The False Dimitry

I am resurrected!

Dimitry Ivanovich

Synopsis

Moscow, 1605: the old Tsar is dead – but some blame unnatural forces. Perhaps the mysterious Doctor in the palace can help?

A successor advances on the Kremlin with an army, preparing the country for war. But Tsarevich Dimitry is not what he seems…

Review

I am particularly fond of Doctor Who when it explores history, and The False Dimitry is set in a period that I don’t know very much about. Whilst this story is not the best, it has at least piqued my interest in this period of Russian history and I will certainly be looking into it more in the future.

The main problem that this story has is that the history it takes it’s inspiration from is perhaps too complex to fit into a fifty-five minute narrative, and perhaps would have benefitted from a longer running time. There’s nothing about this story that means it has to be fixed to the Ninth Doctor, and I think that it maybe could have benefitted from being a four part story with one of the Classic era Doctors instead. The pacing issue would certainly seem to be resolved, as the story in it’s current state seems rather staccato, jumping around to cram everything in. Ultimately, the end product is distinctly messy. This is probably highlighted by being in between two great stories in this boxset. I really liked Station to Station, and from memory, Auld Lang Syne is one of the best stories Eccleston has been involved in since returning to the role. The False Dimitry is the middle story, the struggling middle sibling to two overachievers, not really doing much wrong but feeling considerably weaker than those two stories.

With that being said, I quite like the idea behind the alien threat here. Whilst it is not original to have aliens want to invade and strip a planet of it’s resources, the story does keep this fresh by them employing psychic cloaking to make them appear to be the Poles rather than their robotic forms. This does lead to one of the better jokes in the story, where the people keep stating this, despite the Doctor’s insistence otherwise. The Smirtniks are otherwise quite stock standard. The titular pretender to the Russian throne is in fact a former monk revealed to have had a intimate relationship with Sasha, another monk, and this was an element that was worth developing further than the story does. Alexander Arnold and Jack Myers do a lot with the little that they are given, which means that I felt that it was a shame that they were not given more to do. Oksana on the other hand, feels as though Katy Brittain needed a stronger steer from Helen Goldwyn to tone down the nursemaid, who gets this story off to a poor start. That probably contributes to a tonal mismatch and doesn’t really give us a chance to take this story remotely seriously.

Whilst I said earlier in this review that there was nothing to say that this was a Ninth Doctor story, Christopher Eccleston does acquit himself very well here. I don’t think that, like the rest of the guest cast, he is given very much to work with, but he does seem to throw himself into it and do as much as he can to elevate the story. He is particularly good in the final scenes, but solid throughout.

Verdict: The False Dimitry did make me curious to research Russian and Polish medieval history. It is, however, sadly, a muddled story which feels rather disjointed. 4/10

Cast: Christopher Eccleston (The Doctor), Alexander Arnold (Dimitry Ivanovich), John Banks (Tsar Boris Fyodorovich Godunov/Captail Mikhail Mikhailovich Zubov), Katy Brittain (Oksana Vladmirovna Kuznetsova/Robot) and Jack Myers (Aleksander (Sasha) Petrovich Kuznetov).

Writer: Sarah Grochala

Director: Helen Goldwyn

Producer: David Richardson

Music: Howard Carter

Sound: Iain Meadows

Original Release Date: 4 May 2022

Behind the Scenes

• The reign of the False Dimitry lasted a year, but the story takes place over a few days.

Cast Notes

• John Banks has appeared in numerous Big Finish releases, including Heroes of Sontar, The Wrong Doctors and Ghost Walk.
• Jack Myers has also appeared in the Lost Story The Ultimate Evil.

Best Quote

Do you know when you look at a situation and think ‘worst case scenario’, and then you realise, nah, that’s not so bad really, what was I worrying about?

Yes.

This isn’t that. This is bad, very bad, it’s your worst nightmare, except this time your worst nightmare has spiders for hands and cockroaches for feet.

The Ninth Doctor and Sasha

Previous Ninth Doctor review: Station to Station

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