Out Of Time (2020) Review

Out Of Time is pretty much just a thin excuse to have the Doctors meet, but hey - technically, so is The Five Doctors, so who am I to complain?

WRITTEN BY

Matt Fitton, the genius behind the dull Technophobia and even duller The Neverwhen. We are not in good hands here.

PLOT

The Tenth Doctor wanders into some time-travelling church, fumbles around with stuff he's not supposed to and gets zapped to another part of the church where the Fourth Doctor's taking a vacation. And then Daleks show up. That's pretty much it. Daleks bad, Doctors good, banter banter.

ANALYSIS

It is transparently obvious that the only artistic reason for this story's existence is the novelty of bringing together the most popular Doctors. And whilst that is executed fairly well enough, there's very little effort put into doing anything interesting elsewhere.

The idea of a cathedral that exists out of time and space is vaguely interesting, but is never elaborated on and gets quickly reduced down to a mere plot device for the Daleks to try and capture. At which point, it's up to the Doctors to save a bunch of faceless nobodies whilst enjoying each other's company. It really is dirt simple and completely unambitious, making it also very uninvolving. My mind wandered off on countless occasions.

CHARACTERS

David Tennant is the highlight of the whole thing. He's just as charismatic and fast-paced as ever, probably also very excited for obvious reasons. Setting the story towards the end of the Tenth Doctor's life gives Fitton an oppurtunity to explore some of his flaws and compare him with the more irreverent Fourth Doctor, which I was really into, being a fan of the RTD era.

Tom Baker is a different matter. He hardly brings out the inimitable, slightly deranged presence of the Fourth Doctor, but is instead portrayed as a heroic and kindly character similar to the other New Who incarnations(or maybe Jon Pertwee's). There's also a notable absence of Baker's recognisable riffing style.
It's not that his acting is poor by any means, but the character is extremely idealised and Tom himself is playing the part much more straight-laced than he ever did on TV. So it feels less like the Tenth and Fourth Doctors are together, and more like the Tenth and "Tom Baker as the Third Doctor". It's kinda weird.

NOTES

*Rather humorously, the photograph of Tom Baker here is photoshopped - his body is taken from Peter Capaldi's promotional picture for Series 9.

*It's not really clear what the Abbess did to get the Tenth Doctor to leave the Fourth Doctor's part of the chapel, but I had a clear picture of her grabbing Tennant's ear and I would've loved to have seen that.

*They just had to bring up the Doctor's nonsensical aversion to guns. Grumble. They're useful tools! For psychological manipulation if nothing else! People shoot, not guns. Why doesn't the Doctor hate knives?

*How does the Fourth Doctor spend half the story not guessing who the Tenth Doctor is? I really can't stand when stories arbitrarily dumb down its characters.

*I can't really see the Fourth Doctor randomly telling anyone about regeneration. Then again, it's the Fourth Doctor. He can do just about anything, I suppose. Except when he's written the way he is in this story. So it doesn't make sense. But the heroic Doctors are more inclined to share information. So it does make sense. I'm confused.

*I do love the bit where the Fourth Doctor forces the Tenth to make a decision by playing rock, paper, scissors. That's classic Fourth Doctor.

*The notion that the Doctor is only pretending to be brave is very sweet.

*I was very happy to see the Fourth Doctor preach self-control and love for companions to the Tenth Doctor's rubbish "I need other people to keep me back from killing people" mantra. It became such a tiresome trope during the Clara era of Doctor Who. But that's another story...

*The converation about Sarah Jane was very heartwrenching. I didn't expect it at all, but it makes total sense for them two to be talking about her.

CONTINUITY ADVISOR

1) The Tenth Doctor struggles with his impending regeneration, which he first learned about in Planet Of The Dead.

2) Captain Zenna and his daughter Jora are from the 26th century, during humanity's war with the Daleks that began in Frontier In Space. The Tenth Doctor mentions Draconians and Ogrons in passing.

3) The Tenth Doctor hints at his involvement in the Time War to both Captain Zenna and his past self.

4) The Daleks invade the Cathedral Of Contemplation through a time corridor and employ a duplicate agent to do so, both technologies seen in Resurrection Of The Daleks.

5) At some point, the Fourth Doctor told Jora about the Time Lords and their ability to regenerate.

6) The Fourth Doctor travelled to the Cathedral Of Contemplation directly after the events of The Deadly Assassin.

7) The Doctors have a conversation about Sarah Jane Smith, mentioning the Fourth Doctor's recent goodbye to her in The Hand Of Fear as well as the Tenth Doctor's visit to her wedding in the SJA serial The Wedding Of Sarah Jane Smith.

8) The Tenth Doctor disguises his identity by mixing up his usual John Smith pseudonym(first seen in The Wheel In Space) with Rose Tyler's last name.

9) Much like in The Five Doctors and The Two Doctors, the future Doctor is affected by the injuries of the past Doctor when they weren't meant to occur.

10) The Tenth Doctor tries to send the power of Earth's sun going supernova(as seen in The End Of The World) through the time corridor back to Skaro, similar to the Seventh Doctor's use of a supernova to destroy the planet in Remembrance Of The Daleks.

11) The Tenth Doctor admits to the Fourth that he'll "meet a nice Time Lady and settle down for a while with a dog", obviously foreshadowing the events of seasons 16-18.

12) The Daleks use a stun setting on their guns to capture the Fourth Doctor, seen on TV only in The Daleks.

13) The Doctors visit the Phosphorus Carousel of the Great Magellan Gestalt, which the Tenth Doctor later mentioned in The End Of Time.

BEST QUOTE

"If you want to seize this place, you will have to do it without my help!"
"That strategy is acceptable."

"What?"

CONCLUSION

Nothing truly special, but an acceptable bit of fan service.