| From Doctor Who Magazine #278-282 |
A Review by Finn Clark 4/4/12
I don't think it works, really. I respect it, but it's also a bit boring.
On the upside, it's a historical set in Japan that feels about right to me. At least the dialogue isn't littered with "-san" and the like, thank goodness. There are historical and cultural references. e.g.. Tango no Sekku, for which Scott Gray correctly uses the old name (it's now called Children's Day), although he's fudging things a bit by saying that it must be the 5th of May. Japan didn't adopt the Gregorian calendar until 1873 and even now they've still got a daft Emperor-based way of counting years that they've maintained in parallel, so strictly speaking this adventure is actually set on the 5th day of the 5th moon in the Chinese calendar. Given the variability of the Chinese New Year, this could be just about anything.
As for the year, we know it's the early 17th century, in the Edo period (1603-1868). Katsura Sato has no love for peacetime and is clinging to his memories of the Era of Warring States, but on the other hand the Doctor's description of an isolationist Japan where foreigners are prohibited sounds like Sakoku ("locked country"), which came about in stages during the thirties. The shogun's trade restrictions are real enough, at least. Then there's the fact that Captain Hirotada suggests the Doctor and Izzy might be missionaries, which may or may not be a suggestion that they're still operating in the country and thus the Shimabara Rebellion (1637-38) and its aftermath haven't happened yet. I'm going to go for 1640, suggesting that the peasants had been starving in Lord Rikushira's province due to the poor crops and famine of 1639, and we can even calculate a precise date of 3 April 1640.
Lance Parkin's AHistory suggests the year 1600, perhaps because it's nearly the anniversary of the story's publication. Um, no...
I haven't started discussing how it works as a story yet. Firstly, it's too long. Alan Barnes's stories were sometimes too short, but Scott Gray was more deliberate in his pacing and would occasionally spread his story too thin. Why is this five episodes? What makes it better than Endgame, Tooth and Claw or The Fallen, eh? Maybe the answer is that it needed five episodes to fit in its four cliffhangers? Even they're not much cop if you ask me, though. The third one's doing something brave, but the other three are all the same, really. "Look, a wacky monster!" Once it's aliens and twice it's an iconic image from Japanese culture that's surprising, but not meaningful.
As for the story, we've got some local politics and a boring bunch of aliens called the Gaijin (oh, really?). There's a McGuffin that lets you create monsters out of thin air, but that's just the comic-strip equivalent of a movie overdoing the CGI. Katsura Sato's running around being impressively violent, though. In fairness, there's nothing actually wrong with the plot, but brevity would have made it punchier. However, as you'd expect from Scott Gray, the story isn't without depth. The running theme of the Doctor's actions being examined is again brought up, with the Gaijin comparing their motives and actions with his. A little unnerving though is his creation of an immortal Sato. That's something that would come back to bite him, but even without that foreknowledge it's still kind of disturbing. That's a dark last page. Note also Lady Asami's stated motive for killing Lord Makoto. "A man who... brought great shame on me in my youth." Maybe that wasn't rape, but it sounds like it.
I'm not wild about Martin Geraghty's art. He gets the obvious things right, e.g. the samurai and the Japanese castle, but he's ignorant of the details. "Beautiful work! These are protective banners, Izzy, designed to ward off evil spirits." So how about showing them to us, then? Similarly if it's Tango no Sekku, then why not fly a few koinobori carp flags? In addition Geraghty isn't trying to adapt his style in the slightest, except perhaps with the first cliffhanger splash page. This is my least favourite work of his, actually.
Oh, and a small linguistic note. Izzy would indeed be pronounced 'iji' by a Japanese speaker, but those two syllables have many possible meanings. Pride, spirit, willpower, backbone, etc. isn't the only choice. "Medical practice" is another option, albeit a minor one, but more significant for Izzy might be "orphan".
Overall a bit dull, I'm afraid. I like its violence and the way it's moving forward Gray's themes for the comic strip of this period, but that's about it, really. I don't care about its characters and it's relying too much on its (occasional) wacky imagery. However, having said that, this might be one of the few Scott Gray stories that worked better on original publication, despite its length. Most of its cliffhangers don't mean anything, but they look good.