2 episodes. Running Time: Approx. 73 minutes. Written by: Marc Platt. Directed by: Lisa Bowerman. Produced by: David Richardson. Performed by: Katy Manning, Jane Goddard.
THE PLOT:
Jo Grant is meant to be attending a UNIT-mandated training session that the Doctor derisively labels "spy school." But when the Doctor detects a temporal anomaly at the National Museum, he insists on her accompanying him.
They find the anomaly in the office of Professor Harold Saunders, who has come into possession of an alien tablet. He refuses to let the Doctor examine it, fearing that the Doctor might be a professional rival looking to steal his work. Reluctantly, the Doctor and Jo leave - only to run straight back after an explosion in Saunders's office.
Saunders is dead and the tablet destroyed, but there is one clue: Mrs. Killebrew (Jane Goddard), an aging hippie they encounter at the museum. Killebrew runs a toy repair shop (a "toy hospital") in London.
The shop is in ruins, apparently gutted by an explosion that Mrs. Killebrew says hasn't happened yet. Jo and Sergeant Benton find a room of old dolls, which seem to come to life in their presence. Then time catches up with the explosion - and for Jo and the others in the shop, time begins running backwards...
CHARACTERS:
The Doctor: Early on, he clashes with the Brigadier over having to fill out something as mundane as tax forms, a reminder of the sort of thing that makes him very frustrated with his exile. He hopes that the tablet's time properties will help him to escape his confinement, and he seems genuinely tempted to use it for himself. Despite the usual Third Doctor prickliness (and seriously, how did the often giddy and giggly First Doctor end up getting dubbed "the grumpy one?"), he remains compassionate at his core.
Jo Grant: Skilled at running interference between the Doctor and normal people. After the Doctor alienates Professor Saunders, Jo gives the man a warm smile and is friendly and respectful until he calms down enough to speak with them. She's also very impulsive, however. After Benton rescues her near the end of Episode One, she rushes right back into danger to help him. She also has a cheerfully materialistic side. During the long walk across a reverse-time London, she pauses to admire a pair of boots in a shop window. Killebrew sneers at her for being brainwashed by bourgeois capitalism, prompting Jo to reply that she simply likes the boots - which, inevitably, end up as part of her wardrobe.
Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart: One of the few "off" character beats is the level of antagonism between him and the Doctor. Even in Season Seven, when they frequently did clash, the Brigadier wouldn't have accused him of "playing games" once dead bodies started showing up - and by the end of Season Eight, when this story is set, he was barely questioning even the Doctor's most bizarre impulses. This is made up for in Episode Two, however. When he, Jo, and Benton find themselves cut off from the Doctor, the Brigadier refuses to be ruffled, pointing out that this was the exact type of situation UNIT was created to handle even without the Doctor.
Sgt. Benton: When Jo insists on following up the lead on Mrs. Killebrew, an off-duty Benton offers to help. He rescues Jo twice in the toy hospital, first saving her from spectral hunting dogs and shortly after shielding her from gunfire. He ends up wounded but, despite increasing blood loss, continues to carry on, insisting that he's fit for duty.
THOUGHTS:
The Doll of Death benefits from some effectively creepy imagery. There's a reason that "living dolls" have become a horror movie staple. There's something intrinsically unsettling about seeing this thing that's human-like but not human suddenly turn its head. Writer Marc Platt makes this even better by choosing to use a Victorian doll. If you've ever seen one in person, you'll wonder that anyone would ever have put such nightmare fodder in a child's bedroom.
Somewhat to my surprise, this story didn't turn out to be a horror romp with living dolls. The doll is part of a more complex story involving parallel timelines, one moving forward and one moving in reverse. That's even connected to the doll via its palindromic name: Hannah, a name that's the same forward or back.
The story has some fun with the reverse timeline. Jo describes the difficulty of attempting to dodge people and objects moving in reverse. Damage is done not by an explosion, but by an implosion, with Benton's injury the result of a bullet going backward from a wall and into the gun that fired it. Key scenes from Part One are glimpsed again in Part Two when events hurtle back toward the beginning of the story.
Katy Manning's performance provides a considerable boost. When she reads the Doctor's lines, it's a bit surprising just how much of Jon Pertwee she captures. Manning is startlingly good at recreating some of the patterns of his line deliveries, to the point that I almost forgot that Pertwee wasn't actually present. Her Brigadier is also good, always sounding one increasingly miniscule step away from exasperation. With Manning changing her voice and delivery style for each character, this becomes less of a reading and more of a one-woman show (well, with a guest appearance by Jane Goddard).
My only serious reservation is the ending. The story just sort of... stops, abruptly cutting from the climax to the present day. It plays as if someone said, "We're at 70 minutes, and this is a one-disc release. Quick - wrap it up!" I emphasize that the ending isn't actually botched - you can easily enough put it all together - but I think a quick tag scene would have made it a bit cleaner.
OVERALL:
Outside of the rushed ending, The Doll of Death is a very good story, one of the Companion Chronicles' best. The story is clever and well-paced. The visual descriptions are strong. Most of all, Katy Manning's performance is outstanding. The Third Doctor can be a difficult incarnation for audio performers to capture well, and Manning makes it look easy.
Overall Rating: 9/10.
Previous Television Story: The Daemons
Next Television Story: The Day of the Daleks (not yet reviewed)
3rd Doctor Audio Review Index
3rd Doctor Television Review Index
To receive new review updates, follow me:
On Twitter:
On Threads:
No comments:
Post a Comment