Love & Monsters

Well, I never thought there would be a Doctor Who story that made Dimensions in Time look good...

This episode is bound to divide opinion, but I can't help feeling it was actually decidedly average. Not abysmal, just mediocre.

Let me say this: I am not opposed to the idea of an episode without the Doctor and Rose taking centre stage (or even featuring heavily). This happened routinely in the '60s when the lead actors needed to take a holiday, and I don't think the series suffered because of it. Nor am I closed to the idea of an episode being narrated by a 'third party' as if to give us a view of the regular characters that we would not usually get. Nor am I even opposed to the idea of an episode lampooning Doctor Who fans. The Greatest Show in the Galaxy did this pretty obviously, although it actually seems subtle in comparison with Love and Monsters. Nor am I against oddball stories - I thought Bad Wolf, Father's Day, and The Girl in the Fireplace were all excellent.

My problem with this episode is that is just doesn't work - and that it doesn't add up to anything. Elton Pope had to be a sympathetic and interesting narrator, but surely he was just too geeky and cringe-worthy to appeal to non-fans and too close-to-the-bone for most fans to (willingly) identify with. (Actually, the scenes in the flat with Jackie reminded me of Confessions of a Window Cleaner, but that's neither here nor there).

The point of the episode was obviously to parody fans of the series, but there is a problem with this too: Doctor Who fans do not actually get to meet the Doctor!! And, if it was a parody, what was is SAYING? I find it difficult to detect any coherent message, except that we are all kind of sweet but basically pretty cretinous. And, if the point was to investigate the relationship between fans and the series, surely it missed one very significant idea - i.e. that many fans adopt Doctorish mannerisms in their everyday lives. Or do we become obsessed with the Doctor to make up for some loss - e.g. a parent? Really? Is that a fair - or even an interesting - generalisation?

And what does it say to the new fans of the series we desperately need to retain? You are like this? You will become like this? The series really belongs to people like this and not to you? Perhaps others are smart enough to see a coherent message in all of this, but I JUST DON'T GET IT.

I guess another reading is that we get to see what happens to the people the Doctor leaves behind (like Sarah Jane). But, other than Elton, the 'fans' do not have any backgrounds. (At first, I thought Ursula reminded me of the girl with the collecting tin in Survival, but of course she wasn't - she was just some random.) And even so, the theme is surely not strong enough to sustain a whole episode - it cannot replace the story!

I don't think this episode was as bad as Boom Town! or The Idiot's Lantern, but it really was a missed opportunity. If only RTD had used the slot as a Part 2 for New Earth or Tooth and Claw and fleshed out some of those ideas. Or why didn't we revisit the guy from Rose who took an interest in the Doctor? Or why didn't we touch on a few earlier Doctor Who adventures - e.g. the 'Zygon gambit'. Love and Monsters had the feel of a RDT clips show.

But the biggest problem is simply that the series is losing the knack of telling a good story. This sort of navel gazing would be fine if it ran alongside a story and complemented the action, but here the story was given over entirely to navel gazing.

Admittedly, the brilliance of the series lies in the unique flexibility of the format, and so perhaps we just have to accept that experimentation will sometimes deal us a duff episode. But we are all being asked to tolerate RTD's indulgences. If any other writer served up an episode like this, it would surely go straight in the bin. RTD has got to understand that you can do the funny stuff and the self-reflexive stuff, but it has to complement a good story. Love and Monsters has done something I didn't think possible: It has got me pining for The Krotons.