The next Twelfth Doctor adventure sees the return of an old foe and unlike the previous story, features a look at a modern day (and indeed past) political and social issue with great care and some brilliant scenes. Plus once again the final few moments are fantastic! Let’s take a look…
Wings of Steel picks up from the previous story as Ash (Gwithian Evans) is still mortified that Sky had been killed by the TARDIS dematerialising, The Doctor (Jon Culshaw) confirming that the Refiner in her system reacted badly with the time stream in a way he didn’t foresee. Thankfully instead of Ash now hating The Doctor he understands it was a mistake but before they take Sky’s body anywhere he wants revenge, and the two of them know of a buyer of Refiner from their previous outing and so head there right away. On the planet Doorahla they find a race of human-like people with wings who seem alright, at least we the listener heard a man called Mundar (Nichaolas Shaw) writing to his loving wife and son back home about missing them and such, but it soon becomes apparent that the society is not only corrupt and extremely into eugenics but the “people of Ultima” are actually a future version of the Krillitane, who have taken their original idea of stealing parts of other races to better themselves to the extreme of seeing any Krillitane without the latest upgrade as “impure” and any race that isn’t Krillitane inferior.
They wanted the Refiner because they’re currently at war with a race that can heal from any wound, so a substance that can turn them into a statue forever appealed. We hear Mundar torture a member of the race (sadly just known as “409” to really ram home the holocaust/Nazi stuff, played by Holly-Marie Michael) to pinpoint the right part of her race’s DNA to the Krillitane can gain near-immortality too. They also capture The Doctor and Ash, the former they’re excited about as they always wanted to study a Time Lord, and the latter they’re ironically disgusted by due to the myriad of races that make up his DNA making him a “mongrel” (due to being from the end of the universe where the surviving races all ended up on the last few planets, so makes sense they’d be quite a few inter-racial relationships going on!) At the moment of the Krillitane’s rise to new heights though things don’t go according to their plan though, for them or for The Doctor…
The Continuity:
A good cover, especially as they couldn’t really feature the returning enemy, even if it was already revealed they look so different now!
The Krillitane first appeared in Tenth Doctor TV story “School Reunion”, and then (much) later reappeared in the audio two parter “The Krillitane Feint” (Second Doctor story) / “The Krillitane Relic” (Seventh Doctor story). They’ve made a few book and comic appearances as well.
Overall Thoughts:
“Wings of Steel” was a sometimes uncomfortable listen as the Krillitane Nazis do horrible Nazi things but it all leads to a fantastic finale full of “was X right?” “is X ever justifiable?” questions, and a great cliffhanger. Man this series of Twelfth Doctor stories is nailing it episode after episode…
Sadly, despite The Doctor and Ash’s best efforts, 409 is killed by Mundar, who is then convinced by The Doctor that his family is in danger if the Krillitane he serve do get their immortal bodies. This leads to the ceremony where the Krillitane top brass all get the 409 healing gene but unknown to them they and all other Krillitane in attendance also get laced with Refiner, leading to Mundar killing the entire room’s worth of his brothers and sisters for the sake of his family, much to The Doctor’s horror.
That’s not the only thing that happens to his horror though as Ash is once again not satisfied just handing Mundar over to the Shadow Proclamation again and draws a gun on the Krillitane. The Doctor tries to talk him out of it again, but this time Ash kills Mundar in cold blood, seeing nothing wrong with killing a killer just like the killer saw nothing wrong in killing to save his family. The Doctor is outraged and tells Ash to get back into the TARDIS, leaving us hanging on just what he’ll do with his companion now he’s committed such a brutal and unnecessary act…