After discovering Lucie Miller’s presence, the Doctor hesitates to detonate the charges that would destroy Ice-Warrior-infested Deimos – giving the Ice Warriors time to disable the charges. The human colonists and even Tamsin, the Doctor’s own companion, are shocked that he’d endanger them all on the mere possibility that Lucie is on Deimos. For her part, Lucie has no idea what’s going on, having been dumped on Deimos after a disagreement with the time-traveling Monk, another Time Lord whose interference the Doctor stopped at Kells Abbey. When the Monk pays Tamsin a visit, he begins to give her a very skewed version of his checkered history with the Doctor, changing her mind about traveling with him. To his dismay, the Doctor has to resort to a more forceful means of coercing the Ice Warriors back into their deep freeze hibernation, which only proves the Monk’s point.
written by Jonathan Morris
directed by Barnaby Edwards
music by Howard CarterCast: Paul McGann (The Doctor), Niky Wardley (Tamsin Drew), Sheridan Smith (Lucie Miller), Nicky Henson (Gregson Grenville), Susan Brown (Margaret), Tracy-Ann Oberman (Temperance Finch), Nick Wilton (Harold), Nicholas Briggs (The Ice Warriors), Jack Brown (Pilot)
Notes: Big Finish’s web site displays an alternate cover for this story to preserve the surprise of Lucie’s return.
LogBook entry and TheatEar review by Earl Green
Review: While it’s not exactly new to put past and present companions at odds with one another (School Reunion, Turn Left), The Resurrection Of Mars puts Tamsin and Lucie on opposite sides of a delicate issue: the morality of the Doctor himself. It’s a fascinating debate that begs explanation of why the Doctor tends not to stick around after he uproots history and everyone’s lives right along with it, and it’s all expressed in dialogue that sounds perfectly natural to both characters.
Of course, the Doctor’s trustworthy friends wouldn’t be at odds without the Monk goosing things along. Graeme Garden, no stranger to Big Finish, effortlessly steps into the Monk’s shoes as a master manipulator, but this version of the Monk isn’t just manipulating history: he’s expertly turning one of the Doctor’s own companions against him. But it’s not done in a black-and-white, mustache-twirling way: it raises enough questions in the listener’s mind, even with the full knowledge that the character in question is untrustworthy. By the time the Monk begins to show his true colors again, Tamsin’s made her choice – she’s stuck with him. And on the flipside, Lucie seems to be in no hurry to rejoin the Doctor on a full-time basis, giving The Resurrection Of Mars a bittersweet sting.
The Doctor makes an interestingly vague reference to his previous incarnation, dropping a hint of an unspecified event that compelled the seventh Doctor to travel alone toward the end of his life. Whether this is something established in another medium (Roz Forrester’s death?) or a story Big Finish has yet to tell is left tantalizingly open to interpretation.
The Resurrection Of Mars is a satisfying and yet unsettling conclusion to the story started in Deimos, pulling off an unexpected companion switcheroo in the process. But it’s obviously a pivotal turn of events in a larger storyline that still has yet to unfold.