"What's happened to my hometown?"
Writer: Jenny T. Colgan
Format: Short Story
Released: June 2015
Printed in: The Scientific Secrets of Doctor Who 05
Featuring: Twelfth Doctor, Clara
Synopsis
Clara Oswald just wants a trip back home. The Doctor duly obliges, but he gets the timing all wrong. They end up at the end of the 21st century and Blackpool has been hit by climate change. It has become a hunting ground...
Verdict
All the Empty Towers was a terrific continuation of The Scientific Secrets of Doctor Who! This was almost certainly the best adventure in the collection yet and I think a lot of my enjoyment stemmed from the setting being a recognisable location to myself. I have spent numerous holidays in the seaside town that is Blackpool so taking that familiar place and ravaging it with the impact of global warming and climate change worked very well. All the familiar sites were covered in the likes of trees and vines and whilst it was still a distinctly recognisable place, things had very much changed from Clara’s time. Her desire to go back home and show the Doctor just where she was from was really nice and I was hugely impressed with how well Jenny T. Colgan managed to capture the relationship between her and the Twelfth Doctor. It certainly wasn’t an easy one but she did a stellar job in balancing the niceties with the difficulties that arose with the early stages of the Twelfth Doctor’s era. The writing of the Doctor himself was very well done with Peter Capaldi’s personality and likeness being well represented on the page which is always very important. Perhaps even more so in a short story like this because of how quickly the feeling of the adventure needs to be captured. There’s no time to hang around and I was delighted that this one didn’t have any issues in that regard. Clara’s initial reaction after exiting the TARDIS was good because she no longer recognised her hometown but the Doctor knew there had been no mistake with the coordinates. They’d just arrived a little later than anticipated in 2089. That’s a dangerously close setting considering what had happened to Blackpool in only 7 decades or so from now and it’s frightening to realise how likely things like this occurring will be. Will I get to live to experience them? I’m not so sure, but I have very little confidence that politicians on a global scale will be able to combat them. I thought the line from the hunters about the older generation not looking after the planet was very powerful and it highlighted just how badly things might get and the consequences for those that come after us. The reference to In the Forest of the Night was brilliant and very apt for the story that was being told. I liked it a lot as it was also a little humorous. The idea of Blackpool, and more specifically the Pleasure Beach, becoming a hunting ground was quite awful to think about but it was a very good concept that worked well. Even after climate change, people were still going to Blackpool for their stag dos which was a delightful thought. Will Blackpool every truly age? I thought the use of the setting was very good with a lot of notable landmarks featuring, but I do wish the pier that heavily featured was named more specifically as either the North, Central or South. For any reader not familiar with Blackpool, they could be forgiven for thinking the town had only the singular one. Given the proximity to the Pleasure Beach, I’ll go with it being the South Pier. That’s probably the best one as well! I found myself laughing a little bit with how quickly the Doctor and Clara were darting around Blackpool because they seemed to go from one end of the town to another awfully quickly! It’s a running joke between my Dad and I that Blackpool’s Golden Mile is the longest mile that exists. There is no feasible way that it is only a singular mile so to see the Doctor and Clara advance from the Pleasure Beach to Blackpool Tower so quickly was amusing. I’m not sure it would have been for anybody else! Blackpool Tower serving as the power source for the hunters’ ships which was humorously likened to being a larger scale bumper car scenario was good and that allowed for some intriguing passages within the Tower interior itself. I’ve been to the top of Blackpool Tower a few times and also watched the circus that takes place inside and that has involved some glances at the ballroom when departing or wondering through. The idea of the Doctor and Clara being there and dancing was just terrific and it was a nice moment for the pair with the former unexpectedly wanting to make a point of how good of a dancer he actually is. I guess I shouldn’t be overly surprised though with The Doctor Dances showcasing an incarnation of the Doctor similar to that of the Twelfth also showing up his dance moves. The Doctor’s sternness and authority in being able to bring down the hunters and their ships was very good and showed just how authoritative he could be. The silver discs were good and the one description of how it stuck where Clara’s neck had been moments earlier was excellent. I really enjoyed that. The comedy that came with the Doctor’s relationship with the donkey that he had named Meghan was magnificent and just great. Why wouldn’t the Doctor develop a relationship with a Blackpool donkey? Overall, a wonderful little tale!
No comments:
Post a Comment