The War Doctor Begins: Forged In Fire

 

The War Doctor Begins: Forged In Fire

I, like many fans, have my own issues with the War Doctor. He's great in Day of The Doctor, and EU material such as Engines of War and his story in Twelve Angels Weeping, but he's a character that seemingly struggles to anchor a series of his own. I loathed Only The Monstrous, and decided not to pick up any more of that series, but when this was announced with the trailer (which was literally the first two minutes of Light the Flame) I figured that eventually I would tear off my preconceptions about The War Doctor and give it a proper go. The War Doctor's characterization is likely not something I'll ever be able to change, a BBC mandate of ultimate power, and so instead of viewing this as a massive new thing that had never been done before, I decided to view it as I would view any Doctor Who. 

This did help my process. I came to the conclusion that I really really like Jonathan Carley. He's as good as Tim Treloar or Stephen Noonan, someone who thoroughly understands the original character and while they sound relatively like them, instead try to deliver a good performance first above all else. The fact that he sounds exact is helpful, but it's not necessary. The point is ultimately, he's an excellent performer who I'm happy to see play The Doctor. You can tell that casting him was a very careful decision not done lightly and I'm happy to see him enter the pantheon of brilliant actors to play The Doctor. His performance shows a deep respect and reverence to Sir John Hurt, and he should be commended for successfully achieving one of the hardest jobs you could possibly ever ever do, taking up the reins for someone as gargantuan in the pantheon of acting as that. He's phenomenal.

This doesn't really help any of the stories actually, like, be good though. I'm just saying. This is very by the numbers Who, especially for Time War Who, which indeed, does kind of have it's own niche at this point on what you can expect, what works and what doesn't. It does help that there isn't an arc in this set and we can just sort of set Jonathan Carley out on his voyage to be The Doctor with three stories, but none of these stories stand out. I can't imagine I'll really remember any of these at the end of the day.

Light The Flame By Matt Fitton

Light The Flame is the story most likely to grab your attention out of the three in the set. It takes place entirely on Karn, in the aftermath of The Eighth Doctor's regeneration, and The War Doctor gets to mope and give us some lovely melodramatic monologues and character insights. The first twenty or so minutes of Light The Flame are really gorgeous, but then the plot doesn't start. Yep, instead of there really being an inciting event or whatever, The War Doctor doesn't really leave or anything. Not much happens on Karn minus a whole lotta allusions to Brain of Morbius. You will hear the words "Sacred Fire, Sacred Flame," ten trillion times and there isn't anything you can do about it. While I find the War Doctor's awakening and self actualization interesting, there really isn't anything on Karn in this one to accurately give us something fun to do as a post regeneration story. There's a rogue Time Lord, and she's just sort of bad, but the story doesn't let you know she's rogue until relatively near to the climax, so the story lacks impetus. The plot in the story errs on forgettable, which is odd considering the early on character focus had me thinking that this was a great step forward. There isn't much to say about Light the Flame, which is odd, considering it gets so much right and then just forgets to do something memorable or energetic with it. When you're writing a story like this, morose and melancholy can only engage so long. Rather confusing. 5/10 

Lion Hearts by Lou Morgan

Lion Hearts just happens to be a step up, and may be oddly the best one in the set in my opinion, as Jonathan Carley really carries a lot of this material and energizes it. The plot in this one has to do with a framing device around a central one-episode companion archetype talking to her superiors about how she met The War Doctor. This infuses the narrative with a lot more personality, even if she is somewhat just a military type. As the two of them enter a dangerous Time War faculity to rescue a prisoner, they discover an entire community of injured Tharils (From Warrior's Gate) who they cannot rescue. The moral dilemma in this is interesting, even if the solution is a bit obvious, and the Tharils ultimately don't feel like stupid nostalgia bait like some of the Sisters of Karn could in the previous story, even if it is a little silly that the story is about Tharils. Arguably there was more of a reason for the Sisters of Karn to be present in that story than this the Tharils in this one, so this is doubly impressive. The story is really overlong, but it's ultimately decent work, and while The War Doctor isn't what I'd really like him to be, that's not anything I can blame this story for, and Lion Hearts is ultimately a pretty okay Doctor Who story in comparison. Quite nice, I suppose: 7/10 

The Shadow Squad by Andrew Smith

The Shadow Squad, I'd say has the best content and the worst content out of any of these. It's first thirty to forty minutes, while technobabble filled, are excellent, but ultimately the technobabble and the daleks going pew pew pew ultimately can devolve the story into white noise. At least for the first half, there's a quite entertaining hook and plot, at least until the Daleks show up in force. The War Doctor and Commodore Tamasan are both on the trail of the Daleks on the planet Atherea, but their Time Lord contact ends up being erased from history and they have to disobey orders to find out what's going on. This is a very cool mystery, capable of sustaining the plot for these first minutes quite nicely. The War Doctor and Tamasan have an excellent dynamic together, and I didn't expect to like them so much. After a quite enjoyable time, soon the titular Shadow Squad of Gallifreyans soon introduced. They're interesting as well, but you start noticing how much of the story is explaining arguably quite simple time concepts for any usual sci-fi fans. When the Dalek's ultimate weapon is revealed, this is compounded even further. There's so much technobabble and so much pew pew pew EXTERMINATE that you could be confused this is an episode of Dark Eyes. For such a promising start, the story really kills itself by the forty minute mark. Painful: 4/10