Doctor Who – EMPRESS OF MARS (S10E9) Review: Life On Mars?

Back to life, back to reality with a standalone story that others seem to love more than I do

I think out of all the writers to consistently write for Doctor Who, Mark Gatiss might just be one of the most peculiar. Having taken scribe duties for every Doctor since the 2005 revival, Gatiss has amassed a pretty decent pile of episodes to his name* and yet I still don’t think, after all these years, that I’ve really got much of a handle on his writing style. Sure, there are recurring elements – he’s definitely got a soft spot for Britishness, Victorian parlance and hammer horror – but when it comes down to the really specific gritty parts of writing such as structure and character, I have no idea what exactly floats Gatiss’ boat the most. Maybe he’s a pragmatist who just simply writes what he likes, which is fair enough and if there’s one thing we know Gatiss likes; it’s Doctor Who. He’s one of those writers who I tend to regard as difficult to love, but equally difficult to hate - sort of the Robert Rodriguez to Steven Moffat’s Tarantino, which isn’t really much of an insult or a compliment: it just is what it is.

The point of all this waffling is that Empress of Mars – his latest episode – might just be the most Mark Gatiss-y episode of Doctor Who that it is physically possible to conjure up, with Victorian Soldiers coming into conflict with the Ice Warriors...on Mars. Now, I might not completely get Gatiss, but you’d only have to hand me that short description for me to guess it was him behind the wheel.

SPOILER ALERT!

Okay, so Victorian Soldiers encounter an Ice Warrior and the two help each other to reach Mars. The soldiers want weaponry/technology/etc. and the Ice Warrior (‘Friday’, as in Robinson Crusoe’s Friday - Google it) wants to return to his civilization. They eventually, accidentally, wake up the titular Empress of the planet. She and the Victorian Soldiers get pissy at each other and soon enough a scuffle has started. As such, it’s up to the Doctor to sort it out, not really knowing which race to side with.

Continuing with what seems to be a consistent quality of Series 10, Empress of Mars is built on an appropriately crazy premise and I applaud that (If Series 9 had a problem, it’s that it was a bit too safe and straightforward with its story concepts). I also give Mark Gatiss props for fleshing out some the supporting cast of the episode. Neville Catchlove, The Cowardly One (I don’t remember his name, sorry) and the Empress make for decently memorable characters, which is nice to see given how the supporting cast members haven't been this Series’ strongest suit so far (I’d say the success rate has so far been about half and half). Whilst I think it would have made the ending conflict a bit more effective if I knew what was going through the rest of the soldiers heads rather than just two of them, it’s not enough for me to really kick up much of a fuss.

As for the Ice Warriors, I’m always largely on the fence with them and tend to think that they were always best utilised in Mark Gatiss’ other episode: Cold War**. Here, they make for interesting characters and the approach taken does goes some way towards making them more than just guys in suits. I could sort of take or leave the new weapon Gatiss writes in for them which oscillates between being pretty freaky in some moments and kinda goofy in others (the weapon's effect tends to work better when realised practically than with CG). Overall, if you're putting Ice Warriors in your episode, I can't see you doing much better than what Gatiss has achieved with them. That might sound like a snarky backhanded compliment, but I'm actually being genuine here.

Really I think most of the episode’s weaknesses come out during the ending of the episode. Ignoring how the final fight felt like it was over before it had even begun, I didn’t quite buy how the episode resolved itself with the cowardly soldier overcoming his weakness to halt the Ice Warriors. I don’t mean by this that I didn’t understand the ending, but I feel it was just shy of being properly earned and whilst it adds up on paper, I couldn’t say I really felt it working on screen.

I’m trying not to be too curmudgeonly here, as there were elements to this that I liked. I totally buy that the Doctor hasn’t touched Terminator or The Thing but loves Frozen. I enjoy how Friday serving tea served as a callback to Victory of the Daleks – in fact, this whole episode had a bit of a 'Victory of the Daleks' feel to it. I particularly enjoyed the sideplot with Nardole and Missy, even if it feels awkwardly shunted into the episode as a last minute alteration.

Ultimately, Empress of Mars is fine; the sort of episode that I’ll probably watch it in a couple of year’s time and enjoy it a lot more than I do now. Whilst I can’t say it's an episode that I particularly got behind, I also wouldn’t call it bad, either and I can see how it’s going to attract its fans. I guess it’s just not quite my cup of tea.

Verdict:

★★★

Empress of Mars is a good example I don’t really like giving star-ratings. For whatever reason it was really tricky to figure out what to give this one. Oh well, hey-ho.

Next Week:

THE EATERS OF LIGHT

Right, so I have very little clue what’s up with this episode, which is probably Series 10’s biggest question mark. What’s going on in it? Will it lead into the finale? I couldn’t tell you with any real confidence. I know it's being written by a classic Doctor Who writer - Rona Munro - who wrote the episode 'Survival' (which I haven't seen). Let’s look at the synopsis:

A long time ago, the Roman legion of the ninth vanished into the mists of Scotland. Bill has a theory about what happened, and the Doctor has a time machine. But when they arrive in ancient Aberdeenshire, what they find is a far greater threat than any army. In a cairn, on a hillside, is a doorway leading to the end of the world.

Ooh, that was surprisingly unhelpful. What we seem to have here, then, is a Doctor Who episode whose details are being kept largely under wraps. Insert chinstroke GIF here.

*Episodes include:

THE UNQUIET DEAD THE IDIOT’S LANTERN

VICTORY OF THE DALEKS

NIGHT TERRORS COLD WAR THE CRIMSON HORROR

ROBOT OF SHERWOOD

SLEEP NO MORE

EMPRESS OF MARS

My opinion on these tends to flip flop all over the place. Until recently, I thought The Crimson Horror was his best. Now it’s between The Unquiet Dead and Cold War.

**Cold War is one of those episodes that I pretty much forgot about after I first saw it but I watched it again recently and actually thought it was pretty fun. If you haven’t watched it in a while, it’s good to give it another go without viewing it through the lens of watching a brand new episode and all the expectations that can come along with that. I wouldn’t be surprised if a similar thing happens to Empress of Mars

***There's a fairly decent conversation/ramble/rant I could have about the people who loved Empress of Mars solely because of Alpha Centauri's cameo, but I think I'll leave it for now. As someone who has loved and devoured the show since 2005, it was a bit humbling to not know who this character was and as a result, I found the scene pretty confusing. But I don't think it's worth getting too het up over it, given how it's, essentially, Gatiss and Moffat's little fan-treat for themselves on what is (potentially) Gatiss' last episode.

#DoctorWho #markgatiss