| SYMPATHY FOR THE DEVIL by Jonathan Clements |
| Story ? Synopsis: The TARDIS lands in Hong Kong on the eve of the handover from British rule to Chinese rule, in 1997. The Doctor visits nearby pub Little England, where he meets retired Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart. Shortly after orders, he makes himself known to Alistair, who seems incredulous at the tale of his friend having been exiled. An invisible plane flies overhead and crashes on a mountain, and they go to investigate. UNIT soon arrive, led by Colonel Brimmicombe-Wood, who sees Alistair as a disgraced failure. Wood knows about the plane, as it was carrying Ke Le, a Chinese defector. He sets his men to find the missing man. UNIT commandeer a Buddhist temple, to the chagrin of the Doctor, and the calm of the Abbot. It slowly transpires that Ke Le was deliberately trying to land on this mountain when he crashed, and is aiming for the temple. The monks have been chanting for over a century to protect the "soul-jar". Ke Le is actually the Master, who wants the mind parasite that lives in the Soul-Jar. But he tells the Doctor that he's been stuck on Earth for 20 years trying to find a way off it. He agrees to help get the parasite to the Doctor's TARDIS, if he then pilots it to get them off the planet. But when they reach the harbour, the Master threatens to shoot Alistair. The Doctor gives him the key - but the key to the Little England pub. He and Alistair get the mind parasite inside the TARDIS. They take it to a detonation site, where the Chinese plan to blow up all Ke Le's other mind parasites. This they do, with seconds to spare. On the stroke of Midnight, the parasites are all destroyed, and the Chinese soldiers under Ke Le's tutelage all regain free will, though this leads to chaos. The TARDIS is shaken free of its inhibitor, but the Doctor doesn't know where he and Alistair have ended up... |
| Review:- What if the Doctor had been exiled to Earth much later than originally? What effects would that leave on the world? A simple premise, entertainingly handled here. Thrown into the mix is the handover of control of Hong Kong in 1997, which provides a dramatic ticking clock, as well as one or two other useful plot elements, such as the Chinese explosions and the Brig's expat pub. He presumably was expecting to stay on after the Chinese took over... but best laid plans and all that... David Warner is introduced immediately as the Doctor, and there is little doubt who he is, even though Alistair takes a while to suppress his scepticism. His chats to the Abbot, or ordering drinks in Cantonese, are small but subtle ways to show the character of the man, whom he can only be. It helps that he has a pretty simple script, and some first-class support in the cast. Nicholas Courtney seems to get to play the Brigadier against many Doctors as he can, and here is at least a crucial element. His golden days at UNIT haven't been the same without the Doctor, and his repeated catastrophic failures have left him a humiliated ex-pat pub landlord. But he is still the same defiant hero, and is soon abetting the Doctor, even though he can hardly believe the man has changed so much. He also provides a contrast to his modern-day replacement, Colonel Brimmicombe-Wood, played by David Tennant. The young Colonel strangely has a very low opinion of Alistair, but surely he is in the same business, and would be as aware of the dangers of dealing with extra-terrestrials? Alistair sounds like he kept trying to make the best of a bad job, given the high stakes and the problems he had to deal with. But he does slowly come around to putting up with the experienced old boy, and a flat acceptance of the Doctor. Quite why his name is shortened to Wood all the time puzzled me - shortening Lethbridge-Stewart to Lethbridge seems fair enough, but Wood seems to be happy with it coming from the Doctor. Maybe this is just a quirk of the double-barreled name? The fourth major acting role here is Ke Le, credited to Sam Kisgart, for no very good reason. In fact, it's Mark Gatiss playing the Master. The clues are pretty sensible, and the similarity to the name Keller, and the fact that much of this story references The Mind Of Evil should catch the attention. Gatiss gives a pretty fair rendition of the infamous bad guy, who here is more neutral to the Doctor than any incarnation before, although possibly decades as a political prisoner may have sent him mad. Or maybe he was mad anyway? His agreement to help the Doctor is reminiscent of earlier stories, and his double cross is also standard stuff. There is a little mystery over whether the Abbot might also turn out to be another renegade Time Lord, but that's just a red herring. The "soul-jar" and the mind parasites plot does at least bring the best out of the main characters, and the Doctor is able to put his life on the line in a desperate last-minute effort to save the world. That he is able to come through this and present his old friend with a new horizon provides a wonderful ending, counterpointing the grim scenes back on Earth when the Ke Le divisions come to their senses and Brimmicombe-Wood and UNIT are stuck in Hong Kong under Chinese rule. In many ways, a story that stays true to its what-if remit, and provides a good, proper Doctor Who story. Well worth listening to. |
| Disclaimer: I own a copy. |