One thing that struck me when I was watching this episode is, where are Jago and Litefoot when all of this is going on?
Jago and Litefoot were two very popular characters from a fourth Doctor story, The Talons Of Weng-Chiang. This story was set in 1890s London and so would have been around the same time that this story was also set. The characters proved so popular that, even though they only appeared in the show once, the actors are still reprising their roles in a series of audio adventures which I've just started listening to.
The reason I mention all this is that this episode fees so much like an episode of Jago and Litefoot and I love it. The Doctor's new team during this time period, is Vastra, Jenny and Strax (a Silurian, a human and a Sontaran) but there must be some fan fiction somewhere that brings this group together with Jago and Litefoot.
Anyway I guess I should talk about the episode itself without geeking out so much about what might have happened. I was pretty tired when I watched this one as is just returned from a day out at Alton Towers. For this final week of my quest I have booked the week as a holiday, mainly because the holidays needed using, but I thought it was a good opportunity to make sure the blog was up to date.
Diana Rigg stars as Mrs Gillyflower, a woman obsessed with creating a perfect society. With her partner, the mysterious Mr Sweet, she is recruiting the best of the best, then dipping them in some kind of red goo to preserve them and housing them inside glass jars inside "Sweetville". Then she intends to release a poison on the rest of humanity allowing her chosen few to step forward into a world of perfection. Basically she's right loony tune. As the Doctor himself says "I'm the Doctor, you're nuts, and I'm going to stop you!"
One of the more disturbing aspects of the episode comes from the story of Mrs Gillyflower's daughter, Ada, who was apparently blinded by an abusive father. She cares for the Doctor as he becomes one of the many rejects from the preservation process. Gillyflower's ruthlessness and desire for the perfect world even goes right down to the way she treats her daughter. Ada is blind and therefore there is no place for her in the new society. It's really horrible. It's made even worse when we discover that her blindness was actually caused by her mother experimenting in her!
Strax the Sontaran is a brilliant as ever. He even gets a glorious moment to fight of some of Gillyflower's henchman with his laser gun before being admonished by Vastra. He skulks away mumbling that he is going to play with his grenades. Brilliant! I also love his reaction to the fact that they are travelling up to Yorkshire. He feels they need to be even more wary than normal as they are going to "the north".
There is a bloody awful gag about sat navs though which is unforgivable. Asking for direction, Strax finds a useful young lad who speaks in the exact way that modern sat navs do, and then introduces himself as Thomas Thomas. Oh good grief that's awful.
I forgot to mention in my last blog entry about the links to older doctors. From The Rings Of Akhaten onwards we have had a reference to each Doctor. So technically the last episode wa the turn of the fourth Doctor. I couldn't really pick up on one except to say that the exploration of the TARDIS was something that was done also in The Invasion Of Time which was a fourth Doctor story and was also the story where we saw the TARDIS's swimming pool.
In this episode there is more recognisable reference to the fifth Doctor era when the Doctor tells Clara that he once spent months trying to get a gobby Australian back to Heathrow airport, clearly meaning Tegan. This is further elaborated on when the Doctor says "Brave heart Clara" which was his well known phrase that he would use with Tegan...except he obviously said Tegan instead of Clara for those people who want to be pedantic!
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