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eve11All right, so I've not yet written up my thoughts on the eighth doctor arcs, but I've been listening to Six lately and just finished #14 today. And wow, for the non-spoilery reaction: for those who make lists of the audios you need to listen to, put this one on your short list! It stars Six and the comics companion Frobisher, and for those who don't like the idea of large mesomorphic penguins and think at the start that it's just another weird and silly story, just keep listening anyway. Because while it may be silly and strange, it's also more, and it's also brilliant.
I think this has to go down as one of my all-time favorites. I've never really seen Frobisher in any of the comics or anything, but I love the character that Robert Jezek does in the audios. Pretty good hard-boiled detective accent, large talking mesomorph Penguin, what's not to love? (And by the by, as a mild mild spoiler for '100', Six notes he's never traveled with a non-humanoid companion before, but doesn't Frobisher count???). Colin Baker was fantastic in this episode, and the guest cast all were superb. I especially loved Roberta Taylor as the deposed Goddess Berengaria; she hit the part perfectly, as a strange mixture of boredom and contempt-- the scene with her and Livinia in the cell was just amazing, and in the end I kind of feel like she almost grows as a character, when she chooses free will (although it could just be her contrary streak).
Anyway, I love when a story can take everything I think it's going to be-- funny, farcical, kind of a royal parody, and then turn it on its ear, come out of left field and literally become one of the saddest stories to listen to. Really, parts one through three could almost be self-contained; the cliffhanger for part 3 comes out of nowhere to set up a completely different story for the horrific reality that shows through in part 4. But if you look at it closely, of course all of the clues are there. It's not quite left field, but it's certainly a twist, and a good one.
The story starts out with the typical royal schemes and plots, in almost a Robin Hood: Men in Tights type of setting. The opening scene itself is straight out of Mel Brooks or Monty Python. Upon being told of the death of Pepin the Sixth, the scribe Eugene Tacitus is woken from his bed and thrown in the dungeon as a heretic, since Pepin the Seventh is the true Immortal God and he's been worshipping Pepin the Sixth for at least the last half-hour. And upon being told of the horrible fate that awaits him as a heretic if he doesn't recant, his reaction is of course "Oh, well, then, I'll recant." And he is doomed... to paperwork, and finding his own way out of the dungeon. And then we join up with the TARDIS crew to find Frobisher stalking a made-up fish in the bath, chastising the Doctor for seeing him naked ("You're a penguin, Frobisher; you're always naked!"), and then we have the TARDIS going on strike (even her background hum is a little more self-satisfied).
Add in a landing in the midst of a coronation where the new God-King's heavenly miracle is a card trick, and we've got quite an outlandish setting on our hands. So, I know the characters were all supposed to be one-dimensional, but the actors really relished the roles-- Berengaria as I noted before, and also Peter Guinness as Childeric. There were some fabulously hilarious lines. "Skulking around in dungeons doesn't make you evil, Childeric, just sulky and somewhat anti-social". Three acts of craziness, in which we get great snippets of satirical humor, penguins as Gods, and a Belibrary (ie, bedroom-library) of ridiculous religious texts.
Of course there's the real vein of horror running behind it all-- the deaths mount, the vivid description Berengaria gives of torturing her own mother-in-law, the gruesome fate of all that is left of Pepin the Sixth... but the real clues are buried deeper than that. A scribe penning a ridiculous tale, of fathers who hate sons who turn into fathers who hate sons. A son who doesn't exist, who the scribe doesn't want to talk about. Another son who's left to question what it all means if heaven doesn't really exist. That fake fish, a fantastic metaphor all the way back in the beginning, who isn't real but who thinks it is, and feels fear just the same.
And then, oh, that child. Even the name of the story should have warned us-- how many times have toddlers and youngsters been described as "holy terrors"? Oh my, does he live up to his name. I had no idea what to think when they brought him out, but of course the Doctor is much smarter than I, and he figured it out. The voice of that boy was absolutely creep-inducing. All-powerful evil children; there's a reason why they always show up in horror stories. It's because they're horrifying.
This one's no different. And then as the fantasy breaks down and the audience really starts to get an inkling of what terrible crime Tacitus committed, and of the level of his guilt, it really hits home, hard. The scene where Tacitus' emotions flood over Berengaria in her own prison, his horror at re-learning what he had done, and the very end when the only thing left to do is for him to kill his child over again-- that child is the embodiment of guilt, self-hatred and destruction. The embodiment of an action that Tacitus physically cannot live with, can never, ever come to terms with.
At the end, the Doctor of course for some reason thinks Tacitus can be redeemed; still thinks his life is worth something, but after possibly hundreds of years of running, wherein we can imagine that child getting bigger and stronger at every iteration, maybe what happened to him at the end is the best ending that could've happened. For all his hundreds of years of experience, his frankness at being willing to put death on the table as a viable alternative to a lot of things, it speaks to the Doctor's character that he still hopes he can save Eugene from himself, at the end. And Frobisher learns the same kind of lesson, because when Eugene dies, so does the kingdom, and all of the innocent (if one-dimensional and slightly mad) characters within.
I think this has to go down as one of my all-time favorites. I've never really seen Frobisher in any of the comics or anything, but I love the character that Robert Jezek does in the audios. Pretty good hard-boiled detective accent, large talking mesomorph Penguin, what's not to love? (And by the by, as a mild mild spoiler for '100', Six notes he's never traveled with a non-humanoid companion before, but doesn't Frobisher count???). Colin Baker was fantastic in this episode, and the guest cast all were superb. I especially loved Roberta Taylor as the deposed Goddess Berengaria; she hit the part perfectly, as a strange mixture of boredom and contempt-- the scene with her and Livinia in the cell was just amazing, and in the end I kind of feel like she almost grows as a character, when she chooses free will (although it could just be her contrary streak).
Anyway, I love when a story can take everything I think it's going to be-- funny, farcical, kind of a royal parody, and then turn it on its ear, come out of left field and literally become one of the saddest stories to listen to. Really, parts one through three could almost be self-contained; the cliffhanger for part 3 comes out of nowhere to set up a completely different story for the horrific reality that shows through in part 4. But if you look at it closely, of course all of the clues are there. It's not quite left field, but it's certainly a twist, and a good one.
The story starts out with the typical royal schemes and plots, in almost a Robin Hood: Men in Tights type of setting. The opening scene itself is straight out of Mel Brooks or Monty Python. Upon being told of the death of Pepin the Sixth, the scribe Eugene Tacitus is woken from his bed and thrown in the dungeon as a heretic, since Pepin the Seventh is the true Immortal God and he's been worshipping Pepin the Sixth for at least the last half-hour. And upon being told of the horrible fate that awaits him as a heretic if he doesn't recant, his reaction is of course "Oh, well, then, I'll recant." And he is doomed... to paperwork, and finding his own way out of the dungeon. And then we join up with the TARDIS crew to find Frobisher stalking a made-up fish in the bath, chastising the Doctor for seeing him naked ("You're a penguin, Frobisher; you're always naked!"), and then we have the TARDIS going on strike (even her background hum is a little more self-satisfied).
Add in a landing in the midst of a coronation where the new God-King's heavenly miracle is a card trick, and we've got quite an outlandish setting on our hands. So, I know the characters were all supposed to be one-dimensional, but the actors really relished the roles-- Berengaria as I noted before, and also Peter Guinness as Childeric. There were some fabulously hilarious lines. "Skulking around in dungeons doesn't make you evil, Childeric, just sulky and somewhat anti-social". Three acts of craziness, in which we get great snippets of satirical humor, penguins as Gods, and a Belibrary (ie, bedroom-library) of ridiculous religious texts.
Of course there's the real vein of horror running behind it all-- the deaths mount, the vivid description Berengaria gives of torturing her own mother-in-law, the gruesome fate of all that is left of Pepin the Sixth... but the real clues are buried deeper than that. A scribe penning a ridiculous tale, of fathers who hate sons who turn into fathers who hate sons. A son who doesn't exist, who the scribe doesn't want to talk about. Another son who's left to question what it all means if heaven doesn't really exist. That fake fish, a fantastic metaphor all the way back in the beginning, who isn't real but who thinks it is, and feels fear just the same.
And then, oh, that child. Even the name of the story should have warned us-- how many times have toddlers and youngsters been described as "holy terrors"? Oh my, does he live up to his name. I had no idea what to think when they brought him out, but of course the Doctor is much smarter than I, and he figured it out. The voice of that boy was absolutely creep-inducing. All-powerful evil children; there's a reason why they always show up in horror stories. It's because they're horrifying.
This one's no different. And then as the fantasy breaks down and the audience really starts to get an inkling of what terrible crime Tacitus committed, and of the level of his guilt, it really hits home, hard. The scene where Tacitus' emotions flood over Berengaria in her own prison, his horror at re-learning what he had done, and the very end when the only thing left to do is for him to kill his child over again-- that child is the embodiment of guilt, self-hatred and destruction. The embodiment of an action that Tacitus physically cannot live with, can never, ever come to terms with.
At the end, the Doctor of course for some reason thinks Tacitus can be redeemed; still thinks his life is worth something, but after possibly hundreds of years of running, wherein we can imagine that child getting bigger and stronger at every iteration, maybe what happened to him at the end is the best ending that could've happened. For all his hundreds of years of experience, his frankness at being willing to put death on the table as a viable alternative to a lot of things, it speaks to the Doctor's character that he still hopes he can save Eugene from himself, at the end. And Frobisher learns the same kind of lesson, because when Eugene dies, so does the kingdom, and all of the innocent (if one-dimensional and slightly mad) characters within.
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