A story of two halves, but entertaining all the way through.

Our party land on an earth colony in the far future. While the colony is peaceful and accommodating, something more seems to be going on behind the scenes. The people take all their orders from a mysterious controller, who is only shown on a screen. But who is really behind those orders? And is this society as peaceful as it looks?

Let’s start with the options: This story is, once again, missing in full. But not to worry. There is a brilliant animation which isn’t necessarily faithful, but has a fantastic atmosphere. On a creative level, this is by far the strongest animation I have seen. I would give it a go if you want to experience this story yourself.

Moving past that, this story takes some clear inspiration from George Orwell’s 1984, in which a future society follows orders from a mysterious man shown on a screen. Any attempts to deviate from the norm set by the mysterious leader are quashed without mercy. While this Doctor Who version is notably a bit less harsh, its cruel utopia still comes through loud and clear.

It's all fairly typical: The party enters the beautiful surface level and enjoys the luxuries, but soon find a hole and look behind the curtain. They discover monstrous creatures on the outside.  They discover secret mines far beneath the city. They discover the controller is nothing but a weak, old man that is used as a puppet.

It's a fine setup. I like seeing the party poke holes in the system. Some of their plans succeed, while others fail with dire consequences, which makes you feel tense every time they try something new. But while I like the way this story slowly falls into place, there are 2 of the major shifts in our party’s favor that are not really earned.

The first is the discovery of the “real controller”, who is an old man, tortured by the mysterious Macra. They discover him by yelling at a screen for a while. Just a few chants of “We want to see the real controller!” and bam! The Macra turn on the camera feed and reveal a major piece of their scheme. It is completely unearned. The Macra weren’t fooled or cheated out of this information. They just heard screaming and gave in.

Another unearned moment shows up at the end of the story. The Doctor meets up with the captain, the man “in charge” of the settlement. A man who has been hypnotized by the Macra all his life. But for some reason, the Doctor has absolutely no trouble convincing him to shake off his programming and just follow him into the deep underground mines to discover the truth of his society. It completely undermines the blissful ignorance we’ve seen through the entire 4 parts, just so it can quickly wrap up the story.

But while these moments blemish the story, they are also incredibly interesting to analyze. Without realizing it, Doctor Who has hit a bit of moral roadblock: How do you properly break down a dystopic control state?

It’s something the original 1984 didn’t really have an answer for. And this story never really bothers explaining it either. It feels like the Doctor just got lucky as he suddenly convinces the captain. The Macra get scared off and everything is better now by default. Ironically, this is where the story asks us to stop thinking, as we now put one man in charge of the entire colony.

And of course this is thinking way too deep about the topic, but it is interesting. We’ve seen the Doctor save plenty of civilizations, without spending any time on the fallout. The big difference is that the people here already believed they were living in a utopia. What happens to the frail excuse of “helping the oppressed” when the society doesn’t feel oppressed? How do you help the happy?

It's something I don’t have a clear answer on, but it keeps nagging at my mind. This story just begs you to ask those kinds of questions. And because of that, this story has matched its inspiration. Which is quite the accomplishment! Is it perfect? No. It does dawdle, and it has the previously mentioned plot holes, but it is also thought-provoking. And that is worth quite a bit too.