Tony forgets again
I started to write this
review by referring to a previous, on-screen Fifth Doctor story. Then a lot of
klaxons and spoiler-alarms went off in my head and the Judoon came and dragged
me off to spoiler-prison.
The first thing you need
to know about The Boy That Time Forgot though is that it’s an in-universe semi-counterfactual
which extends beyond the range of that previous, on-screen Fifth Doctor story.
Actually, no – the first
thing you need to know about it is it’s written by Paul Magrs, so what you can
expect is weirdness…but in a good way. When Magrs writes a script, and you
listen to it, you make a contract to jettison the ordinary and commit to the
journey he wants to take you on. It’s kind of like that moment when you find
yourself strapped into a rollercoaster, and it’s all been fun and banter and
then it starts to move. You get the momentary sensation of ‘Is this a good
idea?’ followed by the knowledge that a) you can’t get out now anyway, and b)
it’s going to throw you around and turn you upside down, for sure, but the
chances are, you’ll emerge on the other side, thrilled and grinning.
Reviewing The Boy That
Time Forgot without blowing the apparently spoilerific detail of who The Boy
actually is, is always going to be a little tricky, but let’s say it doesn’t
start where you might expect it to, Magrs throwing us right into the action and
one of what turn out to be quite a few central dilemmas. The Doctor and Nyssa
appear to be trapped in Earth’s far-distant past, as are a couple of eminent Victorians
– novelist Beatrice Mapp, who Stands For no Nonsense (clearly preferring to
take her nonsense sitting down), and adventurer Rupert Von Thal (and yes, we
know, it’s a magnificent Whovian pisstake of a name – it’s by no means the only
one, though to tell you many more might be considered spoilery). There’s been a
touch of fashionable not-exactly table-rapping going on, and the universe being
the Logopolitan nightmare it is (*Shakes fist at sky* Bidmeeeeead!), a degree
of Block Transfer Computation to boot, to try and locate a Tardis that’s gone
AWOL.
What becomes apparent
fairly quickly though is that this is not Jurassic Park. There are going to be
no raptors peeping through bushes or T-Rexes stomping through trees on this
prehistoric Earth. It’s really not that kind of planet.
Which, yes, begs the
question of what kind of planet it is. Erm…let’s just say it you’re
ScuttlyThingAphobic (don’t tell me that’s not a real thing!), this story isn’t
going to be much fun for you.
Yes, it’s a planet of
Scuttly Things, ruled over by one pinkish ageing biped that doesn’t scuttle.
The Scorpion King. The Boy That Time Forgot.
There are plenty of
complicated, practically New-Who reasons why Time forgot this particular boy
for many decades, and he’s certainly made the planet his own in the meantime,
Andrew Sachs giving a suitably wheezy, creepy but energetic performance in the
central role. And Magrs packs the story with surprisingly logical progressions
– from Scuttly Things to Really, Seriously Scuttly Things That Eat Everything
(the equivalent of dinosaurs, only Scuttly. Sleep well, boys and girls), a kind
of Scuttly Thing revolution, the secret of the Scorpion King’s power over his
previously benign Scuttly Thing friends and subjects, and his plans now that
the Doctor and Co have dropped by – including quite a bit of revenge for the
whole ‘Time Forgot’ thing and playing probably quite a vigorous game of Kings
and Queens with Nyssa. (He’s the only humanoid on a world of Scuttly Things,
give The Boy a break!).
That’s never going to end
well, is it? Old Man, Trakenite Good Girl, rebuilding a species on the Planet
of the Scuttly Things, over the probably still-warm bones of the dead Doctor?
There’s a decided touch of Rupert Murdoch and Jerry Hall about the whole thing,
or, if you want to stay in-universe, a touch of Sharaz Jek and Peri. But –
perhaps fortunately – before the geriatric lurve gets going, Date Night of the
Damned is interrupted by the aforementioned Revolution of the Scuttly Things.
Oh yes, it’s all go, this one.
What Magrs actually
does here, beneath all the flippancy of this review, is examine that
thing that’s been more and more a feature of the Doctor’s life since he
returned to our screens in 2005 – the consequences of his actions, and in
particular, this time out, the consequences of his failures. For a Doctor so
especially sensible of not being what he’s been before, it’s a particularly
affecting accusation with which to hit the Fifth Doctor that somehow he did
less than he could, that he failed to care enough about someone, and so
condemned them to life down among the Scuttly Things, while he skipped away
with his cricket sweater and his time machine, having adventures. Magrs is
careful never to let the Fifth Doctor too far off the hook, while still
delivering a ‘let’s run away from the demented Scuttly Things, shall we, and
sort this out later?’ plotline that allows for bravery, heroism, and at least
one real, and marginally more likely romance to unfold along the way.
Given actors of the
calibre of Sachs, Harriet Walter as Beatrice, and the ever-reliable Adrian
Scarborough as Von Thal, it’s perhaps too easy to think ‘You can’t go wrong.’
But what Magrs achieves here is more than that flip dismissal gives it credit
for. There’s no reason in the wide universe for The Boy That Time Forgot to
exist – the on-screen episode to which it’s a kind of Big Finish sequel was a
story under which lines were drawn. It was complete in itself, with absolutely
no need for a sequel. So by opening up the possibility that what we know isn’t
what really happened, Magrs dares himself to the brink of a precipice, and then
throws himself off to see if he can fly – this story has to be as good as the
one it’s following on from, and it has to make a certain amount of sense, and
it has to challenge the Doctor with the consequences of his actions, and it has
to define the idea of a boy grown to an old man with only himself and his
Scuttly Thing subjects for company, brooding on what’s gone wrong in his life,
and what he’d do if he could only put them right. The Boy That Time Forgot
didn’t really need to do any of that, but Magrs straps himself into the
rollercoaster, one seat in front of us, and challenges himself to do all these
things.
Does he succeed? Again,
it’s too flip to say ‘Well of course he does, he’s Paul Magrs.’ That’s to make
a mockery of the effort involved, and to some extent, of the punch this story
packs. But yes, there’s nothing that would legitimately constitute ‘a dull moment’
in The Boy That Time Forgot, and yet it manages to make substantial
philosophical strides in the Doctor’s psychology, allowing him to push back
against an ungrateful universe and stake his place in it, as much as any of his
louder predecessors. It also, as we say,
delivers a bit of a rip-roaring ride which takes us from an intriguingly oddish
beginning through ever-thickening layers of logic to a conclusion that pleases
fans of the Doctor’s own usual way of ending stories in which he’s been
involved.
Without giving too much
away, the stakes involved in writing this story were unnecessarily huge – A
Thing happened on-screen that was as shocking as, say, Peri being shaved and
brain-transferred with the Lord Kiv. When that particular shocking event was whitewashed
into softness a few weeks later when she apparently had gone off to marry King
Yrcanos (no, really, that’s a better fate), it ruined that harsh, dramatic
ending to her story. The Boy That Time Forgot dabbles with that level of
consequence, but does its job far better, extending an on-screen story beyond
the point where it ended, and giving The Boy a new story to live.
Give The Boy That Time
Forgot a try today – for our money, Magrs delivers all down a complicated
bravely high-stakes line he makes for himself.
Although of course, if
you’re ScuttlyThingAphobic, you might want to give it a miss.
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