Gallifrey; Chapter II  - “Square One" by Stephen Cole

I really love when a Doctor Who story actually uses the show’s time travel premise effectively; it’s surprisingly rare but episodes like The Ark, Before the Flood or Turn Left are all great at utilising the fundamental mechanics of the show whilst stories such as the magnificent The Chimes of Midnight thematically embrace time travel to build their core narrative. Square One is not The Chimes of Midnight, but it is a story with a very fun central gimmick. However, there is one (or maybe two) big blemish(s) on this script that prevents it from being a favourite of mine.

With a rogue terrorist cell and a missing doomsday weapon weighing down on the temporal powers, the approaching peace summit may be the only way to prevent a complete breakdown of negotiations. But when Leela is sent to covertly keep an eye on proceedings, strange time anomalies threaten to shatter the order.

(CONTAINS SPOILERS)

Square One’s premise, on the surface, seems like the exact sort of thing I wanted out of Gallifrey: great ideas presented in the form of a tightly written political thriller. And you know what, Square One delivers (mostly). A peace summit starts groundhog daying, restarting each time something goes awry, and Leela is mysteriously immune to the effect. It’s a really fun idea that, in my humble opinion, works incredibly well. Cole makes good use of the premise to display a pretty fun murder mystery with a good number of fake outs. At first you think it’s a corrupt delegate trying to cover up a murder, then you think it’s Free Time back to cause more mayhem, and then it’s finally revealed that it’s the summit’s organiser - Hossack - who’s reversing time in an attempt to make sure the conference goes off without a hitch. It’s a nice little mystery that is effectively done and Hossack is a fun villain to end off the story with.

But past that? I’ve got nothing. I’ve tried writing this review four times now and each time I had to give up because I just couldn’t think of anything to say. Well actually, that’s a lie, Square One actually poses a challenge I haven’t come across as of yet as a reviewer that was an exhausting hurdle to overcome; I have one big positive to talk about, and one big negative to talk about, and everything past that I’m lukewarm on. Square One isn’t bad, but past its premise, the actual contents are just fine. Maybe it’s because Weapon of Choice was also a stripped back political thriller, but this just felt like nothing special - and it’s only episode two. Also, since it has little to do with the series arc, I think Square One could easily have been cut from the season, leading me to ask what the point of it was. However, I do have one big problem and that is the treatment of Leela. Basically, Leela is having to go undercover to infiltrate the summit, but is having to go undercover as an “exotic dancer”. It is, unsurprisingly, really uncomfortable to listen to, especially since Cole gave Leela almost childlike ignorance making the whole thing just icky. I guess it could be saying something about how Romana puts her duty before her friends or something but either way it just doesn’t sit right with me and is hell to listen to. And this isn’t the first time Cole’s done this, see here the short story Face Painter that he wrote under a pen name, it is an incredibly strange read with some very questionable choices made. With every Stephen Cole story I experience it becomes even weirder to me that my first exposure to him was through the Astrosaurs series I read when I was eight.

And that’s Square One. Apologies if this review was brief but I have exactly two things to say about this story and not much else. It’s another fun episode of political intrigue and duplicitous characters with a fun time travel mechanic thrown in, but it also makes some uncomfortable choices that don’t sit well with me and fails to be anything more than enjoyable.

6/10

Pros:

+ Really unique, timey-wimey premise

+ Hossack was a pretty interesting antagonist

+ Decent murder mystery

Cons:

- The awkward circumstances surrounding Leela’s cover make this a pain to sit through

- Just not particularly deep past its premise