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 . . .
