The Alchemists - ★½☆☆☆

The Alchemists is a historical episode set a few years before World War II, during the rise of Nazism, that I would define as an unfocused political thriller. The Doctor and Susan land in 1930s Germany and decide to visit one of the local scientific centers where they meet Fritz Haber, a real historical figure who was important for developing a process for synthesizing ammonia that, although initially of interest for agriculture as a fertilizer, ended up becoming a key element for the production of explosives during the World Wars. Things take an unexpected turn when, during this visit, the Doctor is kidnapped and Susan now has to rescue him. A very good premise but one that I don't feel was well developed.

Susan's wanderings through the streets of Berlin are a double-edged sword. On the one hand, I find the direction very atmospheric and evocative of the social tensions of the 1930s, especially with regard to Hitler's rise to power and the naturalization of barbarism. This is palpable, for example, in the way several characters demonstrate a certain ambivalence towards Haber; an apparent moral contradiction – from the point of view of these CHARACTERS, I want to make it clear, not mine – between him having played an essential role in Germany's development in the previous years but being a Jewish man. The white characters constantly expect him to betray the country, a lack of character that they assume is inherently racial. Likewise, there is a refinement of cruelty in this story when, after receiving help from a group of children, they guide Susan to the Brownshirts, a paramilitary organization. In the specific case of the characters we see here, they're Hitler Youth who wants to take control of justice on the streets of Berlin into their own hands – the real story of the Brownshirts is a little more complicated than that, but that's how they are characterized in this story.

The Alchemists is set in 1933, just a year before the Night of the Long Knives, when political tensions between internal factions in Nazi Germany culminated in the purge of political rivals, including prominent members of the Brownshirts. It was therefore an important group in Hitler's rise but its power was quickly stifled when it became an obstacle to the Third Reich. The cruelty, of course, lies in the naturalness of the whole thing and in these characters, all children, being used as political pawns. Not only that, but this entire hostile environment that takes over Berlin is closely interconnected with the famine that gripped the country after World War I; an element not so present in the script but still subtly represented - whether in the children following Susan in the hope of earning some money, or in the resentment that characters in the adult cast demonstrate for the German defeat, blaming the recession that followed in the rest of the world and, mainly, on the Jewish people.

Just as much as I find the atmosphere very well constructed and immersive for the historical context in question, I find the unfolding of the events in the particular narrative of The Alchemists weak and the acting questionable. I found it bearable now, after listening to the story for the second time, but the German accent of some characters, especially Strittmatter, was very irritating at first and kept distracting me. As much as Susan's wandering around Berlin raises all the positive points that I discussed in the previous two paragraphs, it is also pointless. It may even be a realistic approach to how Susan would be lost in a situation like that, but as character development it is a big no-no. All the resolutions of the plot are independent of her, she is just being carried here and there by the characters that really matter. And the worst thing is that I find this easy to solve.

In the final minutes of the story, it is revealed that a shopkeeper that the Doctor and Susan met while exchanging their coins for German coins was the one who kidnapped the Doctor. This is justified by the fact that word had spread among society that Fitz Haber was studying a way to transform materials into gold, supposedly to boost the German economy – or perhaps he was going to give the secret to enemy countries?! The shopkeeper, Strittmatter, jumps to conclusions when the two idiots show up with brand new and perfectly preserved Roman coins – because they are, they are coins that they obtained when visiting Rome on previous trips. Obviously, no German in 1933 would imagine that he had met two time travelers, so the conclusion he comes to when the two go to visit Haber is that the scientist has found a way to produce gold. I think it is a very clever plot developed through real historical facts – Haber did in fact try for years to find a way to extract gold from the sea. So when Susan returns to the store with more coins to exchange for more money and ends up kidnapped too, I think it's a shame that the story doesn't make this intentional on her part. She's very intelligent, smart, she could have deduced who the kidnapper was from previous dialogues – as she realizes shortly after – and come up with a plan to save her grandfather. Voilà, a tiny change in the script and she gains a much more active role in the resolution of the story.

Another problem is a character I haven't mentioned yet, a double agent named Pollitt who also wants to discover the secret to producing gold and whose main interest seems to be profiting from the impending war. I think he's a character who fits well into the worldbuilding of 1930s Germany, but I feel like he doesn't have much of a role in the plot other than being a villain who's a bit more threatening than Strittmatter. It's no wonder I described the entire story of the audio in the previous paragraphs without mentioning him. I wouldn't eliminate him from the plot because in my correction of Susan's role he would be important for her to deduce who kidnapped her grandfather, but I admit I don't know what other additions I would make to the character to make him a bit more important. But maybe that would be enough, since his confrontation with Susan and the Doctor at the climax of the story is, perhaps, my favorite moment of it.

The final scene in which the Doctor comforts Susan with the prospect of better years awaiting the world after the War is well-intentioned and it's understandable where it comes from, especially from the outside perspective of two time-traveling aliens with a moral system naturally different from ours, but it is too complex an idea to be discussed in such a short scene and so it feels somewhat insensitive. Millions of people died in the war, heinous crimes were committed. There is no such thing as looking on the "bright side" of a tragedy of this magnitude. Hunger, hatred and death are not, and should not be, tools of progress. I do not think, again, that this was the point of this ending, but it does feel insensitive.

Unfortunately, for me the negative elements have a much more significant weight in the story and my conclusion is that, what a shame, I really don't like The Alchemists.