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.