Doctor Who Season 26: Ace for the win

The darker Doctor Who under Sylvester McCoy continues through his final season – he even changes jackets from white to brown (alas, he is still stuck with the question-mark sweater). The season also points to some intriguing directions the show could have taken if there had been a season 27. Some of these ideas did finally come to fruition – but not until 2005.

Battlefield

Here’s a rousing start to the season, with the Doctor as Merlin, Ace as the Lady of the Lake, and the Brig coming back for one last go on Doctor Who. (Nicholas Courtney would never appear on the revised series, though his character is mentioned a few times. He would show up on the spin-off Sarah Jane Adventures.) The plot involves cross-dimensional baddies invading a small part of the English countryside, bent on destruction. There’s also a nuclear weapon for fun (and to make some less-than-subtle political points). Oh, and Bessie – the Third Doctor’s beloved roadster – makes an appearance. Yay!

Ghost Light

The rest of the year is given over to a loosely connected trilogy of “Ace” stories, allowing us to dig pretty deep into one of the Doctor’s companions. Hey, it only took 26 years to get to this point. Ghost Light travels to Victorian England and to a haunted house that frightened the young Ace so much she burned it down. 

What follows is an absolutely confounding story that involves aliens, evolution, and a lot of mucking about inside the house. The patience is paid off somewhat in interesting performances and some startling moments, but it still makes my head hurt everything I watch it and try to work out exactly what’s happening.

The Curse of Fenric

And here we get the template for the modern Doctor Who. Don’t believe me? A companion with a troubled relationship with her mother travels back in time, and meets the infant version of that mother (similar to Rose meeting her self in Father’s Day). The plot involves the time-traveling future of humanity mucking about in the past (the Master trilogy in David Tennant’s second season) trying to claim the Earth as their own. We even get a troubled historical figure, though in this case they’ve disguised that a bit. The brilliant Dr. Judson is an analog of Alan Turing, with the real scientist’s sexual orientation transformed into a crippling injury. Some things were too hot to handle in the 1980s.

Underneath the story – time traveling future humans attacking a community in World War II Britain – is Ace, who confronts not only her own past and relationship with her mother, but her very faith in the Doctor. To eventually defeat the baddies, the Doctor has to break Ace’s faith in him. It’s a terrifying, heartbreaking moment – but one that allows Ace to be stronger on the other side. There’s even a final, cleansing swim to wrap it all up.

Survival

And here’s the end that, like so many stories in this era, is a collection of good ideas shortchanged by execution. Let’s take care of the troubles first. This is a story about alien cat predators kidnapping youth in Ace’s hometown for a hunt. They aren’t frightening. Instead, the faux fur costumes make them look like rejects from a Puss in Boots convention. Then there’s an animatronic cat that is convincing for a millisecond. Sadly, it’s on screen for long stretches of time (the real cats hired for the series turned out to be too finicky and refused to cooperate on camera).

If you can look past all of that, there’s plenty to like. The script, by playwright Nona Munro, shows a sophistication, reality and depth rarely seen in the original run of the program (another way this season presages the revival). Ace’s journey wraps up back in her dull London home, and she is able to not just cope but help her surviving friends escape their cat trouble. There are good guest performances throughout. And the Master shows up for the first time in years, in a new muted costume and a performance that was a bit less than over the top from Anthony Ainley.

Knowing that the show was unlikely to return, the producers were able to slip a final speech for Sylvester as a voice over at the end, giving him better final lines than poor Colin Baker (“carrot juice”):

There are worlds out there where the sky is burning, and the sea's asleep, and the rivers dream. People made of smoke, and cities made of song. Somewhere there's danger, somewhere there’s injustice, and somewhere else the tea's getting cold. Come on, Ace — we’ve got work to do!

Next time: the 16-year wait, or “why is Eric Roberts playing the Master?”