  |
|
|
|
Love and Monsters was perhaps Doctor Who's greatest departure from an increasingly uniform narrative style in over forty years, and drew both brickbats and bouquets.
Love and Monsters was perhaps Doctor Who’s greatest departure from an increasingly uniform narrative style in over forty years. As such it drew both brickbats and bouquets in an almost unprecedented polarization of opinion. It was unique in that it examined the Doctor from an external narrator’s point of view for perhaps the first time since the very first series, in this case through the eyes of Elton Pope (Marc Warren), a lovable loser besotted with ELO and pining for the mother who died too young. After Autons have run riot, World War Three has been narrowly averted, and Elton has spent the Syccorax invasion gazing in wonder at a huge spaceship, he sees a man he recognizes from the night his mother mysteriously died. It’s a picture on a blog posted by Ursula Blake (Shirley Henderson), and is without doubt the mystery man from his childhood, but no older. She tells him that there are other people interested in this mysterious Doctor. Elton and the others form a group LINDA (London Investigation ‘n’ Detective Agency), whose rather naff initials and name should give away that these are all sad, lonely individuals, less interested in pooling information as they claim, than in forming a support group for like-minded other lost souls against a world indifferent to them. Bridget is looking for her lost daughter, and in bringing cake to the meetings, brings a touch of domesticity and allows the others to talk about themselves, and not just the Doctor. So Bliss brings her fan art analyzing the meaning of the Doctor to the meeting, and Mr Skinner is a tank-topped teacher who reads his fan fiction to them, just as some would spend their days analyzing the meaning to be found in The X Files. While these are all pastiches of cult fandom of any sort, but Doctor Who especially, the mockery is gentle and affectionate – nonetheless, it further alienated a large chunk of fans of Old Who, who were already unhappy at the way they had lost control of their hero to the corporate BBC. The final strand is Victor Kennedy (Peter Kay), based – according to Strange Horizons -- on Ian Levine, ‘uber-fan’, who tried to organize Who fandom in the way he felt it should be run in the 1980s, and in the process, nearly destroyed it. Kennedy organizes Linda, and gives them a purpose; to find the Doctor. But in doing so, he both metaphorically sucks the life out of the movement, at the same time as he literally absorbs the members. All this is background to Elton’s clumsy seduction of Jackie Tyler (it is actually Jackie who unsubtly seduces Elton in a passage of scenes worthy of the Carry On films) at Victor's instruction, which only ends when she finds that Elton is stalking the Doctor through Rose; at this point she bares maternal teeth – nothing will threaten her daughter, whatever Jackie’s personal morality may be. It is only when the threat from Victor becomes clear that the Doctor takes centre stage, and the mystery of his presence in Elton’s life is revealed, in a bittersweet finale that is as moving as it is odd, and perhaps gives Russell T. Davies, who was a fan during the Levine years, a belated measure of satisfaction – but that is a perhaps, for only Davies knows. Both Elton and Ursula, and the other members of LINDA are rounded, memorable and above all loveable characters whose presence greatly enriched the Who canon, and make Love and Monsters one of the must-see episodes of Doctor Who.
The copyright of the article Doctor Who Series 2: Episode 10 in Sci-Fi TV Episode Summaries is owned by Colin Harvey. Permission to republish Doctor Who Series 2: Episode 10 in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.
|
|
|
|
