"I'm a two-dimensional character. You can't expect backstory."
IN THIS ONE... The Doctor and Belinda fight a cartoon god in 1952 Miami.
REVIEW: Lux looked to be this season's The Devil's Chord, with one of the abstracted gods showing up to cause havoc, and I was right about that. I also pre-loved the whole idea of a cartoon popping out into our world, and I was right about knowing I'd love it, too. The whole meta vibe of the episode is right down my postmodern alley and it outdid my expectations by also turning our heroes into cartoons, making them break fourth walls literally, and even meeting Doctor Who fans from our dimension(ish). It seems obvious to me that RTD became obsessed with the 2nd Doctor story "The Mind Robber" at some point, because this episode (and to a point, The Devil's Chord and even The Giggle) owe something to that outlier serial. Though the Land of Fiction is never referenced by name, that white liminal space inside the "film" is just like the void in The Mind Robber. Lux Imperator is merely manipulating the interface between that dimension and the Doctor's, even flipping it on its head by making US the fictional ones, something that's possible in the fragile, broken universe of Disney+. Needless to say, I loved all the gags here. The Land of Fiction also might help explain Mrs. Flood, who might well be the new Master of that space (not THE Master, you understand, and if you don't, you really need to see The Mind Robber).
Lux itself is hiding the season's biggest guest stars - Alan Cumming, here on his second Doctor Who go-round (after The Witchfinders) and completely invisible under an American accent and cartoon voice. (At least that accent is more believable than a lot of the other actors'.) He's an evil Roger Rabbit, potentially a veiled allusion to racist caricatures, as this episode is set in a segregated era (which it deals with head on, but still fairly subtly). He's captured theater patrons into film strips and means to do the same to the Doctor so he can steal his third dimension, or indeed, his "light". It's prescient when the Doctor says he "shines". But Lux is just a super-powered monster, and less interesting than the situations he creates, at least until his end. Given too much light, he starts expanding and defusing until he merges with all the light in the universe. And that's a nice, poetic, cosmic moment, and not the explosive "rote" ending the superfans predicted (or not exactly).
Belinda is still a lot of fun, even if she makes a sharp turn into liking the adventure she refused only minutes ago. It had to happen, and the Doctor sure lays it on thick, trying to convince her that a haunted theater is exciting. I think what works most on her is knowing people need help, that's her real trigger. Before that, she's ready to leave almost as soon as they land and plant the beacon required to pull the TARDIS to May 24th, 2025. Even though she got all dressed up. But the duo tell themselves some truths to make themselves more three-dimensional and escape the animation trap, and trust is engendered. And YET, she still takes the Mickey. When he confirms that he's just called The Doctor, she says ridiculous (great delivery). When the superfans name Blink as the best episode and explain the premise, she thinks it sounds lame. After a lot of Nu Who companions who absolutely fawn over the Doctor, I love Belinda for not being one of those in-story "superfans", and indeed being the opposite. She's your friend who thinks Doctor Who looks dumb. This, despite her sneaking a kiss on his hand, don't think I didn't notice.
Of course, the big thing everyone is talking about in the wake of this episode is #DoctorWhoRIP. The superfans mention it, and production "leaks", and that the series ends on May the 24th. So now we have to wonder if Russell T Davies taking to the socials to say this MIGHT be the last season of the Nu Era, and even the tasteless April Fool's joke about a hard reboot, are just classic RTD trolling. I've said it before and I'll say it again: Davies lies, all the time, and you can never trust anything he says in the media. He's trying to confound the audience, create interest and then surprises. It's not always going to work, but that's definitely part of his arsenal. So if Season 2 was being filmed even as Season 1 was airing, how could this whole story about the show being cancelled IN-UNIVERSE have been orchestrated. It would require the D+ deal to be very shaky from the beginning - is Russell trolling US or D+??? - and so the "reality war" story, which seems to include our world of superfans and hashtags, should give one hope that it was all a hoax after all, and that the Doctor can save his televisual reality by the end.
THEORIES: Aonther Whoniverse story that had people captured on film was Torchwood's From Out of the Rain, and in isolation, it's a weird episode for that series. But in the larger context, especially with the winks to the Land of Fiction in Lux, it starts to make more sense. If the Land of Fiction is a real dimension, one that is rudderless since the Doctor deposed its Master, people could get lost in it, and fictional characters (even ones that have biographical reality like Mr. Pye's wife, but throw in Cyrano de Bergerac from The Mind Robber too) could escape from it. Compare the Ghostmaker's escape in the TW episode to the Doctor's attempts to break out of the film in Lux. He's really the Doctor in this scenario and not Lux itself. Lux is one of the Pantheon, so like the Toymaker and Maestro, he seems to bring the rules of his dimension with him and THAT allows him to escape, if we can call it an escape. More like he steals a body from the Land of Fiction and uses it to manifest in our world. Regardless, the more they use the Pantheon, and the more they break the fourth wall, the more we can start to understand (or nerdily justify) how this is consistent within the Whoniverse, where perhaps it felt like mold-breaking before.
REWATCHABILITY: High - Very fun and clever!
Comments
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Lux is initially established as a proximity threat by the Doctor and an active, unstable (if conflicted) presence throughout, but when duly engulfed by daylight eventually expanding to the size of the cosmos, there's no collateral damage. The Doctor escaping the film frame by inducing a screen burn seems not only an insanely dangerous route of escape, the pair presumably diving out through the void established, how and why is this an effective (thematic) means of escape? No wonder the script effectively apologizes for it. The celluloid prisoners released unharmed after Lux's ascension, how and why? Yes, the assumption is that a (now omniscient) Lux duly releases them, but as with the Doctor notionally assenting to this process, as per the film escape, upon the information gleamed, it's little more than a guess, a hunch, not something the Doctor has proactively established through due investigation.
Look, I presumed that the newly celluloid Doctor would establish the baseline rules of the liminal technicolour space to outrun and outwit Lux, presumably using Reginald Pye as a willing confederate to cue up various genre film reels for due effect, before finally rescuing the trapped souls and finding a (thematically) appropriate means of escape. And when I say thematically, there's always going to be some level of hand waiving marrying the two concepts, but at least convince me as a viewer that you own this particular storytelling space and its consequences.
As for the fourth wall breaking event, it's a film homage, not a television one. It seems to me that RTD didn't think of this particular contrivance when writing The Giggle and simply couldn't let the notion go, even if thematically inappropriate.
Of course, I don’t want another actress to play the character, regardless of whether Susan can regenerate or not, so maybe I just don’t want it to be true. But we don’t know the details of the season finale, so I’m sticking with “it’s all an overblown rumour” until the finale is released and I’m proven right or wrong. If I’m wrong, then fine, I’m wrong, I’ll eat my words, my hat, and a slice of humble pie (providing I remember I wrote this comment in one month time).
Well.
Well, at least the Belinda/Susan rumours were just that.
But who thought it a good idea to have the Doctor now use the face of a companion?