"I wish I'd realized how lucky I was."
IN THIS ONE... Tegan has another run-in with the Mara.
REVIEW: This might be the best-looking short produced for The Collection, with dreamy dissolves, beautiful photography, and clever camera movement, even before the Mara shows up and (as a nod to Kinda) brings things into a surreal space. Post-Power of the Doctor Tegan encounters Nyssa one night in a fairground, an older Nyssa who promises Tegan more adventures in the TARDIS... but it's all a ploy by the Mara, still inside Tegan's mind (as per Snakedance and extra-canonical appearances), offering her what she secretly wishes in exchange for allowing it to corrupt her. It's all a dream, which should be disappointing, but the psychic attack proves very real and Tegan as headstrong as ever, so I'm not mad at it (give or take the CG snake).
Shame that, despite referencing extra-canon in these shorts, Pete McTigue couldn't square Nyssa's appearance with the further travels from Big Finish, and references to her in Sarah Jane Adventures material (but see Theories). Great to see Sarah Sutton in the flesh again, of course.
THEORIES: It seems that Tegan and Nyssa have been the victims of a "Piscon Paradox" of their own, just like Peri and Ace, which is probably what happened to all the companions who had further adventures in audios and novels. There are just several versions of them floating around, or else, history has changed between one appearance and another from our out-of-world point of view. So we've got an older Nyssa rejoining the TARDIS crew after Terminus at Big Finish, the notion that the two women are a couple out in Australia, or travelling the universe as per Farewell, Sarah Jane. Of course, it's all a dream/Mara mirage, and who knows, Nyssa could be in the kitchen making breakfast. In the dream, her voice tells Tegan that they're together "in another universe", which points to a Paradox explanation, but that's also in the dream. The Mara offers her a life of adventure with Nyssa because in the dream, she doesn't know she already has one. Perhaps we can take that ending any way we want it.
REWATCHABILITY: Medium-High - Though the Mara itself is always a ropy special effect, not matter the era, it seems all its episodes (and mini-sodes) look especially gorgeous.
Comments