The Eaters of Light

I had a bit of a heads-up about last week’s Doctor Who a fortnight ago which involved a trip to a Thai restaurant. We had gone there for Saturday night dinner and Nina saw a couple that she has known for a number of years. They asked us whether we were going anywhere after the restaurant and we informed them that we had an appointment with the good Doctor. They said that they were watching this series of Doctor Who intently as an old friend of theirs was writing an episode. This rather intrigued me as I tried to place who it could be: presumably a Scottish writer and presumably not Steven Moffat who writes more than the odd episode. I quickly narrowed it down to Rona Munro.

Nina’s friends were rather taken aback that I knew the name. At first they thought I must know her. I don’t know her personally but I certainly do know of her as she wrote the last ever episode of Doctor Who’s original series, Survival, and is a very respected writer both before and since that. I did glean from them that the episode was set in Scotland and involved the fate of the infamous Ninth Legion of the Roman Army. Also I was told that it involved ancient cairns which doubly appealed to me as crawling around Neolithic monuments is something of a passion of mine.

So what did I think of The Eaters of Light? Basically, I loved it. It had very much a feeling of Classic Who in that it was a stand-alone story but incorporated a Sci-Fi concept around a real historical mystery: the disappearance of the Ninth. Similar things have been done a number of times over the years but it has the effect of routing a fantastical story into very solid historical roots. Admittedly, this was obviously filmed in Wales rather than Scotland but to me that didn’t matter as the performances from the cast more than allowed for this suspension of disbelief. I also rather liked the idea that Neolithic monuments were aligned to the Sun to deal with phantom beasties rather than the probable truth which is that they were accurate, if somewhat unwieldy, scientific instruments to determine the seasons.

It’s worth noting that Rona Munro is the only Doctor Who writer to have written for both the old and new series. This also means that she has the longest time between consecutive stories at almost 28 years. Let’s hope that we don’t have to wait as long for her next episode. The two part finale now looks fascinating. We are also past the Summer solstice so our days, as well as those of the twelfth Doctor, are beginning to draw in.