Whoooah, Nellie!!!
I think I can safely say we’ve started to see the rising flood.
Or maybe I should say encroaching darkness …
Because tonight’s episode of Dr Who, the much talked of Waters of Mars is rather darker than we’ve come to expect.
Or possibly not …
After all, Russell T. Davies has said, several times, that Waters of Mars will be dark.
He should know.
He co-wrote it, with Phil Wilson.
He was right …
The Doctor lands on Mars, in the year 2059, on what’s called Bowie Base One; more to the point, on the day in 2059 that he — and none of the bases’ crew, including Lindsay Duncan, as the formidable Captain Adelaide Brooks — knows that the base is hit by complete catastrophe.
We find out what happens …
Boy, do we find out what happens …
Something the Tenth Doctor tells Adelaide is that there are some points in time are fixed, and that what’s happening to them on Mars is one of these fixed points; he can do nothing to change what happens to the base, and gives her a little of her family future.
As consolation.
The expression on Lindsay Duncan is one of sadness.
But not one of shock.
As the Doctor confirms for her, in the airlock scene forty-three minutes in, she dies … and there’s NOTHING he can do …
Which is what, for me, makes the ending all the more heartbreaking when it happens.
The Doctor — in a road to Damascus scene — realises he’s the last Timelord …
The last of his kind.
And, as such, under no obligation to their rules.
And uses the Tardis to save the last three survivors of Bowie Base One.
Captain Adelaide Brook hates him for it.
She realises he’s overstepped the mark, and broken the rules, in saving them; tells the Doctor, quit simply, that “… the Time Lord Victorious is wrong”
And, in order to preserve the timeline, gently walks into her front room, and, off-screen, kills herself …
Powerfully dark …
Powerfully dark, indeed.
This isn’t a Children of Earth style bloodfest, nor the tamer shores of The Sarah Jane Adventures. But, it is, for Doctor Who a story that happens maybe once in a generation; one that lets us build an emotional connection with a companion, and feel saddened at her inevitable death. And one that hasn’t happened, to my recall, since the death of Adric, in Earthshock.
And, to my way of thinking, the Christmas (and possibly New Years*) specials, The End of Time had better be damn good.
As had Matt Smith, as and when he takes over.
Because I’m thinking that David Tennant turned in the performance of a lifetime, tonight.
•••••
Phew!
Just as a side point, here, I know I — and a couple of other fellow fans — had been looking at the make up for the infected crew members, and been arguing how closely the mouth make looks like the Ice Warriors of old.
Personally, I think the resemblance is deliberate. I could be wrong.
But even if it was accidental, it was nice to see.
As where the various Ice Warrior references.
Let me know what you think, folks.
(Names, remember, Sue … )
