Resistor

This is part of a series of reviews of Doctor Who in chronological timeline order.

Previous Story: Pursuit of the Nightjar

Right off the bat, this story feels so refreshingly unique. An 80s nightclub in Warsaw, something that feels more alien than a planet called Gleep Glorp in the furthest reaches of the Milky Way just because of how different it is as a setting. In fact, my only gripe with the setting is the lack of Polish accents. Yeah I get that it's probably easier to just do British accents and pretend that the TARDIS is translating it or whatever excuse they'd give. Still, I'd much rather a really rubbish attempt at a Polish accent than constand British ones, especially considering how accents later play into the story. It's the only thing in my opinion needed to make the setting truly distinct.

This is a much lighter story than the last, it has some generally comedic scenes, the most notable I can think of was Peter Davison pulling an Australian accent to convince a police officer that he was the Australian ambassador. Honestly I thought his accent was fairly good, but it would be considering how much he's worked with Janet Fielding. Despite being a lighter story, that doesn't stop it from tackling some interesting moral ideas and giving a fairly good insight into the treatment of homosexual people around that time. While I thought this was handled pretty well, especially in the first half, it could have been expanded on a little more.

The alien plot really distracts from the more interesting ideas in this story. They're by far the least interesting part of the story and bring it down in my opinion. The titular band were an interesting choice, at first I thought the music they were playing was intentionally bad but they played it completely straight. I thought the story was going to go in a completely different direction honestly, with the Doctor being confused as to why everyone likes they're music. Otherwise it's a decent story let down by a mediocre alien plot and someone in production with questionable music taste.

Next Story: Mawdryn Undead

On their way to visit Tegan's grandparents, the Doctor, Tegan and Nyssa find themselves in a Warsaw nightclub in 1982, just in time for a performance by new punk band "Resistor". The band's drummer has gone missing, the nightclub has been raided by the secret police and something alien is taking people away too.

From the off the story feels fresh, a nightclub is the type of setting less often explored in Doctor Who and as listener's we're even treated to a sample of Resistor's music which feels like the auditory equivilant of having a big set piece, it brings an extra bit of production value to the story. On the whole the sound design is excellent, selling physical action particularly convincingly, even by the high standard set by previous stories, a standout example being a scene involving a motorcycle crash.

It seems like a fun story for the cast too, the Doctor and Tegan get some funny scenes when dealing with the secret police, in one instance involving Peter Davison having to attempt an Australian accent, I can only imagine how entertaining a recording session that might've been if Janet Fielding was present for it. When Tegan's own status as an Australian comes into question, an offhanded reference is made to making a lamington, something I'm choosing to believe is to bring the year's two releases in this range full circle, seeing as Tegan's first scene in the previous box set has her complaining that the TARDIS food machine can't rustle one up for her.

The story is strongest in its first half, when it's dealing primarily with avoiding the secret police, trying to find the missing drummer and band member Roman's moral struggle the story is brilliant. Unfortunately I feel like it loses a lot of steam when the focus shifts onto the alien, I appreciate the way it links to Roman's story, there really is a strong parallel to work with there but I didn't find it quite as interesting. The alien could've done with a little more fleshing out and buildup, and I'm not the biggest fan of the choice of effects on the alien's voice either, it leans a little too much on the generic for my liking. This story might've been able to reach its full potential as a pure historical but I'll set aside my championing for the format for now, as it stands the story is still strong.

The one other niggle is that a small part of the story hinges on the band being familiar to Tegan, having heard of them before joining the TARDIS, the impression I got from this was that Resistor must be based on a real group but they aren't, so it felt a little odd, it's another element that could've used a little more buildup than it got but it's a mostly inconsequential element of the story.

Even though it has an incredibly tough act to follow, Resistor won't leave you disappointed, it's a fun two parter that moves at a good pace and is just generally well produced. I can only hope that my criticisms of it haven't come across too harshly.