Doctor Who: Series 10, Episode 9 – “The Empress of Mars” (2017)

While it may not make sense for me to just go back to business as usual without dealing with any fallout from the teeth-gnashing of the last few weeks, I can’t say I’m unhappy about it.  This is a fun, crazy romp, admittedly light on sense but thoroughly entertaining.  Mark Gatiss can be a little uneven for me as a writer, and that holds true here, but overall, I’m pretty satisfied (premise spoilers.)

The Doctor, Bill, and Nardole are on a day trip to NASA when they catch sight of something unusual:  the words “God save the queen” written in giant letters on the surface of Mars.  When our heroes investigate, they discover a platoon of Victorian troops who assert that they’ve “claimed” Mars for the empire.  They have a taciturn “man Friday” Ice Warrior in tow and dreams of mineral riches deep within the planet, but the Doctor doesn’t believe the situation is as cut-and-dried as the soldiers seem to think.

I love the notion of 19^th-century British soldiers on Mars in steampunk spacesuits.  The fact that they found “Friday” and were convinced to come back to Mars with him is good as well, a nice departure from “frozen Ice Warrior is found, Ice Warrior is imprudently thawed out, Ice Warrior causes wanton destruction” storylines.  Even though it can sometimes feel like the Ice Warriors’ only play is to be dug up somewhere in a block of ice or otherwise in suspended animation, but as “The Seeds of Death” and the Ice Warrior stuff from the Third Doctor era (which gets a nod here) demonstrate, that’s not all they can do.  And as far the themes of the episode, the “imperialism is bad” message is well-meant if heavy-handed, while the ruminations on the military and “what it means to be a warrior” are better-explored.

We’re back to Doctor-companion fun times, which I of course enjoy.  Nardole is sidelined, not so much for any reason of his own, but as a means of getting the TARDIS out of the way (not unlike how Gatiss dispatched the TARDIS in his other Ice Warrior story set in the past – huh,) so we’re back to more of the Doctor-Bill duo.  It’s still loads of fun, of course, as I love how they relate to one another and plainly enjoy each other’s company; the running gag of Bill comparing everything happening to sci-fi movies and telling the Doctor how much he’d love them amuses me, in no small part because I’d probably do the same as a companion. 

However, I see something a bit unfortunate this time around.  I said before that I thought Nardole’s increased presence left less for Bill to do, but after this episode, I don’t really think that’s the case.  Bill still doesn’t get much to do.  It isn’t noticeable right away, because she’s such a delightful companion to spend time on, and to be fair, she’s a pro at asking Excellent Questions and does get brief moments to shine, including here.  But not a lot.  In a basic nuts-and-bolts way, she doesn’t get too many contributions to saving the day, and I don’t know why that is.  Having Nardole in a few adventures made it more apparent because he does get to do more, going beyond questions to reasonable deductions and taking more of his own initiative at different points.  This episode, though, made me think back over the season and wonder what I’ll pick for Bill’s top moments after her time on the show is finished, and very little sprang immediately to mind.  That makes me sad, because I genuinely love Bill and don’t like the thought of her not being allowed by the writers to get some of the big wins.  What’s up with that?