Deimos, moon of Mars – where Lord Slaadek’s plans to revive the ancient Ice Warrior civilisation hang by a thread. Only the Doctor can stop him… but an old enemy, hiding in the catacombs, has an alternative plan. A plan that will test the Doctor’s heroism to its limits. Just how far will the Doctor go to prevent the destruction and resurrection of Mars – on a day when his friends become enemies, and his enemies have right on their side?
THE RESURRECTION OF MARS
After the thrilling action epic “Deimos,” and the shock reintroduction of Lucie at that story’s climax, I was expecting the conclusion, “The Resurrection of Mars,” to follow its predecessor’s action style. I was quite surprised when it instead took a sharp turn and became a character piece – but it’s a testament to Jonathan Morris’s writing skill that it works as well as part 1.
To begin with, the Ice Warriors are treated as disposably here as they were in “Deimos.” As I mentioned in that review, this is a good thing: they’ve never been a particularly interesting race, and this story would have been brought down significantly with yet another exploration of their space honor. Instead, they serve as somewhat generic villains, but Nicholas Briggs’ voice work enhances their effectiveness. Their threat persists throughout the play, but they’re never the main focus of the action – indeed, when the time comes, they’re dispatched fairly easily.
The story departs massively from “Deimos” as its focus shifts to the Doctor’s morality. The Meddling Monk (Graeme Garden) returns from “The Book of Kells,” once again pushing buttons in the background – and it’s first confirmed that Lucie has indeed been traveling with him after winning his companion audition. But Lucie and the Monk have parted company over philosophical differences: he thinks nothing of sacrificing innocents to achieve what he believes is the greater good, while Lucie has adopted the eighth Doctor’s moral code, desiring to protect innocent life at all costs. It’s certainly no coincidence that the Monk drops Lucie off in the middle of the Deimos base – indeed, the Doctor almost seems prepared to detonate a bomb and kill all the Ice Warriors until her presence is detected. From here, the Doctor is faced with a choice: destroy the base, killing Lucie in the process but also eliminating the Ice Warriors, or refuse to sacrifice Lucie, thus enabling the Ice Warriors to continue with their plan to change the atmosphere of Mars and kill countless thousands of colonists? Naturally, the Doctor chooses the latter – but everyone, Tamsin included, is disgusted with his decision, not understanding why he wouldn’t sacrifice one life to save thousands. It’s certainly a legitimate debate, and the people on the rocket take turns to shove the consequences of the decision in the Doctor’s face in some very effective scenes… but then the Doctor reveals he’d already sabotaged the atmospheric converter, making the bomb unnecessary in the first place. Why didn’t he tell anyone this?! I understand it’s dramatically necessary to get Tamsin on the Monk’s side in the first place, but I seriously doubt she would lose faith in him if he’d said “Oh by the way, the converter isn’t going to work” at some point.
This is one of the crucial debates at the heart of Doctor Who – indeed, the Unbound play “Full Fathom Five” asked what the Doctor would be like if he thought the ends justified the means – but the Doctor’s personal history makes the argument all the more complicated. He addresses this himself, stating that since regenerating into his eighth form he’s denied the pragmatism that consumed his seventh life, hinting at a great tragedy that convinced him he’d gone too far. And the Monk provides an effective counterpoint – despite the Doctor’s protestations, the suggestion to allow Mars to die to save Halcyon is not without merit. This isn’t supposed to be easy drama, and Morris never takes the easy way out. But one ill-considered scene undercuts the drama, to my mind: the Ice Warriors destroy the shuttle, killing hundreds, and the Doctor’s only negative reaction is to yell “What have you done?” Within minutes he’s casually brushing off Lucie’s concerns, stating that the Ice Warriors were going to kill everyone on the shuttle no matter what had happened. This is terribly callous for any incarnation of the Doctor, never mind the eighth – so are we supposed to regard him as a massive hypocrite or what? The Doctor shows little pity for the hundreds of people aboard the shuttle, or indeed for the life of Gregson (Nicky Henson) – heck, even his defense of the fall of Halcyon doesn’t show much internal debate. I get the impression here that the Doctor writes people off in his mind when he knows they’re doomed to die, and that seems quite out of character. Maybe this is heading somewhere that will become clearer by season’s end – we’re clearly not done with the Monk – but at times this script seems to suffer by linking the Doctor so strongly to one morality.
It’s interesting that Lucie comes so readily to the Doctor’s defense, given that he quite deliberately withheld life-changing information from her for her own good. It’s also not surprising to see Tamsin losing her faith in the Doctor – they’ve had an awkward relationship thus far, and the Doctor never wanted to travel with her in the first place. Lucie almost gets through to Tamsin, but the Monk’s carefully-constructed web of evidence is too much to overcome. Here, we see how dangerous the Monk actually is: he’s just as skilled manipulating people as he is manipulating history, exploiting Tamsin’s emotional fragility to bring her over to his way of thinking. He knows the Doctor will respond by raising the Web of Time, and poisons Tamsin’s thinking against this argument. There’s very little frivolity in Graeme Garden’s (excellent) performance this time around, making me think this is a mere step in a grander scheme – and the hints about the Monk’s next move at the conclusion are disturbing indeed.
As with “Deimos,” the performances are strong all around. Paul McGann is too talented an actor not to have challenging material like this more often, and he rises powerfully to the occasion. Niky Wardley gives her best performance in her limited appearances, rapidly losing her clumsiness as she realizes she no longer wants to be involved. Sheridan Smith, of course, falls right back into her rapport with McGann, rapidly making it clear how much these stories have missed her energy. The supporting cast hasn’t changed since “Deimos,” and their uniformly strong work continues, at least until they’re all killed off. The same is true of the production staff, including director Barnaby Edwards and sound designer Howard Carter – apart from still being alive, of course!
Overall, “The Resurrection of Mars” is one of the most thoughtful Big Finish releases in memory. It makes a few questionable mistakes that keep it from reaching the highest of highs, but I admire Morris for choosing to push his Ice Warrior plot to the side in lieu of a fine morality play. I’m not sure why it took so long to get the McGann/Lucie stories this good, but I’m not complaining.
Highly recommended.
9/10