Love & Monsters

This episode is likely to divide afficionados of Doctor Who into two very different camps. The first group may have been embarassed by this episode because of its overt humour, or infuriated by the lack of Tennant and Piper for much of the episode, (except in flashback), or bemused by the sudden change of mood between the previous two-parter and this episode. After one viewing, I was probably a member of this first group. A long-term viewer of the show (my earliest certain recollection is of Autons breaking shop windows off-camera, and I remember being almost ashamed to watch "Timelash" in my student halls TV lounge), when I spoke to my school pupils on Sunday (I work in a boarding school) I heard nothing but praise from the 16-year-olds so I watched it again with my 10-year old daughter who had gone out for a bike-ride in the middle of the first screening.

I studied the episode rather more closely and with a more open mind and found myself migrating to the second camp, a fan of this episode. My daughter, too, enjoyed it much more. Indeed I felt moved to submit this, my first ever review to Outpost Gallifrey. I should like to defend this episode on a number of grounds.

Firstly: there is room, and always has been room, for comedy in Doctor Who. Donald Cotton proved that with the Myth Makers and the Gunfighters in the '60s. Pertwee knew how to raise a laugh as demonstrated in his dressing up in "The Green Death". Tom Baker became increasingly comedic and there is broad humour in the scripting of classics such as "City of Death" (Exquisite!)

You have to be a very long-term viewer to recall a totally Doctor-free episode. As a means of resting the hard-worked regular cast, it was policy to switch attention from Doctor to Ian or Barbara or Susan. Indeed, the Hartnell era saw the only episode featuring no regulars. I didn't time Tennant's and Piper's absence from the screen but it certainly felt longer than 25 minutes. Might we still have had the ninth Doctor, had this sort of story been offered to Ecclestone (who has cited the exhausting schedule as a reason for quitting after one year).

As for the sudden lightening of the mood from the Satan Pit, I can cite many such changes of mood in drama. In West Side Story, the comedy song "Gee Officer Krupke" takes place after two characters have died at the ends of switchblades. In Jesus Christ Superstar, King Herod sings his ridiculously camp ragtime number after Christ's arrest. The point I'm making is that by changing the mood in what seems to be an inappropriate manner, the composers, and in the case of our programme, RTD, are asking us to enjoy a laugh, but then they have set us up to feel guilty at our complicity in this humour.

As for the programme itself:- Marc Warren was magnificent. We have all known nerdy fans who falsely claim to have a life beyond fandom. I will probably be lynched by fandom for this next comment, but have we found a new companion? This was an amazing parody but very true to life. Similarly the other members of "Linda" are very well delivered. Camille Coduri, as the lonely, desperate housewife, sex-starved Jackie was brilliant.

Now for Peter Kay, outrageous and threatening, camp yet sinister, in human form was again a great comedy act. As the Abzorbaloff, (and I loved the costume and the absorbing effect) I couldn't help but wonder who his role-model was. I suspect the near-nude scene was heavily inspired by Little Britain's favourite health-spa resident. I nearly expected to hear "Call me Bubbles!"

Do I have any criticisms? Well, I do feel sorry for Elton. How on earth is he to forge any meaningful relationships now that he's permanently hitched to a talking flagstone?