Review: Doctor Who: The Interstellar Song Contest

I suppose it was only a matter of time before Doctor Who did a riff on the Eurovision Song Contest ... but at least they didn't go the whole hog and have the Doctor actually appearing in it! Juno Dawson's tale takes a different tack as the TARDIS arrives on a Space Station, the Harmony Arena, where the 803rd Song Contest is taking place. He gets his final reading on the vindicator and Belinda and he settle down in a VIP booth to watch the show. It's puzzlingly hosted by real life presenter Rylan Clark, revived from cryogenic sleep each year it seems to present the show, but would anyone in the year 2925 actually know who he is? Same with erstwhile actor and chat show host Graham Norton, who has been preserved as a hologram to inform visitors to the Song Contest museum on the station. Why not use good old Terry Wogan, who hosted the UK presentation of the contest for many years before Norton took over. And also remember that this is an International contest, so each country has their own presenters and commentators, and as the UK rarely wins, why should the UK's presenters be those in favour or remembered in 2925?

Equally of course this is now the Interstellar song contest, so I guess each planet has its own presenters and commentators? No idea. Nice to see that one of Doctor Who's old monsters from the sixties, named Malpha (and also from that planet according to 'The Daleks' Master Plan') is kin to Liz Lizardo from Lizoko (or some such) ... Or not at all. What do you think?

Malpha?

Liz Lizardo?
Anyway, this is all just the backdrop to a story of the rape and pillage of the planet Hellion by the evil Corporation, who wanted the poppy seeds to allow them to make Poppy Honey (and who sponsor the Song Contest). Once they had the seeds, they destroyed the planet so no-one else could get them as well. Thus survivors from the planet, the Hellions, are out for revenge and one such, Kid, decides to kill everyone on the Harmony Station (100,000 life forms) and everyone watching across the universe (many trillions of life forms) using something called a delta wave to sonically blast them and kill them.

Thus the Doctor has to stop him. And that's basically the episode. There are some nice cameos from Mike and Gary, a gay couple, who just happen to have all the skills the Doctor needs. There's also Cora, one of the singers, and a closet Hellion. And some Corporation service Droids with golden heads, looking a little like the Slabs from 'Smith and Jones'. There's a touch of 'Four to Doomsday' as the Doctor uses a confetti cannon to blast himself back towards Harmony, and in a moment of extreme coincidence, straight into an airlock that Mike and Gary open for him. How did he know where that precise airlock would be? Or that there would be people there to open it for him? No idea.

While all this is going on, and it's a good plot ... exciting and rolling along nicely ... the Doctor suddenly, while floating, freezing in space, gets a vision of an older lady in the current TARDIS control room. She tells him to 'Go Back!'  But who is she? It's not explained in the episode. The Doctor's mother perhaps? A memory? And go back where? To the TARDIS? To Gallifrey? To the Space Station?

Of course we fans will recognise the lady as the current incarnation of Carole Ann Ford, and that she is presumably playing a much older version of Susan, the Doctor's granddaughter, a part she played way back in 1963/4. But would a general audience know this or even have a clue? I doubt it. We were told about Susan last season of course, so they would perhaps know the name ... but it's not used in the show, only in the end credits.

Anyway, the revived and rescued Doctor gets back on Harmony, and manages to get into the control room and destroy the delta wave device. He also starts beating up Kid ... his hearts full of ice from Kid's callous disregard for life, no matter what triggered it. Susan reappears in his mind and tries to get the Doctor to stop, but it's only his reunion with Belinda which makes him stop. Kid is then dragged off somewhere for his crimes.

The Doctor then arranges for all 100,000 life forms to be brought back to the Station and, one by one at first, revived by the very handy Gary and Mike. Then he somehow converts the VIP pods into revival rooms and they can do more lives at once. All this is somewhat hand-wavy and 'it just happens' but in actuality, would be impossible to do. To pick on just one element: all the life forms were propelled out of Harmony by the gravity (sorry, mavity, they're still doing that!) bubble bursting, but the laws of outer space mean that they would all just keep on going, farther and farther away, at the same speed. So by the time they come to try and retrieve them, they would be miles and miles away and spreading out!

It then goes all Eurovision: The Legend of Fire Saga, a simply superb Will Farrell film which riffs on the whole Eurovision thing. Cora takes to the stage and sings a song of her people (which is strangely not translated by the TARDIS). At the end there is silence, but then Mike and Gary start clapping and soon the whole audience is cheering and applauding. This echoes the end of the film where a similar thing happens when Amy Adams sings her Icelandic song.

As we draw to a close, the Doctor tries again to get to Earth on, or I suppose before, May 24, but this time the TARDIS' internal lights go red and the Cloister Bell rings, warning of disaster. And then the TARDIS doors explode inwards!

The titles start, but then stop again as we've not quite finished. By another extreme coincidence, in 100,000 life forms saved, the very last one is Mrs Flood. But she has a trick up her sleeve and bi-generates into another, younger woman. They are both the Rani, the new one being the definite article so to speak, words which echo the Doctor after regenerating into the form of the fourth Doctor in 1974. But, again, who is the Rani? She last appeared on the show in the debut outing for the Seventh Doctor in 1987 ... and never mentioned thereafter, so why should the audience have a clue who she is? She was played by Kate O'Mara back in the eighties, but Archie Panjabi does a good job as the younger Rani, but at this point, all we really know is that she's another Time Lord (so the Doctor is not the last of the Time Lords as he keeps saying ... even though that's not true anyway as isn't the Master still out there somewhere? Last seen trapped in the Toymaker's gold tooth, which was retrieved by a mystery person at the end of 'The Giggle'.)

It's all a little puzzling to be honest. So Mrs Flood was the Rani all along, a Time Lord. Presumably therefore she has her own TARDIS and can travel in time and space - hence her cropping up in the past ('Lux') and the future ('The Well') and on alien planets and so on, ending up in 2925 on Harmony Station. All to ensure the Doctor has powered up the vindicator. But what is her plan?

We shall find out ...