In which the Doctor takes Bill and Nardole to North-East Scotland in the Second Century AD. Bill has always been fascinated by the story of the Ninth Legion, which is supposed to have vanished without trace in this region whilst fighting the native Pictish peoples. The Doctor wishes to prove to her that there was no mystery to this event - they were simply killed in battle.
Bill wanders off by herself and comes across a young woman named Kar who is conducting a ceremony honouring the dead of her tribe. She attacks Bill who is forced to flee through the woods. She falls down a hole, finding herself in a maze of natural tunnels. She comes upon a young Roman soldier named Simon. He warns of a strange creature which has attacked his comrades.
The Doctor and Nardole, meanwhile, have come across a cairn. The Doctor explains that these were often used as markers for portals to other worlds.
They then find a battlefield, strewn with dead bodies. The corpses do not show the usual signs of battle, however. They have been totally drained of their lifeforce. The skin shows unusual pigmentation.
They then see a group of Pict warriors approach. They are captured and taken to their village, where they find Kar in command.
At the village, Kar claims to have destroyed the invading Roman army. She is known as the "Keeper of the Gate" by her younger brother Ban and the rest of the villagers. Creating a diversion by throwing some popcorn onto the fire, the Doctor and Nardole escape. They go to the cairn and the Doctor goes inside alone. A wall slides open to reveal a bizarre blue void beyond. He then sees some creatures floating around within it.
On leaving the cairn a few minutes later, the Doctor is shocked to find that two whole days have passed.
Nardole has "gone native" and befriended the Picts, but Bill is still missing. She has been making friends with the Roman youths. Lucius has told her of how he and the others had been terrified and had fled the field of battle.
The Doctor learns from Kar that the creatures within the cairn are known as the "Eaters of Light" as they seem to absorb the sunlight from around themselves. Every generation sees a Pictish warrior enter the void to hold the creatures at bay. The Doctor has already deduced that time moves at a much slower rate beyond the wall. Kar tells him that she released one of the creatures to kill the Romans, but now that it is free it has been killing her own people as well.
The creature attacks Bill and her new friends and they are forced to flee through the cave system to a point beneath the village. They find a ladder leading up and emerge within the Picts' great hall. The Doctor steps in to prevent the two sides fighting each other - explaining that they have a common enemy now.
They must join forces to defeat the creature. At dawn it will absorb sunlight and grow strong. It must be forced back into the void.
The Doctor works out that a certain type of crystal will produce a wavelength of light which should prove unpalatable to the creature. They lure it into the cairn and attack it with staffs mounted with these crystals. They will push it back into the void once the wall opens. The Doctor will take the place of the Pictish warrior as for him the time differential will not matter so much. However, Kar has decided that she must be the one to do this, to atone for her actions in releasing it in the first place. Some of her warriors and musicians will join her. Lucius announces that he and his men will also accompany her, to atone for their cowardice in fleeing the battlefield. The Doctor is knocked out to prevent him from interfering with their plan.
After they have all passed through into the void, the cairn collapses. Bill and Nardole manage to get the Doctor outside as it does so. Ban claims that his sister and her friends will be immortalised in their stories - as will the Doctor.
In the present day, some visitors to the cairn report hearing the faint sound of Pictish music coming from beneath the ground, and the crows appear to be calling the Doctor's name. An object like a police box is carved on a nearby standing stone.
Back at the TARDIS, the Doctor and his companions find Missy waiting for them. The Doctor urges her to listen to the music of the Picts which the ship can pick up. Impressed by the courage and self-sacrifice it represents, she cannot help shed a tear...
The Eaters of Light was written by Rona Munro, and was first broadcast on Saturday 17th June 2017.
Munro was the writer of Survival - the final broadcast story of Doctor Who's original run in 1989.
This makes her the first person to have written for both the classic series and the revived one. (To date, she's the only writer who can claim this, and this may well remain the case as so many of the classic writers are no longer with us).
A parallel can be drawn between Munro's two stories in that both revolve around young people in a fight for survival.
Munro hails from Aberdeen, the biggest city in NE Scotland, and has an interest in local history and mythology.
Interested in writing for the series when it returned, the writer met Steven Moffat and Russell T Davies at the Edinburgh Festival in August 2006. Recalling this after he had taken over as show-runner, Moffat had recalled how Survival had shaken up the classic series - laying some of the foundations for the revival.
Having studied History, Munro wanted to submit a story with a historical backdrop. She remembered how interested she had been with Rosemary Sutcliff's novel The Eagle of the Ninth (1954) which fictionalised a genuine historical mystery. The Legio IX Hispana had disappeared entirely from records after 117 AD, its last sighting supposedly on campaign against the Picts, who ruled northern and eastern Scotland.
A famous battle had been fought between Roman and Pict at Mons Graupius around 83 AD, and archaeologists had struggled to pinpoint the exact location for this.
As a local, Munro was also interested in the Pictish culture, which left no written records but many mysterious rock carvings. One of these, of a strange quadruped creature, inspired the Eaters.
The guest cast is a youthful one. Apart from the regulars, all of the adult performers are background artists.
Leading the cast, playing Kar, is Rebecca Benson. She has appeared in crime dramas Vera and Shetland, and featured alongside Michael Fassbender in a 2015 version of Macbeth. Daniel Kerr plays her brother Ban. He has appeared in Outlander.
The Roman Legionaries are led by Brian Vernal as Lucius. He features prominently in Star Wars: The Force Awakens as Bala-Tik, and also appeared in Dunkirk and the 2017 remake of Papillion. He was a regular in the historical drama The Last Kingdom, and more recently has appeared in Gangs of London.
Rohan Nedd plays Simon. Other Roman soldiers are Ben Hunter, Sam Adewunmi, Billy Matthews and Aaron Phagura.
After her brief appearance at the conclusion of Empress of Mars, piloting the TARDIS, this week we see that Michelle Gomez's Missy is still in the ship. She has been trusted to remain there whilst the Doctor and his companions have been off exploring the Scottish countryside.
This is all part of her rehabilitation, which will culminate next time when she is permitted to lead an expedition.
Munro opted to illustrate the differences in attitudes to sexuality between antiquity (the Romans) and the present (Bill). Two of the young Roman soldiers are boyfriends, and their comrades simply treat this as a matter of fact. The modern Bill knows that things are actually far harder in her time. (Whilst fluid sexuality was accepted in ancient times for the most part, effeminacy in men was frowned upon).
Overall, an enjoyable enough story, often overlooked as it follows a big Ice Warrior story and comes before the Cyberman / Master finale. As a Scot interested in history - especially the Roman period - I am biased in favour of it. The lack of adult guests might also put some people off.
It didn't do very well in the recent DWM Twelfth Doctor poll for the 60th Anniversary, but it is certainly well worth a watch.
Things you might like to know:
- The Picts don't actually feature in Roman writings until the Third Century AD, but Munro used them as shorthand for the audience.
- In Celtic mythology ancient structures like cairns and barrows are often claimed to be of Fairy construction - "Fairy Forts". Many tales tell of someone walking past hearing music coming from within them. When they enter they find themselves attending a feast of some sort. When they finally leave after what they believe to be a few hours they find that a whole year (or longer) has actually passed - which gave Munro the idea for the temporal differential in the void.
- Kar was originally called Ke in draft scripts. "Kar" fitted in better with the crow sounds.
- The association between crows and Celtic mythology had previously been seen in The Stones of Blood.
- The Doctor mentions having visited Aberdeen in the past. He had dropped Sarah Jane Smith off in the city, mistaking it for South Croydon, in The Hand of Fear, and then mentioned the Granite City to Leela in Underworld.
- Wanting to surprise her parents with an appearance in Doctor Who, Rebecca Benson claimed to be going to Cardiff to shoot pick-up shots for the series The White Princess which she had featured in. Even during a tour round the Doctor Who Experience with them she kept quiet about her new role.
- Nardole tells Ban and his friends the story of the Mary Celeste. It involves alien intervention - but not the "true" incident with the Daleks.
- Moffat joked with Munro that the last time she wrote for the series it was cancelled soon after - hoping that history would not repeat itself.
- You can fit the entire classic series into the gap between Munro's two stories - 27 years, 6 months and 11 days.
No comments:
Post a Comment