REVIEW: Doctor Who: Cloud Eight

Cloud Eight delivers a classic tale of darkness beneath the suburban ideal, as the Doctor and Rose visit the 47th century Powell Estate

The new series of adventures for the Ninth Doctor and Rose stretches its wings a little by taking the pair thousands of years into the future. The TARDIS is still inexplicably drawn to the Powell Estate, but by this point in Earth history it’s been replaced by Cloud Eight, a supposed utopia high above the rain forest previously known as London. That geographical link otherwise impacts the plot not one bit. However, that only underscores it as some sort of hint, Bad Wolf style, of some subtle wider plot arc for this season of audios.

Cloud Eight exists during Earth’s Second Dark Ages. In Doctor Who’s most pleasingly pedantic line since the Master decimated the population of Earth, the Doctor correctly identifies the Dark Ages as merely a period from which little to no historical records survive. “Dark” as in unknown, not somehow grim or evil. Though, of course, this being Doctor Who, the reason nothing survives from this time is not exactly benign…

Despite feeling slightly misplaced in the timeline of the Doctor and Rose’s relationship, Eccleston and Piper are both on fire as the pair clash over the Time Lord’s plans

The Doctor and Rose insert themselves with typical ease into the lives of young Elsa and her two Dads, Oz and Marty. With humanity whiling away their days among the clouds while AIs repair the damaged ecology below, the little family initially appear to have a cosy, if somewhat bland, existence. Lots of morning walks, afternoon visits to cute little coffee shops, evenings watching classic Westerns, and all tucked up by bedtime. A very strict bedtime. So strict, in fact, nobody on Cloud Eight can even understand the concept of being awake after dark.

There are typically two types of dystopia in science fiction. The ones where the inhabitants know it’s a dystopia, and the ones where they think it’s a utopia. Cloud Eight definitely falls into the latter camp, and the Doctor’s immediate instincts to pull it all down lead to some conflict with Rose. Their arguments never quite ring true, though, given this series’ setting between Father’s Day and The Empty Child. Rather than the confident time traveller, ready to topple evil galactic news organizations and smoothly con interstellar con men, this Rose regresses to her earliest days. She’s strangely determined that nothing’s wrong here, and the Doctor’s just making trouble. Similarly, she angrily berates him for trying to enlist Elsa’s help in scenes reminiscent of her attitude to Gwyneth in The Unquiet Dead.

It’s almost as if writers Lauren Mooney and Stewart Pringle weren’t in the loop about where during Series One the story takes place. It’s a shame as in isolation as a story about an inexperienced Rose learning to trust the Doctor’s judgement and not take things at face value, this is top notch stuff.

Most of all, Cloud Eight succeeds in feeling like a true, missing piece of 2005’s iconic season

Cloud Eight’s deeper themes and concerns only reveal themselves in the final act, as the root cause of everyone’s behaviour becomes apparent. Unfortunately, that makes them difficult to even touch on without completely spoiling the plot. However, Blogtor can say they’re very much of their time, which is to say 2005. Indeed, if Cloud Eight had aired on television in Series One, it would seemed eerily prescient. As it stands though, the fast pace of world events even between Mooney and Pringle pitching the story and Big Finish releasing it make it almost passe. (More amusingly, a line about Rose not getting any WAP at home will probably trigger a generational divide between those old enough to remember Wireless Application Protocol and younger fans who’ll see it as yet another reason she dumped Mickey.)

Nonetheless, despite feeling like it belongs in a slightly different part of Rose and the Doctor’s timeline, this is peak 2005 Doctor Who arriving two decades on. The slow but steady slide from futuristic domesticity to a living nightmare is neatly balance, while having the Doctor himself fall under the spell is a card all the more effective for being so rarely played.

Most remarkable, Eccleston and Piper continue to excel as their characters, so steeped in every aspect that they perfectly recapture the motions of friction between the two as deftly as the strength of their bond.

Doctor Who: Cloud Eight

The Doctor and Rose travel to the 47th century, Earth’s ‘Second Dark Age’, but when they arrive in the floating box city of High High Wycombe, it’s more like a paradise. The residents live an existence of endless leisure, and at night sleep a blissful, dreamless sleep.

But cracks soon begin to show on its perfect, polished surface, and something terrible is brewing in the mind of teenage Elsa – something ancient and hungry – something that sounds like a nightmare.

Doctor Who – The Ninth Doctor Adventures: Cloud Eight, written by Lauren Mooney and Stewart Pringle, is now available to purchase for just £9.99 (download to own) or £11.99 (download to own + collector’s edition CD), exclusively here. Please note: the collector’s edition CD is strictly limited to 1,500 copies and will not be re-pressed.