It's my, ehem, triumphant return to the Main Range after a month and a half of absence. And this is kind of a meh story. There's some interesting ideas here, but ultimately the ending was a pretty weak cop out to a rather interesting question that challenges the "can't change history" philosophy that I hate about this show.

There's a lot of technobabble nonsense to get the plot going. It doesn't really matter. The point here is that there's a reception for the anniversary of a scientific institute that Mel's uncle works and lives at. They're burying a time capsule to commemorate it, but uh oh, what's this? There's something already buried there? It turns out that the experimental metal they're working on was buried in the ground for hundreds of years in a box from the late 1700s. And then Mel gets yanked back in time through technobabble by the experimental metal. For reasons. Who knows. Doesn't matter.

Mel ends up showing up at this same mansion during the late 1700s, but it's inhabited by a distant ancestor of hers. She becomes confused and distraught because, again, technobabble nonsense. The point is that she's super unwell, has no idea what's happening, and is in an on again off again coma for six months. They treat her with laudanum, which is apparently an insanely powerful painkiller that makes her even more confused and tired.

And then the Doctor shows up six months later because more technobabble and it turns out that Mel is supposed to become Elanor, the second wife of Henry Hallam, a distant ancestor of hers. Henry is super infatuated with her and he thinks her name is Nel, short for Elanor. Naturally Mel doesn't get a say in this. Can you imagine women getting a say in who they marry? You know, in general? Wild.

This is where I said, lol f**k you Medicinal Purposes. Preserving history just for the sake of preserving history is a dangerous road to go down. In that story, the Doctor lures a boy who trusts him absolutely to his death for the sake of preserving history. That's evil enough, but what if it was supposed to be Evelyn who died according to the history he knew? What if, according to history the Doctor had read, there was an old woman who was a stranger who was killed, and that was supposed to be Evelyn? Would he have gone through with luring her to her death? Because, given how evil that story was, I can easily see him doing it.

There's a similar situation here. Would the Doctor willingly leave Mel here in this time period against her will and force her to marry this man she doesn't care for just to preserve history the way he remembers it? Absolutely he would as presented in the story. That's f**ked up. Mel is consistently NOT a character in this story. She is an object. A ball to be passed back and forth between the characters. She's going to be forced to marry Henry because it's the 1700s and what other choice does she have? No, she's going to be forced to marry Henry to preserve history the way everyone remembers it, because what other choice does she have?

There's something to be said for the grandfather paradox as well. If she doesn't marry this man, does that mean her family would never have existed? This is some Back to the Future stuff. If she doesn't have kids with him, then she doesn't exist. But does that matter? If you're faced with the choice of either you marry and have sex with a man you don't love and is kind of insane versus you don't exist, which would you chose? I would imagine a lot of people would choose the later. But, of course, that's not a discussion here. That could be an interesting discussion in this story, but like the rest of the story Mel has no agency here. She's not allowed to choose for herself or even think about the possibility of another option. She realizes that she has to marry Henry and that's that, it never even occurs to her to choose anything else.

Thus the ending itself is kind of a cop out. The housekeeper loves Henry and is the one who marries him. I don't know why considering he attacked her and is really violent and hateful towards her at the end, but sure. (I also can't help but hear Mrs Baddeley in her voice. "Christmas wouldn't be Christmas without my plum pudding!") It neatly solves the whole problem. It makes the story not have to confront the philosophical implications of how evil not changing history for the sake of it truly is. So with that ending in mind, it's just kind of fine. It's not nearly as interested in chewing on the ideas that it presents as it is knocking Mel out and having a bunch of men discuss her fate. Not the worst story, not nearly as bad as Medicinal Purposes which embraces the evil of that idea, but not that great either.