I know sometimes I have a certain tendency towards excessive verbosity. It's a personal failing. I try to rein it in, I do. Writing up my thoughts about
Stranded 2 is, as I've said, a rather difficult task--because I've just
so much to say. The end result is less commentary, I think, and more essay. But don't let that
particular noun fool you into think that what follows will necessarily be any more coherent than my usual spiels.
The big
TL;DR?
Stranded 2 is absolutely spectacular, and easily among the best
Doctor Who stories I've ever experienced.
And now: the long version.
Stranded 2 begins brilliantly: the set's introductory scene in
Dead Time is very subdued and low-key and it very effectively sets the tone for the succeeding stories. It immediately lets you know that this is NOT going to be a typical
Doctor Who story--and articulating just how and why that is will be my chief goal rambling, shambling mess of words. But first, as per my usual routine, some brief commentary on the individual stories.
Dead Time immediately draws attention to itself by once more doubling-down on the setting: 2020. I find myself curious on when, exactly, the decision was made to set Stranded in this particular year: was it made before the pandemic, or after? Did the writers/producers have any misgivings about setting all of these stories in the audience's "present?" But perhaps most interesting is the fact that Stranded doubles-down on this very specific setting--Stranded 2 was recorded during quarantine, so it would have been entirely within the realm of possibility for Big Finish to inject a few oblique references to pandemic without needing to rewrite much of the scripts. That they refrained from doing so speaks to two potential motivations, as I see it: either this was a deliberate move to further separate the "modern Earth" (and all of its attendant messiness) from the fictional "modern Earth" of the franchise (something Russel Davies was fond of doing); or this conspicuous absence indicates that we are operating within an alternate, incorrect timeline. The former is perhaps the least interesting, but the latter might be somewhat problematic: because if the Doctor restores the "true" timeline that mirrors about own, it would mean creating a world where 4.2 million people died (and counting) not just due to the virus, but the horrific and unprecedented mismanagement of their governments' responses to the pandemic the world over--and the creation of our current dystopian reality somehow being the "better" option.
Granted, Doctor Who has never been shy about the Doctor's actions producing great harm, but in general these darker consequences occur within purely fictional settings. There's a reason why the Doctor can't (or shouldn't) go back in time to meet Hitler: the moment he does, he becomes partly culpable--through inaction--for all of the Third Reich's atrocities.
And because we are currently enmeshed within these events, there's the risk of political commentary to the effect of, "sure, our leaders have mismanaged this crisis to a disastrous extent, buy hey, at least Daleks didn't destroy the universe!" I'm not sure just what the label is for that particular aesthetic. Poor taste, perhaps. No matter the case, the thought of it leaves something an ill taste in my mouth.
Moving on: I am tempted to make an account and confront
Dead Time's writer on Twitter--
how dare they allude to Live and Helen having a dance off? Put that delightful nonsense in the story proper!
Tania gets a lovely little quiet scene where they discuss regeneration. It is, I think, I highlight of the story. But--and maybe it's unwise for me to weigh in on this--I can't help but wonder if it would have benefitted from addressing Tania's own history with "regeneration." I acknowledge that trans characters in fiction should never be defined by their transness, but at the same time I think the Doctor's regenerative process has always been analogous, often metaphorical (at least until Whitaker) for transitioning. In other words, Tania is perhaps better able to empathize with the trauma and necessity and anxiety of regeneration than any of the many, many presumed-heteronormative human characters populating the franchise. Especially with regard to suddenly being a new person, and perhaps not fully understanding what all that entails--what to retain from the old life, what to discard, etc. And just the very unique problems of the people you know suddenly treating you very differently because you present differently. But perhaps here I ask too much of an already breathtakingly-ambitious and wildly unique set of stories. If I were to define, in a single term, just what makes this set so appealing to me, it would be "laid-back." So, therefore, perhaps it is for the best that these heavier aspects are kept implicit, rather than being explicit to the text.
Robin is definitely an interesting character here--I suspect he may be the linchpin of the entire
Stranded arc, such as it is, or seems to be. That said, I don't really know that I like character very much yet. His initial enthusiasm for time travel was very relatable and energizing, but then he stows away and runs away and just sort of embodies some of the most tedious "boy ward" tropes of the 1950s and 1960s. Are y'all familiar with this trope? I dunno how well-known it is these days. For reasons I'm not sure I'll ever know, this kind of thing was very ubiquitous in the media I consumed as a kid, despite much of it predating even my parents' childhood. From
Batman's Robin to
Star Trek's Wesley Crusher, ya' know? And, hell: Adric.
The revelation that he is involved, and perhaps partly responsible for this prematurely-ruined Earth is an engaging mystery, however, and I hope this series takes the time to chart out a proper arc for the character rather than just "time skipping" to an older, nefarious incarnation of Robin without fully developing how and why he reached that point. If, indeed, he winds up being a villain. If, indeed,
Stranded provides any villains. But I am getting ahead of myself, so let's shelve that last thought for later.
Regardless of what happens, however, it is monumentally, unfathomably weird that Robin winds up leaving behind a legacy that persists for millions of years. I think the figure is 5 million years? For reference, that's more than 830 times the total length of human history. Hell, human beings have only even been around for the past 300,000 years or so. It's almost certainly a case of SF writers being bad with scale, but the implications are fun to consider.
And lastly, I can't help but note how similar
Dead Time is to
The Unearthly Child. In both cases we have broken TARDISes, stowaways, new companions and secrets.
UNIT Dating is perhaps this set's biggest attraction. When I first learned of Stranded, I assumed that it would be a much less ambitious series emulating the Pertwee era. I was a bit disappointed when turned out to not be the case, so it was a lot of fun to ever-so-briefly return to that era and pair the 8th Doctor with the Brigadier. I'm not sure what, precisely, I expected out of this story, save that it would largely be rooted in nostalgia for the 3rd Doctor's era--yet, as has rapidly become a running theme with this set,
Unit Dating surprised me with a far more interesting and nuanced narrative than I was expecting.
Heavier subject matter is definitely unsteady ground for
Doctor Who. Recent episodes of the TV show, for example, have dealt disastrously with Companions facing cancer. Some enemies the Doctor can fight; others the Doctor cannot. And dementia is very much in the latter category. How does one combat failing memory? How does one defend against old age? It's a terrible burden we all face in our lives, often more than once, as those we love succumb. This instantly lends
UNIT Dating a degree of poignancy seldom seen in this franchise. I can't exactly say that I "love" this aspect of the story, but I must say that I think it adds to the narrative immensely. And the whole split-timeline perspective here is masterfully executed.
But let's talk about UNIT. The Brigadier sure didn't have much of a role in this one, did he? Consider my expectations subverted! But on the face of it, it does seem weird--doesn't it?--that the Doctor is so willing to check in with UNIT here. Shouldn't Kate Stewart's UNIT still be active in 2020? Shouldn't he check in with her? As far as I know, the Doctor should have no reason to think that UNIT no longer exists at this point in time (11th Doctor continuity snaggles aside). It seems an odd choice that, in
Stranded, Torchwood seems to be active while UNIT is absent.
But enough of that.
Y'all ever notice how some media seems specifically catered to your own peculiar interests? It doesn't happen often, but when it does?
Hoo boy. The premise of
UNIT Dating is one of those for me. The whole concept of the Doctor going back in time to steal something
from his own TARDIS? That's one of my dream-plots. I absolutely adore the very idea of it. Because, as so frequent a time traveler, what could be more convenient? And it makes a
fantastic degree of sense retroactively. I mean, think about it for a bit. Ever notice why the Doctor gets better and better and piloting the TARDIS over time? Put another, each new Doctor's TARDIS is in better condition than the prior one's. This could be because future Doctors keep pilfering components from past Doctors! I don't know, maybe I'm alone in this, but I just find this whole notion utterly delightful.
And as a random aside, I'd just like to point out that this marks the
second story now where a plot point has been a future iteration of the Doctor apologizing for the 3rd Doctor being a bit of a dick. The last time was, IIRC, in
The Death of Jo Grant. I suspect some people may not care for these bits, but personally I like them. As I've said, I love the Pertwee-era, but his Doctor certainly had some issues with his attitude.
Okay, now on to the fun bits: the time loop.
I was not expecting this story to be so funny, yet here we are. I fell in love with the very calm Ogron here. Did you? He's just so deliciously
done with all this nonsense.
And then there's the scene about Helen's brother.
Hhhhnnnnnngggggg! There's been a lot of speculation lately about the future of the 8th Doctor's TARDIS team. Liv and Helen have been around for a long time, and they're not going to be with us forever, so surely we've got a breakup coming, probably sooner rather than later. I think I've said elsewhere that I'd rather see Liv depart than Helen, especially as
Stranded seems to be setting up a life for her outside of the vortex, but I'd like to reiterate that here. It's easy to forget, but the Doctor really did a bang-up job of absolutely
wrecking Helen's life. Not intentionally, of course, but the damage is just so severe. It's impossible not to feel for the poor woman. I absolutely do not want to see her leave the TARDIS without some of that damage, at least, being repaired:
Helen deserves her happy ending, goddammit!All-in-all I adored every moment spent with
UNIT Dating. It's hard not to love these stories where the Doctor interacts with characters from his past. I loved it the first time I saw it happen in
School Reunion, and I loved it here--my appreciation for these moments, it seems, only increase with time, as I become more and more acquainted with the unknowably vast history of
Doctor Who. The scenes with the Doctor and the Brigadier here were just perfect... though I must say, I'm quite sad to think that--due to the temporal shenanigans--their best scenes together were erased from the timeline.
Baker Street Irregulars is definitely in the running for my favorite story of the
Stranded range so far--which, as I think is likely obvious, is a range overflowing with stiff competition for the top spots. There's this perfect scene early on where the Doctor is asked, "Does the good you do outweigh the damage?" And he can only respond with silence. Long ago, the Doctor asked himself, "Have I the right?" And, at the time, he concluded that no--he did not have the right to meddle in history to try and produce "better" outcomes. But somewhere along the way, in his centuries--millennia, perhaps--of travel, he changed. He attempts now--not always, but often--to avert futures he finds disagreeable. To manipulate the timelines of the universe to suit his own purposes. And very frequently, it seems, the multiverse is better for his intervention. That is, very obviously, the core conceit of the franchise. But context, as always, is king--and the context here is wonderfully compelling to consider. We all know what's coming, right? And sooner, not later. The Last Great Time War. A War, we know, the Doctor started inadvertently all the way back when he first considered that question.
And, I suspect, the Doctor now is aware that his actions, his interference throughout countless histories, has a price--one that will imminently come due. I think the 8th Doctor now, at this time in his life, still likes to think that the good he does outweighs the damage, but at the same time he realizes that this will not always be the case, and that the more he meddles in time, the greater that damage will be--a looming shadow growing ever-greater just outside of sight. It's a small, brief moment that excellently encapsulates just where the 8th Doctor is at this point in his life, granting us a lovely window into both his past and future with just a few short lines of dialog.
The main theme of
Baker Street Irregulars is, unsurprisingly, family. The bits with Helen landed quite well for me--seeing her life from this strange point of view is oddly discomfiting, and wonderfully compelling in a bizarre sort of way. It's so strange to consider that she lived through this war--that, not far away from her now is another Helen, just a child. If we assume Helen was around 30 years old in
The Red Lady, that'd make her around 8 years old in 1941. What a life she's led. What a life.
What didn't work as well for me was the revelation regarding Zakia and Aisha's relationship. Perhaps I'm alone in this, but I'd always imagined them as essentially being the same age--possibly even twins. Perhaps prior stories could have done a better job emphasizing the age difference, but possibly this is simply an inherent weakness of the audio format. The whole, "secret mom" thing is an interesting twist, and I must say I'm very curious how this reveal with affect their relationship moving forward. I really love that the revelation occurred in the first half of the sub-range, as it allows plenty of time in the future to really explore these aftershocks, so to speak. I do somewhat worry, however, how such a family dynamic seems to most audiences. Are people generally aware that this kind of thing happens? Young mothers presenting themselves as siblings to their children? I feel like it probably isn't, or at least shouldn't be so much of an issue today, due at least in part to the prevalence of contraceptives and sex education, but I've certainly heard stories from my grandmother's generation.
The end of
Baker Street Irregulars teases us with the line, "This is how it starts." Which is, you know, pretty much textbook foreshadowing. What do we think of it, hm? Is this in reference to the premature end of the world we saw in
Dead Time, or perhaps something else entirely? And either way, how is it, exactly, that Torchwood comes by such prescience?
The Long Way Round is such a lovely title to close out this set. I love it. Though, as always, I came into it with a certain amount of trepidation: would this be the first Dorney script to fail to live up to my increasingly high expectations? Nope. Not this time. I think I've commented elsewhere that I've been especially impressed by how well Dorney writes dialog, a skill which really shows itself in certain formats--like
The Long Way Round's interrogation scenes. So in this story he's really playing to his strengths, huh? I'm tempted to cut this commentary short here with just a simple, "I love every single second of this story." God knows y'all deserve it, if you've been patient through all of this splattering of text so far. But even so, I've just small bit more to say so please bear with me!
It was quite risky, I think, to feature McGann in only one scene--that it works regardless is a testament to just how well-defined and compelling the supporting cast is. I'm not sure any of the 8th Doctor's previous companions could really have sustained a story by their lonesome so well, certainly not to this extent. We've really come a long way, haven't we? It's stories like this that make me realize that as much as I think our over-familiarity with the current TARDIS team might mean it's overdue for a shake-up, that same familiarity is also a great asset. I'm expecting things to change, as I've said, but at the same time I expect I'll be very sad to see these people leave. That said, I am absolutely ecstatic that, if this is Liv and Helen's final set of stories together, they get to depart with a sub-range of such phenomenal quality.
Anyway, the predestination paradox at play here is a lot of fun, as such timey-wimey things tend to be when they're clear and coherent, but I found the resolution ever-so-slightly dissatisfying. What would have happened had the Doctor done nothing? The journey was brilliant, don't get me wrong, but the destination just didn't quite seem to be all it could have been.
Back in the day, so very long ago, my chief criticism of
Stranded 1 was Tom Baker's Curator. There, the character didn't really add anything to the story--he popped up out of nowhere, spouted some very generic prophetic nonsense, and then buzzed right off. In
Stranded 2, the Curator's role is equally small, but much more interesting I think. He feels less concerned about Very Important Matters, and more just as though he's there by coincidence, helping to nudge things just a bit before going back to his day job. With this, I feel like I finally more fully understand just who the Curator is as a character, and why he's "the Curator," rather than, "the Doctor." The Doctor is very much hands-on: he jumps into events, and interferes directly. He is, if not a blunt instrument, certainly an unsubtle one. The Curator, however, strikes me as the opposite: just as keen to interfere, but much subtler about it. The Curator, well, curates. I apologize is this realization strikes you as obvious, but it only hit me now, with
The Long Way Round. Now, I imagine the Curator as time-traveling through the multiverse just as much as the Doctor--only he very rarely ever needs to give his name. He is, I believe, a Doctor who achieves the same sort of results as the Doctor, but with far less damage--saving people and worlds without them even noticing he was there.
Stranded 2, very tentatively, I am willing to consider the single best 8th Doctor boxset (so far). There's just so much to love. I've seen many people describe it as "experimental," and that's an adjective I've been unwilling to use myself because, in many ways,
Stranded represents the kind of storytelling I've always considered to be
Doctor Who at its very best -- no villains, no monsters. Too often, I think, the trappings of the adventure genre are used as a crutch. What better--or lazier--way to quickly create drama than a big scary monster? That
Stranded refuses to rely on these old, cumbersome cliches strikes me as something that only
seems experimental because of how deeply these tropes have become ingrained in the formula of the franchise. Back when William Hartnell first started with this whole business, such was not yet scripture, and as a result storytelling in early
Classic Who was often much more varied. I think the greatest strength of
Doctor Who as a concept is its endless capacity for reinvention--it, far more than any other series, is capable of telling
any kind of story in
any setting with
any characters. As such we've seen the show dramatically reinvent itself--but it seems that after the advent of the 4th Doctor, that capacity calcified. When we think of a Doctor Who story, the tales in our imaginings ought to be far greater and more diverse than the adventure genre tropes that most readily come to mind.
Therefore I remain reticent to call
Stranded experimental. Rather, I see this sub-range as a reappraisal of what Doctor Who is and can be, and an attempt to demonstrate just how much potential there is within the simple premise of an immortal in a time-traveling box.
Stranded is not
Doctor Who trying something new, but rather
Doctor Who fully embracing what has always been its single greatest aspect: characters.
And let's be clear,
Stranded is laser-focused on characters. There are no villains here, no disasters, no monsters, and what conflicts do crop up are infrequent, and seldom of much scale relative to usual
Doctor Who fare. There's a very specific ambience to the sub-range, one that
Stranded 2 really revels in, to a greater extent than
Stranded 1. I have difficulty properly articulating just why and how I think that is. Ultimately, I think it's due to a lack of tension--or perhaps the better word is antagonism. There is no running clock. There are no problems to solve (at least not with anything resembling immediacy), just a steady examination and investigation of a diverse set of characters, their relationships, and the myriad small problems they face. The characterization, development and dialog scenes are all deeply engaging, and I find myself very fond of seeing all of these characters simply
being. It's a lovely bit of focus that's applied equally to the Baker Street tenants as our TARDIS crew. As much as there is no antagonist in
Stranded, I think it's fair to say also that there's no protagonist either. All are fully equal in this ensemble.
Ultimately this creates a very (boldly) different tone to what we'd expect from Doctor Who, and I am absolutely and unhesitatingly enamored with it. I cannot wait to see how this develops in the future... but I do have concerns.
Mostly, I think, I'm worried about how this set will resolve. My chief concern, as I alluded to in my thoughts on
Dead Time, is the great problem this whole sub-range seems to be set up to resolve--the premature end of the world. Which, presumably, will be tie several of the disparate threads together, most notably Robin and Divine Intervention. And I worry that these elements may come together to weave a more conventional narrative than
Stranded has been so far. Will Divine Intervention wind up to be "just another" generic evil organization (what with the fascist government they seemingly produce, and that weird immortal masked boy thing)? I hope not. But look, I get it. Sticking the landing with any story is really difficult. That's why it seldom happens! The journey is almost always superior to the destination, as the saying goes, and there's reason for that. But all the same, I can't help but get my hopes up here. As brilliant as
Stranded has been so far, I can't help but imagine--hoping against hope--that it will continue to be so. That the storytelling tropes and trends
Stranded has subverted so far will
continue to be subverted. If these first two sets have proved anything, it's that
Doctor Who needs no monsters;
Doctor Who needs no villains. A lesson I dearly hope is carried further, into
Stranded 3 and
Stranded 4. Perhaps I am asking too much--perhaps far too much--but I hope to see this sub-range end similarly to
Forever Fallen: simply with people, coming to an understanding. That is, to me,
Doctor Who at its very best.
Good grief, I think I may have overdone things. Sorry about that. I've nothing else to say save to echo the sentiments that I hope are resounding through the minds of everyone else here: the wait for the next
Stranded set is going to be well-and-truly brutal.