The Doctor, Bill and Nardole arrive on Mars, and find themselves in an impossible conflict between Ice Warriors… and Victorian soldiers. As the Martian hive awakens around them, the Doctor faces a unique dilemma – this time the humans, not the Ice Warriors are the invaders. When Earth is invading Mars, whose side is he on?
Considering that it’s so rare to find Jon Pertwee anywhere near the top of a favourite Doctor’s poll, the sheer number of references to the Third Doctor’s run since the show returned in 2005 is truly remarkable. In fact, if we were to carry out some kind of statistical analysis on classic series influences, I suspect we would find that the early seventies era has been ‘mined’ more than any other. Maybe it’s something to do with the age of the writers and the power that nostalgia holds over the imagination, but whatever the cause, like Rose and The Hungry Earth/Cold Blood before it, Empress of Mars was another unashamed throwback to those early colour days.
Yes the villains of the piece were born in Patrick Troughton’s ‘monster of the week’ season 5, but if Gatiss had already channelled that base-under-siege approach in his first Ice Warrior’s script, Cold War, here he has taken inspiration from the more nuanced approach of the first Pertwee Peladon story. In an unexpected twist that will have delighted continuity obsessives and fans of a certain hexapod alike, he’s even managed to make this a prequel.
Mark Gatiss also wrote 2013’s Cold War
The fact that Gatiss is able to include such an impressive amount of characters without the 45 minute story feeling rushed adds weight to the view that many of those 1970s stories were overlong, and perhaps the era would have been more fondly remembered had it been as pacey as the Doctor’s souped up roadster.
It’s worth noting here that with Chibnall bringing in his own team of writers this could well be Gatiss’ final Doctor Who script. As with Moffat and Capaldi then, one wonders if he’s signing off like a kid in a sweet shop, making sure that he brings back his old favourites just in case everybody else continues to overlook them. Not only do we have the return of Alpha Centauri, touchingly voiced by the original actress Ysanne Churchman now in her 90s, but there are several other shout outs to classic Pertwee moments, from something as specific as the ‘rank has its privileges’ line (The Day of the Daleks) to the more general thematic resemblances to Doctor Who and the Silurians.
As close as Gatiss is to Steven Moffat, he’s certainly not had it all his own way, and the Ice Warriors would have remained frozen out and usurped by the Flood (The Waters of Mars), were it not for his sheer persistence in badgering Moffat about bringing back the rather cumbersome warriors. Moffat’s objections were fair ones, they walked silly and they sssssounded even sssssillier. In Cold War the idea of the creature inside the armour moving so differently when naked gave them a new lease of life, and here to the disappointment of some, they’ve dropped their s’s. But design wise it’s hard to fault the 1967 originals and thankfully in both new series episodes the production team have remained conservative when it comes to their looks.
Instead of redesigning the Ice Warriors from scratch, introducing a new model (Victory of the Daleks) or replacing them with another species of the same name (The Hungry Earth), the prerequisite novelty factor is the eponymous Empress Iraxxa. Sadly this aspect is barely fleshed out and the politics of gender is reduced to some rather unfortunate dialogue with Bill. The other interesting innovation – the guns that turn their victims into Katamari balls, is also slightly wasted by appearing inadvertently comical through the deliberate camouflaging of the twisted body parts. One wonders how much better the effect would have been if this was a Torchwood or even a Class episode.
There were times in this episode when I was beginning to wonder if this was another unreal environment. The stereotypical Victorian Redcoats at first seemed like they’d been pulled out of a fictional world, like Gulliver and the clockwork soldiers in The Mind Robber, and the constant referencing of movies (the Doctor has heard of Frozen? Really?) seemed at first to be a set up for some kind of revelation that the humans were not real. Gatiss played this trick on us before in Robot of Sherwood, though it turned out to be a double bluff. But no, this really did happen thanks to a plot idea almost lifted straight out of the very first Ice Warriors story.
There was something about the characterisations that felt false - even the soldier thinking about his wife-to-be lacked authenticity as a far too obvious set up to his death. Compare it for instance to that scene in The Magician’s Apprentice in which Missy is about to kill the UNIT soldier. Here it was hard to feel any empathy for a single character, which might explain part of its retro appeal. Not that it matters for the most part, because this isn’t that kind of story: at least, not until the end when it turns out that we ought to have invested more in coward turned executioner Godsacre.
This was the first Nardole-light story in a while which was a slight disappointment after he had become so central in the Monks trilogy. Depending on how the rest of the series plays out it might have been better placed earlier on in the run. We are not told why or what has taken control of the TARDIS, but given that its presence on Mars would have in no way been a necessary inconvenience to the plot, we can expect this to be addressed in a future episode. It would be extremely disappointing if it turned out to be nothing more than a way of getting Missy out of the vault.
After playing the pivotal role in The Lie of the Land, Bill is also less crucial in this story, and does little more than play the role of the distractor, but as always Pearl Mackie is a delight and with every passing week the calls for her to stay on under Chibnall grow louder.
The episode ends with the unsettling image of Missy eying up the Doctor whilst asking him if he is okay. There was definitely something up with him last week, with the manic grins and disturbing behaviour, and such a question would have made sense then. In this adventure however, he seemed to be back to the more relaxed and less spiky version we’d so enjoyed in the first few episodes of the series. This may well then be a plot point carried over from the Monks trilogy and another reason why the episode proper would have worked better earlier on in the run.
The characterisation of the Twelfth Doctor has been quite odd this series. In Series Eight it was all about him questioning his goodness, in Series Nine it was all about the dangerous excesses of his relationship with Clara, giving a consistent thread in each for character development. In series ten, as brilliant as Capaldi’s performances are, it’s hard to keep track of where this Doctor is at. When Matt Smith’s Doctor bowed out there were plenty of plot threads that needed to be pulled together, and for the most part Moffat succeeded. This time it’s the characterisation of the Doctor that is lacking resolution and with only a few episodes to go it will take something quite special to pull it all together.
The episode might not quite work as a whole, but there are plenty of elements within it that could rival some of the finest moments in Doctor Who‘s long history. The Doctor’s description about the Ice Warriors, ending with the observation that they can destroy whole civilisations yet weep over the fate of a flower is one of many great lines as is Bill’s observation that the Doctor would enjoy watching The Thing because everybody dies (how different is this Doctor from Eccleston’s ninth with his unbridled joy at everybody living for once in The Doctor Dances?). Once again Gatiss effectively combines the old with the new with the juxtaposition of the period weapons of the Redcoats with the Gigantua (see also the spitfires in space in Victory of the Daleks) and design wise the episode is simply wonderful.
Mark Gatiss has been one of the show’s most prolific and versatile writers. From the unsettling horror of Sleep No More to the fun romp that is Robot of Sherwood it’s almost impossible to describe a standard Gatiss episode. Overindulgent in places and verging on the tongue in cheek (spot the deliberate Star Wars reference - ‘I have a bad feeling about this’), Empress of Mars is unlikely to be remembered as one of Gatiss’ best. But given his fine contributions to the show, if this is to be the last, then it is a well-earned extravagance and a fitting send off.
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