Death in Blackpool

Eighth Doctor Adventures #4.1

Released: 9 December 2009

Listened: 10/25/21

The last story was released in June of 2009, and this one was released just six months later. However, the rest of Season 4 wasn’t released until July 2010, making this something of a Christmas special. A really depressing Christmas special, for which Alan Barnes apologizes in the extras. The purpose of this story is to resolve the dangling plot thread of Auntie Pat, revealed in “The Zygon Who Fell to Earth” to have been replaced by a Zygon in 1985, so Lucie never knew her “real” aunt. The Doctor tries to get Lucie to Christmas in Blackpool, 2009, but “Pat” uses a device that pulls them off-course, to 2008, because she wants to see them again. That means Lucie can’t go to her parents’ home, because she’s already there. Worse, she gets hit by a car and ends up comatose in the hospital. She has an out-of-body experience in which a different Zygon tries to take over her body. Fortunately, she’s too strong-willed for that, but she does learn Pat’s secret by accident, which shatters her faith in both Pat and the Doctor. Pat’s storyline ends here, but so, apparently, does Lucie’s. The Doctor’s anguish is pretty real in this story, as he’s been stuck in an untenable situation, and as he points out, he’s not perfect. It’s short, it’s small-cast, and it’s not really very Christmassy, but it is powerful, and it sets up the idea that this last season is going to be different than what’s gone before. Small notes: The theme music is the same from Season 3, but the cool intro to the extras is gone, which is a shame, because I liked it. They’ve also abandoned the mid-story break, which isn’t really needed in an hour-long story.