Doctor Who: "Empress of Mars" Review

(Foreword: I was at a Who convention this past weekend. Apart from explaining why this review is later than normal, it also meant that I watched this episode on a big screen in the company of over 100 other fans, most of us in various states of inebriation. The next day there was also a panel featuring Ian Hallard and this episode’s main guest star Adele Lynch, from which I was able to glean a few bits of interesting information about this episode I’ve slipped into this review.)

Right from the start, there’s something different about “Empress of Mars”, and it’s hugely welcome after three largely interminable episodes with the bloody Monks. The pre-titles sequence has a certain joy and bounce in its step that’s been missing from the show these past few weeks. It sets the tone nicely for an episode that’s unlikely to ever reach anyone’s top 20 list, but its entertainment value and (largely) standalone nature is so welcome that it feels like a breath of fresh air.

Once again, Wayne Yip delivers the directorial goods. The post-titles sequence aboard the TARDIS rather catches my eye, and the central premise of the episode is something that could potentially split opinion, but he does a great job of selling it. To wit: 19^th century astronauts. The episode has a nice H.G. Wells-ish feel thanks to the concept and Yip managing to carry it off, which oddly doesn’t feel like an area televised Doctor Who has mined so much.

The story itself is pretty standard fare once you get past the idea of the British trying to colonise Mars for the Victorian Empire, but it’s such an outlandish concept I feel Gatiss deserves credit for it, and Yip consistently makes it work. The plot’s fairly predictable and rolls out some obvious tropes, but it’s wholly comprehensible, which is a big step up on just about anything from the last three weeks. The characterisation of the guest cast… well, its heart is in the right place, which is at least better than most of this series where they’ve been an afterthought. When the Colonel explains his cowardice, it’s a wholly predictable development and the emotional music feels a bit too much given that, but I appreciate that some thought has been put into developing him as a person. (And later on, they actually have a character pull out a photograph of his fiancé shortly before he gets killed. Seriously, Gatiss?)

The editing’s a bit rough at places – Ian Hallard stated that about 20 minutes had been cut out, which explains that, but at least the episode zips along at a fair pace and it doesn’t feel like there’s anything major missing, there’s just a few rather jarring cuts at times.

Gatiss’ writing has, in the past, felt like it’s mining his own nostalgic memories a bit too much, but there’s an example here that actually works very well. The Ice Warriors’ lasers use the same effects of sort of ‘squishing’ people as they did in the late 60s – but the effect has been updated here to create something incredibly disturbing. It evokes the past whilst doing something entirely new, and genuinely unsettling.

Then, of course, there’s the return of Alpha Centauri. A character last seen in the 1974 serial The Monster of Peladon (also appearing in its sister story, 1972’s The Curse of Peladon). This also works as well as it could – even if the viewer hasn’t seen the two Peladon stories it still works. And the fact that the production actually went to the trouble of getting Ysanne Churchman, who voiced the character in both 70s stories, back despite the fact that she is now well into her 90s and has been in retirement for much of the last two decades, shows such chutzpah that I have to give them credit. When Centauri’s rather suggestive form popped up on the monitor, there was a huge cheer and round of applause in the convention hall. Fair warms the fanboy heart.

(One thing, though – as revealed by Ian and Adele, there was a reference to Brexit after Centauri’s appearance that got cut. It seems a real shame that this was a casualty of time because, erm, that (or at least, EEA membership) was what The Curse of Peladon was about, and this story was meant to be a prequel to that! That such a perfect opportunity to tie the two stories together was passed up is a real shame.)

The only other problem I have with the story is that the TARDIS abruptly vanishes for reasons not yet explained, and takes Nardole with it. I feel like Matt Lucas has been side-lined for rather too much of this series – especially since he’s stolen the show when given the opportunity – and this doesn’t help. Might have been nice to explain why the TARDIS actually took off, too, given that it was the only loose thread in what was otherwise more or less a standalone show, too.)

Overall, though, “Empress of Mars” isn’t groundbreaking, but it’s well-made, and feels like a breath of fresh air after the saga of the Monks dragged on and on. Good stuff.