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Survival of
the Fittest
FEBRUARY 2010
(3 EPISODES)
There are certain Doctor Who
sub-genres that I love, and others of which I’m less than
fond. As a general rule of thumb, most historical adventures; contemporary
invasions;
wibbly-wobbly,
timey-wimey,
headache-prompting brainteasers; and even sweeping space operas are likely
to prompt a thumbs-up from me, whereas even the most inventive and
well-drawn alien jungles and bug-eyed monsters are unlikely to even
capture my interest. And so when I saw the cover and the blurb for
Survival of the Fittest, I assumed that no matter how impressive
Jonathan Clements’ script was going to be by any objective standard, I
wouldn’t like it. And nine times out of ten, when I form such a prejudice
I’m ultimately proven right.
Nine times of out of ten…
Whilst
Clements would give the likes
of Paul Leonard or Jim Mortimore
a run for their money here with his
extraordinary extraterrestrial world-
building, I think that Survival of the
Fittest has a much wider appeal than
most heavy science-fiction pieces.
Inspired largely by the behaviour of
bees, the Vrill and their world are
wholly alien to the listener, yet they
are presented in such a way that we
are able to grasp the concepts and
relate to them without any ado. Furthermore, In a truly inspired move,
Clements even delves into the inner workings of the TARDIS’ translation
circuits, explaining how the Doctor and Klein (and indeed, Steffen and
Jackson) can hear the Vrill, despite their communications being
entirely olfactory. I knew that Big Finish were pioneering, but I’d still
thought we were years away from scratch ‘n’ sniff drama.
What really made Survival of the Fittest so enjoyable for me though
was its superb portrayal of Klein and her relationships with the Doctor
and, to a certain extent, Steffen. Explicitly set some considerable time
after the events of A Thousand Tiny Wings, when this story opens
the Doctor and Klein are operating as a reasonably well-oiled team.
They’ve been all over time and space together and, much to the Doctor’s
delight, Klein genuinely appears to be opening her eyes to the wonder of
the universe. There is one especially beautiful scene right at the start
of the play, where Klein looks up to see the whole Milky Way galaxy in the
night sky (the Vrill planet is almost directly below the galactic core)
and is rapt by its splendour.
“Maybe travel is broadening your mind…”
Of course, Klein still clearly detests the Doctor and what he’s done to
her world, and more fundamentally she’s still a fascist. However, what
Clements cleverly does with her here is
to project what she views as the positive aspects of totalitarianism onto
the Vrill, whom she obviously feels sympathy for. Here Klein champions the
Vrill ‘state’ over Steffen’s individual, completely missing the point that
Steffen is the one who tried to wipe out the Vrill using nerve gas;
Steffen is the one claiming to need “Lebensraum” (at least initially).
It’s as if Klein is so desperate to reconcile her Nazi philosophies with
her sympathetic feelings for the Vrill that she’s completely blind to the
salient facts of the situation.
“All time and space will lay before me. A thousand year Reich!
The Reich will rise again. It will be my victory!”
Now had Survival of the Fittest followed on from Klein’s Story
directly, I don’t think that I’d have bought into her evident
rehabilitation and, more to the point, I don’t think that the Doctor would
have done either. But given the passage of subjective time and the
Doctor’s insidious counsel, as Clements’ story galloped towards its
conclusion I was starting to believe that Klein was actually softening. I
should’ve known better though – we wouldn’t have had much
of a final act to look forward to if that were the case, now would we? The
play concludes with Klein stealing the TARDIS and releasing a tirade of
suppressed vitriol – vitriol that seems to take the overconfident Time
Lord very much by surprise. Indeed, the weary Doctor is almost incredulous
when he realises that, despite the unique “education” that he has provided
her with, Klein has betrayed him.
And Tracey Childs and Sylvester McCoy both play it so very well; so much
so, in fact, that part of me is sorry that we’ve had to cut straight to
the end, as it were. As it is, this is the only story of the run to really
cast Klein in the “companion” role. I would have loved to have heard about
the Doctor and Klein’s intervening adventures; about her smiling and
wagging her tail with just enough spite to make the changing of her spots
seem plausible.
“Is that enough lebensraum for you?”
On a final
note,
Adrian Bower (Brian of Teachers fame) and his discrete, northern
brogue matches Childs and McCoy every step of the way as Steffen. In the
accompanying extras, Mark Donovan (who plays Steffen’s
partner in crime, Jackson) likens the pair of galactic rogues to Glitz and
Dibber (The Trial of a Time Lord, Dragonfire) but in truth they’re
much more down and dirty than that, willing to wipe out a sentient species
just so that they can “farm” some unique nutrients and make a quick buck.
Even so, the pair of them maintain
an almost bungling sense of ingenuousness that certainly makes them
memorable, if not quite endearing.
And so Survival of the Fittest has turned out to be the one in ten,
hard-hitting science fiction adventure that manages to impress me, even
though it’s far from being my usual cup of tea. Laden with innumerable
layers of metaphor and buoyed by some bravura performances, the beating
heart of this “Klein Trilogy” is certainly not to be missed.
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