Relative Dimensions

Eighth Doctor Adventures #4.7

Released: December 2010

Listened: 11/7/21

After the last story, a bit of a breather is necessary. Tamsyn has gone off with the Monk, and Lucie is back with the Doctor, but not to stay. By way of apology, he offers her Christmas in the TARDIS, and also invites Susan and Alex. “An Earthly Child,” released a year prior, is pretty much required listening before this one, as there’s a direct connection. It also connects to “Quinnis,” but that’s far from required. The Doctor has ulterior motives with almost everything he does in this story, consciously or not. He doesn’t tell Lucie who Susan and Alex actually are until they turn up; he never told Susan about Lucie at all. And he’s testing Alex the whole time to see if he’ll make a suitable companion and heir. That infuriates Susan, who’s convinced that her Grandfather is just as short-sighted and irresponsible as he’s ever been. Her ability to treat the Eighth Doctor as exactly the same person as the First, while also acknowledging her own maturity, is one of the highlights of the story, and Carole Ann Ford pulls it off perfectly. There is, of course, a threat to the TARDIS, because we can’t just have a Christmas dinner story. Marc Platt does a decent job of making it seem dangerous, but in fact it’s mostly just an interruption and a conversation starter. In the end, the Doctor doesn’t really get what he wants, although he may have gained some understanding of the other people in his life, specifically that they have lives of their own to live without him.