Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7/10
Cast: Peter Davison, Sarah Sutton, Janet Fielding, Matthew Cottle, Harry Myers, Nina Sosanya, Gerald Kyd, Danusia Samal.
Time is complicated for The Doctor and his companions enough without adding the distraction of a Black Hole into their lives but when answering a distress call from a robot who finds the offering of tea a wholesome and pursuit worthy activity, Black holes become the least of The Doctor’s problems.
Time has a nasty habit of appearing like a school play ground bully and the effects it has on those caught in its wake is enough to make their own perception of reality bend and shift like grass caught in the wind, flowing, ever bowing to the demands of a greater entity and Time understands this and feeds off the destruction. However time can be, if not tamed, at least manipulated to restore its own order and it is a manipulation that The Doctor brings to Aquitaine with deftness and authority.
Simon Barnard and Paul Morris’ joint script places the monotony of life up against the rage of Time with ever increasing sharpness of pace, the leaps forward and the falls back in time give an intriguing aspect to understanding how a person can viewed as either moral and virtuous or wicked and horrific depending on the moment your eyes view them. Time is a displaced factor, it is only humanity that truly views it as a linear progression and it is that shifting of time that allows the story to become one of explanation and delivery all wrapped up in the same immersive feeling of panic.
To hold such a story together takes imagination on both the writers and actor’s behalf, it takes concentration for them not to be lost in the approach to the story and too many times in other tales the point is lost and fractured even before the climax is allowed to be played out. Aquitaine doesn’t suffer from that issue. It is held together by Matthew Cottle as the vessel’s computer and robot helpers, it is an excellent performance that could have been easily taken apart if left to just become a comedic side venture.
The Doctor has found ways to battle such insurrections in time before and no doubt will again but it takes great writing to make it interesting and Aquitaine delivers that with a stark message that such moments should not be undertaken lightly.
A worthy and enjoyable story which allows its writers and actors almost free reign in their pursuit of Time!
Doctor Who: Aquitaine is available to purchase from Worlds Apart, Liverpool.
Ian D. Hall