Fiesta of the Damned

Main Range #215

Released: 9 August 2016

Listened: 1/25/21

The TARDIS lands in Spain, which seems nice for a holiday, except it’s near to the end of the Spanish Civil War, which really isn’t. They nearly have bombs dropped on them right after exiting, and meet up with some Republican troops who are busy trying not to get killed. For a change, none of them are historical figures, although the commander of the troops is a kind man, dedicated to his troops, and he takes a shine to Mel. Ace gets along with an English reporter embedded with the troops, although that seems more like a boisterous friendship than anything more. Unfortunately, the bombing disturbed an alien artifact, one of the type that invades other planets by dropping seeds that rewrite the DNA of the local population. It’s low on power, so the story is a bit of a slow boil while the invasion ramps up, and then the Doctor has to figure out what’s going on. The characters are split up enough that everybody gets some spotlight time, and Ace and Mel’s personas start to show. Ace seems to fairly quickly get over her misgivings about having Mel around, and wants to make sure she’s OK. For Mel’s part, she quickly acknowledges that she’s not as action-oriented as Ace, but she also doesn’t want to be coddled, and shows quite a bit of empathy for the soldiers. I had thought that Ace was acting young and reckless, losing some of the development she had with Hex, but I’m not really seeing that here; she just has an active personality, no matter how much she experiences. The emphasis in this story seems to be on the historical aspects, with the sci-fi taking a back seat, as it’s solved by the Doctor doing something clever more or less off-screen. How well that works for you depends on your interest level in Spanish politics.