Review: Doctor Who: The Story and the Engine

So we start to edge closer perhaps to what has been underpinning the most recent years of Doctor Who. Many people had pointed out that there seemed to me some 'meta' element to the stories, with characters breaking the fourth wall and generally events taking a more fantastical approach.

With 'The Story and the Engine' we have, more or less, a remake of the sixties story 'The Mind Robber', wherein a writer had been trapped in a Land of Fiction, and this self-styled Master of the Land of Fiction wanted the Doctor to take over his role and position there so he could escape, on the basis that the Doctor had a lot of stories to tell. The twist being that the Doctor had to be careful not to 'write' himself into any of the Master's own stories or he would become fictionalised and could then never escape.

Well, I was totally expecting the Barber to want the Doctor to replace him here, but that didn't happen. Instead we get a rather nice little story within stories, where the Barber is an ancient of some sort, the power behind the gods we have heard of as he refined their stories so that they could be retold and thus keep the gods alive (very much shades of Neil Gaiman's American Gods), and he uses the barber shop as a method of capturing people with good stories so they can tell them while he cuts their hair (which instantly regrows allowing it to then be cut again). Why he is doing this is to feed 'the Story Engine', a metaphysical creation of a heart within a brain in the back of the barber shop which is itself being carried on the back of a giant spider. It also somehow powers the spider.

There was so much story thrown at us here that I couldn't jot it all down or get it all, so I'm not sure where the spider was trying to get to, but the Barber's endgame is to destroy the Story Engine and thus the gods with it! But this would cause much disruption and so the Doctor needs to find a solution.

The whole thing though is completely tied up with the Doctor's own adventures. There's a woman there, Abby, the daughter of Anansi (the spider god) who the Doctor once won in a bet and then rejected (this was when he was the Renegade Doctor, and we see a nice cameo from Jo Martin as that Doctor). Also, the Barber has tales of rocket ships ('The Robot Rebellion') and a cinema ('Lux') which suggests that these were stories rather than 'real' adventures. Mrs Flood cleverly appears in a story the Doctor tells about Belinda ... so is she something in this fictional realm also? Belinda meets Poppy from 'Space Babies' in the market outside, further suggesting that the Doctor has been walking in 'fiction' for some time now.

Rather than the stories and characters doing battle as in 'The Mind Robber', here the Doctor is for some reason linked to the Story Engine (as the Doctor was linked to the Master Brain in 'The Mind Robber'), and we see clips from many of his past adventures, past Doctors and so on ... and the sheer number of them causes the Engine to overload and explode ... meanwhile the Barber sees sense and opens the door so his captives can escape, similar again to 'The Mind Robber' where the destruction of the Master Brain causes all the 'captured' fictional characters to go their own way.

I found this episode well made and interesting, far more cerebral than perhaps the previous episodes in the season. It has a lot to say about the nature of story, and the nature of gods and how to survive they need the people to sing their songs and tell their stories ... and should we be drawing a parallel with the Doctor here that he needs the fans to sing his stories and his adventures for him to survive? I don't know. The performances were all first rate, but I struggled to capture who anyone actually was - what their character names were. I probably need another watch through to see if I can get them a second time.

The plot too was muddled and hard to follow. I'm not sure why the TARDIS convulsed every time the barber shop door opened and closed and the Story Engine's power supply dwindled. I'm not sure why Abby had to intricately create the map for the labyrinth behind the barber shop into the Doctor's hair (another call back to 'The Mind Robber' where the Doctor has to navigate a labyrinth). It was a nice touch though. Also, while the Doctor claimed to have visited the barber shop before to see his friend Omo, I assume it wasn't at that time a collection point for stories for the Engine? So when did it become that? When did the Barber take over ... and what was the Barber using as a collection point up to then, given that this spider machine thing, the gods and the stories had to have been around for centuries!

Despite this, the episode is visually rich, and fascinating in its blending of stories and whatever 'reality' is at this point. Elements may or may not become more important or return later in the season, so it's hard to try and figure out what the endgame might be for all this ... but there's certainly elements of messing with the Doctor's timeline and his 'story'. The ongoing mysteries of Mrs Flood and Belinda. Hints of greater powers being at work. And of course perhaps more of the pantheon of Gods. It's all building quite nicely.

Review: Doctor Who: Lucky Day

'Lucky Day' is another Doctor-lite episode, and, like last year's '73 Yards' this focusses on Ruby Sunday, with brief appearances from the Doctor at the start and the end.

It's New Year's Eve 2007 (it's not clear if this is 2006 into 2007, or 2007 into 2008) and the Doctor and Belinda arrive in London as the New Year fireworks are going off). The Doctor takes a reading with his device, and they meet a lad called Conrad who sees the TARDIS appear. Conrad is eight years old at this point, but this event triggers a life of trying to find out more about the TARDIS (in a similar way to Clive in 'Rose', except that Clive was essentially harmless).

Flash forward 17 years - which is 'last' year - so in 2024 (taking the 2007 year as mentioned) and Conrad again sees the TARDIS and witnesses the Doctor and Ruby battling a creature called a Shreek. He gets green gunk on him and learns from overhearing the Doctor that this is how the Shreek marks it's prey for the following year (it only hunts on one day a year). Ruby (who seems to be having an adventure with the Doctor set between 'The Devil's Chord' and 'Boom') who was also marked, is given some antidote by the Doctor.

Thereafter Conrad spends a year searching for Ruby, eventually finding her and wooing her, making her think he's falling for her ... only for her to discover, after a terrifying night where it seems a whole pack of Shreek are hunting for Conrad (as he failed to take the antidote that she gave him), that these Shreek are fake, being played by Conrad's friends, and that Conrad is in fact denying that any of this ever happened and using his podcast to spread misinformation about the various alien incursions, with UNIT being at the forefront of his attack.

His lies gain traction and spiral outwards, gaining him news time and protests taking place around the world. People would prefer to believe the lies than the truth of the situation.

He infiltrates UNIT HQ and live-streams Kate Lethbridge-Stewart and others holding guns on him. He refuses to believe any of their talk is true, and demands that she reveal what UNIT is really up to, so Kate, in a last ditch attempt, releases the original Shreek which they had kept in storage, and it attacks Conrad. But he still refuses to believe!

We end with Conrad locked in a cell, when the Doctor visits and materialises the TARDIS around him. Sadly even the Doctor's little 'talk' cannot sway his mind that it's all tricks and the Doctor puts him back where he found him.

But the governor of the jail appears - it's Mrs Flood! - and she lets him out! I wonder how this then plays into the forthcoming events?

If you wanted a Doctor Who with a 'message' then this is it! But what staggers me is that this episode was written one or two years ago! And yet the whole theme: of there being 'bad actors' out on the internet who believe and spread conspiracy theories and lies with little or no actual evidence, and then refuse to believe the truth even when it is presented to them in black and white is more relevant now than ever before.

This is the current nature of the world in 2025. People believe their own versions of 'the truth' and violently and stringently refuse to acknowledge that there might be an alternate view, or that they might be wrong. Those doing the deliberate misleading hide behind their computers and pump this toxic rubbish out into the world ... maybe they're political opponents, maybe they're foreign disruptors, maybe they are contrarian bots ... maybe all of these and more ... I have no idea. But there are also those with no particular agenda who have been taken in and fooled by others ... believing everything they are told or read in the dingy corners of the internet, and dismissing facts and evidence from scientists, doctors and many others who have no reason to lie, and every reason to keep the facts in the public eye.

And it's dangerous. People do increasingly become misled by corrupt advisors or those with other self-aggrandising agendas at work. And they share and believe wholly the lies and the misinformation. And they spread. And they cause harm.

It's a brilliant, brilliant episode to hook into the narrative and to give voice to the concerns and the problems that this can cause. Absolute kudos to Pete McTighe for writing it, and to Russell T Davies for getting it on air. It truly is an episode for our time. It picks up themes from 'The Giggle' and runs with them! I guess there will be people out there who believe that Conrad is the hero here, and everyone else is wrong for trying to stop him ... but that's the whole point of the story!

Jonah Hauer-King as Conrad is superb. He plays the part to elicit our sympathy at first, and then when his motive is revealed, he is a thoroughly nasty piece of work. Not just misguided, but a true ignorant and dangerous monster of the first order. My sympathies were with the Shreek, an excellently realised creature, terrifying, but really just following its own urges. 

In fact all the cast are exceptional here, with no weak links at all. Even the Doctor manages not to cry - not that he's in it much - but his speech at the end to Conrad is very pertinent. 

'Cowards weaponise lies!'

Indeed.

I think we all know people who have gone off down the rabbit holes and usually we just delete and block them (well, I do!) ... but there are sadly those around with greater power and ability to influence others. So being able to sift through their lies and false assumptions becomes paramount in a world which is increasingly subject to the general public just believing what they see and read without checking.

I also like the idea that UNIT has a containment facility where they keep all the nasties they capture. I wonder just what they've got in there ... and what might happen if they escaped one day ...

Overall this is another very strong episode in a season which has already presented three excellent adventures in a row. I wonder if they can keep this level up to the end.