Tony Fyler is
wonder-ful.
For those just joining us,
Hex is dead.
Hex, the Scouser nurse
from slightly in our future who stood a chance of being something extra special
to Ace, but then normalized their relationship to one of bezzie time-travelling
mates, is dead.
Hector, on the other hand
– who may or may not be Hex’s personality and body re-animated by an Elder God
and purged of its Hexish memories – up and about like nobody’s business, back
to traveling with Ace and the Doctor, but doing it, from his point of view, the
first time round, and doing it in his own very distinct style, while Ace gets a
bit puppydog about the fact that he’s Hex…which, as far as he’s concerned, he
isn’t.
With us so far?
Good, good.
A trip back to Merseyside
is in order then, because clearly, you’re the unflappable sort who doesn’t
confuse easily.
Welcome to Signs and
Wonders.
Signs and Wonders has a
fairly straightforward premise front and centre – there are evangelistic types
on the Mersey, prophesying the end of the world. Nothing new there, and the
slightly disconcerting thing is, one day they’ll be right, and unbearably smug
about it.
What if that day is today?
Weird lights in the sky,
earthquakes, power cuts, you name it, it’s being visited on the unfortunate
souls of Liverpool and the surrounding boroughs, to the extent that Lucas
Stone, former celebrity, now apparently doomsday cult leader, is getting a
flock of supporters for his idea of partying like it’s 1999.
The thing that’s
particularly interesting – and which makes Matt Fitton’s script more easy to
listen to than you might expect against such a doom-laden backdrop – is that
almost nothing is what you expect it to be in Signs and Wonders. From the
premise, you could make an educated guess at the story you think would unfold:
aliens manipulating the weather, for the purpose of enslaving some humans for
some diabolical reasons of their own, through the auspices of religion.
Signs and Wonders is way
better than that, and way more…Seventh Doctor, to boot. Then, just because it
can, it even turns its fundamental Seventh Doctorishness on its head, and gives
you elements you’d expect, but twisted in some cases a whole 180 degrees.
It’s genuinely difficult,
beyond that, to tell you much about Signs and Wonders that won’t spoil it for
you. The cast is top notch, with Warren Brown as Rufus Stone and Jessica Martin
as the Reverend Janet Green outstanding
on different sides of a religious divide, only one that crackles with a Seventh
Doctor Olde Timey ultimate battle vibe. And when you find out what really is
going on in Signs and Wonders, it slaps you upside the head like a lemon thrown
by an orang-utan – refreshing in a somewhat painful way, but you have to give
them points for their aim.
It’s worth mentioning too
that this is the last in the chronological run of Hex-or-Hector stories. There’s
an ending here, an ever after, though whether or not it’s a happy one would of
course be telling. But for Hector, there’s a homecoming, a chance to pick a
side, pick a destiny, face his fears, his faith and his future. Oh and of
course, meet God. Or at least a god.
For the Doctor, there’s
the battle as usual, but flipped first on its head, and then somewhat sideways,
because when signs and wonders fill the sky and stalk the earth, it’s probably
a good idea to note which god does what before you go picking fights.
And for Ace, there’s an
ultimate disappointment, a loss, a gain, and a kind of reconciliation to life
after…well, life, if nothing else. In Signs and Wonders, Fitton gives us
perhaps the most Seventh Doctorish script it’s possible to write, while
actually delivering something cleverer than that cliché, more complex than
straight line storytelling on TV would ever allow.
Signs and Wonders will
leave you surprised, with a pulse rate pounding, and having confronted life,
death, faith, reason and at least a couple of forms of love – one of which
turns out to be the most surprising, and arguably the most wonderful, thing of
all.
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