Culture on My Mind
Pop Culture Download
July 8, 2018
On the Docket
Spider-Man co-creator Steve Ditko has died at the age of 90. – [THR]
Netflix is going to make an anime series based on the Ingress mobile game. – [THR]
Keith DeCandido continues the 4-Color to 35-Millimeter: The Great Superhero Movie Rewatch with The Dark Knight. – [Tor]
Doctor Who: Ghost Light
(3 episodes, s26e05-e07, 1989)
Welcome to Gabriel Chase.
In the depths of a gothic manor’s basement, a mysterious figure in a solid cage is fed dinner and the Times. The Reverend Ernest Matthews arrives, as does the TARDIS. Ace emerges from the bad parking job into a laboratory (or a nursery), and the Doctor refuses to tell her where they’ve landed. The house staff leaves – “Heaven help anyone who’s still here.” – and locks the door behind them. The clock strikes six and the spookiness ramps up with new servants emerging from the walls.
The Doctor and Ace explore, finding a radioactive snuff box with the initials RFC engraved upon it. Its owner, Redvers Finn-Cooper, is missing in the house, but another explorer is here to find him. This new player pulls an elephant rifle on the Doctor, but seeing his own reflection reveals him to be Finn-Cooper, driven insane. Elsewhere, head housekeeper Lady Pritchard and the owner’s ward Gwendoline encounter the ornery reverend, then retrieve the explorer as the butler Nimrod (a literal Neanderthal) invites the Doctor and Ace to meet with the reverend and Josiah Samuel Smith, the owner of the house.
This story is all over the place. It’s goofy. It’s wacky. It’s chaotic.
It’s frustrating.
Everyone’s going crazy over Ace’s late 1980s fashion, so she is taken away for proper period clothing. Locked in a room, a straight-jacketed Finn-Cooper is exposed to his glowing snuff box, but everyone is driven away from the scene by the occupants of the house. Everyone gathers for dinner as Nimrod opens some kind of control room and is subsequently stricken down by an unseen force.
Ace (looking good in her new fancy duds) figures out that she knows Gabriel Chase from her time in Perivale. It is the house that she burned to the ground in 1983 after sensing a dangerous evil presence. The Doctor brought her here, much to her anger, to understand the horrors that she sensed. As the Doctor presses, Ace runs for the cellar.
Lady Pritchard knocks out the reverend as Smith solicits the Doctor for help in ridding the house of the evil. In the cellar, Ace finds the control room and the incapacitated Nimrod before being attacked by two zombie-like husks, and as the first episode ends I still have no idea what in the world I am even watching.
The Doctor discovers a human in suspended animation, nestled among the insect collection. In the cellar, Nimrod comes to Ace’s defense as the mysterious cell is being opened. In the battle, Ace and Nimrod end up facing off and breaking the light in the wall. The Doctor escapes from the house staff by using his radiation monitor as a mock gun and taking the lift to the cellar with Smith as a captive. Once there, the Doctor figures out that the cellar is a stone spaceship and Smith is an alien of some sort. The Doctor turns the table on Smith and inadvertently frees Control, the being in the cell. As daylight breaks, Smith and the house staff retreat upstairs with the reverend as the master of the house evolves into another husk,
Oh, and Smith transforms the reverend into an ape and places him on display.
The Doctor revives the suspended human, Inspector Mackenzie, while Ace gets some sleep and breakfast before joining the Doctor and Mackenzie just before dark. Nimrod tells a a tale of worship and the light as Control skulks about the house The Doctor puts all the pieces together as the light in the cellar wall, an egg of some sort, hatches. Ace and the inspector explore the attic, finding Smith, Pritchard, and Gwendoline frozen as statues. As the Doctor moves the clock to six, the statues and house awaken, and Control exits the lift followed by a bright burst of light.
The light belongs to an alien surveyor who came to Earth thousands of years before to catalog all life on the planet. It completed its task and collected samples (incluiding Nimrod), it went into hibernation. While Light hibernated and Control was imprisoned to serve as the “control” subject in the scientific observation, Smith mutinied against Light, trapping the surveyor and evolving into a Victorian gentleman. He intended on using Finn-Cooper’s relationship with Queen Victoria to assassinate the monarch and take control of the monarchy.
Light is angry that his catalog is incomplete due to evolution over the millennia, so he decides to eradicate all life on the planet. He kills off a maid, Gwendoline, Pritchard (Gwendoline’s missing mother), and the inspector while Ace fights for her life several times over and Control evolves into a Victorian woman.
The Doctor maneuvers Light into a logic trap, suggesting that the surveyor has not only evolved, but also missed several creatures of myth in his audit. In the end, Smith is imprisoned as the new “control” while Control, Fenn-Cooper, and Nimrod take the alien spacecraft on an exploration of the universe. Light, on the other hand, is dispersed into the house itself, becoming the evil presence that Ace encountered in 1983. When the Doctor asks if she has any regrets, Ace says she should have blown the house up instead.
“Wicked,” the Doctor says, drawing this house of horrors to a close.
There is a good story buried in this serial, but the plot is so convoluted and twisted that the narrative path is lost in the weeds. It sheds light on Ace’s character and backstory, and it builds on the Doctor’s mystery and simmering darkness. There’s also a lot to be said for a story that dumps the viewer into the narrative world without guidance, but the good ones guide the audience to understanding and resolution. This one capitalized on frustration in chaos, and that hurt my experience.
Rating: 2/5 – “Mm? What’s that, my boy?”
UP NEXT – Doctor Who: The Curse of Fenric
The Timestamps Project is an adventure through the televised universe of Doctor Who, story by story, from the beginning of the franchise. For more reviews like this one, please visit the project’s page at Creative Criticality.
Culture on My Mind
Pop Culture Download
June 24 & July 1, 2018
(Due to workload, last week’s post did not happen. This week I’ll cover two weeks to catch up.)
On the Docket
Time’s up for Timeless on NBC. – [EW]
Lucasfilm has dispelled rumors about the future of the Star Wars film franchise. – [THR]
In honor of Captain James T. Kirk, a special bourbon blend has been crafted. – [StarTrek.com]
Science fiction legend Harlan Ellison has died at the age of 84. – [Deadline]
LEGO is releasing a large Voltron-themed set. – [LEGO]
Indiana Jones 5 has been delayed after Jonathan Kasdan has been tapped to rewrite the script. – [Variety]
Showtime has commissioned a new Halo television series. – [Halo Waypoint]
Disney has won antitrust approval to buy Fox’s television and movie assets. – [CNN]
Fuller House is staging a bionic reunion. – [TV Guide]
Best Buy is no longer in the CD market. – [CBS Philadelphia]
Keith DeCandido continues the 4-Color to 35-Millimeter: The Great Superhero Movie Rewatch with Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer and Batman Begins. – [Tor: FF2, Batman Begins]
Doctor Who: Battlefield
(4 episodes, s26e01-e04, 1989)
The final classic season begins with an old trope and an old friend. We begin with retired Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart shopping for trees with his wife, reminiscing on his days with UNIT. Elsewhere, a familiar-looking sword glows with unearthly light as Brigadier Winifred Bambera and her UNIT soldiers conduct military exercises in the country.
On the TARDIS, the Doctor is tracking a distress signal from Earth that has saturated all of time and space, across the boundaries that divide one universe from another. The TARDIS arrives at the source of the signal, three years in Ace’s relative future. Ace and the Doctor hitchhike with archaeologist Peter Warmsly after the new Brigadier bypasses them. As they drive to a nearby battlefield dig, several armored knights crash land from space. The Doctor and Ace infiltrate the UNIT nuclear missile site with old identification cards, one belonging to Liz Shaw. Bambera confiscates the passes, but one soldier remembers the Doctor from Lethbridge-Stewart’s days.
A space knight investigates the TARDIS exterior while the Secretary General calls Lethbridge-Stewart to tell him about the Doctor’s arrival. Bambera takes the Doctor and Ace to a nearby hotel where they can find accommodations. She then spots the TARDIS and walks into the middle of a battle between the space knights.
At the hotel, Ace meets Shou Yuing, a fellow explosives enthusiast, while the Doctor converses with blind psychic innkeeper Elizabeth Rowlinson. Bambera (and Warmsly) end up at the hotel as Lethbridge-Stewart dons his uniform one more time. The Doctor and Warmsly talk about the scabbard, which has psychic energy and is linked to a strange woman in a crystal ball.
The battle propels the knight into the hotel’s brewery, driving our heroes to investigate. They find the knight, who is a human named Ancelyn who claims that the Doctor is Merlin. The distress call was Excalibur’s Call and placed the planet in the middle of a war that doesn’t belong in this dimension. As the quartet tries to leave, they are ambushed by Bambera (who tries to apprehend them) and the enemy knights (who try to kill them).
The Doctor tries to negotiate, but Bambera is quick to the trigger. The enemy leader is Mordred, and he warns the Doctor of his mother’s (Morgaine, who has waited twelve centuries) coming reckoning. The enemy retreats, the Doctor’s party retires to the hotel, and Bambera and the knight do the ritual dance of dominance.
Using a brother sword to Excalibur, Mordred conducts a ritual to link his home dimension to modern Carbury. The scabbard on the wall launches toward the lake, Mordred is swimming in Highlander-era fantasy, and Morgaine crosses into our dimension. She calls to the Doctor telepathically, and when he refuses her, she declares war on their “last battlefield.”
In the morning, the Doctor and Ace visit Warmsly’s dig, finding a marker that reads “dig hole here” in the Doctor’s handwriting. Ace blows open the hole and they descend into the ground. As Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart arrives in Carbury, Morgaine attacks his helicopter. The pilot sets it down successfully, although Lieutenant Lavel is injured, and Lethbridge-Stewart sets out for help. He soon encounters Morgaine and her army, and after a discussion, they part ways honorably. Lethbridge-Stewart commandeers Shou’s car.
In the underground tunnel, Ace and the Doctor enter a strange room that obeys the Doctor’s commands. He presumes that the place was built by Merlin, and that he could possibly be Merlin in his own future. The facility is really a spacecraft for traveling between dimensions, and it contains King Arthur (in suspended animation) and Excalibur. Ace accidentally draws Excalibur, releasing an automated defense system. Ace runs the wrong direction and ends up trapped in an airtight chamber that fills with water. The Doctor manipulates some controls and continues to battle the defense system as Ace is ejected to the surface of the lake, echoing the Lady of the Lake legend as she emerges with Excalibur. She passes the sword to Ancelyn, Bambera, and Warmsly as Shou and Lethbridge-Stewart arrive.
In a touching reunion, Lethbridge-Stewart goes into the ship and saves the Doctor, and the duo return to the surface. Meanwhile, Morgaine orders her troops to find Excalibur and kill any who stand in the way. At the inn, Mordred taunts the innkeepers and lusts after Lieutenant Lavel as his mother arrives. Morgaine kills Lavel after extracting military knowledge from her mind, and rewards the innkeepers for their treatment of her son by restoring Elizabeth’s sight.
The hero party returns to the hotel – the women and modern military leaders bristle under Lethbridge-Stewart’s ways – surviving an assault along the way. There, they find that the locals are being evacuated, though Warmsly and the Rowlinsons require a little psychic convincing from the Doctor, but Ace and Shou slip away in the organized chaos. The Doctor and Lethbridge-Stewart hit the road (in Bessie!) to find Ancelyn and Bambera and defend the missile convoy. They leave Ace and Shou at the hotel, armed with a piece of chalk to draw a circle of protection. The former Brigadier also reveals some new hardware from UNIT, including armor-piercing rounds for Daleks, gold rounds for Cybermen, and silver rounds just because. Ace and Shou draw the circle and take refuge as an ethereal darkness falls around them, and Morgaine tries to draw them out with psychic games before summoning a demonic creature.
The missile site is a battlefield with UNIT facing Mordred’s troops. As Ancelyn and Mordred engage each other, the Doctor stops the confrontation but is surprised to learn that the battle was a distraction to allow Morgaine to seek the sword. She stands over Ace and Shou with her summoned creature, the Destroyer. Mordred offers a trade – the captives for Excalibur – but the Doctor succumbs to rage and threatens to decapitate Mordred if Morgaine does not surrender. Morgaine calls his bluff and the Doctor yields, but Lethbridge-Stewart steps up in his stead. Morgaine is unswayed, restarting the battle as the Doctor and Lethbridge-Stewart put Morded in the car and race to the hotel.
Morgaine figures out that she cannot breach the chalk circle, but the Destroyer can. All it needs to is to be freed from its silver shackles. The Destroyer brings the hotel down around the ladies, and Mordred escapes. Morgaine flees with Excalibur and the Destroyer, receiving news that her army has been decimated. The Doctor and Lethbridge-Stewart pursue Morgaine into her portal, and Ace follows with the box of silver bullets shortly afterward. Lethbridge-Stewart is tossed aside by the Destroyer but the Doctor reclaims Excalibur. Morgaine frees the beast as an angry Mordred arrives, and the two return to their realm. The Doctor, Lethbridge-Stewart, and Ace regroup, and the Doctor prepares to face the Destroyer with the silver bullets. Lethbridge-Stewart stuns the Doctor, claiming that he is more disposable than the Time Lord, and faces off with the Destroyer. Three shots of silver later and the creature explodes, but Lethbridge-Stewart escaped with a promise that he is done with all of this.
Morgaine and Mordred kidnap Bambera and attempt to launch the nuclear missile. In the spacecraft, the Doctor, Lethbridge-Stewart, Ace, and Ancelyn restore Excalibur and try to release King Arthur, but a note from the Doctor reveals that the king died in battle. The good news is that they can still stop the missile. The Doctor faces off against Morgaine and appeals to her honor, compelling her to stop the missile’s countdown. She wants to face Arthur in combat, but news of his death devastates her.
Ace jubilantly destroys the spacecraft and the Doctor renders Mordred unconscious. Mordred and Morgaine are turned over to UNIT as our heroes retire to the Lethbridge-Stewart estate. The ladies take Bessie on an adventure while the men are left to chores and cooking supper.
This was a good (if final) adventure in the classic era with the Brig, and I enjoyed the references from his era to tie the legacy together. He’s back in fantastic form here for his finale, and it really buoys up a story that could have otherwise drown in tried and once true but now tired story tropes. I mean, I groaned when I saw that this was an Arthurian myth tale, and some of the obvious symbolism (Ace as the Lady of the Lake, for example) drew more of them from me.
I did love seeing Ace bond with Shou over their common attraction to explosives. I also love McCoy’s flourishes and gags that counter his growing darkness. Finally, in a reach back to near the beginning of the franchise, I did enjoy seeing Jean Marsh back in action once again. This time she was Morgaine, but way back when she was once Sara Kingdom.
I settled around a 3.5 rating for this one, and I look forward, so this story takes advantage of rounding up.
Rating: 4/5 – “Would you care for a jelly baby?”
UP NEXT – Doctor Who: Ghost Light
The Timestamps Project is an adventure through the televised universe of Doctor Who, story by story, from the beginning of the franchise. For more reviews like this one, please visit the project’s page at Creative Criticality.
Doctor Who: Twenty-Fifth Series Summary
A stunning jump as we race toward the classic finish.
The Seventh Doctor’s second outing was a major step up, which was an important move for the show’s silver anniversary. It has also made me really love Sylvester McCoy’s wit and humor. Remembrance of the Daleks was a great start, and while Silver Nemesis was effectively Remembrance Redux, it was still fun. Even the average stories kept me entertained, and there didn’t seem to be a stinker in the bunch.
The John Nathan-Turner problems remain, and they’re likely to stick around for McCoy’s senior season, but at least the actors and stories were able to enlighten and entertain, overcoming the production.
Overall, this season ends up in a five-way tie for fifth place, joining the ranks of the Seventh, Tenth, Thirteenth, and Fourteenth seasons. The Third and Fourth Doctors are good company to be in.
Remembrance of the Daleks – 5
The Happiness Patrol – 3
Silver Nemesis – 4
The Greatest Show in the Galaxy – 3
Series Twenty-Five Average Rating: 3.8/5
UP NEXT – Doctor Who: Battlefield
The Timestamps Project is an adventure through the televised universe of Doctor Who, story by story, from the beginning of the franchise. For more reviews like this one, please visit the project’s page at Creative Criticality.
Culture on My Mind
Pop Culture Download
June 17, 2018
On the Docket
Director Patty Jenkins, along with the cast and crew of the Wonder Woman sequel, have been revealing photos from the set of the film. (Obviously, we all have questions…) – [Twitter]
Chloe Dykstra shocked the geek world with a bombshell revelation. I admire her bravery. – [Medium]
As a result of that revelation, Chris Hardwick has been removed from AMC and San Diego Comic Con. – [THR]
Keith DeCandido continues the 4-Color to 35-Millimeter: The Great Superhero Movie Rewatch with 2005’s Fantastic Four. – [Tor]
Doctor Who: The Greatest Show in the Galaxy
(4 episodes, s25e11-e14, 1988-1989)
It’s an awfully meta moment in the late 1980s: The Greatest Show in the Galaxy gets rhythm, and we “ain’t seen nothing yet.”
On the TARDIS, the Doctor is trying to learn how to juggle while Ace (clad in the Fourth Doctor‘s pre-burgundy scarf) looks for her rucksack and Nitro-9. An automated probe materializes in the console room and delivers junk mail: an advertisement for the psychic circus. The Doctor wants to go and the advertising drone goads Ace (who is obviously scared of something) into joining him.
Something sinister is afoot at the circus: Two performers (Flowerchild and Bellboy) are on the run from a clown in a hearse. A rude sandwich eating biker named Nord and our heroes join the mix as well, and the Doctor and Ace are warned away from the circus by a roadside saleswoman. Flowerbell and Bellboy split up, and Flowerbell ends up at an abandoned bus and killed by the robotic conductor. Bellboy is found by the clowns are returned to the circus.
Nord turns down the Doctor’s request to join him, and the travelers are nearly run down by the clown on the road. They encounter Captain Cook and Mags, two more intergalactic travelers questing for the circus, and join them for tea. Ace and Mags find a buried robot, which comes to life and attacks the party, but is defeated by Ace. They carry on to the bus and are attacked by the conductor robot. The Doctor defeats the robot and parts company with the other travelers, disgusted by the captain’s cowardice.
A new player joins the mix: A well-dressed young man on a bicycle.
Nord, Captain Cook and Mags, and the Doctor and Ace arrive at the circus. Mags witnesses Bellboy being punished for his treachery, but her screams are electronically silenced by the ringmaster. Ace can still hear the screams and is hesitant about entering the tent, but the Doctor presses on. Ace’s fear is revealed: She suffers from coulrophobia, the fear of clowns. Based on the ticket-taker’s reaction to the clowns, Ace’s fear may be well-founded.
The Doctor and Ace find a seat in the darkened attraction, which isn’t hard since the place is nearly deserted: The only other party is a family of parents and a single child. The Doctor tries to engage them in small talk, but they’re almost robotic. The show starts with nearly the same rap as before, but one change is that the Ringmaster selects the Doctor to join as a volunteer performer. The Doctor rushes forward in glee and Ace gets trapped by clowns, and the lead clown is intrigued by Flowerbell’s earring, which Ace found at the bus. Ace runs and is pursued by this insane clown posse.
The Doctor is reunited with Captain Cook, Mags, and Nord, but soon realizes that this is a trap and he’s fallen right into it. Captain Cook tricks Nord into performing next. Meanwhile, Ace sneaks back into the circus tent and eavesdrops on the fortune teller and ringmaster talk about the state of the circus. She is given away by the chirping of drone kites and runs from the clowns, encountering a captive Bellboy. It’s revealed that Bellboy built the robotic clowns and only he can repair them. Ace is soon captured again and imprisoned in the clown repair facility.
Nord goes on stage and his performances are judged by the family. When he fails, he is disintegrated, an act that is witnessed by Mags and the Doctor. As the BMX rider, Whizz Kid, is selected to join the captives, the Doctor and Mags escape and find a series of catacombs to explore. They find a deep pit with a large eye (the same eye on the kite drones) at the bottom, but they are captured by the clowns and Captain Cook. Mags notices a symbol that resembles the phases of the moon, and the her reaction provides a distraction for the Doctor to escape.
When the clowns in the repair trailer attack, Ace defends herself until they stop and collapse. Bellboy emerges from the shadows and, noting the earring, learns of Flowerchild’s fate. He tells Ace that Flowerchild made the kites, something of beauty perverted into something sinister, and gives Ace the controller for the robot she defeated earlier. Elsewhere, the Doctor continues to unravel the mystery behind the circus and frees Ace and Bellboy from the trailer. We also discover that Deadbeat, the street sweeper, was once someone named Kingpin.
The clowns return Captain Cook and Mags to their cage, and Captain Cook snaps at Whizz Kid’s admiration of his exploits. He soon turns about and exploits the kid, moving him up in the queue to save the explorer’s own skin. The kid is soon killed for his failure, and the captain is a truly despicable man.
The Doctor, Ace, and Kingpin set out for the pit while Bellboy stays behind the distract the chief clown. Meanwhile, the fortune teller communicates with the eye through her crystal ball, telling it that more will come to feed it and they’ll keep everyone away from the bus. At the pit, the Doctor’s party uncovers the same link. The Doctor sends Ace and Kingpin to investigate the bus while he distracts the circus in the ring. The Doctor suggests that he, the captain, and Mags work together to upset the balance of the game, and Mags coerces the captain into agreeing.
Once in the room, Captain Cook turns the tables by ordering the crew to shine “moonlight” on Mags. The woman transforms into a werewolf, weirdly explaining her reaction to the moon symbols earlier. After a brief show by Cook, during which the Doctor discovers that the audience members are avatars of the eye in the pit, Mags turns on the captain and kills him. Mags and the Doctor are removed from the ring, but as the family demands more entertainment, the ringmaster and fortune teller are forced to perform. They fail and are consumed.
Ace and Kingpin search the bus, not knowing that the clowns have repaired the conductor. Ace tries to open a lockbox and is ambushed by the robot. During the scuffle, the box is broken open and Kingpin finds the rest of his eye pendant inside. His mind restored, he helps Ace defeat the conductor. Together, they head back to the Doctor.
Mags runs off to meet Ace and Kingpin as the Doctor confronts the eye in a psychedelic sequence. He ends up back in the ring, but now it is an ancient arena. The Doctor greets the family as the Gods of Ragnarok, a force he has fought for some time, and the trio demand more entertainment from their captive. The Doctor runs through a series of conjuring tricks to distract them.
Ace, Kingpin, and Mags end up the massive robot and use it to defeat the clowns. They return to the pit as the Doctor continues his performance, pursued by a reanimated Captain Cook. Cook steals the medallion and Ace knocks it into the pit, forcing it to materialize at the Doctor’s feet. The Doctor uses it to deflect attacks from the gods and destroy the arena around them. The Doctor doffs his hat in salute and returns to the circus, calmly strolling out of the tent as it explodes behind him.
He reunites with Ace, leaving Kingpin and Mags to start a new entertainment venture. He politely declines the offer to join them, citing the adventures that ahead. Besides, in a clever plot twist, he finds circuses to be rather sinister.
It was a decent adventure, and while the Doctor’s feelings about circuses are awfully convenient, I did enjoy watching Ace confront her fears to save the day. The werewolf subplot was kind of crazy, as was the Gods of Ragnarok twist, but they both did away with the treacherous Captain Cook. That guy was one of the first characters in this franchise that I have actively despised in a long time.
Rating: 3/5 – “Reverse the polarity of the neutron flow.”
UP NEXT – Twenty-Fifth Series Summary
The Timestamps Project is an adventure through the televised universe of Doctor Who, story by story, from the beginning of the franchise. For more reviews like this one, please visit the project’s page at Creative Criticality.
Culture on My Mind
Pop Culture Download
June 10, 2018
On the Docket
Kelly Marie Tran, Rose Tico from Star Wars: The Last Jedi, has been forced off social media by targeted harassment. – [Esquire] [The Guardian]
Anthony Bourdain has died at the age of 61. – [CNN]
Keith DeCandido continues the 4-Color to 35-Millimeter: The Great Superhero Movie Rewatch with Man-Thing. – [Tor]
Doctor Who: Silver Nemesis
(3 episodes, s25e08-e10, 1988)
We open in South America, 22 November 1988, on a scene of Nazis trying to kill parrots with arrows. A similar scene plays out in 1638 Windsor, England – though without the Nazis, naturally – as a woman tries to kill a pigeon with a bow and arrow. She retreats to a dark room where a mathematician is working on a calculation while the woman prepares poison-tipped arrows. Back in 1988, the Nazi addresses a room of soldiers, heralding the birth of the Fourth Reich before retrieving a silver bow and leaving on a plane.
In Windsor, the mathematician informs the woman – Lady Peinforte – that according to the calculation, the Nemesis comet will return to Earth and land in the spot where it originated on 23 November 1988.
It seems that the Nazis and Lady Peinforte are on a collision course.
The Doctor and Ace are relaxing to the smooth sounds of Courtney Pine when the Doctor’s alarm goes off, but he can’t remember why. The performance ends, Ace gets an autograph, and the pair is ambushed by snipers. The travelers escape by diving into the river. Later on, they dry out on the riverbank while the Doctor ponders the alarm, knowing that it means a planet somewhere is about to be destroyed. Moments later, the Doctor finds out that the planet in question is Earth. He remembers that he set the alarm in 1638, and they travel in the TARDIS to Windsor Castle’s basement in search of the silver bow.
Lady Peinforte and her assistant use magic fueled by the mathematician’s blood to travel through time, landing in the present day as the Nemesis crash lands on Earth. The Nazis and Lady Peinforte converge on the crash site, but the Nazis decide to bide their time until the site cools down. At the site, Lady Peinforte watches as the police radios stop working and a mysterious gas chokes the officers.
In the castle’s basement, the Doctor and Ace find an empty case and a prophecy: The bow originally disappeared in 1788, and unless it is kept in its case, the rest of the statue to which it belongs will return and destroy the world. The Doctor and Ace travel to 1638 and Lady Peinforte’s cottage and start to unravel her mystery. The Lady originally sculpted the statue, depicting herself, out of a silver metal that fell to Earth near her home. The travel forward again to Windsor Castle and join a tour group before sneaking away into the royal apartments and encountering Queen Elizabeth II. They are apprehended and escape, finding a painting of Ace that has happened yet for them, and eventually end up in the TARDIS.
The Nazis, Lady Peinforte, and the travelers all converge on the crash site. They are joined by a mysterious spacecraft that reveals a group of Cybermen. The Cybermen recognize the Doctor as the three aggressor parties open fire on each other and our heroes take refuge in the crash site. The Doctor and Ace steal the silver bow and escape, leaving the silver arrow in Lady Peinforte’s hands and the Nemesis statue unguarded.
The Doctor and Ace travel back to 1638 where the mathematician’s corpse has disappeared and the chess pieces have moved. The Doctor burns a note and they leave. As they return to present day, he explains to Ace that the validium metal was created on ancient Gallifrey by Omega and Rassilon as a form of ultimate defense. Some of it escaped from Gallifrey and landed on Earth, which the Doctor returned to space. They use the bow to track the other pieces.
They find the Cybermen and jam their transmissions with Ace’s jazz tape. They later find a pair of muggers who were defeated and strung up by Lady Peinforte. The Lady herself takes her assistant Richard to his own grave, and then into the castle where the Cybermen hold the statue, which is apparently her own grave. The Cybermen engage the Lady and Richard at the tomb as the Doctor and Ace destroy the Cybermen ship. The Nazis find the Cybermen and strike a deal, but they don’t understand that the Cybermen will kill them anyway.
The Doctor and Ace discuss the cyclical nature of the Nemesis comet and how each time it comes around, bad things happen in Earth’s history: In 1913, the First World War was about the erupt; in 1938, Hitler annexed Austria; and in 1963, President Kennedy was assassinated. The double their efforts to scan for a Cybermen fleet in space and they find it.
The Nazis arrive at the tomb and drive Lady Peinforte away through Richard’s cowardice, leaving the Nazis with the arrow and statue. The Nazis try to doublecross the Cybermen, but one of the Nazis betrays his leader (De Flores) and they are captured for processing. Meanwhile, the Doctor and Ace arrive at the tomb as the tape ends, presenting the bow to the Nemesis statue as the Cybermen re-establish contact with their fleet. The Doctor and Ace run with the bow, forcing the statue to follow them.
They travel back to 1638 and the Doctor makes another move on the chess board. Ace asks who originally brought the metal to Earth and what is really going on, but the Doctor remains silent as they leave for the hangar where the comet is stored. The Nemesis statue arrives and the Doctor gives it the bow. Soon enough, the Cybermen arrive and Ace battles them with a slingshot and gold coins from 1638.
The Nazis break free from their processing, revealing it to be a ruse the entire time. Meanwhile, Lady Peinforte and Richard hitch a ride with an American woman to Windsor. The woman descends from the 17th century Remington family, whom Peinforte refers to as thieves and swindlers. In fact, Dorothea Remington was killed by poison.
As Ace singlehandedly decimates the Cyberman army, the Doctor loads the statue back into the comet and sets the rocket’s course to the cyber fleet. At one point, Ace is trapped by three Cybermen and only one shot left, but she ends up forcing them to shoot each other. The Doctor talks with the statue, removing the bow and avoiding its questions about mission and purpose. The Doctor and Ace defeat the remaining Cybermen, but De Flores arrives and takes the bow. He is upset that the Nemesis will not speak to him, but he meets his end as the Cyber Leader guns him down.
Lady Peinforte arrives and faces off with the Doctor and the Cyber Leader, and Peinforte asks Ace a question: “Doctor who?” Who is the Doctor and where does he come from. The Doctor relents and passes the bow to the Cyber Leader, defusing Lady Peinforte’s attempts to reveal the Doctor’s secrets with the Cybermen’s apathy regarding them. All the Cybermen want is to transform Earth into Mondas. The bow ends up in the comet with the statue and the Doctor launches it, but not before Lady Peinforte hurls herself into the capsule with the Nemesis.
The comet races toward the fleet and destroys it, confounding the Cyber Leader and leaving an opening for Richard to stab the remaining Cyberman with the last arrow. Ace and the Doctor return Richard to 1638 where Ace figures out the Doctor’s gambit: He originally placed the statue into orbit to lure out the Cybermen and destroy them. As they listen to an impromptu concert, Ace asks the Doctor about his past, but the Doctor puts a finger to his lips and listens to the music instead.
Overall, this was a fun 25th anniversary adventure with a lot of moving parts. I’m glad they made the callback to Remembrance of the Daleks to keep continuity rolling. I am intrigued by this “Cartmel Masterplan” idea that mystifies and deepens the Doctor, but I’m cautious and hoping that it doesn’t make the Doctor menacing. Not knowing everything about the Doctor is good, but making him have a dark agenda (potentially one of wiping out his enemies rather than simply defeating them) won’t work for me.
Rating: 4/5 – “Would you care for a jelly baby?”
UP NEXT – Doctor Who: The Greatest Show in the Galaxy
The Timestamps Project is an adventure through the televised universe of Doctor Who, story by story, from the beginning of the franchise. For more reviews like this one, please visit the project’s page at Creative Criticality.
Culture on My Mind
Pop Culture Download
June 3, 2018
On the Docket
Andrew Lincoln is leaving The Walking Dead after Season Nine. – [Collider]
ABC has canceled the Roseanne revival in light of racist comments by star Roseanne Barr. – [Variety]
New York Comic Con claims that a technical glitch resulted in pro badges being denied to industry professionals. – [Comics Beat]
Keith DeCandido continues the 4-Color to 35-Millimeter: The Great Superhero Movie Rewatch with Constantine. – [Tor]
Creative Criticality 