The man with the masterplan takes on the challenge of writing a Second Doctor tale.
It is 1800. Canton, China. An Englishman named Roderick Upcott is paying a visit to a merchant who has indicated he'd be happy to take a bunch of that opium that Upcott has for sale. The smuggler and his empty stomach are enticed by the smell of pork roasting in the kitchen. He then notices a tapestry depicting a green dragon on a wall and is surprised that it has an uncanny resemblance to the one he has tattooed on his own body.
To Upcott's horror, it turns out that the man he is dealing with is not the opium pusher he was expecting but rather the Emperor's Chief Astrologer who is a bit like the Harry J. Anslinger of the Qing dynasty. His task is to end the opium trade, a blight on the Chinese people. At one point, Upcott notices that the dragon tapestry has gone from green to red. And that smell that Upcott thinks is roasting pork is, in fact, long pig...
Upcott is allowed to escape and, not long after this, the Doctor, Zoe, and Jamie meet him when the TARDIS lands at the British Trade Concession. On the grounds is a stone gate, a "spirit gate", and it whisks Jamie off when he steps through it. The same happens to Zoe. Seeing his companions disappear into the aether, the Doctor deduces that the gate is some kind of alien transmat. A few calculations later, the TARDIS is off in pursuit of the misplaced companions.
It lands 100 years later in the Kent countryside at the Upcott family estate. The Doctor sees that Roderick brought the spirit gate back to England with him and is standing in the estate's back 40. Zoe is in the family's employ as a maid (echoes of the TV version of "Human Nature" here) and she is none too happy with the rampant misogyny, amongst other gripes. However, Jamie is still nowhere to be seen.
What follows is something of an Agatha Christie story with Roderick Upcott's descendants being killed one by one with no obvious cause of death. Mysteriously, each victim has the red dragon from that tapestry tattooed on their face.
All of this transpires during a party thrown by Roderick Upcott's great-grandson, Pemberton Upcott. The Doctor cons his way in, of course, and finds that entertainment is to be provided by Celandine Gilbert, a beautiful young woman who is a spirit medium. She is to perform a seance with the aid of her companion, Thomas Carnacki, a "student of supernatural phenomena" and literary character in his own right. Carnacki is a Holmesian detective of the occult created by William Hope Hodgson and lovingly appropriated by Cartmel.
The seance goes a bit haywire and Ms. Gilbert ends up in a coma. Then the murders begin.
It's a fun who dunnit. When the Doctor learns that the victims are all blood relatives of Roderick Upcott, it becomes clear that this is the revenge of the Chief Astrologer. As events begin to hasten to a conclusion, the Upcott estate is transported to somewhere out in space with the grounds suddenly ending in a sharp decline that leads only to a star-filled void.
The spirit gate is the key here and its destruction comes at the hands of fireworks. The Upcotts have a whole room in their cellar full of them. This seems like a rather cheesy way to destroy a big, mysterious, supernatural, stone gateway.
Jamie is M.I.A. for the most of this story and is found only near the end. Zoe spends much of her time complaining about the primitive Victorian mores and the depravity of Thor Upcott, Pemberton's brother. Thor has, shall we say, a healthy sexual appetite, and he enjoys having the butler watch his escapades in bed through a two-way mirror. He attempts to lure Zoe into his web but fails utterly. While Zoe gets points for rebuking the entreaties of the lecherous Thor in the best spirit of #metoo, the companions here take a back seat. The Doctor is front and center with his investigations. He is aided by Carnacki who is the companion stand-in.
It's not surprising to get an indictment of the British aristocracy from Cartmel, the man who famously said he'd like to use Doctor Who "to overthrow the government". The Upcott's are quite unlikable.
While there are no boundaries broken here and the story adheres to convention by-and-large, I liked it. The murder mystery is enjoyable and witnessing the rich get their comeuppance is always satisfying.
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