A Blind Eye

Gallifrey #1.4

Released: May 2004

Listened: 3/29/21

One of the inevitabilities of Doctor Who spin-offs is that they have a strong tendency to end up on Earth, even when the story and characters have nothing to do with Earth. In this case, the plot moves to a train in Switzerland just before WWII, and drags in Cissy Pollard, Charley’s sister, who is apparently a Nazi sympathizer, and not particularly bright, but it does provide a chance to cast India Fisher, which would have been a substantial draw for fans in 2004. Leela and Romana both know Charley from “Neverland,” and the events of that story tie into this one more closely than one might otherwise expect. Charley is a temporal anomaly, and the perception is that she was allowed to live just on the Doctor’s say-so, because Romana is his friend. Therefore, the logic goes, Cissy could be used to create a similar paradox. There’s some pretty deep timey-wimey going on, but that seems to be a hallmark of this series. The question of just what happened to Andred is finally resolved, and that’s pretty dark too. (And breaks another convention about Time Lords as I’ve always understood it.) Romana ends up making some fairly cold choices, which I suspect the Doctor wouldn’t approve of, but as far as Romana’s concerned, the Doctor’s gone, and this is the universe that’s left. Which makes sense given that this series seems to be going for darker and more mature, but that changes after the new series comes around.