Who Reviews The Idiot's Lantern by S.F. Cambridge

The Doctor: “In the street. They left her in the street. They took her face and just chucked her out and left her in the street. And as a result, that makes things simple. Very, very simple”

Set in North London in 1953 this is another iconic episode which happens around a real-life event mainly the Coronation of Elizabeth II

Mr Magpie, a shop owner selling mainly radio’s and a few TV’s which were still considered rare at this time, is contacted by an alien force through the T.V known as “The Wire” It takes on the physical appearance of a T.V presenter and manipulates Magpie into doing her dirty work for her which is mainly installing cheap TVs into the surrounding houses so that when they are switched on, The Wire can suck the life force out of those gathered round to watch by means of removing their faces, leaving a faceless empty shell behind.

When The Doctor and Rose land in 1953, it’s by mistake as they were supposed to be in Vegas and are suitably dressed for that era, but when they witness someone being taken from their home with a sheet over their head and driven away by the police, they then start to notice the other strange things going on within the street itself, i.e., everyone seems to have a T.V when the reality was that only one or two people within a street community had one and everyone used to gather round it to watch important events. The Doctor and Rose decide to question the Connolly’s, a local family who appear to be behaving suspiciously. The son, Tommy, introduces them to his to Grandma whose entire face is missing. His mother wants to get her help but the father has become aggressive and is refusing to let her bring shame on his family because she is nothing more than a monster in his eyes. Before the Doctor can even offer to help or ask how it happened, the police burst in and remove Tommy’s Grandma in the same way they removed their neighbour with a sheet over her head. The Doctor decides to follow them and Rose decides to investigate Magpie’s shop, where she discovers "The Wire", and learns it is an alien that managed to escape execution by its people by turning itself into an electrical form. The Wire seeks to consume enough minds to recreate a body (also stealing the face of the victim in the process) and plans on using the broadcast of the Coronation to do so. Rose is unable to flee before falling victim to the Wire and loses her face.

Without wishing to force spoilers onto those who have not yet seen this episode, it is fair to say that The Doctor saves the day as he usually does even with the usual near miss disasters as he scales the telephone tower determined to catch Magpie who is trying to hook “The “Wire” up so it can broadcast across the nation, dropping his equipment on the way which brought about memories of Back to the future when Doc Brown was trying to attach his wire to the town clock before lightening could strike.

This episode also reminded me of a quote from “The Unicorn and The Wasp” in which Lady Edison says…” We’re British, we carry on” …The Connolly family had been the victim of an alien attack. They might not have known it at the time but although something horrible had happened to one of their family, it was their determination to carry on and watch the Coronation no matter what, even if that meant locking Grandma away so no one could see her.  I could deduce that having only just come out of the 2^nd world war 20 years earlier that those fighting in it had seen and been through worse and faced difficulties that had to be dealt with without the help of outside forces. As usual, if it hadn’t have been for Tommy’s determination to stand up to his dad and help his grandma and The Doctor’s help in solving the mystery, this perhaps would have been just another thing that happened during that time that was never investigated which could lead views to question, just how many other incidences like this went on during a time when people were hellbent on celebrating anything good that was happening, whilst ignoring everything that went on behind closed doors including as this episode also touches lightly upon, domestic abuse.