We kick off the latest (and it’s been a while!) “Classic Doctors, New Monsters” set with what is really a “Classic Doctor, New Setting” story, as the “monster” in this story is actually a relatively nice person, just his race happened to have debuted in what is still dubbed the New Series (even though the story his race first appeared in is now 17 years old!). Anyway, it’s a new Third Doctor and Sarah Jane story, so… hooray! Let’s take a look.
The story is set in the same far, far future that the second Ninth Doctor TV story, “The End of the World”, is set and features the titular Hoxx of Balhoon (Dan Starkey) settling down on the ruins of Earth with a woman named Francesca (Ozioma Whenu) who is actually a sheep-person (evolution finally kicked in at some point, I guess?) and a “Digihuman” butler just called Butler (David Rintoul). The Doctor (Tim Treloar) and Sarah Jane (Sadie Miller) arrive randomly and seek shelter in Hoxx’s house, the duo doing their best to blend in on a version of Earth after the human race had gone all but extinct, which leads to plenty of Hoxx and Francesca misquoting classic human sayings and misinterpreting pictures and objects and claiming they know what they did in human history. Some of those gags land, others don’t…
Soon some spooky stuff starts happening in the attic, as it always does, and Butler ends up possessed and attacks Sarah and Francesca before vanishing. This leads The Doctor, Sarah, Hoxx and Francesca to head down to the basement to find out what’s going on…
Honestly it’s a perfectly fine one hour story, even if nothing really feels original it does feel like scooping up The Third Doctor and Sarah and popping them down in an early Russell T. Davies script, so in that sense it perfectly captures the idea of these boxsets.
The Continuity:
Yeah, it’s odd having the Sixth Doctor front a centre on a Third Doctor thumbnail but hey-ho… Also the subtitle of the set is “The Stuff of Nightmares”, just realised I hadn’t actually put that anywhere in this review yet!
Obviously the main connection is Hoxx of Balhoon, who is of the same race as Moxx of Balhoon from “The End of the World”, which is set in the year 5 billion when the Earth had been terraformed into “old Earth” by Galactic Heritage, a group mentioned here as Hoxx mistakes The Doctor and Sarah as them coming to check on Hoxx’s house as it will be used as a museum. So it’s probably roughly the same era, at the very least humans are a thing of the past, beyond their digital copies as seen with Butler.
Speaking of whom, Butler claims the piece of land the house in built on was once known as Fetchborough in the old times, the same location Fourth Doctor TV classic “Image of the Fendahl” is set, though given that story takes place in the 1970s and this story is at least well over four billion years after that, not sure that really matters anymore!
There are also mentions of The Doctor and Sarah’s audio adventure “The Gulf” and somewhat sadly The Doctor mentions he believes his time will be up soon, a reference that story is set near the Third Doctor’s swansong “Planet of the Spiders”. I always hate when a Doctor or another character retroactively acts like he or she suddenly knows their end is near because the writer does, it’s happened a few times… Normally with Adric, to be fair!
Overall Thoughts:
“The House That Hoxx Built” is a perfectly fine one hour story that doesn’t really surprise you but does give you a very Russell T. Davies feeling story with the Third Doctor and Sarah, which is the kind of fun blend you look for from this suddenly-returning range.
Not much to add, the reason Butler was misbehaving was because a gestalt entity called “The Benighted” had been accidentally scooped up in a ship and plopped onto Earth to help re-heat it and keep it back together and they wanted to return home. The Doctor of course helps them to do so, and Hoxx decides to travel the universe with Francesca while Butler stays behind and reads… by himself forever, probably. He’s happy with it though, so hooray!
Hogan Reviews 