It
helps that my assumptions about this story were totally wrong. This
is in no way the story of why the Doctor absconds from Gallifrey,
though the script makes plentiful allusions to Lungbarrow so
clearly Platt sees that as a story already told. Fair enough, though
as he has Susan note “there's always someone else's version”.
The
first episode is a patchwork of bits and pieces from various previous
sources, the little details about the Doctor's origins we already
know: the Hand Of Omega floats along unnamed, there's a silent cameo
by Clara straight out of The Name Of The Doctor, and even a
moment that explains away how Susan could have named the TARDIS and
it be the generic Time Lord name at the same time. There's even a
sweet scene that calls back, or perhaps forwards, to Idris'
description of their first flight in The Doctor's Wife.
Talking
of Time Lords, somehow, in spite of all the other sacred cows being
slaughtered and lines being crossed, Platt keeps to two of the big
unwritten rules of Doctor Who fiction: at no point in this story are
the Doctor's people named as Time Lords and there planet is never
called Gallifrey. No one seems to know why this started but no matter
how radical or revisionist the writer's inclinations might be none of
them use “Time Lord” in a story set before The War Games
and no one uses “Gallifrey” in one set before The Time
Warrior. I'm sure there's one or two exceptions (The Empire of
Glass springs to mind) but it really does seem to be a hard limit
for an awful lot of writers. Not that there aren't anachronisms
aplenty: there's a sonic screwdriver, the Hand, and a few bits of
Gallifreyan lore get described even if they aren't named.
This
visit to the very beginning is pretty brief and before long the
Doctor (and he is “the Doctor” here, which is a little odd in
light of how he gets named in An Unearthly Child,
but I suppose he has to be called something) and Susan are in the
TARDIS and taking off in a mad dash to escape the (unnamed)
Chancellery Guard.
Much
of the rest of the first episode plays out as a TARDIS story, a
prequel to The Edge of Destruction
in a way. It even has an explanation for the black sharpie
inscription on the fast return switch, which is both unbelievable
fanwank and rather cute.
There's a lot of “origin” material here outside of
the TARDIS stuff. Since we see this story through Susan's narration
we get a very sensory experience of the first time she and the Doctor
walk out onto an alien world. We get to hear their first encounter
with aliens and the moment when the Doctor begins his lifelong
obsession with planet Earth.
The big contribution to the mythos here is, of course,
Terry Molloy as Quadrigger Stoyn, this trilogy's villain. In this
story he's some poor pleb the Doctor and Susan accidentally abduct
(he won't be the last, of course) since he was working on
decommissioning the TARDIS as they took off. He's been abducted,
scarred in the process and is none too happy with the Doctor for it.
He's a pretty useful contrast given that Platt takes pains to make
the Doctor a rebel by his people's standards but not a hero by ours,
keeping that initial TV arc intact.
Stoyn is portrayed as a by-the-book sort of no ambition
who just wants to get home, a home the Doctor is dead set on not
returning to. By the end of the story it becomes clear just how much
Stoyn is willing to compromise to get home, a selfishness that makes
the grumpy, stubborn pre-Season One Doctor heroic by comparison
instead of invalidating the way he develops in the series.
So, overall: yes, I enjoyed it and it avoids a lot of
the issues I anticipated it stumbling into. Its really less “The
Beginning” and more “The First Adventure”, which is a much
smaller hit to the mystery of how it all began.
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