*This review was originally written before I changed the review format but has been kept in its original form (don’t worry, this is the last one in the old format!)
When planning this run of stories out I decided to throw in Black Hole for no other reason than I’ve mentioned it several times during the course of this blog so I fancied giving it another listen. It features The Second Doctor, Victoria, Jamie and The Monk, and is a fun story all round, but does the heavy-handed forced continuity hurt or add to the experience? Let’s find out!
Synopsis:
On a research station near a black hole, time keeps standing still. Investigating the phenomenon, the Doctor, Jamie and Victoria discover a power far greater than any of the monsters that have challenged them on their travels… The Doctor’s own people.
With the safety of thousands balancing out the need to flee, and a policeman from his home planet working at his side, the Doctor reluctantly finds himself involved in a race against time.
But nothing is ever as simple as it appears. And if you can use the Doctor’s compassion against him, you have the makings of a perfect trap…
*spoilers appear from here on out!*
The Good:
The story gets off to a fun start as The Doctor, Jamie and Victoria arrive on a space station that is so near a black hole that time is being screwy, including a fun scene where everyone else in a room was frozen in place apart from our lead trio (due to TARDIS travel giving them a “special relationship” with time) They soon meet the commander of the station, Flail (Janet Dibley) and a Time Lord officer called Constable Pavo (Rufus Hond), the latter of which makes The Doctor panic, thinking he’ll soon be sent back to his people and punished. The space station is nearly destroyed but they’re all saved when Pavo sacrifices his TARDIS, causing him to fall ill. The Doctor and Jamie then do Pavo’s next mission for him (more on that later) and we find out that Pavo is actually the previously-Meddling Monk, which is obvious now Hound has played the role a bunch of times, but was a fun twist back then…
The Doctor and Jamie return, but accidentally materialise a few days earlier than they first arrived and see that The Monk was actually who Pavo was chasing after and The Monk killed him and assumed his role, or so he thought. The Doctor and Jamie help Pavo regenerate and he turns into Commander Flail! Yes, we then find out that the whole time Flail has been Pavo and a latter version of The Doctor and Jamie have been waiting in the wings this whole time. The Doctor, Jamie and Pavo/Flail stop The Monk’s plans involving an invading alien race known as The Seeth (all voiced by Anthony Keetch) and once again bugger up his TARDIS controls for good measure. The Doctor makes sure Jamie and Victoria’s memories of the events are erased (again, more on that later) and they all part ways, Pavo promising not to come after him…
The Bad:
A good cover, though the pictures of Troughton and Watling are so over-used that they standout in a bad way to me now…
The only bad is quite a … well, bad one. Writer Simon Guerrier isn’t a fan of the “Season 6B” fan theory to explain how The Doctor and Jamie were doing a mission for the Time Lords in “The Two Doctors” so wrote a whole convoluted scene where The Doctor and Jamie do Pavo’s next job for him, complete with the “Stattenheim remote” and other references to this story. It sticks out so much, Victoria has to be put in a library, The Doctor and Jamie were sent there by The Monk in order to be killed by Sontarans, and generally it takes me out of the story completely because it clearly exists for no other reason than Mr. Guerrier doesn’t like the idea of The Second Doctor working for the Celestial Intervention Agency post War Games. He even has to write a scene where Jamie (and Victoria, not that it matters) have their minds wiped just so Jamie not recognising the Time Lords in The War Games still makes sense. So much extra effort just because you don’t like other people thinking something about the show… Pointless!
Even more pointless when you think about “The Five Doctors”, which sees The Second Doctor refuse images of Jamie and Zoe because “The Time Lords wiped your memories!”. So what’s the explanation there, Mr. Guerrier? Hmm?? *shrugs*. It ruins an otherwise top-class story a bit…
The Continuity:
So as already mentioned whole scenes are written to explain The Doctor and Jamie’s appearance in the Sixth Doctor TV story “The Two Doctors”, though even then there are inconsistencies.
Otherwise not that much. A few references to Victoria’s Dad from “The Evil of the Daleks”, an opening scene that implies this story comes straight after “The Ice Warriors”, and a few references to The Monk’s first appearance in the First Doctor TV story “The Time Meddler”.
Overall Thoughts:
The Black Hole is a fun twisty story, with the first of many great performances from Rufus Hound as The Monk. Sadly writer Simon Guerrier’s war against the Season 6B fans crushes the pace so he can try and force his own continuity into proceedings (and only succeeds in creating an mostly-working explanation for The Two Doctors but doesn’t explain all of the 6B issues…) but in the end it’s still a good story.