Protect and Survive (and a Diatribe on the Seventh Doctor's EU)

 

Protect and Survive by Jonathan Morris

On the one hand, from a writing angle, Protect and Survive is quite frankly, the most beautiful story in the Hex arc. It is harrowing. It knows what it's doing, it really does. On the other hand, it cements my problems with the Hex arc as a whole, because it utilizes them as a bit of thematic resonance. It proves the writers were aware of the problems. Protect and Survive is an allegory in general for how far the Seventh Doctor has fallen, how every story is bleak and awful, and how Hex suffers while Ace is unwilling to see a single issue. In my eyes, while it's got a brilliant first half, when we reach it's second, and the Seventh Doctor walks in, it loses the point of the Doctor's character in general, and makes him seem quite frankly, unidentifiable as Doctor Who. 

That's a hell of an insult I just made, but honestly? Protect and Survive is a brilliant story. It's excellent, at least for the most of it. And even the parts of it I don't like are there for a thematic purpose. And I'm going to have to go in depth on it now. Because it's a mystery in a way, and I can't pussyfoot around this one. SPOILERS: 

Protect and Survive is a piece that initially seems to be about the tragedy of nuclear war. Ace and Hex arrive and meet an ordinary couple, Albert and Peggy, who are preparing for a coming nuclear fallout. The entirety of the first and majority of the second part is just the most agonizingly and magnificently well written experience possible. A direct comparison would be The Hope or Corpse Day, because yeah, it is fucking gruelling, and I don't say it lightly, but these first two parts are the kind of thing that can give a full grown adult nightmares. From then on, it evolves into a time loop piece. It's revealed that for some slight of some kind, Peggy and Albert have been slowly dying of radiation poisoning from nuclear war every day for their entire lives, looped over, and over, and over. Because they're evil gods or something that the Seventh Doctor traps here. This is a good twist storytelling wise, but in universe, it infuriates me. Seven wants them to mature and move beyond the need for destruction and mayhem, and he does this by making them feel what humans felt. Forever. Until they behave in a very specific way according to his perception of human life. 

This is the cruelest thing I've ever seen the Doctor do in anything. Ever. It is my personal belief that this is the darkest thing I've even seen in Doctor Who. Nuclear death. Forever. This isn't glossed over. This hurts specifically because WE SEE a loop. We see them suffer. We see Ace and Hex cough up blood in a dark bunker in the basement, dying slowly and in agony. We see Peggy and Albert do the same, and it is a vile experience. And Seven just lets this go on until he gets the result he wants. 

And all the while, the same patterns we're used to continue. Ace decries that nothing is wrong. Hex suffers the most out of anyone - he's the one who goes blind from the fallout. For the record, it's exceedingly well written. In fact, the episode makes a metatextual point about how this really has been EVERY Hex story. Every single Hex story happens where Hex suffers, Ace says nothing is wrong no matter what, and Seven gets darker and darker and darker. This is all ANALYZED. In this story, it really does become clear that Ace is not mentally well. Her loyalty to the Doctor goes beyond anything of a normal person. It's clear that it's misplaced. It ends with trauma, but it never ends, because each loop is an episode. Every time, something like this happens in the loop, and every time they land in a battlefield in the TARDIS where an alien is doing a thing, something like this happens. Every time. And this time, Seven can't even save them. He does nothing to stop it. Nothing at all.

So, that's what I mean. It's brilliant. It knows what it's doing, and I can't deny that it's well-written. But it proves to me that the Hex arc is not what I want from Doctor Who. There's a difference between taking a character like, shall we say, let's take Christopher Eccleston. My first Doctor. Let's compare him to McCoy in this story. Eccleston has an arc, and it's an arc based around his own trauma in the time war. You all know how it concludes, because it's not only memorable, it's aspirational. Everyone remembers Nine staring down the Dalek emperor and saying "Coward. Any Day." Because he can't have it in his conscience to kill one life. Let's take Tom Baker. The very Doctor who believed he didn't have the right to kill the Daleks in what is universally probably THE most famous Doctor Who story. Let's take Sylvester McCoy on television, even. On Television, McCoy is a Doctor that's serious, but a Doctor with compassion. Look at his actions in the Happiness Patrol for heavens sake, where he advises a civilization and kindly shows them that being sad isn't a bad thing. Look at Greatest Show in the Galaxy - where Mags turns into a Werewolf, and his first action is not to attack, but to try and appeal to her better nature. Look at THE CURSE OF FENRIC - where after he abuses Ace, he makes it VERY CLEAR that he didn't mean a word of it. 

NONE of that is in the Expanded Universe's view of the Seventh Doctor's era. Seven in the VNAS and the Hex audios is unreconcilable with the character. He's a monster who's responsible for killing The Sixth Doctor so he could exist! Yeah, that's canon! He tries to kill a kid in Night Thoughts, (okay, he decided against it, but he was gonna) and He admits in Red he deep down loves destroying planets. He purposefully forces Mel out of the TARDIS with Glitz via psychic connection so he can go on with his planning unimpeded - and in this one, well, he doesn't even attempt to save Ace and Hex from literally the worst death imaginable. And most of all, he's responsible for cold-blooded torture without even the release of death to Peggy and Albert over and over for hundreds of years!! He's a manipulative bastard and quite frankly, after a story like this, I almost have a hard time recognizing him as the Doctor. 

So there, there you go. It's a good one. But I can't do any more of these things - Protect and Survive is brilliant in terms of writing, but in terms of character, especially in the terms of the Doctor, it's a massacre. Intolerable. 

For the story, there's too much of a split between the first and second half, and so I'm going to rate them separately, I don't want to be too mean or too nice to one or the other. I just don't vibe with this tale's second half. Even ignoring the character massacre, it's a frustrating one, it takes out the nuclear part of the story and just is a lot less interesting. Anyway. I'm done talking about this one. If anyone replies to me with anger over my reactions to this one, fun fact: I will not care.

Parts 1 and 2: 10/10

Parts 3 and 4: 4/10