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| "So that's what Iron Man would look like in the lizard-people universe from the Super Mario Bros movie!" |
After a rare three-part story, series
10 takes a break from its overarching narratives for an old-school
monster-of-the-week episode – and the results are a lot of fun. The
bulk of this season has been so serious, and so driven by darker and
heavier themes, that it actually feels like a pleasant change of pace
to just have The Doctor and Bill go on a one-off adventure and fight
some monsters. One of the things that is most fun about Doctor
Who, after all, is its variety,
and the balance of serious and fun that that variety provides.
Empress of Mars feels
quite a bit like a classic-series story in its back-to-basics
narrative approach, as well as its themes of aliens being complex
people in their own right, rather than villains. Plus, it also
provides a welcome return to the screen for some fan-favorite
original series creatures. Old-school Doctor Who fans
should certainly be very happy with this one.
As
fans of the series will surmise from the title, Empress of
Mars brings us the return of
those Martian reptile soldiers, the Ice Warriors. While the Ice
Warriors never quite reached the iconic status of the Daleks, the
Cybermen, or the Master, they were among the most popular second-tier
villains in the classic series, appearing in four well-liked story
arcs during the Second and Third Doctor eras. After several failed
attempts to resurrect them (starting as far back as the Sixth Doctor
era) they finally made a long-awaited comeback in the show's 50th
Anniversary season, in the excellent, claustrophobic
alien-on-a-submarine thriller Cold War.
Now the show finds them back on their own turf – with a
twist. This Mars is somehow inexplicably inhabited by British
soldiers from the Victorian era, and they're about to start a war
with the Ice Warriors.
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| "I'M OLD GREEEEEEEEEEGG!" |
It is
somewhat ironic that, despite the Ice Warriors famously being
Martians, this is actually the first story with them to be set on
Mars itself. The planet is realized with some pretty impressive sets:
a network of pretty convincing caves, and some well-designed Martian
architecture. The parts we get to see of the Ice Warrior city are
particularly cool, striking a nice balance between ancient ruins and
futuristic alien-ness. The design of the titular Empress is likewise
quite impressive. Since the show is firmly committed to being
faithful to the original designs of classic-series creatures, the
standard Ice Warrior soldiers are decidedly vintage (though still
pretty cool), keeping true to their mid-1960s origins. But the
Empress is something new, and gives the designers a chance to make a
fresh take on the Ice Warrior, with very cool results.
In
keeping with the Ice Warriors being a throwback to the early years of
the classic series, the story in general has a pretty old-school
Doctor Who feel: for
the first time in a while this season, we have an episode that
doesn't really further a larger arc, and doesn't have the
philosophical weightiness of much of the Capaldi era, but is just a
straightforward sci-fi tale. The episode does this very well, with a
briskly-paced adventure-serial feel, and a dynamic between the Doctor
and the crew of Victorian soldiers which is pure classic-Who.
What helps it to work so well is that it isn't a straightforward case
of heroes and villains: both the human and Ice Warrior armies are
complicated people, with good and bad on both sides, with The Doctor
and Bill in the middle trying to find a diplomatic way out of the
situation.
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| "You can't have this carnival rocket-ship ride - it's ours!" |
Score:
-
Christopher S. Jordan
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