The Vardan Invasion of Mirth

Not gonna lie this story didn’t give me what I needed especially being so close to Oliver’s last story with the same villian it just didn’t give me the epilogue feel I think Steven needed

Also starting to think That maybe big finish has made too many stories for this gap I feel maybe they should have just done the Oliver trilogy then have that lead straight into massacre but that’s more of an overall note

You can love this story, you can hate this story, but one thing is indisputable: That title is a work of art.

 

The Doctor and Steven land in a place that looks exactly like earth, except there seems to be no atmosphere. The Doctor goes to check it out. After a while, Steven goes after him. Only to find himself in a BBC studio in 1956. So what’s happening? And where’s the Doctor?

 

What surprised me in this story is our one-time character. After a bit of initial exploring, Steven meets up with Teddy Baxter, a comedian. If you know Doctor Who, this is where they would normally drop the ball. Giving him accents, making him the epitome of pantomime and hoping to squeeze in some quick laughs at all costs.

 

The surprise is that he totally isn’t any of that. Teddy is a comedian who has just lost his double act in an ever-changing media landscape. He has worries about being able to make it on his own. He has worries about television as a medium. He is quippy, but also genuine, educated and has passions. It surprised me how well rounded he was. He jokes to hide his deeper character.

 

And that vulnerability matches nicely with our Steven, who is fairly stoic at this point in time. He makes for a very natural straight man. I kind of wish the story took time to deepen this bond. But the story has other plans.

 

After this very well done setup of a new comedic duo, the story shifts directions hard and kind of unnaturally. While Steven and Teddy are practicing, they discover a door to a spaceship called the Mediasphere, where they enter Teddy’s past.

 

This is where the story drops the ball in my eyes. This shift in tone and setting is so hard it feels unnatural. I have listened to the second part of this story 4 separate times, because it’s a lot of barely cohesive events stitched together. Let me describe it to you. Full spoilers. Because this is the only way I can find any kind of structure in this story. I’m 50% doing this for review. And 50% doing this to finally get a grip on what’s going on here.

 

Without repeating the details, Steven and Teddy are stuck in a recreation of Manchester from Teddy’s past. It’s filled with comedians. They enter a house and find a girl laughing non-stop until she transforms into electricity. This is where the Vardans are revealed as the villains.

 

Steven and Teddy manage a short conversation with the Doctor through a television. After that, the Manchester fades and it turns into a spaceship. Teddy tries to open a door, but it instead shows him his future as a successful solo TV comedian.

 

This is already a lot of info for half an hour. We are thoroughly introduced to a setting, only for it to suddenly fade. We meet Vardans for 10 seconds and now we have introduced elements of time travel to this story. That’s not even mentioning detailed stuff this story puts in, like how the Vardans edit video signals, how Steven got separated from the Doctor, Teddy’s fading in and out of existence, what happened to Teddy’s double act. All that these threads get stuffed in and it is just a mess. It’s an info dump. It’s a story with too many ideas for half an hour, so it has to rush through all explanations at record speed.

 

Want to know the fun part? We don’t even know the villain’s plan yet. So add that to the pile. It turns out the Vardans had a plan to turn humans into Vardans by infecting them with a disease that reacts to laughing. Yes, they are going for a literal “Laughing is contagious” plot. The spaceship they’re on is made to find the perfect comedy routine to take over the earth.

 

Except the problem is the spaceship. The Vardans can’t use it anymore, because there is a negative waveform that cancels Vardans out. It turns out this anti-wavefrom is Stan, Teddy’s former double-act, who transformed into the waveform when looking through a telescope. No, I don’t know why looking through a telescope turns you into anti-radio waves. At this point, just roll with it.

 

The second problem for the Vardans is that Teddy has now seen his own future in the spaceship, which turns the entire place into a paradox where Teddy can’t be killed. Time Travel. The Vardan, however, kills him anyway. But the paradox allows Steven to bring him back by repeating their routine together. Again, at this point, just roll with it.

 

But, surprise surprise. Bringing back Teddy also brought back his buddy Stan, who sacrifices himself to make the future come to pass and destroy the Vardans. We look at Saturn with Teddy for a bit, until the story abruptly ends.

 

At this point in time, I’m considering life as an alcoholic. I look back at this story and wonder what happened. We had a fun tale about Steven and a comedian, but the second half turned into pure script goop. I believe this to be shockingly incomprehensible on first listen. It’s like a foreign language. Only on repeat listen can you get the gist of the chaos before you.

 

But let’s look at the details. First, the villains. The Vardans are the main antagonists in this story and I believe them to be a bad choice. Why? Because their previous encounter with Steven and the First Doctor killed a companion. They were mind-reading, unkillable threats. But now we’re supposed to buy this plot filled with an arbitrary use of comedy to kill all humans. It’s like a crocodile putting on clown make-up. You wonder what went wrong in that creature’s life.

 

A fair critique would be to point to other encounters with the Vardans and their portrayal there. I know that, eventually, they show up on TV. Maybe this story completely matches their MO from there. But currently, I don’t have the luxury to compare that. I only have what’s given to me with the First Doctor, which is 1 story where they entirely different creatures. A story that, like this one, takes place in the Companion Chronicles range. I would’ve appreciated a bit more consistency. But that might be me.

 

A second point would be the giant plot contrivances that fill this story to the brim. I genuinely don’t think I have to point them out any further. I think they show themselves well enough in my summary. But to make sure I make my point: Why do the Vardans have time travel technology that can show the future? Why Can this Vardan enter a spaceship that others can’t? Why is Teddy the key to entering the spaceship? Why does the Spaceship initially look like Manchester? How does looking through a telescope turn you into radio waves? How did the Doctor move Steven away from the spaceship? For that matter, how are they going to get Teddy back if the Doctor can’t fly the Tardis? These are just the questions that popped out off the top of my head. I’m sure I could keep going if I wanted to.

 

But frankly, I don’t want to. I’m done. I’ve been deciphering this story for weeks now and I don’t want to see it anymore. I only have one question left. And it’s genuine:

 

What happened here?

 

There was a beautiful, emotional and simple story in the first half hour of this. But as soon as we enter the second half, it’s all gone. It’s replaced with a mess. I genuinely want to know what happened between these 2 parts. Is it because there are 2 writers? Did they have different ideas? Did they write themselves in a corner? I wish we had some answers there.

 

But we don’t. We just have this story. And I wish I loved it. Teddy was so well written, he could have been a companion. Steven is put in new places and it is a joy. But in the end, it feels like the title of this story came first. We had a plan for Vardans and Mirth, but the story fails to deliver on either. No joy. No “real” Vardans. The only thing it delivers is the one aspect that a story should never have: Missed potential.