The Doctor and Peri journey to Los Angeles 2009 to do battle with a Piscon. His name is Zarl, and he’s a fish of utmost evil.
Zarl is going to steal all the water of Earth and sell it to the highest bidder. Or blow up the San Andreas fault. Or the planet. Or something like that. He’s a bit vague on that point.
Fortunately, to stop him there’s help from an unexpected source: a future version of Peri. She knows Zarl’s dark secret.
But should the future Peri be on Earth at all? Something smells fishy – and it’s not just Zarl.
THE COMPANION CHRONICLES: PERI AND THE PISCON PARADOX
“Peri and the Piscon Paradox,” the seventh entry in the fifth season of Companion Chronicles, is distinct in many ways. It’s double-length, it features two Doctors, it actually features one of the actors who played the Doctor, it’s the only Companion Chronicle to feature Peri, it’s the last one to feature the fifth Doctor, it’s written by the brilliant Nev Fountain… I could go on, but I’ll stop the list here: it’s also one of the most acclaimed stories ever released by Big Finish. And while I certainly see why it’s so beloved, there’s a difficulty to the story that left a bad taste in my mouth. I’ve been thinking this over for quite some time, and it’s late and I can’t sleep, so here we go:
The first thing you notice about “Peri and the Piscon Paradox” is how damn funny it can be, how so many scenes and situations get twisted into remarkably witty gags. This isn’t surprising from Fountain; while “Omega” was slyly funny, “The Kingmaker” was an overt comedy, and both were brilliant. The central conceit is wonderful: the sixth Doctor accidentally kills his previous self’s adversary before they meet, and so he has to dress up in an unconvincing fish costume and play the part in order to trick himself. But of course Fountain doesn’t even indicate this is going on: the first two episodes are entirely from Davison’s perspective, and the hints of Baker’s involvement are only obvious in retrospect. When the play starts, we’re frustrated by “Zarl’s” refusal to see reason; when it ends, we’re frustrated by the Doctor’s refusal to do the same! Sure, some of the humor is a bit too glib – the Doctor accidentally killing a sentient being is played entirely for laughs – but this is largely an elegant script, carefully constructed to function on multiple levels and reward multiple listenings.
This is why the ending is so jarring at first: if you’re not attuned to the clues, the revelation about the older Peri seems to come out of nowhere. My complaints are coming, but I have absolutely no problem with a Doctor Who story tackling domestic abuse. In fact, the story addresses the issue with surprising subtlety: on a second listen, it’s so obvious that Nicola Bryant is portraying her older character as a survivor, so much so that I kicked myself for not picking up on it the first time. The script plays up the younger Peri’s innocence, too: her repetitive desires to settle down to a husband and children are a bit much, but they serve as a counterpoint to what her older self never really had and never would. Describing the older Peri’s reaction to a throwaway gag “as though she’d been punched” suddenly feels a lot more queasy in light of the ending, and certainly not in a bad way. Honestly, there’s a lot to applaud here, and a lot to appreciate.
So why, why, why is the overall tone of the story so hostile? If it stopped with the younger Peri’s (and the Doctor’s!) judgmental view of her older self’s nose job, it would have been fine, since it all ties together into the revelation and the themes – but it didn’t! The narration is an endless string of caustic putdowns revolving almost entirely around appearance: Peri criticizes modern TV stars for appearing malnourished, with giant heads, but then both Peris turn around and lambast her producer for being too different from the ideal. You’re trying to write something sensitive about domestic abuse, so you fill it with comedy Southern accents used to imply stupidity? You try to write a scene in which the older Peri laments her faded beauty, so you have her grope her own chest and then, later, get into a clothes-ripping mud fight with her younger self? You parallel the Doctor’s regeneration with a childhood crush turning out to be a vicious, violent abuser?
This is my huge problem with the story, and it’s the reason I can’t give it a good score with a clear conscience. Even if it was a straight comedy, the needlessly cruel humor wouldn’t appeal to me, but “Peri and the Piscon Paradox” is trying to present deeply serious subject matter. We’re supposed to sympathize with Peri and her shattered dreams, but simultaneously we’re asked to laugh along with her as she sneers at someone for having “fish lips.” And even this might be okay if it was part of a larger point, perhaps about Peri trying to cover for her own insecurities, but it demonstrably isn’t.
This wasn’t easy to write. There’s a lot of good here, and I haven’t even mentioned John Ainsworth’s direction, Jamie Robertson’s sound design, or the stunning central performance from Nicola Bryant. I also haven’t mentioned Colin Baker’s hilarious turn in the supporting role, but frankly I just didn’t find these elements particularly important. I very much admire Nev Fountain’s work, but “Peri and the Piscon Paradox” declines in my estimation every time I think about it. I’m not sure where something this misguided came from, but I definitely don’t want to hear anything like it again. I’ve often said that boredom is the worst feeling a Doctor Who story can inspire in me, but that’s a rhetorical point. The sad truth is that disgust is the worst feeling a Doctor Who story can inspire, and “Peri and the Piscon Paradox” is on a very short list of Doctor Who media to do that. There’s still a lot of good here, even great, but…
…I have to stop thinking about it.
4/10
(Thanks to Eiphel on the Gallifrey Base forums for writing a review that helped crystallize many of my uncertain thoughts about this story.)