ANDREW'S
DOCTOR WHO REVIEWS 
This is a weird sort of story, that I’d really like to enjoy
more than I do. All the promise of alternative realities and having a performer
as strong as Toby Jones in a key role somehow does not quite come together and
it may be because Karen Gillan is a little too inexperienced to have such a
complex and deep story resting on her shoulders. Some bits of it work really
well and at times it does shine like it should but the final feeling is one of
‘close but not quite’.
The Doctor, Amy and Rory find themselves flicking between
two realities – one where they are in a version of Leadworth where Amy and Rory
are married and expecting their first child, and another where they are trapped
aboard the TARDIS. In this TARDIS they encounter the Dream Lord (Toby Jones)
who informs them that one reality is a fake and they must choose which to
believe. If they choose wrong they will die in both realities, if they choose
correctly they will survive in real life.
The Dream Lord keeps Amy awake on the TARDIS and forces her
to choose which reality she wants to believe in, she returns to the Leadworth
reality where they are being attacked by alien creatures in habiting the
elderly residents of the village. Rory is killed in the attack and Amy decides
that this reality must be wrong because Rory has died and so she commits to
dying in the Leadworth reality so she can see Rory again.
All three wake up aboard the TARDIS and the Dream Lord fades
away, however, the Doctor pilots the TARDIS into a sun as he has worked out
that neither of the realities were real after all. The TARDIS had become
infected by psychic pollen that was causing the hallucinations including the
Dream Lord who the Doctor shamefacedly admits is an aspect of his own
personality.
The multiple realities plot is a good old sci-fi standard
and one that Doctor Who would revisit again (perhaps more successfully) in
Peter Capaldi’s time aboard the TARDIS. There are some really funny bits and
some exciting bits in the Leadworth reality but the bits aboard the TARDIS are
a bit slow.
Toby Jones is suitably creepy and sarcastic as the Dream
Lord and is certainly the best thing about this whole story. It would have been
great to see more about his relationship with the Doctor and a return encounter
would have been welcome, but it never was to be, so we’re left with something
of an enigma.
The psychic pollen outcome is a bit disappointing after a
story that is as clever as this and in the end you are left with a feeling of a
story that didn’t quite deliver on its promise.
One first we get here is the first time Rory gets killed …
it most certainly would not be the last!
NEXT UP: THE HUNGRY EARTH / COLD BLOOD
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Andrew J. Müller,
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2022
