For any of you that have read my previous posts, it may seem like I am incapable of enjoying the end of a Doctor Who story. That just isn't true. I cherish many well done conclusions to some of my favorite episodes. Some of which I like because of their incredible endings. I just believe the final moments are the most important parts of a story to get right, and Doctor Who writers have a chronic issue with messing it up.Often writers will draw out the beginning and middle parts of a story and not leave enough time for a developed conclusion. This is seen a lot in the modern show as writers try to fit stories into the 42-minute time slot. The result is rushed endings. They try to portray the last five minutes as a miraculous save by the Doctor, but this doesn't always work. On the other hand, you can have endings where the conclusion makes no sense. This is the easiest way to kill an episode. Like in "The Last of The Time Lords," a nonsense conclusion can leave viewers scratching their heads regardless of how great the rest of the story was. These two types of endings are the most common problems in Doctor Who stories. I have talked about these a bit in other posts, so I have no intention of talking about them here. I have another type of ending to talk about... a just plain bad one.
Now most people know Doctor Who primarily through the television show. The expanded universe also includes comics, novels, and the impressive Big Finish audio dramas. The audio dramas are honestly incredible and I would recommend checking them out if you haven't already. At this point, I'm still going through them for the first time myself. For the most part their longer length helps them develop better endings. However, I recently finished "The Natural History of Fear," and I have never been so let down by a Doctor Who story. It was an incredible tale which had me on the edge of my seat throughout its two hour and twenty minute run time. Then the ending comes in to just crush all my hopes and dreams. What I thought would be one of my favorite stories of all time ended up being the inspiration for this post... about bad endings.
In case I was being too subtle, I will be talking about the plot of "The Natural History of Fear." So if you want to listen too it yourself (which you should, it's $2.99 on Big Finish's website), then please do so before reading on.
This is an Eighth Doctor adventure and occurs in a series of stories dubbed "The Divergent Universe" arc. The story opens off with India Fisher (the voice actor for the Doctor's companion Charley) seemingly playing a lower class housewife in a utopia called Light City. This character has none of Charley's memories, but there are subtle hints that make you suspect she is in fact Charley. She is listening to a radio program which is depicting the events of a previous Eighth Doctor story. You are soon told that the entire city listens to these "programs" and infer that they air regularly and follow many of the Eighth Doctor's stories.
The conversation between not-Charley and her husband lays the groundwork for what kind of story this we be. It turns out that Light City has criminalized some forms of thought and speech. There is a mantra that is repeated throughout the story: "Questions lead to answers, answers lead to knowledge, knowledge leads to freedom, freedom leads to dissatisfaction, and dissatisfaction leads to unhappiness." Needless to say, the power structure of Light City oppresses their citizens and criminalizes free thought and asking questions.
The Doctor and C'irzz (the Doctor's other companion) quickly enter the story and neither of them are themselves. Similar to Charley, each character has no knowledge of prior adventures but subtlety hint that they are we think they are. Both are playing enforcers to the laws of Light City. Their favorite punishment for committing "thought crimes" is called "revising." This is when they remove a person's memories and give them a new job and essentially turn each character into a different one. This is really cool, since one character can reappear as someone else at any time.
The reason this story is so engaging is just how fun it is to try to figure out how they got put into this mess and how they're going to get out. The companion characters get revised multiple times, with the Doctor's character remaining constant. While the beginning parts of the story show the perspective of all three, the later parts focus on the Doctor. He is constantly pushing himself to enforce the laws of Light City. He increasingly controversial interrogation techniques (such as asking questions...) to uncover the secret rebellion which no one believes exists, except for him. He becomes paranoid. He does not trust anyone as seemingly every character gets revised. He wants to stay loyal to Light City, but old memories are given to him which make him unstable. Not-Charley gives him some of The Doctor's memories which motivates him to find the rest. Soon he becomes a major public enemy and becomes self-destructive to find the remaining memories.
This where this story has me. It may not be for everyone. It is a very political thriller and has a very strong sci-fi focus. I loved every second while listening. Unfortunately, the part that excited me the most was speculating just how everything was going to conclude.
In the last quarter, we are finally told how the Doctor and friends got involved with Light City. They arrived by chance (nothing unusual here) and then got attacked by a mob of people uncontrollably asking questions. Turns out, Light City has a Purge-like holiday where they can break as many "thought crimes" as they'd like. The city becomes a total riot and thousands die every time they have this festival. The Doctor is detained by an official and is given an ultimatum. In exchange for saving his companions from the riot, he must give the government his memories as well as his companions'.
This was perfect! It explained everything and it made sense. The city's higher ups take knowledge from outsiders because their people are not allowed to produce their own knowledge. Also, the Doctor's memories are being broadcast as those radio shows in order to control the public. The Doctor's character now has to find a way to topple the government of Light City and save his friends. When that happens, this may become one of my all-time favorite Doctor Who stories.
I'll stop delaying. It turns out the writers had finally taken advantage of the fact there was no way for us to see the characters. They borrowed from the Twilight Zone and gave us a twist ending we really did not need. The characters we were following the entire story were not the Doctor and his companions. They were alien citizens of Light City. Due to all the memory manipulation, they started to believe they were in one of the many Doctor Who stories they had been listening to. They each had eight limbs and only had the voices in common with the main characters. It turns out that the Doctor and friends gave their memories to Light City and then left shortly after with no cost to them. The alien posing as the Doctor is then told he had started the revolution he had been trying so hard to prevent. The citizens rebel, and all the characters we had been listening too are presumed to have died in the uprising.I have never been so completely let down. This was such an incredible story! It was thought-provoking, thrilling, and made you question everything during its duration. It is such a shame that none of it actually mattered. The characters did not learn anything, and everyone either lost their lives or their livelihoods. I invested so much emotion into these characters and their success just to have them lose and accomplish nothing. I would have truly loved the main character actually being the Doctor, and regaining control to save the day. This is one time when I was excited about an ending where the Doctor miraculously saves the day in the last few minutes. What we are left with instead is a complex plot, that did not matter, which everyone I cared about either lost or died. I was fuming for hours after I finished.
I have to give credit to Doctor Who television writers for not screwing up an ending this badly. There are the rushed endings and the nonsense endings, but for the most part they don't leave you upset that you even started the story in the first place. "Hell Bent" comes close, but only because of the high quality story that Moffat told in "Heaven Sent" the episode before. This example kinda brings out why I am so infuriated by this ending. It was such a good story before it ended. I can not remember the last time I enjoyed a story this much. So to having it end in the biggest let-down ever hurts more than if it was an average episode. Such a shame, but I find my intense response to an ending like this very emotionally satisfying. I say the same things about "Hell Bent." So I do not believe "The Natural History of Fear" was a bad story entirely, but it is damaged by an unnecessarily convoluted and depressing ending to such a thought-provoking and compelling story. So I guess it averages out, but I'm still not happy.
