Love & Monsters

Dear Gary—

I like Love & Monsters. It is quirky and different. It is light on the Doctor and Rose but has enough of them to remind us this is still Doctor Who. It does, however, highlight how very Earth-centric Doctor Who has become.

As much as I like Elton and his LINDA gang, I wish that this could have been set on some alien world with an intergalactic cast in pursuit of the Doctor. Perhaps it could be captained by that daft little girl from Dragonfire, now grown and haunting all the ice cream shops on Svartos hoping that the Doctor will return some day. Maybe she could be joined by Alpha Centauri (The Curse of Peladon and The Monster of Peladon) newly retired from the ambassadorial life and intrigued by an ad placed by Miss Daffy enquiring after the Doctor. But there’s no use continuing with this thought. The Doctor is mired on Earth and we are stuck there with him.

If we do have to be stuck, Elton and his gang are pleasant enough company.

“This is the story of me,” Elton tells us as he peers into his video camera, “and my encounters with alien life forms.” We are at the mercy of Elton; this is told from his perspective. As such, Love & Monsters is very childlike in its telling.

It starts with the frantic, slapstick monster chase with red and blue bucket mix ups and the Doctor using a “porky-choppy” to lure the thing; a very Saturday morning cartoonish opening. This is Doctor Who as seen through Elton’s rather skewed imagination.

It is a charming story as Elton relates it. We get to know Ursula and Mr. Skinner and Bridget and Bliss through Elton’s eye. Brought together by a mutual interest in the mysterious Doctor, they are united by their loneliness and their own sense of alienation in the world at large. Slowly they become a surrogate family to one another, finding meaning and joy within their small group.

Then Victor Kennedy shows up and it all starts to go wrong. Victor is the mean dad who curtails playtime and hands out tedious chores. The LINDA gang submits unconditionally like obedient children.

I, however, have to wonder. Why would Victor Kennedy choose this rag tag band of misfits for his investigative arm? He obviously has access to Torchwood files. But I can rationalize it like this: he has discovered the existence of Rose and needs a pliable group of ordinary folk to fan out and unobtrusively look for her, no questions asked. In LINDA he has found the perfect stooges. But then I have to wonder, why would he immediately begin to feed on his recruits?

Turns out he only needs Elton, though. Blind luck leads Elton straight to Rose’s neighborhood and face to face with Jackie. It is hilarious to watch as Jackie turns Elton’s basic steps of infiltration on their head. Jackie’s predatory approach would be creepy except for the sweet recounting by Elton of their budding relationship.

The theme of loneliness which saturates LINDA also resonates in Jackie. “I used to have this little mate called Mickey,” she says wistfully as Elton fixes her washing machine. Hints of desperation bleed through as she pursues Elton. “Can’t bear it silent,” she says as she invites him to stay for tea. Her reflections on Rose, however, reveal her deepest longings, touching on raw emotions that neither she nor Elton can bear.  Clumsily they both attempt to distract from the ever present pain.

The pain catches up with them, however.

“Let me tell you something about those who get left behind,” Jackie says to Elton when she discovers his real reason for playing up to her. “Because it’s hard. And that’s what you become; hard.”

It is a little heartbreaking when Jackie turns her back on her new found friend. Just when Elton is learning the true meaning of love and has at last found the relationships he has always craved, everything falls apart and he loses it all.

“We used that woman,” he tells the group. But he learns from this shameful realization and uses the opportunity to stand up to Victor Kennedy, rallying the dwindling LINDA behind him. Curse Ursula’s cell phone. If not for that they would have gotten away, gone to dine on Chinese and to start a life together. Alas, it is not to be for the ill-fated Elton.

As Ursula is absorbed into the transformed Victor Kennedy Elton sees all his hopes and desires sucked out of the world. Without even being present, the Doctor has brought them together and he has also torn them apart. The most brilliant and the most terrible things, giving new meaning to Stephen King's words, “Salvation and damnation are the same thing.”

 “It’s not his fault,” Elton philosophizes, “but maybe that’s what happens when you touch the Doctor, even for a second.”

It is bittersweet, with the melancholic Elton still looking through his rose colored glasses, dancing to ELO and fondly revealing the enslabbed Ursula.

I can’t look at Elton’s life in quite the same way, however. I can’t quite have the same Scooby Doo world view as I witness Bliss and Bridget and Mr. Skinner and Ursula uncomfortably protruding from the inside of the bloated alien.  I can’t be quite as forgiving of the Doctor standing nonchalantly by while Rose chastises Elton even as he kneels before the menacing Abzorbaloff. And I definitely can’t rejoice in the fact that Ursula has been saved from absorption into the earth only to meet with the indignity of being nothing more than a face in a slab.

The Doctor has saved Elton from the Abzorbaloff and has explained his presence in Elton’s house those many years ago. Elton can at last confront his repressed memories and come to terms with this mother’s death. He can now move on with his life. Except that his life is once again stagnated with the Ursula stone.

Elton might be content for the moment, possibly even for a lifetime. But what if he ever decides to move on? What if he meets a flesh and blood woman and wants to start a family? What becomes of Ursula then? Will she take up a prominent place hanging on the wall in Elton’s den? I can only shudder to think what cruelties his children might visit upon her. And I fear that one day she will be relegated to the attic to collect dust. And what is to become of her after Elton is dead and gone? No, I see nothing but horror ahead.

“We forget because we must,” Elton explains of his years of denial after his mother’s death. I can only hope that his life with Ursula is only a fantasy, yet another coping mechanism for the misfortune he has suffered, and that someday he will truly be able to move on and live a real life, accepting the love and monsters for what they are and not denying them or creating them out of his imagination.

This is where Elton could use the firm hand of Jackie to guide him, filling the role of mother that he lost so long ago. The loss of her friendship is the most devastating of the episode, because it is so very human in its tragedy.

Love & Monsters; loss and pain and denial sugar-coated so it goes down easier. I’m undecided on this one, Gary. I like it . . . and yet there is a bitter aftertaste that lingers.