Iris Wildthyme

#1.02. The Devil in Ms. Wildthyme ~ 7/10

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◆ An Introduction

Cultists are really weird people, especially when they hide in the most ordinary of places. Just one question: why are people growing tumours in their body that resemble the Celestial Omnibus?

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◆ Publisher’s Summary

Another message to you from Panda:

'So in this adventure, we meet Dr Zachariah Marwick. Dear Tom finds out that he has started a special clinic for people with mysterious lumps – but how come he knows exactly what they are before he's even examined them? And why is he so insistent that his patients join an exclusive speed-dating club? Trans-temporal adventuress Iris Wildthyme, meanwhile, is not herself. She's scared of her own shadow, it seems. Indeed, she's even afraid to leave her wretched bus. I, naturally, am terribly worried about her – and about Tom as well. You see, he seems to have straw coming out of his head, like old stuffing. How can that be? And then they have the temerity to accuse me of getting all emotional about everything? Me! I ask you.

Anyway, together we three brave heroes must face demons from Iris's past, as an outrageous presence begins to assert itself over reality... one that seems to have been reading far more Dennis Wheatley than is strictly necessary.'

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◆ Iris Wildthyme

Probably not the smartest idea to have your leading lady spend twenty minutes suffering from explosive diarrhoea, but that’s what happened in this episode! Iris receives some decent material from Stephen Cole, but nothing that humorous.

Series One is incredibly rough around the edges, but Katy Manning’s excellent performance continues to be a highlight.

The story so far: pursued by hostile agencies from beyond time, Iris dumped all her memories of her endless adventures into the Jewel of Marlion; a special crystal, which she tried to give Tom for safe-keeping, but they ran into bother and got cornered. It seemed the only way out of their perfidious predicament was to get Panda to smash the memory crystal. Iris is responsible for sinking the Titanic, as Tom reminds her, because she tried to run over a Plesiosaur! In millennia of space-time travel, she has never ever got the trots off a materialisation before. Iris has never settled for anything “floppy”: there are some things a girl doesn’t forget, but not many. She doesn’t carry cash! She’s like the royal family: on some worlds, she is the royal family… she thinks.

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◆ Tom

Stephen Cole fails to make me care about this character, but we don’t have to suffer him any longer: this is Tom’s final appearance. Hooray!

That performance was as stiff as a board. I genuinely believe that Ortis Deley might have chosen the wrong career: his acting skills are incredibly poor.

Tom was promised new adventures, yet they haven’t gone anywhere since they left Earth. They left their lives behind for this, him and Panda. Within minutes of stepping off the bus, he finds himself pushed down a flight of stairs!

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◆ Panda

David Benson was clearly having a camp old time with this script; bringing so much genuine humour with his performance. It also helps that Panda got some fab material.

Panda takes immense offence to being told he has a head full of straw: he is the finest mind of his generation, after all!

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◆ Story Recap

A special clinic has been established on Harley Street for people with mysterious lumps, which are supposed to be body parts for a demon called Asmodage. Unfortunately, Dr Marwick has discovered that these lumps are growing into miniature replicas of old-fashioned Routemaster buses!

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◆ Follow The Yellow Brick Road

Stephen Cole could’ve easily kept the focus on the demon body parts, because the biggest issue with this episode is that it tries to cram far too much into a single story.

Iris and her friends are morphing into characters from The Wizard of Oz; Panda ends up with a heart like the Tin Man, Tom finds that his brain has been replaced with straw like the Scarecrow, and Iris becomes frightened of her own shadow like the Cowardly Lion.

This could have been an excellent storyline where our regulars fall into a fictional reality centred around Judy Garland, but it needed to be its own episode. Put simply, it doesn’t gel with the whole Asmodage plot.

There’s also a whole sub-plot surrounding a speed-dating club which goes literally nowhere.

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◆ Sound Design

My complaint from the previous episode still stands: the soundscape is functional, but nothing special.

Cubes of ice slosh around Iris’ gin glass. A strange clicking noise comes from the Celestial Omnibus as it struggles to materialise. Punters at the ID Club chat at the speed-dating event whilst loud music plays in the background.

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◆ Conclusion

“Share your inner demons with little devils.”

An eccentric physician has been growing the body parts of a demon inside his patients. Meanwhile, Iris and her friends are morphing into characters from The Wizard of Oz.

Stephen Cole has tried to cram far too much content into a single episode, meaning that I kept zoning out and losing my grip on what was actually happening. Both the Asmodage and Oz plots have their merits, but they should have been given enough space to breathe.

Series One was really rough around the edges, and I would actually recommend skipping these two episodes entirely. Things definitely improve from this point onward; there are some genuinely hilarious stories coming up, like ‘The Iris Wildthyme Appreciation Society’, that are far more worthy of spending your money on.