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N179 The Church on Ruby Road — The 2023 Christmas Special
Inter-temporal infanticide and a divisive song-and-dance number? We spend more than twice its runtime dissecting The Fifteenth Doctor's first big adve...B096 The Fourteenth Doctor Retrospective
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When thinking of how to describe this story, the term “jumbled” comes to mind. The intro recap is confusing. Unfortunately the best scene here is the moon, and it’s irrelevant to the story proper. There’s multiple scenes with characters coming and going so fast that one can’t keep track let alone care for them. Pacing issues abound. Many emotional moments are glossed over, while the exposition and filler moments drag. Even the soundscape is muddy. It’s just all…off.
Much of the story hinges around the conflict Dr. Chambers goes through, and it’s written and/or perhaps a bit performed unsuccessfully. To be fair this conundrum is insanely difficult to pull, off but it doesn’t work.
Next there’s the number thing. It’s a worse payoff than the opera house resolution in Battlestar Galactica. Way to tease a cool thing that turns out to be something totally irrelevant, and ultimately doesn’t even work for the trilogy.
Finally there’s Tegan and the Doctor. This is sooo not how I want to see their reunion. A little friction is what they’re all about, but there’s absolute venom here and it’s just unwarranted. This is no School Reunion. Peter Davison however is the story’s one shining light. Despite being written (once again) as a passive character, he delivers some absolutely masterful moments. Poor Janet though is just given the wrong material to work with.
This trilogy started in the future, and went retro. It seems the writing and direction did the same. 2.0
So my half-thought thoughts are that this one is a bit weak, but oh well. I do think giving Tegan a brain tumour is a bit rubbish. Something that is less obvious now is that at the time this was the only Big Finish Janet Fielding did, but then she started doing them properly 2010 onwards.
I really haven’t got anything else to say as it’s been a little while since I last listened to it.