It all started out as a mild curiosity in the junk yard, and now it's turned out to be quite a great spirit of adventure, don't you think? So said the First Doctor in the opening episode of The Sensorites in 1964 reflecting back on the past 6 months since the show began. Here were are again in a junk yard, or rather a junk galaxy where the Doctor is sure she saw what she needs on a previous visit. Before long, however she accidentally triggers a sonic-mine and whoomp! They're out cold coming round in a hospital surrounded by bright whites in stark contrast to the darkness they were just in. The Doctor seems to be taking longer to recover than her friends, but as they stumble through the wards looking for the exit they come across a famous General with adrenaline issues and a pregnant man who is a day over due...
More importantly, they've been on board a medical ship (not a hospital as first thought) and in flight for 4 days and there's no way to get back to the TARDIS until they arrive at their scheduled destination. What follows is fairly standard sci-fi action; the ship has drifted into disputed territory, they're surrounded asteroids and debris, something has beached the shields and is running loose damaging systems, escape pods have been jettisoned. The usual peril in space stuff.
The Doctor's fight or flight instincts have kicked in, but she is still feeling the effects of the sonic-mine and acting selfishly and putting her own needs before those of the patients. Until it's pointed out, then she's very apologetic and completely on board with the morality as normal.
The ships database helpfully provides a full run-down of the creature that has them under threat, naming it as a Pting and laying out the rules - don't touch it because it's toxic, don't try to contain it because it gets violent and can get through any barrier, it can be stunned briefly but possibly not killed, it doesn't eat lifeforms but can digest any technology - it even has the nerve to each the Doctor's sonic screwdriver (though it does spit it out again, drained of power). As if a rabid life-form on board weren't enough, it's presence alerts the authorities that something is wrong and the automated systems are essentially set to self destruct if they are unable to remove it before they bring it to the masses.
There's lessons in science of various forms, real and fantasy, as well as ethics and politics. There's drama and conflict, dilemmas and puzzles, tension and action, and effects that again leave you with no doubt that the pting is real (apart from the way it instantly digests things even when they're a greater volume than its body!) This is one of those episodes that is gripping and full of details but has a fairly limited narrative beyond the tension and puzzle solving which makes it hard to write about. There are two deaths and characters that go through some personal growth and of course the Doctor finds a way to expel the Pting without killing it or themselves and there's a nice epilogue to round things off. There's nothing particularly clever or innovative about this episode and it does all feel a little familiar but it works well and delvers a nice comfy-jumper type of familiarity that you're happy to put on again rather than a sense that you've seen it before and its warn a bit thin.
I sometimes think of modern episodes in terms of the classic series and consider how they would fit into the multi-part serial format. There are two things that must be allowed for first: 1) Modern episodes are twice as long as the classic series and 2) modern drama moves at a greater pace. With these things in mind, any modern episode could be considered to cover the same narrative time as three or four classic episodes and therefore has the potential to tell the same story as a whole serial. However, the serialised format requires cliffhangers and enough content for each episode to gave some form of beginning, middle and end. Somehow, I don't think The Tsuranga Conundrum could do that. Not because there isn't enough in it but actually because there's too much. The pace and energy keeps rolling along and whilst there probably are enough cliffhanger-like peaks, the timing of them would need quite a drastic change to break it up into meaningful episodes. I believe it could be done but at a great loss to the story's quality. The Tsuranga Conundrum is a modern episode and it does its job brilliantly and that's all that matters. Some stories could work in the serialised format, and that's fine too, it's just not the modern way.
Final word this week goes to the design of the Pting. Being a small creature, it is oddly reminiscent of the Adipose, though it looks nothing like them. It manages to be both cute and scary, cuddly and vicious. Like the Adipose, it just wants to go about its business and means no harm... it also ends the episode drifting off through the air (or rather the vacuum of space) content with it's release.
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