The Eaters of Light

 

The Eaters of Light

There is a point in a Doctor Who season - a post-2005 Doctor Who season – whereas the season finale yaws into view that you feel like the couple of stories beforehand might be marking time a little. The Empress of Mars was one of those. The Eaters of Light is another. 

I enjoyed this more though. I think partly because it comes with historical elements: Picts and Romans. Partly because it talks about the mystery of the 9^th Legion, which might not be much of a mystery after all but let’s not let that get in the way of a good story. And partly because again we see the Doctor’s desire to be the hero usurped by human beings. It happened at the end of The Lie of the Land. It happens in Empress of Mars too.

The story starts with the Doctor, Nardole and Bill arriving in Pict Scotland to sort out an argument about what happened to the 9^th Legion. They separate to test their various theories and it turns out that something bigger and more dangerous than a Roman Legion is loose and out there killing everything and everyone. 

We meet a Pict girl Kar (Rebecca Benson) who let the creature loose hoping it would kill the Romans but the creature would die in that battle. She was wrong. Benson is great throughout and especially at the end. 

Bill meets a handful of survivors of the 9^th Legion skulking in a cave. They’re terrified of the creature and had fled the battlefield. Both are Kar and the Romans feel guilty for their actions. 

It's quite a dark story, although there’s a lot of humour scattered throughout. Nardole in particular gets most of the jokes. Although there’s a nice scene where Bill tells the Romans that she’s a lesbian – in so many words – and expects them to be judgemental and discovers they just don’t care. That’s a nice way of sewing the seeds of historical differences in cultural rules. 

There’s also some nice stuff as Bill works out that the TARDIS translates – and lip syncs – all languages. 

And there’s crows. Love a crow. I like that they come with the weight of myth and folklore. I like that they’re much more intelligent than people might know. And they look cool. 

This story was written by Rona Munroe who wrote Survival, the last story broadcast in Doctor Who’s original 1963-1989. I think this is a fun story. There’s some relatively subtle stuff about Romans as colonisers. The Romans get let off of a lot of savagery in the popular culture version of their story. Often we’ll see the horror – to us – of a Roman Circus but we rarely get to see the mass horror that came with conquest and slavery. 

This story flew by. It ends, again, with some Missy and Doctor scenes and we’re left to wonder if Missy is changing and if she and the Doctor can be friends again. Hope, is the most dangerous of things.

The Empress of Mars

 

This is a bog standard Doctor Who adventure lacking a little in subtlety. Written by Mark Gatiss it rushes by in the blink of an eye. 

We begin with a NASA probe discovering a message on Mars that shouldn’t be there: ‘God Save The Queen’. The Doctor, Bill, and Nardole set off for Mars, 1881, which is when the TARDIS thinks the message was put in place. 

It turns out that there is an Ice Warrior and a gaggle of British Red Coats there who are led by Colonel Godsacre (Anthony Calf) and Captain Catchlove (Ferdinand Kingsley). The men have been serving in South Africa where Godsacre found a crashed Martian ship with a single surviving Ice Warrior aboard who the British have called ‘Friday'. 

There is a thread about Imperialism and Colonialism running through this story in the most unsubtle of fashions. Catchlove is a ridiculous moustache twirling British imperialist. He is so two dimensional he might as well be cut out of cardboard. Kingsley plays that to the hilt. 

What’s interesting is that Colonel Godsacre is an altogether more three dimensional figure and Calf’s performance reflects that. It’s a clash of acting that reminds me a little of Brian Blessed’s clash with Patrick Ryecart in ‘Mindwarp’, although perhaps a bit less jarring. 

The rest of the Red Coats are, basically, Star Trek Red Shirts. Theirs is not to question why, theirs is but to do or die. There’s a couple of soldiers who get some lines and Vincey (Bayo Gbadamosi) gets to be the guy who shows us a picture of his waiting girlfriend thus marking him for death.  

Gatiss wrote ‘Victory of the Daleks’, which I have issues with because it treats World War Two with a degree of glibness that on first watch made me genuinely quite angry. This does the same with Victorian Imperial Britain and affirms that it is hard for Doctor Who to deal directly with the complexity of real history. 

For reasons Nardole goes back to the TARDIS and then the TARDIS has a hissy fit and sends him back to Earth where he has to get Missy to help him. Again the episode ends with a nice little coda played beautifully by both Capaldi and Gomez.

Bill’s beats in this story are a bit too similar to the previous three part story, but Pearl Mackie does excellent work with what she’s given to do. I really like Pearl Mackie's performance. She's one of my favourite companions.  

The Ice Warriors look great and I like the fact that their voices are more clearer. The comparison between Ice Warrior honour codes and the perceived honour codes of the British Army are interesting. And Colonel Godsacre’s arc is redemptive and interesting. It would be fascinating to find him in a future story older and battle weary. 

The Ice Warriors have overslept, which seems to be the common fate of many a Doctor Who monster, and must face a dead Mars, which Queen Iraxxa (Adele Lynch) eventually comes to terms with. 

I’ve always thought that the Ice Warriors, like the Draconians, were an interesting foe for the Doctor because they’re nuanced. They’re not implacable killers like the Daleks or The Cybermen. They can be reasoned with. I’d like to see more of them. 

So, it’s an OK story with one or two classic moments and a lovely little piece of fan service for fans of Classic Who tucked in at the end. But again Mark Gatiss dips into a historical period and skims off the cliches. There is, I think, potentially a much better and more complex story here that doesn't get told.

Extremis – The Pyramid at the End of the World – The Lie of the Land

This is an interesting three part story, which I think should have been cut down to two. 

There are, effectively, two set-up episodes before the wrap up episode. The first episode is The Android Invasion, but without an eye patch. Just The Pope, some Cardinals, a book that drives people to suicide, and some ‘Zombie Monks’. The ‘Zombie Monks’ are the villains of the piece. And we discover that they’ve built some epic holographic simulation of the Earth in order to work out how to invade. As I said it is The Android Invasion with a bigger budget.

The book, ‘Veritas’, explains the Holographic Simulation and the rebellion is suicide. Getting people out of the programme. It is pretty dark.

The Doctor is still blind. And he isn’t telling anyone. Theoretically because he doesn’t want his enemies to know but why he still can’t bring himself to tell Bill is beyond me. But then we wouldn’t need Bill to do something drastic at the end of The Pyramid at the End of the World because the Doctor’s blindness puts his life at risk. 

Pearl Mackie and Matt Lucas keep up their stonkingly excellent jobs throughout. Pearl Mackie in particular gets to do some solid work. The scene where she confronts the Doctor is really strong. 

Capaldi continues to be his excellent self. At this point he’s my favourite Doctor Who from the post-2005 era. He’s not quite Tom Baker, but he’s not far off. 

We don’t know much about the Zombie Monks. They’re just invaders. I like the fact that they need consent to invade. That someone with power must give pure consent. I’m not sure how pure any consent would be in a situation like that. You’re always going to be polluted by hope of eventually ridding yourself on the Zombie Monks. 

I like though that there’s a double thread of risk in The Pyramid at the End of the World. The Zombie Monks want us to consent to their invasion and they know we’ll have to be in a terrible place to do so. Everyone thinks it is World War Three, which is why the Pyramid has dropped in at a place where the three largest militaries in the world are having a stand-off. But actually somewhere else a man with a hangover is about to create a biological catastrophe that will end everything. 

It is by trying to solve that problem when blind that the Doctor forces Bill to give her consent. 

By this point several people have been dusted and it is clear that the Monks are up to no good. It is the Lie of the Land that shows us the aftermath of the invasion. 

The Monks have interfered with everyone’s memories. They have now always been here. Our historical memories have been interfered with. And The Doctor is working for the Monks. Broadcasting happy messages on their behalf like a Scottish Big Brother. Six months have passed since Bill gave her consent to the Monks and there are now statues to the Monks everywhere and Memory Police tracking down those who don’t believe the new history. 

This is where Missy comes in. Or at least comes in again. Extremis has flashbacks to the Doctor taking Missy from a potential death penalty to imprisonment. She’s going cold turkey on being evil. By the time we get to the final episode of three The Doctor is desperate and will need her help. But only after Bill and Nardole rescue him. 

It is a rescue with complications. In that Bill has to believe the Doctor has genuinely changed sides to the extent that she is angry enough to shoot him. This is apparently a test, but a psychologically damaging one I would imagine. I’m never sure that goading someone into shooting you is the wisest of ideas, but what do I know? 

A plan to break the Monks ‘fake history’ is made which puts first The Doctor’s life and then Bill’s at risk. But it works. Real history – in all its contested glory – is back. The Monks run away. The end. 

Except for a rather beautiful coda between the Doctor and Missy. Michelle Gomez is so good as Missy, especially in that final scene. 

Now I mostly enjoyed this but I have quibbles. At the end the Doctor shows that the exit of the Monks is being forgotten by people. They’ve been erased. But there are vehicles with Memory Police written on them, Memory Police uniforms, people who worked for and were paid by The Memory Police. People have been killed, including three senior officers in the Russian, American, and Chinese armies. People have been sent to camps and there’s a lot of chunky bases of broken statues across the world. I mean how does all that get explained away? 

And I have begun to pull at the threads of the story, which will end up making it more disappointing in the long run. 

I like the ideas in the story that play on the zeitgeist: the holographic simulation, the idea of ‘fake news’ and how history is written – this is the ‘history is written by the victors’ par excellence. There’s elements of 1984 here too: “He who controls the past, controls the future.” 

Not bad. But a tad too long and a tad too easily tied up at the end.

I'm Back! And I'm more powerful than ever before!! (Or not)

 

So, after a long break The Patient Centurion has returned. Let me explain.

A couple of years ago I pitched to Unbound a Doctor Who book based on this blog and we crowd-funded it - to the tune of c.£19k - but then as I was finishing off my edits Unbound went bust. So, no book and everyone who pledged money to this lost their money. This annoys me more than what happened to me. In the end I lost nothing, except a publishing opportunity. People who pledged lost money. Money that I thought was supposed to be ring-fenced for producing the book. But that's that. Unbound is unalive and I have been sitting around wondering what to do next.

Now, my friend Aya, suggested I go back to the blog and I think that might be a damn good idea. I'd only got as far as the Peter Capaldi story Oxygen when I stopped the blog, but also perhaps it might be the time to re-visit the whole Doctor Who journey whilst we wait to discover its fate. I did do a couple of episodes on YouTube but this might be a better place to return to Doctor Who.

I have, in recent months, really felt I'd lost my Doctor Who mojo. I don't know why. Part of it was I was tired of the 'stuff'. I have too many Doctor Who books that I was no longer getting joy from so I've started selling these on eBay, which you can find here - but I have never lost my love of watching Doctor Who. Or listening to it - yes, Big Finish I'm looking at you. Although it has been a while since I bought anything from Big Finish. Money doesn't grow on trees, especially when you're unemployed. Which I am. 

However that is all moot. The reason for posting this is that I am returning to the Doctor Who blogosphere (which isn't really a thing but sounds quite cool.) When I did the original blog I was posting a review every day - almost. Now, I'm not sure if I can keep that up. I have recently watched some of the New Who stories picking up from Oxygen, which I might post. 

But really I'm excited for a revisit to November 23rd 1963 and running all the way through to 31st May 2025 which ended with The Reality War. And a new hiatus whilst the BBC waits to see if it can afford to make any new Doctor Who. 

There is also the forthcoming The War Between the Land and the Sea, which is the UNIT/Sea Devils RTD crafted spin-off series, which might be worth covering here. I've also got both Torchwood and The Sarah Jane Adventures to potentially blog about. So, lots of exciting things to do. 

Now if you like the sound of this and would like to support me my Ko-Fi is here. I'm going to create a couple of levels where you'll get some additional material on a monthly basis, which I'll decided anon. But all contributions will be gratefully received.

If things go well I might set up a Discord so we can chat between posts and/or organise watchalongs if we're so minded. That's we as in all of us not the royal we btw. 

So, welcome back. It has been a while. You can also find me on Bluesky as @Lokster71.bluesky.social

Here's the the next journey.

A Doctor Who Frame of Mind

I have been having a hard time loving Doctor Who recently, which for those of you that know me is something of a shock. Not the current era, but the whole damn Doctor Who thing and I was trying to work out why. This is a blog I have written to try and work it out myself. 

I think it is because I've lost sight of the programme itself amongst the fog of fandom. Fandom is a complex thing. A portion of it is irredeemably toxic: racist, sexist, homophobic and, basically, appears to have learned nothing from watching Doctor Who itself. I wouldn't like these people if I met them. I despise everything they stand for and they probably wouldn't like me very much. Which is fine. Saves us all a lot of disappointment. 

The rest of fandom is made up of too many different types of people to pin down but I don't find it as much fun as I used to. Doctor Who, for me, was a point of joy in the world. Yes, I like picking it apart afterwards and coming up with my own head canon, but that was all alongside actually watching, listening and reading Doctor Who. Recently I have been doing less of that. A lot less of that. 

And I blame myself.

I came to fandom late. I was always a Doctor Who fan. My first memories of life include little bits of watching Tom Baker as Doctor Who in stories I was far too young to watch without being terrified. I was though mostly a solo fan. I knew one Doctor Who fan before I was 18. I knew about five before I was 40. I read fanzines and DWM. That was about it. A lot of 1989 to 2005 was me defending Doctor Who from a less impressed group of people. And myself for being a Doctor Who fan. I think that has impacted on my observations and interactions with fandom. I am quite defensive about Doctor Who. I try to be amusingly so, particularly about the more obvious things: "it's a kids series; it's rubbish; it's cheap; it's silly...etc etc." 

I can criticise Doctor Who though. It's not always perfect. I've never found myself disliking an entire Doctor's run. Or an era. As far as I'm concerned every Doctor, every era has its ups and downs and, for me, the ups always outnumber the downs. There are some eras/seasons I love. Tom Baker will always be my favourite Doctor and Season 17 will always be my favourite season of Doctor Who.* So, I find the broad hostility to a whole era, the cynicism about motives and decisions, the desire by one group of fans to stomp all over the joy of other fans all a bit...depressing. 

The reason I love Doctor Who - and I've thought about this a lot - is that it is overwhelming an optimistic and hopeful series. A light in the darkness. Doctor Who says there are monsters out there but there are people out there to fight them and that darkness can and will be defeated. And it will be done with wit and charm. 

Seeing people get so angry about the Chibnall era to the point of monomania has just knocked the positivity out of me. I'm not saying by the way that the Chibnall era is great. I don't think I will ever love it, but I've enjoyed most of it and loved some of it. There are things there to be criticised. But I've found it difficult not to get a bit depressed by the whole thing, which has had a knock on effect on my love of Doctor Who as a whole.

Which is weird. I'm getting old so maybe I am too set in my ways. I know I'm taking it all too seriously. It is, after all, only a television programme. But it is a television programme that has been at the centre - well, centre-ish - of my life for...45 years. It is one of the things my friends know me for, even - especially - the ones who aren't Doctor Who fans. So, the weird feeling that of distance I have from the whole thing at the moment is...strange. 

It doesn't seem to be as much fun as it used to be. 

Perhaps I just need to watch a bunch of my favourite stories and talk about them to friends. It seems weird writing this because this is just a download of my personal feelings. I don't expect anyone to feel the same. 

Anyway there you have it. Writing this might have helped.

Or not.

*Not necessarily the best but my favourite.

*Yes, I still think The Master was playing a game to keep the Third Doctor from getting too bored whilst he was in exile on Earth.

Happy Birthday Colin Baker

 

It's Colin Baker's birthday today. 

I thought I might take the opportunity to say a little bit about why I like Colin Baker's Sixth Doctor. Poor Colin gets a hard time. His Doctor is constantly near the bottom of favourite Doctor polls, much to Colin's own annoyance. His era is often seen as a low point in Doctor Who. 

However, Colin Baker is the reason this blog exists. Colin Baker is the reason I'm a Doctor Who fan. I'd been watching Doctor Who since Season 15 but as Peter Davison's era crept towards its end I was 12/13 and other things were beginning to get my attention. I still watched Doctor Who but I was falling out of love with it a bit, which wasn't Peter Davison's fault. It was just life. 

Also I didn't really know any other Doctor Who fans. We moved from Cornwall to Buckinghamshire around this time and I started a new school. There I met Rick, who it turned out was also a Doctor Who fan. It was Rick that told me there was a new Doctor coming and it was Rick that introduced me to fandom. 

So, when the Colin Baker era started it was make or break really. If this wasn't good I suspect I would have faded away from Doctor Who. But I loved Colin Baker from the off. I didn't feel then some of the concerns I was to feel when I revisited the era later on. The Doctor's less likeable side was fine by me. I didn't even dislike the costume. It should be noted that I was probably still in that phase when all Doctor Who is good. It would take me a couple more years of reading DWB etc to discover that you weren't supposed to like Doctor Who if you were a Doctor Who fan. You were supposed to complain about it and compare it dismissively to previous eras when everything was great. I also learned from DWB etc that you could be really, really angry about Doctor Who not living up to you expectations. But thankfully fandom isn't like that any more. (Cough.)

Colin Baker was a great Doctor Who. He was and is a great ambassador for Doctor Who. He talks intelligently about the part and the series. He's also incredibly welcoming to fans, despite everything he's had to endure in terms of polls. I've met him several times. I've met him at official signings. I met him twice after seeing Doctor Who: The Ultimate Adventure stage plays where he was happy to sign autographs and chat, which was a bit of a contrast to Jon Pertwee. And then there was the time I met him in High Wycombe W H Smith's whilst buying a copy of DWM. I wanted to get his autograph but I didn't have a pen. The lady on the till wouldn't let me have a pen, but when I mentioned this to Colin he just said, "I'll get you a pen" and did. One signed copy of DWM later. My friend Rick also had a similar encounter with Colin in High Wycombe W H Smith's, although Rick had a pen. 

The Colin Baker era is short, although you can enjoy much more of Colin Baker's Doctor on Big Finish. Indeed, I recommend that if you've not listened to any Big Finish before a good place to start would be The Spectre of Lanyon Moor which gives us the chance to see the Sixth Doctor meet the Brigadier. And if you've never watched a Sixth Doctor story then give Vengeance on Varos a go. It's a good taste of what he's capable of and it feels surprisingly relevant in 2022. 

I still enjoy the Colin Baker era, although I struggle a bit with Mindwarp. But the cast seemed to have struggled with it too so that's my excuse. Even Timelash has its joyful moments. 

I have often complained about the Sixth Doctor's costume, but over time I have grown to like it. It is the Sixth Doctor and whilst I've seen lovely alternative designs there's something missing from Colin's Doctor when he's not in his garish finery. 

So, I just wanted to take a few moments to thank Colin Baker for being the Sixth Doctor. Yes, I know his acting career is broader than that but this is a Doctor Who blog so I'm concentrating on that. And thank him - blame him? - for turning me into the sort of person that writes 300,000-ish words of Doctor Who in a blog almost no one reads. 

Happy Birthday Colin.

PS I'm currently crowd funding a Doctor Who book. You can find more about it here

Classic Doctor Who: Where To Start

 

I originally wrote this for a friend of mine, Katie, and I've edited here to help as a guide to getting into Classic Doctor Who if you've never dipped in before. I have put them in order of Doctor and broadcast. You do not have to watch them in that order. 

As you almost certainly know Classic Doctor Who stories usually consist of multiple 25-minute episodes. There is a bit of a blip during the Colin Baker era when they go to 45-minutes for a season. * They vary from 2-12** episodes in length.

I have focused mainly on four part stories. These are meant to be testers so that you can decide what you like. Television is a very different beast during the Classic era than now, particularly the 60s, so there will be that to get used to, although I sometimes think I worry about this too much.

I should also include a note on Missing Episodes. The BBC junked a lot of its film content in the 1970s to re-use the film. That means there are a number of 60s Doctor Who stories that are entirely or partially missing from the archive. Some of these have been animated. Others have not. All of them are available in audio. If, after you've watched the suggested examples here, you decide to watch all the Patrick Troughton era you'll find a lot of missing episodes. How you navigate those is up to you. I'd pick animations if they are available, then audio and then, if you can find them, reconstructions. Reconstructions are fan made versions of the episodes pulled together from surviving footage, photos and audio. But detail on both missing episodes and reconstructions are for another time and another blog.

 

The William Hartnell Era

The Romans (4)

The Time Meddler (4)

The War Machines (4)

I have picked these three because they are only 4 episodes long and they are all fun. The War Machines in the nearest Hartnell gets to doing a New Doctor Who story.

If you enjoy those then go back to the first thirteen episodes, which if The Daleks had not been such a success might have been all the Doctor Who that was ever made. They are:

An Unearthly Child (4)

The Daleks (7)

The Edge of Destruction (2)

The first episode of An Unearthly Child is magical. The Daleks is long at 7 episodes but essential Doctor Who mythology and genuinely rather good. There is also a film version of this with Peter Cushing as Doctor Who. That is fun to watch when you get a moment but is totally different.

If you still like Hartnell after that everything else is your oyster, but I’d hold off The Web Planet for a while because, although I love it there is a lot of weird shit to overlook.

The Patrick Troughton Era

The Troughton era has two problems for the newbie. There are not many 4-part stories and a lot of it is missing because the BBC wiped the films to re-use it and they have not been recovered so only 7 out of 21 Troughton stories exist in full. There are animated versions of some of them.

The Tomb of the Cybermen (4)

The Enemy of the World (6)

The Mind Robber (5)

If you like those then for a bigger challenge

The Invasion (8)

The War Games (10)

Both of which are long, but great.

If you then want to dip into an animation

The Macra Terror (4)

 

The Jon Pertwee Era

Doctor Who in colour for the first time.

Spearhead from Space (4) ***

The Curse of Peladon (4)

The Three Doctors (4)

Carnival of Monsters (4)

If you like those then pretty much any other story will be enjoyable. 

 

The Tom Baker Era

I am slightly biased here so I could pick loads. I would almost recommend starting Classic Doctor Who here.

The Ark in Space (4)

Genesis of the Daleks (6)

Terror of the Zygons (4)

The Robots of Death (4)

Horror of Fang Rock (4)

If you like all those then Season 16, The Key to Time, is worth watching from the beginning. It is unusual in Classic Doctor Who terms for having a season long arc. But pretty much any Tom Baker is fun to watch.

The Peter Davison Era

Kinda (4)

Snakedance (4) ****

The Five Doctors (1 x 90 Special)

The Caves of Androzani (4)

If you like those then the whole Davison era is pretty good.

 

The Colin Baker Era

Poor Colin does not have a long era and one whole season is The Trial of a Time Lord, which is four separate stories within a courtroom element.

Mark of the Rani (2 x 45mins)

Vengeance on Varos (2 x 45mins)

Revelation of the Daleks (2 x 45mins)

If you like those then Trial of a Time Lord is yours to enjoy. By that point you would have watched a huge chunk of Colin’s era so you should watch the rest. 

 

The Sylvester McCoy Era

Again, Sylvester’s era is a short one, which is a shame as after an initial blip the series started to get its act together again. If you like these then go back to Time and The Rani and watch the whole McCoy era. It is over

                                                        Remembrance of the Daleks (4)

The Happiness Patrol (3)

The Greatest Show in the Galaxy (4)

The Curse of Fenric (4)

Paul McGann

You have got the TV Movie and that is it. You could listen to Big Finish, where he is fab, but that is a whole other kettle of worms.

There you go. There are my suggestions.

PS I'm currently crowd funding a Doctor Who book. You can find more about it here

 

  

*The Peter Davison story Resurrection of the Daleks was a blip as it was broadcast as two 45-minute episodes because of The Olympics.

** There is a single episode story called Mission to the Unknown, which is a prequal episode to the epic 12-part story, The Dalek’s Master Plan. It features none of the main cast or the TARDIS. It feels like a pilot episode for a spin-off, which it was in a way.

***Spearhead from Space will remind you a lot of Rose. It is basically the same story doing the same thing, but with less focus on the companion.

****Kinda/Snakedance are linked so you want to watch them in that order.