This Sporting Life

A nice little half an hour story I do love a short trip I do

If you’ve ever wanted the most barebones, cookie cutter Doctor Who story, here we are.

The party arrives in 1966, where the world football cup has just been stolen. After a quick look around, someone shoves a weird envelope into Steven’s hands. It’s a ransom note for the cup, but this story might be more extraterrestrial than it seems.

In general, this story seems very uninspired. At times it almost comes across as if it didn’t want to be written. As soon as we go looking for that cup, weird leaps in logic are being made. Like we’re skipping past the story, just so it can be over

2 examples make this pretty clear. First, the initial search for the thief. There isn’t one. The Doctor apparently knows what’s going on immediately and steps right into a goldsmith’s shop, where the cup is hidden. This is waved away by there being some kind of radiation on the note.

The second comes a bit later. It is discovered that the cup was stolen by the goldsmith, so he could use its parts to help stranded aliens flee to safety. The aliens have escaped a war and are looking for refuge. The Doctor, of course, is determined to help them out.

….And then their gone. As soon as the Doctor says “we will help”, we skip to the end and all is well. I was actually baffled and rewinded, but no. This is it. We focus on some quick aftermath about how the cup was rediscovered and that’s it.

It feels like this story is on autopilot. Someone was scrolling Wikipedia, saw that the world cup was stolen in 1966, and realized there wasn’t a Doctor Who story about that yet. And considering it takes place in 1966, we have to use the Doctor belonging to that time period.  So let’s stuff in some aliens, make it a small adventure and call it a day.

That’s not even mentioning the problematic undertones you’re not supposed to think about. These aliens are stranded after escaping a war. They escaped in a ship that is literally compared to a small life boat. So the Doctor patches up the lifeboat and sends them on their way. Surely he can do better than that.

Imagine coming across a refugee who escaped from a war. He wants to travel far away, but his bike has a flat tire. So you grab your keys, go to your car…. And open the trunk to give the guy some duct tape.

That’s what our hero does in this story! Our leading man who we have seen learn kindness and understanding. The bare minimum. It feels incredibly undoctorish. This is what happens when a story isn’t thought out.

“This Sporting Life” is the worst kind of short trip. The kind that doesn’t’ care. The kind that feels written to hit a quota. It skips its own story beats with no larger purpose, It has no real message or larger point and it is careless in its portrayal of both the Doctor and its own created characters. The short trips have the biggest opportunity to do something unique and out of the box, but this story instead to go the blandest and most generic route. A waste of time.