Thin Ice

Dear Gary—

Thin Ice is a retread of the two worst episodes in all of Doctor Who—The Beast Below and Kill the Moon. Thin Ice, however, has a huge advantage over those other two; it does not induce the same outrage and therefore shines in comparison. It is also the best entry so far in this tenth season of New Who. Very faint praise indeed, but it is reason enough to celebrate. 

There are actually a number of Doctor Who stories that come to mind while watching Thin Ice, but I’ll stick for the moment with the two most obvious and worst of the worst. The common formula for all three is that the Doctor and his companion stumble upon a huge creature that is ensnared in some way and that in its entrapment is providing a benefit for humanity and whose release has the potential for huge devastation. The ultimate salvation of the creature is left to the companion, and of course it ends in typical happily ever after fashion.

The creature in our present story is the least defined of the three and the weakest element of the episode. It is some nameless giant sea creature, possibly alien, that somehow found itself in the Thames generations ago and has been chained there ever since by the Sutcliffe family unbeknownst to all of London. We never even get to see it properly. It has some tiny fish companions that also might be alien, but again this is never explained. I guess it has the ability to freeze the Thames, or at least intensify the process, but this only occurs seasonally. When the Doctor asks Sutcliffe where the creature came from he answers, “No where! It’s always been there. The secret’s been passed down in the family since, I don’t know when. As far back as records go.” That’s a lot of non-information given about this massive secret that has been kept hidden under the Thames for an indefinably long time.

The enslavement of the creature is also a weakness, but still far superior to what the other two stories offer up. It is not the ridiculously contrived convolution of nonsense found in The Beast and Moon. Instead it is simple, straight up human greed. The Sutcliffe family at some undisclosed time in some unexplained way discovered the creature (or Tiny as the Doctor dubs it) and discerned that its waste produces a fuel far better than coal. The Sutcliffes have kept Tiny chained under the Thames and let it feed on unsuspecting revelers at the Frost Fair and then harvest the resulting fuel for their own use in their steel mill. The present Lord Sutcliffe is a caricature in the extreme but serviceable for the plot. 

And the plot, for its part, is serviceable for its true purpose, which is to explore the Doctor/Bill dynamic. This is the strength of the episode. Keeping Tiny and Sutcliffe as lightweights and not endowing the circumstances with deep significance allows the budding relationship to breath and gives the audience a chance to just sit back and enjoy what transpires.

The episode starts with a wonderful exchange between the Doctor and Bill about where they are and why, culminating in the Doctor explaining, “You don’t steer the TARDIS, you reason with it,” and continuing when asked how, “Unsuccessfully, most of the time.” This leads into some breezy yet substantive remarks about race and the nature of time travel, harkening back to the Ninth Doctor and Martha in The Shakespeare Code. It is conversational and casual and completely natural, establishing rapport in a few minutes and setting up some running threads that are followed throughout.

I’ll start with race. Bill, like Martha before her, is a companion of color; and like Martha before her, Bill briefly wonders how this will affect her historical experience, in Bill’s case the world of 1814. The Doctor makes light of her concerns, and there are some off-hand remarks about the diversity of historical London and how “history’s a whitewash,” but in a powerfully hilarious scene he confronts the issue head on, punching the insufferable Lord Sutcliffe in the face upon first meeting. (“Always remember, Bill; passion fights, but reason wins.”) 

This is indicative of the way the Doctor comports himself during this story. He is seemingly flippant, but there are hidden depths to him always. Nowhere is this more evident than when dealing with the life and death questions Bill puts to him. Bill is understandably upset upon witnessing the disappearance of a little boy under the ice while the Doctor stands calmly by, more interested in saving his sonic screwdriver than the waif. This prompts Bill to enquire how many deaths the Doctor has witnessed and later, how many lives he has taken. Now this segment is forced and a bit jarring juxtaposed with the ease with which most of the conversations have been handled in the script, but they help to broaden the understanding between the two and reinforces an aspect of the Doctor’s alien character that was most brilliantly conveyed in one of the best serials of the best Doctor (my opinion), Pyramids of Mars. The Doctor’s “I’ve moved on” speech to Bill is so very reminiscent of those long ago Fourth Doctor “I walk in eternity” exchanges with Sarah Jane.

The time travel aspects of the story are more deftly handled. Time travel, after all, is what the Doctor and Doctor Who are all about. (“It’s just time travel. Don’t overthink it.”)

“So what are the rules?” Bill’s “ripples through time” butterfly concerns ripple back not only to Martha and the Ninth Doctor (“What have butterflies ever done to you?”), they also echo back even further, and turn the Third Doctor’s explanation of the Blinovitch limitation effect to Jo (“Every choice we make changes the history of the world”) on its head. No longer is it the Doctor being cautious with the rules. Through the centuries and regenerations the Doctor has become inured; it is now the companion who ponders the complexity and heavy responsibility of time travel while the Doctor blithely jokes about Pete. (“Who’s Pete?”) 

This carries through to the end as Bill furiously looks through news archives looking for any indication that they have made an imprint on history. “Monster; sea creature; serpent; really, really big fish—nothing.” Again the Doctor nonchalantly brushes this aside with, “Never underestimate the collective human ability to overlook the inexplicable. Also, the Frost Fair involved a lot of day drinking.” And so the mammoth adventure goes unnoticed, and it is only the young street urchin Perry who gains. No mention is made of what Perry did with his newfound fortune, or if the other homeless orphans profited; the Doctor and Bill never consider this. They merely pat themselves on the back for their sleight of hand in gaining Perry the Sutcliffe estate and, in the Doctor’s words, they move on.

And they move on without a second thought about Tiny. Tiny, the mammoth creature whose hulking presence made so very little impact. The Doctor makes a big deal out of the to-free-or-not-to-free question of Tiny; and as he did in Moon, he unconscionably leaves the answer to his companion. (This, by the way, is the one area where Beast has the advantage over Moon and Ice—In Beast the Doctor does not force Amy into making the life and death decision, she makes it on her own—but perhaps, Gary, I should leave a more in-depth comparison of these three to another time; after all this particular posting is concentrated on Ice.)

Bill understandably enquires, “Why is it up to me?” To which the Doctor replies “Because it can’t be up to me. Your people; your planet.” That of course is complete hogwash. The Doctor continually makes decisions on behalf of the human race, often recklessly. This is obviously a testing moment for Bill, just as it had been for Clara in Moon. And of course he stacks the deck for Bill by dropping this heavy bit of wisdom on her: “If your future is built on the suffering of that creature, what’s your future worth?” That line alone warrants a full essay—the entirety of Human history is based on infinite suffering; but I will “move on.”

Bill naturally gives the “save her” order to the Doctor and Tiny swims away never to be heard of again. London is safe, Tiny is free, Sutcliffe is dead, and Perry inherits a fortune. All is right with the world.

It is an entertaining tale told amidst the delightful sights and sounds of the Frost Fair with lovable urchins (and I have to give special mention to Kitty, the mother hen of the imps and reminiscent of Nancy in The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances) and cartoon villains. Thankfully the more infuriating aspects of Beast and Moon have been toned down in favor of the fun.

I do have to make one last observation. Unfortunately Nardole has been limited to his tsk-tsking role so far this season, and the vault is still looming. At least the Doctor has decided to leave the confines of the university from time to time. 

It is with heavy heart I send this out to you dear Gary, and with apologies for again taking so long to do so. The last half of 2018 has been particularly rough, and you have now been joined by four more cherished souls. Uncle Claude, Aunt Dorothy, Aunt Eileen, and my own beloved father. It is so easy for the Doctor to say he “moves on.” It is not always so easy to do.