Point of Entry by Barbara Clegg & Marc Platt
April 2010
That's quite a dream team there in the authors
line! What should have been Barbara Clegg's sophomore Doctor Who story
is fixed up and adapted for audio by Marc Platt of Ghost Light fame. Maybe I was biased from the start, then; I thought this was a stellar story.
Somehow managing to mix together both Elizabethan England and Aztec legend, Point of Entry is
a dream come true for a history nerd like me. Using Kit Marlowe instead
of our old friend Shakespeare as our celebrity figure this time around
is a nice choice.
While I don't know a whole lot about Marlowe except that he (probably)
moonlit as a spy, he's sketched really well here, his darker side that
brought Doctor Faustus into the world coming out in full force
under the malignant influence of Lorenzo Velez and his Omnim masters. He
seems willing to do almost anything to continue seeing glimpses of past
and future in order to fuel the spark for more plays, such that he's
almost an antagonist himself at times, albeit a tragic one. His
lamenting about selling one's soul for the sake of fame is, in this
case, quite literal.
It would be remiss of me to review this story without invoking its older cousin, The Aztecs,
from way back in Season 1. Although the stories don't have a lot
linking them on the surface except for the Aztec connection itself,
there is at least one thread that I can trace between them: imperialism
and violence it brings.
Secondary antagonist Sir Francis Walsingham points us in the direction
of these threads in a couple of different ways. Firstly, I note that his
position as spymaster and interrogator (only one of his many, many
roles at Elizabeth's court) reminds me a little of our old friend
Tlotoxl. Although he's no priest, Walsingham seems just as convinced
that his various tortures, bloodlettings, and sacrifices keep the
machine of state running. Their roles aren't as different as you'd first
assume. The Doctor draws the comparison himself after finding "Mad
Jack" with his mutilated tongue, bemoaning the barbarism of this
allegedly civilized time and place.
Walsingham also, humorously, tells the Doctor with arch superiority that
England isn't the one that victimized Spain by sending an Armada
against it. This is funny in particular because, although it's never
mentioned in the story, Elizabeth did send her own "English Armada" the
year before this story was set in order to press the advantage from the
defeat of the Spanish Armada and raid the Spanish treasure fleets. It
was a military disaster, to put it mildly. The listener who knows
history will understand that this epoch didn't really see plucky
underdog England surviving the cruel assaults of the continental
superpower of Spain; their long stretch of wars in this period were a
conflict between two imperial powers over who would get the greater
share of the world's plunder. The supposed Elizabethan golden age, whose
luster is tarnished in this story's eyes, was built off of this piracy.
The treasure fleet connection is appropriate, as it's English raids of
Spanish ships which ultimately bring the story's central artifact, the
Aztec dagger forged from an Omnim meteorite, to England, importing the
bloodshed it once wrought on hapless sacrificial victims to a new
setting - virgin soil, you might say. The visions that play of London
descending into chaos, the Thames running red, and the Virgin Queen
herself being led out for the sacrifice are all very striking images
which stick with the listener for a while. I also note Peri's turn
impersonating Elizabeth, which is just wonderful, particularly her
knighting of an unsuspecting sailor, much to the Doctor's chagrin. This
is also a send-up of the iconography of this period, albeit a more
humorous one.
I may just be making connections here where none actually exist, but considering Platt's acerbic commentary on imperialism in Ghost Light, I'd say that I'm at the very least onto something.
Leaving aside all thematic questions for the moment, the story is
admittedly a little on the long and slow side, which I saw was a bit of a
sticking point for reviewers online. I really didn't take issue with
this at all, as I thought a slower and more methodically paced story was
appropriate for sketching the historical setting and characters in as
much depth as they deserved. It felt more like a long, pleasant walk to
me than a dragged-out crawl as some reviewers would suggest.
Velez is a fantastic villain, played with relish by Luis Soto. His
progressive skeletonization through the course of the story is awesomely
ghoulish stuff, but probably never would have flown on TV... Nor could
they have pulled off the - so garish it's actually wonderful -
metamorphosis of Velez into Quetzalcoatl at the climax of the story.
Colin and Nicola are as on fire as they always are in their audio
appearances together, and both get due focus and some damned good
writing here.
I can't imagine a world where this serial actually got finished and
broadcast in 1986, but its inclusion more than justifies the existence
of this Lost Stories range, both as a look at what might have been, and
as a fantastic audio in its own right.
The Song of Megaptera is next.
(Modified from the original posted at Gallifrey Base on 31 May 2024.)
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