| THE NEXT DOCTOR by Russell T Davies |
| Story 44 Synopsis: London, 1851, and the Doctor hears a call for help. He is surprised to find another man claiming to be the Doctor. They are nearly caught by a creature called a Cybershade, but the new Doctor's companion, Rosita, saves them. The new Doctor explains that he lost his memory in an encounter with the Cybermen, who are up to no good here. His sonic screwdriver is just ordinary, and his TARDIS is a hot air balloon. The real Doctor explains the truth - he found an Info-Stamp with the Doctor's life story on it, and it backfired. His real name is Jackson Lake, who retreated into a mental fugue when the Cybermen killed his wife. They learn that flocks of children have been taken to a secret lair as a workforce. The Doctor, Rosita and Lake find a backway into the base. The Cybermen's human ally, Mercy Hartigan, is turned into a new CyberKing, but she changes their plans. Their base arises - it's really a ship that looks a bit like a giant Cyberman. Lake recalls his son, whom the Doctor saves when they get all the working kids away to safety. The Doctor uses the hot air baloon to attack the CyberKing, and break her link to the network. When she sees what she has done, she destroys the other Cybermen, and the Doctor sends the ship back into the Vortex. London saved, Lake is allowed a look inside the real TARDIS. He rejects it, but does invite the Doctor to Christmas dinner, and the Time Lord accepts. |
| Review:- So, is this the Doctor's future? The surprising teaser shown after the previous episode promised Cybermen, David Morrissey, Dervla Kirwan, Victoriana and snow. The brief clip shown during Children In Need set things up nicely, posing the key question - was Morrissey really playing a new Doctor, and if not, why not? There were a few possibilities, and thankfully in a nod to Minuet In Hell, (rather than being a con artist, as in The One Doctor), it turned out that a man in a mental state accidentally took on some Doctorial memories by mistake. Thus the touches of the not-so-sonic screwdriver, and the TARDIS hot air balloon become bathetic instead of crazy. The revelation of the tragedy of Jackson Lake is a fitting halfway moment, for what is pretty much a tale of two halves. Once the question of his identity has been answered, the Cybermen move back to centre stage, in alliance with the curious Mercy Hartigan, played by Dervla Kirwan, as the 2nd female baddy in 4 Christmas specials. Ah, gender balance. Alas, the reasons for Mercy's actions are glossed over, and the cause of her alliance is never explained. At least the Cybermen do get a half-decent explanation, although bound up with the tedious backstory of the Void, and the real bugbears, the Daleks. How they got here with the kit to build their CyberKing is less explicable, though its final appearance does have a vague logic to it. It's a bloody silly design for a spaceship, though. Its brief stomp through London is utterly beyond sense, and at least the final zap into the vortex leaves a way open for their return. Apart from the needless and irritating child labour angle (one word: why?), Lake's impotence in the face of his son's danger (since the Doctor had to address the final face-off with the Cybermen, it might have been kinder to let Lake have his own moment of success), and the paper-thin Rosita (worse than Martha, and a name indicative of Rose, double sheesh!), then this wasn't that bad on balance. Morrissey certainly made the most of his chance, although ruling himself out of the chance to take the big role himself (and probably for the best). But it was no surprise that this was beaten in the ratings by a returning Wallace & Gromit tale which shared many similarities with this, but had a lot more going for it. |
| Disclaimer: I have watched this story. |