We’re about to go to war, so it’s time you knew the truth

Could it really be a Mark Gatiss one-parter that finally exposes the limits of the Twelfth Doctor?

It’s a truth universally acknowledged, by me, that while the Eleventh Doctor rose above the tangled quality of his stories, the Twelfth has been inversely suppressed. Capaldi’s acting hasn’t been diminished, he’s grown into the role with each passing year and produced some wonderful and memorable moments, from deft reference to previous Doctors to extraordinary new depths. There’s no question that the New Series’ older Doctor was harly an experiment, but a roaring success. Yet, compared to the gamut of emotions the Eleventh Doctor grimaced through, the Twelfth incarnation’s been limited. It didn’t help that Capaldi’s Doctor was sadlled with, at various times, a prolonged flirtation with evil, a know-it-all companion or three episodes blindness.

But nearing the end of a season that’s seen him increasingly call back to Tom Baker’s Fourth Doctor, Empress of Mars sets him up to fall viciously and peculiarly flat. The unsettled looming terror should fall on the slight shoulders of the companion, here it’s carried through the Doctor. Watching events unfold, you can imagine many incarnations of the Doctor playing up to an evidently daft military scheme, or knocking the tin pot soldiers down… But on Mars the Twelfth is respectful, overly-wary, almost on the back foot. It’s odd. It’s unsatisfying. It’s extraordinary from a writer so steeped in Who lore.

NASA-trolling

For the second successive week a pre-title sequence ends on the Doctor’s grin — further cementing this year’s run of weak openers. It was just a few weeks ago that Extremis peddled full pelt into fear as Nardole and Bill wandered into the Pentagon, then Cern, then dying (in a way)… Now, the TARDIS crew are downright rude, careless and quite specifically ignorant. Yes, it’s all a laugh. A laugh that reduces the intelligent, brave Bill to shouting, “Is this Neil Armstrong?” across Mission Control.

It’s all an excuse to get to Mars of course, a really disposable one. But it inadvertently sets a tone for the story that clearly hoped to make an indelible impression on Whodom, but instead misses the mark by quite some martian. Margin. I mean, margin.

Out on the Ice

It was a tactical decision

This is of course Gatiss’ second stab at the Ice Warriors, the first coming when he dragged them out of the freezer and into the Doctor’s path for the first time since 1974.

Series Seven’s Cold War returned the Ice Warriors to canon with an effective but slight run of The Thing that managed to squander one of the best guest casts in the New Series run. It’s iconic status rested with not so much with the return of the indigenous Martians after a few New Series hints (Waters of Mars), or propelling them back to wet and cold conditions that first served them up… But in taking their clothes off. Pretty much what nobody was clamoring for.

Frozen history

You’ve changed the mindset of a very stubborn Martian monarch

Still, Cold War had an issue to confront. As legendary as the Ice Warrior were in canon, their four appearances in the first decade or so of the show securing them a second tier monster status, their history was purposefully contrary. Writer Brian Hayles preceded one of Star Trek: The Next Generation’s great feats, by twisting his creation’s allegiances between appearances. Thanks to the show’s time-peddling we met the hulking cybernetically enhanced reptiles as foes but left them as international peace keepers. Well, mostly. This wasn’t just some kind of proto-Klingon experiment, but a remarkable piece of science-fiction subversion. Cold War had to acknowledge that, and had its cake and ate it by combining a murderous stalker with a soft and noble ending of reason. thanks to the Doctor’s presence of course…

Leap forward, and Gatiss tries the same trick, but this time away from the Ice Warrior’s past to the future of the Third Doctor’s tangles with them. In doing so, he draws on some surprising continuity .

Self-reference

The world you knew is dead

On the way, Mark Gattis has apparently picked up some tips on self-reference from his sometimes co-writer Steven Moffat, perhaps mindful, as much of the coverage has speculated, that his ninth episode may be his last.

Gatiss scripts have often drawn widely on other sources, but struggled to break from the homage. One of his more successful episodes was Series Seven’s The Crimson Horror, but it was also one of his most stuffed (no pun intended). A stylish caper, he saddled it with references to Sherlock Holmes, Frankenstein and a hefty dollop of Carry On Screaming. With the exception of the latter, the appropriation showed none of the subtle distortions that legendary writer and script editor Robert Holmes brought to classic Who serials The Talons of Weng Chiang or The Brain of Morbius for the Fourth Doctor.

But with Empress of Mars, Gatiss echoes one of his earlier stories in particular, one that similarly attempted to leave an indelible mark on Who history and similarly fell short. The parallels to Victory of the Daleks are broad. Here’s a deceitful classic monster, feigning subservience for a greater goals amid some, well mostly, plucky Brits. An Ice Warrior washing up isn’t dissimilar to a Dalek serving tea. And not for the first time this series, the chance to draw out commentary on Empire is lost.

Victory of the Ice Warriors

This is Alpha Centuri, welcome to the universe

But sadly, the biggest echo from the flawed Victory of the Daleks comes in its square peg meeting a round hole. Like the Dalek’s progenitor story line, what could have formed a meaty, epic two-parter ends up offering well under 45 minutes of plot. A weak plot at that. The historic turning point, that aw the Ice Warriors turn to cooperation and peace could have propped up the mid-season. Fortunately, one saving grace comes in this episode failing to rewrite anything, and that creator Brian Hayles had already picked up the story of rather contrite Ice Warrors four decades before. (“this might be the beginning of the Martian golden age” — indeed).

I fear the Ice Queen is destined to go the way of the New Paradigm Daleks, despite her wondrous dreadlocks. And apparently follow wherever most of the Warriors’ iconic hissing went, alas. Maybe we’ll see her again in the Parliament of the Ice Warriors, that sounds like a Moffat/Gatiss cue that Chris Chibnall can quietly drop. Perhaps it was the performance, perhaps the prosthetic teeth or the way this Queen rasps “The Way of the Warrior” — but that female Klingon analogy stretches a bit too far.

The entirety of the Ice Warrior story comprises waking up and having the epiphany that they should cooperate. The rest is flushed out with some jolly Victoriana, and crudely dispatched class rivalry. the references come thick and fast. On Mars, Gatiss mixes in homages to Egyptology and Mummy films, derring-do battles of British red jackets, and a healthy (and overdue) slab of Edgar Rice Burroughs. But in the empty shell of a plot, barely any of it hits home.

Old boys network

You ask for mercy for these creatures?

As with The Crimson Horror, Gattis packs this old boy’s brigade with tortuous lingo to the point of nausea (Newgate polka anyone? that’s a light example). There is a joy in watching the troops of the British army bandy around the caverns, unleashing their Gargantua on full drill. It’s a big gun that, but far from the size its name suggests, a more apposite reference is Rabelais’ affable but greedy giant. There’s little joy to be dug from the stale plot that has cocky Jackdaw drug his sergeant in full confidence that one of his superiors has managed to repair a Martian ship. the likeable canon-fodder we follow for most of the episode are almost entirely wiped out in the climactic skirmish.

Gatiss seems to enjoy the class rivalry and light exploration of honour in the ranks far more than the confrontation with one of the solar systems’ scariest warrior races. Still, when it comes down to a rather cowardly assassination at the end (“you sacrificed one of your own… Without tactical advantage”, the honour of two military castes that leads to a rapprochement, is the mere tip of an iceberg that remains buried under the Martian surface.

Firing line

It’s too late, Mars stands alone

In fact, the clash of these two militaristic structures falls by the wayside in one of the dullest stand-offs in Who history. And it’s a stand off that damningly propels itself into a final act thanks to a script lapse. Without a peep to support it, the freshly awakened Queen/Empress turns on the fact that her herald, the one-eyed-Friday, had been the puny worms’ slave. That’s quite a slip, but it’s not alone. Either side of it we need to buy into the sergeant who was drugged, then magically appears again with barely a reference to the incident, ‘bright as a nine pence piece’. And the Queen’s horrible exposition to no Warrior in particular that, “It will take time to awaken all of my warriors, but perhaps enough are awoken to go on the offensive.”

The motivation of all involved is tenuous; the meeting of two armies that frequently come down to the actions of individuals. And it’s all the worst that it hinges on a missing line.

Doctor on call

“Always been my problem, thinking like a warrior”

the episode’s events are where the Doctor needs to take centre stage. Instead, he panics at Bill’s loss, at the TARDIS’ disappearance (as, presumably, HADS make a mysterious reappearance, just as they conveniently did in Cold War -”Nardole, what the hell are you doing?”). Instead of goading the millitary invaders the Doctor lies and covers when he magically appears at the officers’ table. Instead of rising to the situation, the Twelfth Doctor’s preoccupied with a mystery so light he could have simply blown a layer of Martian dust off it.

A layer that could easily bury this episode.

Stunning moment

Well, the Ice Warrior weapon is neat, albeit unpractical (or highly practical when it comes to clearing up)… As is the (obligatory) nod to the Tombs of the Cybermen – hibernation capsules that just won’t leave Who alone. But it’s all got to fall on that black and white screen, right and… Alpha Centuri! They even got the spectacular Ysanne Churchman back to voice the Sydney Newman-winding BEM. And she’s a rather marvelous 92 years old!

Everyday hook of the week

Well, it may be the fact that every film ever made is true, if Bill’s sudden aptitude for bringing them up is anything to go by (a curious piece of jolting characterisation, with few of them terribly relevant to the story (unless Gatiss is trolling Cold War by mentioning The Thing) — with a punchline that falls, with a dropped mic of a pun, to Frozen. Then, it’s all left to greed. You know how the saying goes, it drags you up to Mars, it unlocks ferocious aliens, it gets troops killed, it destroys reputations. It’s rubbish.

Doctor look of the week

He’s got his eyes back, that may well be it. But lets hand it to the moment he steps into the TARDIS to find Missy behind the controls.

Production touch of the week

The Gargantua is a convenient and surprisingly effective weapon, and the design really fits the bill. The steampunk space suit is marvelous too. What a great shame it makes absolutely no sense in its fleeting appearances. to think they could have adapted Martian tech rather than rush to (rather affecting) steampunk.

A Jokerside view

Let it Go, let it go! Thus did the Great Ice Queen banish herself following manifestation of her powers. I don’t trust any of the suitors that have come a calling. But when the bloody snowman with the unstable nose rocks up, well…

Vault action

This then, is the turning point. Knowing Missy’s in the Vault, it falls to the great guardian of, well, the Doctor guarding the Vault, to release Missy… Just because she asks. Missy really is quite bizarre this series, barely the same character seen in the previous two years. However, that look from behind the Time Rotor is golden. and there’s a gloriously creepy undertone to this nice Missy. “This can’t happen…”

Verdict

“Oh sod this for a game of soldiers”

The Series 10 slump continues. Oh, Empress of Mars is a technicolour riot that tries to tick far too many boxes, but none of ’em stick old love.

It’s founded on some preposterous turns of event and character shifts. particularly the Doctor. Given the revelation at the end, replete with a bizarre but pleasing cameo for Classic Who fans, it’s remarkable that the Doctor didn’t know about any of these events beforehand. At least, before their finale return, the Cybermen won’t feel so bad now they’re not the show’s most mis-used classic monsters.

Last time they go naked, this time the Ice Warriors got female. And shouty. Really shouty. Two appearances and not a single Ice Lord is enough to drop a review grade. But forcing these noble monsters, at once point masters of intimidating siege stories, haltingly terrible in the ice or on moorland, into a slavish plot twice on a row is cold-blooded indeed.

Review previously published on Medium (June 26, 2017)