1 episode. approx. 30 minutes. Written by: Alan Barnes. Directed by: Nicholas Briggs.
THE PLOT
The Doctor's companion, Izzy (Jemima Rooper), has asked him to take the TARDIS to her home town, the village of Stockbridge, at a time when she would have been a child. She wants to solve a mystery that's been bothering her since childhood. No, not a murder. No, not lights in the sky. No, not even a crop circle.
The mystery? The identity of Courtmaster Cruel, the hero of a long-running and rather brutal sci-fi comic strip. His identity was revealed in the final installment of the strip... in a publication that only hit the streets once that Izzy knows of, with all copies having vanished without a trace. But Izzy knows that the magazine was in stock the morning of its release, and is determined that it will belong to her!
The Doctor is a bit exasperated, but indulges her. Until androids come to the comics store and "pulp" the "proscribed manuscript" while it is in Izzy's hands, then rearrange the memory of the store's owner. That is when the Doctor finally gets interested, sensing a hidden hand meddling with the laws of time. But reality will be rearranged a few times more before he is able to get to the bottom of this!
CHARACTERS
The Doctor: Paul McGann does very well again in this story. Izzy, his companion for this outing, is a frenetic ball of energy. McGann counters by increasing his Doctor's cool, collected calm. The results are highly amusing, with McGann's Doctor taking on almost a "long-suffering" quality opposite his overly energetic young friend.
Izzy: Jemima Rooper is Izzy, the 8th Doctor's DWM comic strip companion. I'm not 100% sold on the character, who comes across as a bit too... enthusiastic to be entirely winning. Rooper, however, is terrific, bringing boundless energy to the part. She makes Izzy likable almost in spite of herself. Alan Barnes' script helps by crafting a rather wonderful pre-credits "intro monologue" for the character which captures Izzy's whirlwind of (too) fast-paced energy in a way that makes her at the same time somebody we can identify with. If the actress hadn't been as good, I'd have been quite happy to leave Izzy as a one-shot. Rooper is so purely wonderful, though, that I find myself very much wanting a full-length 8th Doc/Izzy story. Better still, a season of them, to allow the character more variation.
THOUGHTS
That was fun!
This 30-minute short story isn't any more substantial than the other 30-minute Company of Friends stories. It's a featherweight narrative, played entirely for comedy, and played out basically in two sets (well, if this had been a visual story). Like the other single-episode McGann stories I've reviewed, this is hardly likely to sear itself into anyone's memory. But it's a particularly enjoyable piece, which puts it above the preceding stories in this release.
One element that makes this so much fun is just how well it evokes the medium it's celebrating. This isn't just a story using a comic strip character, about comic strips... It feels like a comic strip come to life! The reality-warping, the overexaggerated characters (including Izzy), the story resting on a single high concept. Usually, when I listen to these stories, I envision the characters in live action. In this story, it is almost impossible not to visualize it all as a cartoon - and I mean that as a compliment.
Writer Alan Barnes keeps the story moving quickly, but also is very successful in filtering the story through Izzy. In this, Izzy's Story is more successful in feeling like a story about Izzy than Benny's Story was for Benny, and far moreso than Fitz's Story was for Fitz. The Doctor is pulled into this story because of Izzy, and Izzy's knowledge of the culture of these comics influences the Doctor's actions and the story's outcome. And while the Doctor's judgment of the various characters is a purely moral one, Izzy's very different reaction is clearly meant to be the one with which listeners will identify.
Anyway, there's nothing very deep to analyze here. Suffice it say: Fun. Along with the usual final note of how much I'd like to see a full story with this teaming, only moreso in this case because of how adorably infectious Jemima Rooper ended up being.
Rating: 7/10.
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