MR 073: Thicker Than Water

Well excuse me while I just start bawling. Excuse me what. This is a proper send off for Evelyn... before we're threw her stories. I'm curious as to why we did this at this point rather than as her last story. Perhaps Maggie Stables was in poor health or something. I remember when I heard that she died and I cried, but it was later than this point in time.

Anyway, the story is about the tension between Evelyn and her step daughter Sofia. Sofia and her friend Sebastian disagree with Evelyn's ongoing research on the Killoran technology after the invasion in Arrangements for War. Evelyn has left the Doctor presumably awhile after that story, coming back because she fell in love with Rossiter. Rossiter is now the most powerful person on the planet, in charge of all three countries which have since united after the invasion. So Evelyn and Sofia are both rather high profile individuals.

Evelyn wants to study the Killoran tech while Sofia and Sebastian want to destroy it. The intro is fun with a live tv debate between them and Evelyn storms out. It's good at setting the stage for the story. Sofia then makes an off hand comment about how she wishes Evelyn were out of the way and Sebastian takes it to heart.

Meanwhile the Doctor and Mel come to visit since Mel says she'd love to meet Evelyn. The Doctor always insists that Evelyn had a calming influence on him and that he's positively mellow compared to how he started and he's not wrong. Poor Peri had to deal with the brunt of it in the horrible season 22.

Only as soon as they show up, Evelyn gets kidnapped and Mel gets dragged along. It turns out the kidnapper is Sebastian who is doing this for Sofia since he loves her. Sofia comes to the rescue with the Doctor and Rossiter himself and Sebastian gets shot.

We then learn that something is not quite right here. This is only halfway through the story after all. Sebastian gets taken to the hospital where he dies after surgery. Evelyn has been in this hospital as well for treatment for her heart condition. But she's been very aggressively of late and had massive migraines which have knocked her unconscious a couple times, including during the kidnapping.

The Doctor and Rossiter uncover a hidden lab underneath the hospital where one of the doctors, Szabo, has been experimenting on Killorans. He's been working with Sebastian, taking the Killoran DNA and putting it into coma patients to see if they recover, which they do. Evelyn was one such patient. Which is why she's been very aggressive and irritable. I'm not a big fan of the biological essentialist thing here, that this species is aggressive because of their DNA, but it's not really the focus so I'll ignore it.

Szabo was trying to create a red herring by stirring up political debate about experimenting on the Killoran technology so nobody would think about the Killorans themselves. It's pretty f**ked. And then he kills himself so he won't be put on trial. It turns out Sebastian had just kidnapped Evelyn to help Sofia, Szabo did not direct him to do that. Indeed, it led to their undoing and Szabo killed Sebastian on the operating table because of it. He even shoved Mel down a shaft when she found out what was going on.

And then we get the really sentimental stuff. The Doctor never really properly said goodbye to Evelyn when she left. Because of course he didn't. He has a hard time saying goodbye at the best of times. But now he really does get to say it as he gives Evelyn away at her vow renewal and they dance together.

There is a special cameo here, as well, where McCoy shows up and Evelyn can tell he's the Doctor. He tells her that he's traveling with Hex who is Cassie's son and how much that means to the both of them. Excuse me while I start crying. I didn't care for the Project stories, of course, but I did like the character stuff that Arrangements for War and Doctor Who and the Pirates did with them. Of course we haven't really gotten to know Hex yet. He was just in two stories so far, his introductory story and a pretty terrible one, but it's not about him so much as who he's related to.

And that's that. This was a really special coda on top of Arrangements for War. The story was very fun and really served as a good reason to get the Doctor and Evelyn back together again. I love Mel's presence in the episode as well. She has good chemistry with Evelyn and does her investigation quite well as I'd expect.

It was really sentimental at the end there. Evelyn never told the Doctor about her heart condition while the Doctor just didn't ever really want to say goodbye. They were both sentimental towards each other, but couldn't really speak their feelings towards each other. Now here they can. Evelyn starts to say her feelings and the Doctor cuts her off, but Evelyn won't hear of it. She says it anyway. She says that the Doctor means a lot to her and that she loves him. Which is really special. She's now the second companion to say she loves the Doctor, after Charley, and she really means it. This relationship is special. Rest in peace Maggie Stables. I miss your voice and your character in these stories. This is such a moving tribute to her.