Other Lives

Main Range #77

Released: 13 December 2005

Listened: 8/29/21

C’rizz gets his first visit to Earth, and it doesn’t go very well for him. The crew arrive in 1851 at the Crystal Palace, and are almost immediately separated, as well as losing the TARDIS. C’rizz has the worst time of it, being taken in by a con man and exhibited in a freakshow because of his appearance. This causes him to become rather disgusted with human behavior, and he lets his violent side out several times. It’s now manifesting as voices in his head, which is never good. Charley, after an initial bad night, makes friends with the elderly Duke of Wellington, who finds her charming and clever, and is a big help in searching for the others. The Doctor meets up with a woman who believes him to be her lost husband, and that plotline is clever enough that you’re never quite sure what she’s thinking, and the Doctor alternates between annoyance and sympathy. This is technically a true historical, although C’rizz’s status as an alien and Charley’s as a time traveler both play into the plot, as does a disappearing TARDIS. All three threads overlap in ways that seem a bit unlikely, but there’s certainly been worse in this show. All three of the main actors play dual roles, but while Conrad Westmaas is pretty convincing as a French noble, India Fisher mostly just sounds like herself with a silly accent. It’s a nice break from the “amorphous evil” stories that have been the majority lately.