MR 036: The Rapture

Oh we're getting religious in here now are we? Between that and hearing everyone call Ace "McShane" or "Dorothy" this was a really odd one, but a good one.

Ace is depressed after seeing David Tennant split in two in the TARDIS, understandably so, and insists that everyone call her McShane. And the Doctor wants to take her on a holiday. Enter the Rapture dance club, run by two literal angels where people go to have a religious experience.

Relating dance clubs to religion is interesting. You can get the same feeling from everyone moving and dancing to the music as you can from religious music in a church. Which definitely makes sense.

The club's angels play music that literally puts everyone into a trance so that they don't know what's happening.

The second episode is the best part I think. The entire episode bounces back and forth between three conversations, not cutting between them. One character ends off on a line that another character is saying in their conversation. It's well written, edited, and acted. Ace finds out that she has a long lost brother separated as a toddler. One of the angel DJs gives a drug to someone suffering from bi polar. And the Doctor works out what's happening with an old friend of his.

And can we stop to take a moment and say how bizarre it is that the Doctor has a friend he made fighting in the Spanish civil war? I thought that was changing Earth history. I thought you hated doing that. We learned that in Colditz. Yet for some reason you deemed it acceptable to fight in the Spanish Civil War just as you deemed it acceptable to undo the Nazi timeline in Colditz. Very hypocritical.

That's not important to this story. It's just odd, I'm not used to the Doctor outright fighting fascists on Earth, he always makes some lame excuse not to. Like in Fearmonger.

We find out that the angel DJs are refugees from a war where their peaceful people were attacked. One of them got PTSD from fighting and ended up having his mind scrambled and his brother has somehow convinced him that they're actual, real angels. They plan to conscript all the people in the club with their trance music to fight in their war. Which is a pretty wild plan.

Only the plan goes awry when the brother who genuinely believes he's an angel dies along with the Doctor's friend, who initially sponsored this, but wasn't keen on the conscription part.

There's some arguments here that without a grand enemy to fight or something greater to belong to or believe in, people just slip into depression and "battling themselves" as the Doctor's friend and the one angel argue. Which definitely is slipping into fascist territory, ironically considering they've both fought fascists. That's the exact rhetoric that fascists use to lure people in: the need to belong to something greater than oneself alone.

As revenge, the other angel seeks to take revenge for his brother's death by killing everyone. Which is, uh, a choice. But the Doctor stops him by talking him down and relating his brother relationship with Ace and her long lost brother.

There's definitely some really good character work for Ace here as she struggles to cope with the idea of a long lost brother and a long lost father who left a long time ago. Ace has a tendency to lash out when things get too real for her and she does it here. She yells at him and runs away. It's definitely reminiscent of Fenric when she realizes that the baby she's protecting is her mom and how upset that makes her feel. They do end on good terms with Ace promising to return. She thought about leaving, but she can't. Understandably so.

Overall it's pretty ok. A story with a lot of pathos, especially with sibling relationships. I liked a lot of the editing here as well as the music. They made a cute dance music intro for this story only and it's a nice change of pace.