It’s time for Margaret’s not particularly long or interesting stay in the TARDIS to come to an end, and it seems like they’ve saved the best for last! Yes, The Ghost of Margaret made me care more about the character than any of her other appearances and just generally told a really good story. Better late than never, I guess! Let’s take a look.
Picking up from the end of “Stone Cold” Margaret (Nerys Hughes) has quickly realised that being on the TARDIS and in constant danger just isn’t the life for her and she’s dropped off home. The Doctor (Tom Baker) drops her off and walks back into the TARDIS in a huff, while Leela (Lousie Jameson) says her proper goodbyes. All seems well… until Margaret tries a nearby phonebooth and is accosted by some unearthly creatures. The Doctor and Leela agree that something felt off and arrive in what they assume is the same petrol station but with no sign of Margaret, at least until a ghostly apparition of her appears near the same phonebooth. The Doctor puts two and two together and realises that in his haste to drop her off he must of landed the TARDIS is a place in between universes, and that his short-lived companion was in danger.
Simply but effective cover, though again they really needed to take another picture of Nerys where looks at least worried or something…
It’s at this point that Ray Hunter (Kenneth Jay), one of the WWII soldiers from two stories ago, arrives saying he was invited round by a letter from Margaret, even though he doesn’t really remember her (he was being piloted by a tourist from the future at the time after all…) he was intrigued and frankly bored enough to follow up on it. The Doctor opens up a portal to find his worse fears realised: he’d left Margaret in the “Halfway place” full of Halfway Men and their leader Alice (Holly Jackson Walters), and that Margaret was soon to be fed on by them using her grief and sadness to literally weigh her down into the ground. Leela pulls The Doctor out back through the portal but Captain Hunter dives in and isn’t so lucky…
It’s a good, Stranger Things-inspired little one hour story that has a sweet end and as mentioned made me actually give a crap about Margaret after she’d failed to make any kind of impression on me up to this point. It’s weird that this story is a “bonus” story added onto the boxset and can’t be brought individually, so some people out there are going to miss out on her exit story and her best story in general. Very odd decision!
The Continuity:
One final look at the “Angels and Demons” box cover. Next year is the actual start of Fourth Doctor boxsets…
Not only does this follow on directly from the previous story, “Stone Cold”, but it also strongly connects to the story before that one, “The Friendly Invasion”. Other than the previous two stories though, this one doesn’t connect anywhere else.
Overall Thoughts:
“The Ghost of Margaret” is a great story, with a well written and acted emotional centrepiece and a good leaving story for a character I previously had no real interest in. It’s a shame more of her stories couldn’t of had this level of care to them, but oh well, got there in the end!
Captain Hunter manages to pull Margaret out and the two of them run to a nearby house, where they have no choice but to live until The Doctor can rescue them all while Alice and the Halfway Men are gathered outside, but they soon realise that by keeping themselves happy they can fight them off, so soon settle into a routine of Ray cooking a nice meal and having a nice chat and generally falling for each other. After what to them was multiple weeks The Doctor and Leela do arrive and distract the Halfway Men by feeding them TARDIS itself, and then rescue the happy couple. Sadly The Doctor reveals that once they get back to reality the altered timeline will never have happened and everything will “snap back” into place, meaning Ray Hunter won’t remember any of the time they spent together (but Margaret will due to her time travel experience).
Both are obviously upset but it has to be the way, so they part ways as the TARDIS rematerialses after giving Alice and her men something akin to indigestion. The Doctor and Leela stay at Margaret’s house for a while as the TARDIS needs time to recharge and then give Margaret a proper goodbye, including encouraging her to write the same letter that got Ray to pop over to England in the first place and start all over again, which she does and presumably lives happily ever after.
Hogan Reviews 