Good Grief: He’s clearly very distracted by his tussle not to notice that the Jo standing in front of him has aged about 50 years from the one who usually accompanies him. He thought she’d just had another night on the town with Mike. The Doctor assumes this is the Jo Grant that he travelled with and is astonished that she can follow the scientific gobbledegook that is flying around. I love how it refuses to shy away from how patronising the third Doctor can be. The Doctor suggests that they all stop for lunch in the local pub in the middle of the crisis, much to Kate’s astonishment. He seems to spend his time bouncing from one apocalypse to another. It’s a relief for him to see that Jo survives his company. The Doctor always thinks of something; its usually mad and shouldn’t work. For a time, not long after she bumbled into his lab he didn’t realise how lucky he was to have her but he know realises that Jo was always brilliant. He’s not sure he taught her anything important that she didn’t already know. He knows what he is supposed to do and what he’s not supposed to do but when it comes to Jo Grant he will always break the rules.
Dippy Agent: Jo wonders if Kate calls the anomaly ‘holes in time’ because she is present and, well, she’s a bit dippy. Jo is more interested in whether they will be visiting the nudist beach in Dorset than investigating the temporal anomalies. The Doctor used to go off on his own adventures with Jo whilst she was stuck back at HQ going through reported sightings of the Master. What on Earth do you do when somebody crops up and claims you took part in an adventure that you don’t remember that you died in it? That’s got to put a crimp in your day. Jo clearly isn’t a temporal anomaly because her continued presence hasn’t torn the world apart. She always feels like she should salute when she is introduced to UNIT officers, obviously something that was programmed into her by the Brigadier. Showing just how things have changed since her time at UNIT, Jo is astonished (and delighted) that they now rehome aliens that mean no harm. There’s a glorious moment when Jo dives straight into danger without thinking and Kate can’t help commenting on it. Jo knows precisely when the Doctor is lying, she knows him too well not to see it. Jo doesn’t want to tell the Doctor about her future but he assures her a bit of gossip is fine. Imagine juggling 7 children and 13 grandchildren! She assures the Doctor it is a wonderful life. The Doctor is sure that the world cannot spare Jo. She tries really hard to describe her time with the Doctor and she settles on absurd and exciting. There’s a moment when I really thought they were going to go through with Jo dying and I had goosebumps all over.
UNIT: I’ve not heard any of the UNIT box sets since they took their divergence into the New Series, not because I am not fond of the characters of Osgood and Kate Stewart but just because an oversaturated market has meant that I have had to make some savvy choices about how to spend my time. I’ve heard mixed reviews (like reviewers know anything about what I’m going to like?) and it does feel like they are opting for the nostalgia element rather than running with anything truly fresh. When the War Master, the Cybermen, the Wirrn and her from Mind of Evil all showing up this is clearly designed to marry New Who with classic Who. I’m sure they are perfectly entertaining but not one set has reached out and shook me awake enough to devote time to them. On the strength of this story, perhaps that is an oversight on my part. Listen to Kate Stewart as she talks about Doctor. She’s hardly at her most complimentary. Osgood always feels you can be surprised what you can do with junk. Was it my imagination or has Kate Stewart lost all sense of humour on audio? She hates being lost, she is a scientist and often reduced to a layman when dealing with this kind of case. She genuinely believes that it should have been her to sacrifice her life, rather than Jo.
Standout Performance: Well it wouldn’t be a Big Finish story if Nicholas Briggs didn’t play a part somewhere. Katy Manning deserves the spotlight that she gets here and Jo is typically wonderful; enthusiastic, emotional, likeable and capable.
Sparkling Dialogue: ‘I can’t just walk off and have lunch!’
‘Please don’t tell me I’m five minutes away from watching a Brontosaurus knock a church over.’
‘He can face up to Daleks, Drashigs and Bandrils, but I think I’ve found the one thing in the universe that really scares the Doctor…’ ‘Not at all, I love children!’ ‘I was talking about responsibility.’
‘Jo, I’d tell you to stop trying to sacrifice yourself to save the planet but you wouldn’t listen. Quite right too.’
Great Ideas: You cannot start a story with a tagline of ‘we’re killing off Jo Grant’ and then fail to deliver upon it. What a way to kick things off. Slightly more amusing is the suggestion that Jo and Osgood are in a situation of mortal peril that turns out to be nothing more than a dramatic water slide. There are pockets of temporal instability are fluctuating with alarming regularity. The fabric of space/time is something you don’t want to poke great holes in and they could be looking at a potential extinction event. Must be Tuesday. Nothing screams Pertwee Who more than temporal jiggery pokery occurring in a cute coastal town. The gag about 16th Century peasants being stuck in the 21st recall both The Time Monster and Invasion of the Dinosaurs. People digging themselves out of the ground.
Audio Landscape: The sound effect for the time flow analogue. Nothing can ruffle your fan feathers more than a sound effect from the classic series.
Standout Scene: ‘Kate, how many people get a chance like this? If you don’t do this you’ll never forgive yourself…’ How remiss of Kate not to realise that this version of the Doctor has a close working relationship with her father. When he mentions his name, she’s in shock. That’s when I knew that we were in for a lot of feels. She’s tempted to make a call to him but is snapped out of it before she has the opportunity. The Brigadier never knew he was talking to, but to Kate it is the most important moment in her life. Also, the moment Jo finally says ‘I love you Doctor.’
Result: ‘Whatever I am Doctor, I learnt from you’ ‘Nonsense, Jo. You were brilliant from the moment you arrived in my lab…’ There’s holes in time that allow characters from the past to connect with characters from now. That’s the basic plot of The Sacrifice of Jo Grant but by describing it so you would doing it a huge disservice. It has all the emotional weight of Find and Replace and that story could be summed with a similarly basic plot device to allow the Doctor and Jo to communicate. What matters here is the feelings of everybody involved and the heft of nostalgia that it generates. Adams is right on the button with making you long for the Doctor and Jo to go off on adventures together again and in bringing together Kate and her father, it taps into a poignancy that is rare in Doctor Who stories. I was holding back tears at one point and that just isn’t like me at all. This isn’t just a celebration of Pertwee Who or the Big Finish UNIT series, it’s a celebration of Katy Manning and her glorious contribution to the series. She’s the glue that holds all this together. The link between old and new. And quite rightly Jo is characterised perfectly; bold, brave, silly, intelligent and quite barmy. Manning has long been a fine ambassador of Doctor Who and it is long past time somebody held her this high and shone a light on everything she has to offer. For those of you who like a lot happening there are exciting events (and time for a trip to the pub) couched in the usual Big Finish action set pieces but at the risk of repeating myself that isn’t the priority, and as this takes place over 50 minutes there isn’t much in the way of relevant explanation. I’m assuming this will all be part of some grand masterplan that is tied up in Collision Course at the end of the set. I gently chide Big Finish for going for the nostalgia jugular eight times out of ten these days but when they get it right they get it really right and Sacrifice summoned something deep rooted to surface out of me (my love of the Pertwee era, of the Brigadier and of Katy Manning) and left me both grinning and weeping. In these stories where your favourite characters think they are going to die it gives them a chance to say how they finally feel: 9/10
The "nostalgia element" is necessary to know that you are still watching Doctor Who, things like "new and original" are an plague that millennials prefer to avoid (Like those weird people who still protest that Rose Tyler should return and have only seen Series 2). That is why Series 11 feels so "distant", and because we did not see a female Doctor but an overreacted mom who pretends to be Tennant.
ReplyDeleteExtro262
I adore Katy Manning! So glad they gave her such a big role in this set.
ReplyDeleteThe UNIT box sets are fun. My general experience has been that the odd-numbered box sets are the best and even-numbered ones are so-so. The Third Box Set with the Silence was the best so far (they really made a great thriller with them.) The worst has been the Sixth where the set starts with three disposable stories waiting for Derek Jacobi to show up in the finale.
ReplyDeleteThe Eighth box set broke this trend as it's a really solid listen. It also highlights Kate's sense of humor particularly in the last two-parter where she's facing her doom.