Doctor Who: Touched By An Angel

Ace and Hex arrive in 1989, on the day of the outbreak of World War III. The story takes place primarily in the isolated home of a retired couple, trying their best to prepare for, and then survive, the resulting nuclear apocalypse. The title of the play is, of course, taken from the government information leaflets produced in the late '70s/early '80s about just this eventuality (with Patrick Allen's readings for the video versions being famously sampled in the hit song “Two Tribes”), with relevant snippets of them being broadcast on the radio at intervals throughout the play.

The nature of the story changes as it progresses, but always remains gripping and, for Doctor Who, unusually dark. The atmosphere is claustrophobic, with a significant chunk of the story taking place within the confined space of the fallout shelter, with everyone helpless in the face of the initial blast and then the slow horror of radiation sickness. It's particularly notable, of course, that the Doctor doesn't turn up at all until the half-way mark... to deliver a particularly disturbing cliffhanger.

To say anything at all about what happens in the second half would be to go too far into spoiler territory, although there are a couple of hints in the first half that point towards the reason that any of this is possible, given what we know of real-world history. I can say that the story remains just as tense and doom-laden even as the true nature of events slowly becomes clear.

It's possible that this story won't resonate quite so much with those too young to remember nuclear paranoia (although even I can't say I lived through the worst of it, with events such as the Cuban Missile Crisis being before my time). And the fact that the story is focussed on the companions, with the Doctor mostly absent or in the background, may not appeal to everyone. But to me, this was a great piece of storytelling. The easiest 5 stars in a while, from me.

Oh, and there's a further development in the “white TARDIS” plot arc that's been simmering since way back in Angel of Scutari. And a cliffhanger ending.