Empress of Mars

Dear Gary—

Sigh. I don’t have much to say about Empress of Mars. It’s a rather banal story, not very memorable. The synopsis sounds intriguing but the actualization is pedestrian. 

It starts with an annoying bit as the Doctor, Bill, and Nardole arrogantly stroll into the heart of NASA and proceed to treat everyone and everything with disrespect and disdain. There is no reason for these three to be there. The Doctor uses the flippant “Sorry, I could never resist a countdown” as an excuse. His “just a day out for the kids” is more accurate. The three are on a field trip to mock and disrupt the earnest work of dedicated NASA personnel. He accuses the room of being “human centric” and then goes on to assume, with extreme prejudice, that the “God Save the Queen” message that is transmitted from Mars refers to the British Queen.

Of course the message refers to exactly that, because that is how centric the show is.

The message leads our intrepid trio to Mars where a group of 1800’s British soldiers are stranded with their pet Ice Warrior they have dubbed Friday. It is all very amusing, I’m sure. The troops carry on with tea and life as usual on this alien world, complete with huge oil painting of Queen Victoria that they transported from Earth for some reason. There is some typical internal political squabbling amongst the men, a Colonel with a deep dark secret, and your stock power-hungry, treacherous Captain who knows this secret and uses it to wrest command. I’m not sure why he hadn’t done this from the start, but of course he finally acts at the dramatic midpoint of the episode.

Added to this mixture are the Ice Empress of the title, Iraxxa, and her sleeping warrior hive. A hive that has overslept for some 5,000 years (they must be akin to the Silurians). 1800’s British troops on Mars, Ice Empress, Ice Warriors—it should all make for some richly layered and complex story telling; or at the very least, interesting. It doesn’t. It is all extremely disappointing. Typical hard-headed stupidity from the British, short-hand feminism from the Empress, and a hive that never fully awakens.

It all plays out by the numbers. The two sides threatening war; the Doctor preaching peace; the cruel Captain disrupting negotiations; the cowardly Colonel heroically sacrificing himself; the Empress graciously granting clemency. All’s well that ends well.

The entire thing could have been acted out on any planet, in any time, with any races. There was nothing particularly distinctive about Mars or the Ice Warriors. It was just one of those “wouldn’t it be funny if . . .” propositions. It just as well could have made up a ten minute SNL skit or the equivalent.

As for the Doctor—at one point he states, “In this scenario, the humans are the invaders. On the other hand, the Ice Warriors have vastly superior armaments which will wipe the humans out. So what am I supposed to do?” Well, Gary, what he should do is nothing. This is not a case for the Doctor’s interference. These humans came to Mars for the purpose of looting and stepped into an Ice nest. They are professional soldiers. This is a standoff of their own making. They don’t merit the Doctor’s attention. That the Doctor goes out of his way to create the “God Save the Queen” message in order to pique his own curiosity and ensure his presence on the planet is unworthy of him.

Then there is the matter of convenience. At the beginning of the adventure the TARDIS takes off with Nardole inside for no particular reason other than that it is simply an excuse to force Nardole to free Missy for her assistance in getting back to Mars.

I do like the little joke of Alpha Centauri appearing at the end. It made me nostalgic for those Peladon escapades of old.

Ah, Gary . . . those escapades of old. Now there was some good Doctor Who storytelling. Wonder which one I will put in next . . .

The Lie of the Land

The Lie of the Land, thankfully, is the last of this trio of Monk episodes; and it lays bare the inanity of it all. The Monks have gone to great lengths and trouble and time—for what? What exactly are they getting out of all of this? They have control of the world—so what do they do with it? Are they getting any wealth, minerals, power out of it? The only thing I see that they get is a drab world in which everyone dresses in dark clothing and can’t read comic books. This is the great ambition of the Monks?

And answer me this: how does the transmission of false history stating that the Monks have always been on Earth give them power? Just because history has been distorted, how does that make people obey the Monks? Civilizations throughout history have had their own mythology/faiths/beliefs that have pervaded society, yet there have always been dissenters, a need for laws and prisons, etc. 

By way of explanation, Nardole states: "However bad a situation is, if people think that's how it's always been, they'll put up with it. That's ninety percent of the job done.” That is the true lie of The Lie of the Land. The history of the world is littered with generations rebelling against ‘how it’s always been.’ Each new era is driven by the forces of revolution. Every age marks its stamp upon the world as it rebels against its predecessors. 

There must be more than just false history being transmitted, yet this is never even touched upon. And the Monks do need soldiers to keep dissenters in line, so there must be a vast element that resists the thought control and that disobeys orders not to read comic books or wear bright colors. So why does the Doctor never think to organize a rebellion?

And oh, gosh, Gary, then there is Bill. Bill is the lynchpin. The grand and glorious lynchpin. So why is it that the Monks have seemingly lost track of her? Wouldn’t you think they would have her under 24 hour surveillance, not to mention protection? They don’t even recognize her when they come face to face with her. And gee, if this powerful link that the Monks are dependent upon is passed on through the bloodline, wasn’t it sort of shortsighted of them to choose a lesbian as their carrier?

It’s rather vague, though, how this lynchpin thing works. OK, it is a psychic link transmitted to the world through the statues. But the psychic link starts with Bill and her thoughts and memories. She remembers the Doctor and the world before the Monks, so why is this not being transmitted? How do the Monks use Bill’s brain/memories to transmit false memories that are not part of Bill’s thoughts? The Monks have some powerful machinery to transmit false ideas to the world—there just is no logical reason why they need Bill’s brain to make it work. 

This is what is at the core of the disease that has spread throughout New Who. There is no intelligent thought given to the plots/monsters. It is enough just to have a threat for the Doctor to defeat; never mind the how/why/what of the threat. As long as the threat is bigger/badder/meaner than the last. Doesn’t matter if it makes sense or not.

As for this ‘test’ that the Doctor puts Bill through . . . it is inexplicable to say the least. The Doctor usually has more confidence in his companions than this. It doesn’t say much for their relationship. But even worse, his goal is to get her to kill him? The Doctor, who is all about peace and love, drives his companion to murder in order to test her loyalty. Bill is willing to take a loaded gun and shoot the Doctor—hooray! She has passed the test. She is a true and loyal gun wielding, vengeful, blood lusting companion worthy of New Who.

One bright spot of the episode is the presence of Missy. It is disappointing that the Doctor can’t figure out the whole lynchpin thing on his own, but Michelle Gomez is delightful to watch so I won’t complain too much. She is particularly poignant in her scenes with the Doctor as she discusses her transformation to the good side and how she keeps remembering those she has killed. “Being bad,” she says, “being bad drowned that out.” Despite the particularly despicable nature of the Master/Missy, Michelle Gomez tears your heart out as she plays this, and one can actually believe that the Master/Missy is truly reforming.

I wish I could say the same for New Who, but there seems no reclamation in sight. Just another loosely constructed excuse of a plot with weakly formulated monsters set before us to provide a backdrop for a few action sequences set to a dramatic musical score ending in a crescendo of idealistic triumph. Bill plugs into the system (being the lynchpin to the whole system I don’t know why she has to plug in but oh well . . . ) and projects images of her imaginary mother which somehow overrides the Monks and all is well with the world. Ta Da! The Monks erase themselves from history and move on to other worlds to force into drabness without color or comics, and humanity blissfully continues to blunder their way through life with no clue or ambition or gumption of their own in good New Who style.

Oh well, Gary. I blunder my own way onward . . .