drugs. He's considered the odd man out, and so of course the Doctor and Rose quickly befriend him. The Doctor wants to know why the researchers are here, but nobody seems to have a good reason. Unsurprisingly, it turns out that Chantal is the big bad. She's been enhanced with a chip that gives extra intelligence, so she's gone back in time to experiment on humans and ideally improve the species. Her initial efforts are pretty monstrous though, so there's some doubt as to her true intentions. She manages to drug the Doctor so that he's subservient to her, at least for a while, and Rose gets kidnapped and taken to a neanderthal camp not far off. Rose is nearly married off to a caveman. ## The end With both the Doctor and Rose enslaved in one way or another, I'd hoped for an exciting plot twist. Maybe Captain Jack comes back for them. Or maybe the Doctor has been faking the drug effects all along. Or Rose could inspire the neanderthals to overrun the research lab. Or Chantal's monstrous genetic experiments could see the neanderthals and recognise them as blood relatives, and they could suddenly turn on Chantal. I don't know, I didn't write the book, but I was expecting something interesting to resolve the puzzle. Instead, I have to admit, the action just sort of continues on a tenuous trajectory toward an acceptable conclusion. Even the caveman's storyline, back in the future, kind of rolls to a gradual halt. Chantal cuts Rose's head off and preserves it in a tray, but Rose learns how to control her body remotely. The Doctor manages to reattach Rose's head to her body. The caveman falls in love with a woman considered ugly in the present day, but attractive by neanderthal standards. It's a little bland, to be honest. ## OK Doctor This was an OK Doctor Who story. Most of the book is enjoyable, and resembles one of those 8 part episodes of classic Who, where a lot of time is spent walking through corridors until a cliffhanger is required, at which point somebody walks into someplace dangerous. I like that pace, but I think the third act needed a little work.

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