Hogan Reviews

So as to not spam two Doctor Who reviews in one day let’s take a look at the last (until next year…) entry of the Once and Future storyline before my daily Multi-Doctor story marathon kicks off tomorrow. Thankfully “The Union” was a really enjoyable story with some fun cameos and twists, to the point where I can’t help but think adding on a second hour with similar themes to the other Once and Future releases leading into this and just releasing it stand-alone would’ve been much better than the mostly weak monthly releases we’ve had, but ah well… let’s take a look!

The Doctor, currently stabilized as his Eighth self (Paul McGann) arrives at the “Diamond Array”, a space station in a dimension outside of time, in response to a distress call from his granddaughter Susan (Carole Ann Ford). As he steps out he finds his current degeneration problem rears its ugly head once again and he starts flitting between forms again, most frequently his Eighth and Fourth (Tom Baker) self, but the combination of a special device he made and the presence of Susan help stabilze him again. While the two get reacquainted we hear the titular Union (Maureen O’Brien) talking to her girlfriend of sorts, River Song (Alex Kingston) and thanking her for capturing Susan and praising her for being the one to finally kill The Doctor (not knowing about the whole Eleventh Doctor faking his death thing) The Union’s Operator (Michael Maloney) is distrustful of her but does what his boss wants.

The Operator arrives in front of The Doctor and removes his device, sending him into a degeneration-athon, including Stephen Noonan as the First Doctor, Michael Troughton as the Second (though really badly, I guess this was his first attempt because he’s miles better in the stand-alone boxsets…) and Tim Treloar as the Third, while River once again “captures” Susan, but she soon shows her true colours once the Operator leaves and begin to fill the Doctor in on the Union and that her Diamond Array was made up of planets that have been crushed to diamonds and that Earth was next. The Doctor and Susan arrive in prehistoric Earth (around the same time and place they did previously in the very first TV serial!) and manage to put a stop to The Union’s plans and head back to the Array, where The Doctor is once again sent into a degeneration spree, but this time he flicks forwards as well, all the way up to his Twelfth incarnation (Jacob Dudman, though I really don’t rate his Twelfth at all, it took me a few moments to realise what was supposed to be going on…)

Hmmm…. Wish they didn’t use the “Power of the Doctor” Eighth Doctor image, he looks way too old…

This Doctor uses his advanced future knowledge to concoct a plan to stop his foe, who he has figured out the identity of. As The Doctor meets back up with Susan he switches back to his Eighth self then forward to his Tenth (David Tennant), Eleventh (Jacob Dudman again, but I really rate his Eleventh Doctor, so that’s fine!) and back to the Twelfth again, who explains to a confused River who starts to have memories of events that haven’t happened that they’re “pre-memories” due to his zipping forward in time. The Union arrives, angry that she can no longer create diamonds from planets, and The Doctor reveals she is an incarnation of The Eleven (or The Two, The Three etc) who has used the power of the Array to stabilize her condition of having all her selves in her head at once, instead becoming a perfect Union of all of them. That was a fun twist. It’s also revealed that the Operator is actually The Two and all of her staff are her past selves, brainwashed. The Doctor frees them and lets them leave as River and Susan flee in the TARDIS before the big showdown.

As I said the story is good fun, as are the further revelations I’ll get to in the Spoiler section, and concept is used well here, unlike most of the other “Once and Future” sets.

The Continuity:

One last “not very good Special Edition cover” to end us on…

A fair few, beyond looping back round to the opening of the first story in Once and Future, “Past Lives”, and mentioning a few objects seen in the other parts. Obviously as mentioned The Doctor and Susan run into the same Tribe of Gum from the very first serial “An Unearthly Child”, while Susan recognises River from their meeting in River Song audio “An Unearthly Woman”. There are several references to Susan’s departure in “The Dalek Invasion of Earth” as well as direct references to Susan’s depressing ending from the Eighth Doctor double bill “Lucie Miller / To The Death”.

In non-Susan related continuity we also have the Twelfth Doctor and River remembering the events of “The Husbands of River Song” despite it being the future for both of them, and of course a few references to other The Eleven / The Two / The Nine etc. stories as well as a few references to “Day of the Doctor” …

Overall Thoughts:

“Once and Future: The Union” is a really fun celebration of sixty years of Doctor Who, even if it’s not without a flaw or two I’m willing to not focus on them because I did have a smile on my face for most of it. Again this would’ve been perfect as a stand-alone story with a lead in touching on the ideas in the other stories rather than a badly prolonged series, but whatever. For just THIS release, it was a good time. No idea what the actual final “Coda” release is going to be like but given that’s not out until NEXT November I don’t think I’ll care one way or another by that point…

The Union reveals a truth herself, that it wasn’t the Eighth Doctor she shot with the Degeneration gun, it was “the one you don’t acknowledge”, a.k.a. The War Doctor, who she forces to appear (once again voiced excellently by Jonathan Carley) We get a flashback of The War Doctor finding several renegade Time Lord locked up (explaining why The Master had also been hit by the gun), including The Monk (Rufus Hound), who watches as his old foe is hit by The Union’s Degeneration gun and then actually helps him into his TARDIS and tells him to find him and gives his a bit to tech to do so, as The Monk remembers the events of the first story in this Once and Future line. So with that background finally revealed and the continuity loop, um, looped The War Doctor in the present admits that he isn’t ashamed of The Doctor and that he “just has to lock him up while he does what needs to be done” and then the Eighth Doctor reappears declaring he doesn’t fear turning into him and the other Doctors don’t hate him either.

We then get the Fifth (Peter Davison), the Sixth (Colin Baker) and the Seventh (Sylvester McCoy) Doctors appearing, all declaring the key difference between The Doctor and the Union is that he doesn’t mind his other selves and in fact likes hanging out with them, unlike her. Back as The Eighth Doctor he also warns The Union that her gun has become dangerously unstable and says she shouldn’t fire it again, which of course she does and the resulting explosion destroys the Array, The Doctor saved in the nick of time by River and Susan in the TARDIS. We then get a sweet moment where The Eighth Doctor says that “despite what happens in front of these eyes” he hopes she forgives him, then says someone else wants to say hello leading to the First Doctor saying that Susan had “proved him right, that he wasn’t mistaken in his beliefs” before returning to The War Doctor and heading off in his TARDIS, Susan remarking how sad he looked…