As implied by the connotations of US witch soap Charmed, Chris Chibnall's story of the stealthy Invasion of the Cubes was really about the Doctor's relationship with the Ponds. We'd known since Xmas that episode five was their swansong, yet again. The introduction of the Brig's daughter Kate as UNIT's Scientific Advisor ( was Norman Wisdom-er, Lee Evans- fired or eaten by an Axon?) and Steven Berkoff's turn as a galactic pest controller were both overshadowed by more dialogue about how important Amy and Rory were. Even the world's population suffering cube-induced heart attacks was secondary to Who's Power Couple.
I've never warmed to scowling, muttering Amy Pond although I did like the development of Rory-Arthur Darville's performance is subtle and assured. I really thought Amy's ghastly attempted seduction in the last Weeping Angels story was a huge misstep. For an empowered modern young woman, she seemed to spend a lot of her storylines being passive and objectified.
So for The Angels Take Manhattan, I had a niggling sense of "hurry up and go". I certainly didn't feel any sense of tragedy although there were dark moments in the script. The climax of the episode was essentially a suicide pact. The battery farm near Battery Park was also a creepy idea. The music was pleasingly low-key for once. I saw the On Her Majesty's Secret Service-style twist ending coming for miles, however.
Although the episode's imagery recalled both Night Terrors and The God Complex, the attempt to create a Who Noir in 1938 was a laudable one and the Cherubim were a logical development. I wasn't clear what was going on with the detective in the very long opening sequence however and the Liberty Angel was ludicrous. No one saw it move? And it's stone now, then, not copper?
Despite myself, I was charmed (ahem) by the return of River Song and we know that she is approaching her fate in the Library now: the ending of Amy's story mirrored the ending of River's. I found her flip comments about marriage rather affecting but her suggestion that the Doctor is a psychopath is a wrongheaded, modish piece of writing. "Never let him see you age" also seemed a hugely sexist remark. Lightbulbs are still an issue, it seems. Anyway, the last shot of the Christmas trailer prefigures a new companion at last. Three out of Five Talmars.
The Time Lord is travelling alone in Dark Horizons by JT Colgan, the third large-format BBC/Eleventh Doctor hardback novel. This is a pseudo-historical adventure set on the island of Lewis ( where one of my work colleagues comes from). I recently finished Peter May's trite Hebridean potboiler The Black House and learned a lot about the tradition of hunting seabirds which are then preserved in brine.
Cybernetic guga, however, are not (thankfully) the threat in Dark Horizons: the island is invaded by Vikings and a parasitic alien species that immolates humans. Colgan writes stylishly about the struggle to survive in the hazardous past and the myths of the period: for the Norsemen, the Doctor is obviously Loki, god of mischief. That Moffat Era staple, the Cute Ickle Kid is written with tenderness and charm and Colgan invests her characters with sympathetic qualities. I do think she confuses Beltane with Samhain however so: Four out of Five Talmars.
Big Finish's latest entry in the Lost Stories range The Masters of Luxor is a dramatised reading of the planned second story for Doctor Who, written by Anthony Coburn. Of course, in reality, that slot was taken by Terry Nation's The Daleks aka The Mutants and pop culture history was made.
In Luxor, the Tardis is trapped on an alien world inhabited by robots who siphon off human life force to sustain a messianic android known as the Perfect One. It's Frankenstein crossed with Metropolis. Like the majority of Lost Stories, Luxor isn't the most original of ideas. The robots are defeated through human illogic- a solution overly familiar from Classic Star Trek although perhaps not so hackneyed in the final weeks of 1963. It's also slow and a very long listen.
Since it's such a relic of the nascent series, the Doctor is an elusive presence and Ian Chesterton is a more volatile and physical character. But thanks to the voice talents of William Russell and Carole Ann Ford, like its predecessor, Farewell Great Macedon, this is an authentic recreation of the earliest days of the series. The episode titles alone are strange and sinister: The Cannibal Flower; A Light on the Dead Planet... Three out of Five Talmars
Coming soon: The Wheel of Ice
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I must admit my only emotion at the sight of Rory and Amy going was relief. They really have been so badly handled over the last couple of years that their very presence has managed to scupper entire episodes. It's hard not to feel sympathy for Arthur Darvill who managed to make something of substance out of a role that was initially pathetic and, frankly, demeaning.
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