Colditz

I think I can hear your Golden Age beginning to crumble already.

The Seventh Doctor

Synopsis

October 1944: As World War II draws towards its conclusion, a Nazi defeat begins to seem almost inevitable. But that might be about to change…

Two intruders are captured in the grounds of Colditz Castle, the most secure POW camp in Germany. At first, the guards think they’re dealing with British spies. But the strangers arrived in an advanced travelling machine, the like of which they’ve never seen before.

With this TARDIS in their hands, the Third Reich might triumph after all.

Review

Colditz is an intriguing story which is perhaps more interesting for what it sets up rather than the actual content of the story. It is a story that shows the potential implications of time travel as the Doctor and Ace inadvertently leave a piece of future technology at Colditz Castle, which ends up changing the course of the Second World War.

The world is at war, lives are being lost each minute of each day. People will fall to lie in unmarked graves. Who will care about one single girl when the dust settles?

Elizabeth Klein

Steve Lyons takes a simple idea – what if the Nazis won the war – and makes it a story about people working towards conflicting goals and alternate universes which has no alien intervention other than the presence of the Doctor. With Klein travelling back in the Doctor’s TARDIS, there is also a mystery that the story does its best to resolve and I know that Big Finish would bring Klein back around a decade later, when she would be a companion of McCoy’s Doctor. The German victory depends on the death of Ace, along with them inadvertently leaving behind the CD player that she was given in The Fearmonger, the technology from which would have allowed the Germans to win the nuclear arms race. Meanwhile, a decade later, the Doctor appears to have been killed on exiting his TARDIS, leading to it falling into the hands of the victorious Germans and Klein eventually returning to Colditz in 1944 to ensure history remains on course.

I feel that I must at this point mention the incidental music which feels utterly bizarre. It feels as though it has been placed too high in the mix and makes the whole story feel disjointed and as though it doesn’t entirely flow. There are scenes where the music is really bombastic and overblown, which then cuts to a new scene where there is no music. It certainly gave me little time to adjust between scenes and felt quite jarring. There is also a music cue in Part One where it feels as though someone just fell into a bunch of cymbals. It’s certainly an auditory experience, but it’s not one that I would recommend.

The story features the first appearance of David Tennant in any Doctor Who productions as the villainous Kurtz. This is a rather one-dimensional, shouting German prison guard role, whom the Doctor and Ace find easy to provoke by dwelling on his insecurities about how included he is in the schemes of Elizabeth Klein, but Tennant does make him really slimy and unpleasant. It’s a performance that put me in mind of his role in Jessica Jones as Kilgrave, especially in his scenes with Ace which feel positively lecherous. Kurtz has one of the most horrific fates of a character that I can remember, being torn apart as his body is partially in and partially out of the TARDIS as it demateralises. Tracey Child is also great as Klein, giving an air of mystery but also being a worthy adversary to the Seventh Doctor who always appears to be one step ahead.

I should have worked it out sooner. You aren’t just a stranger to this place, are you? You have a time machine of your own.

Not quite, Doctor.

No, that’s not the whole story, is it? I don’t know how and I don’t know where you came from and I’m only just beginning to work out why. But you travelled here, to 1944, in my TARDIS.

The Seventh Doctor and Elizabeth Klein

The Seventh Doctor is on top form here and McCoy is really good, especially in his scenes with Tracey Child as Klein. This incarnation of the Doctor shows that he is willing to go to any lengths and any scheme to stop evil machinations and even when the situation seems bleak, he will find a way out to do what is right. Meanwhile, Ace spends most of the story in the titular prison, ingratiating herself with the plans to escape of Gower and the other soldiers there. It is an interesting story with regards to Ace, and I’m not entirely sure that she comes across as completely likeable. Following Wilkins’ betrayal of her escape attempt, she publicly outs this to all of the prisoners, leading to him nearly dying. Her response to this is to “rebrand” herself as McShane, which is a plot line that I already can’t wait for the end of.

You can’t dismiss history, Klein. It’s more fragile than you can ever imagine.

The Seventh Doctor

Verdict: Colditz has an intriguing premise and strong performances from the guest cast. It’s just a shame about some of the poor sound design. 8/10

Cast: Sylvester McCoy (The Doctor), Sophie Aldred (Ace), Tracey Child (Elizabeth Klein), David Tennant (Feldwebel Kurtz), Toby Longworth (Hauptmann Julius Schafer), Nicholas Young (Flying Officer Bill Gower), Peter Rae (Timothy Wilkins) & Neil Corry (Prisoner/Guard).

Writer: Steve Lyons

Director: Gary Russell

Producers: Jason Haigh-Ellery and Gary Russell

Composers: Toby Richard and Emily Baker

Parts: 4

Main Range release number: 25

Release Date: 22nd October 2001

Behind the Scenes

• This marks the first appearance of David Tennant in any form of Doctor Who media. Tennant would go on to play the Tenth and Fourteenth Doctors in the revived series. But you already knew that, didn’t you?

Cast Notes

• Tracey Childs also played Metella in The Fires of Pompeii.
• Toby Longworth has appeared in a number of Big Finish stories, including The Spectre of Lanyon Moor, The Quantum Possibility Engine and The Ratings War.
• Peter Rae would go on to appear in the Big Finish audio play Red, playing Draun.
• Neil Corry also played an Alien Delegate in The Apocalypse Element.

Best Quote

Oh, I’m sure your trains run on time, Klein, but was it worth the bloodshed? Was it worth the slaughter of millions?

The Seventh Doctor

Previous Seventh Doctor review: Dust Breeding.

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