Doctor Who Review: ‘The Eighth Doctor Adventures: Immortal Beloved’ (audio)

In a world of Greek mythology and helicopters, the Eighth Doctor and Lucie learn that sometimes, “eternal love” isn’t necessarily a good thing…

I’m not sure what to make of Immortal Beloved. I wouldn’t say it was “bad”. But, in my opinion, I’m not sure it’s really “great”, either. At least, not for a Doctor Who story.

There are some good ideas here. The mix of Greek mythology with technology is interesting. Some of the technology heard in it isn’t even that high-tech. For example, the “chariots of the gods” turn out to be just regular helicopters. That’s not a bad thing, as these cool ideas are much easier for listeners to instantly imagine.

Just like Horror of Glam Rock, we get another actor who would later play a major recurring character in the TV series in this one. Ian McNeice, who would later play Winston Churchill in several Eleventh Doctor episodes, stars as Zeus. And he’s probably the best thing about this entire story.

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There are no limits to the depth of Zeus’s all-too human depravity, and there are scenes when he comes across as truly monstrous. Yet at the same time, he does have a human side, or at least the remnants of one. He truly loves his wife, and vice versa. Unfortunately, they’ve used their love for each other as an excuse to do terrible things. This was a key idea that especially appealed to me about the story.

Sometimes, villains use the loss of love as an excuse for committing evil deeds. Here, it’s the relationship between Zeus and Hera that’s driving them to live forever, and the terrible price that comes with it. Ian McNeice plays this monstrous character just right. He comes across as very unsympathetic on the whole. But at the same time, he clearly still loves his wife very deeply.

A longer length?

Immortal Beloved raises quite a few interesting ideas and moral questions, like good science-fiction should. And there is a romantic aspect to it, as well. But on the whole, the episode just didn’t grab me as much as other stories have done.

Given that this series has moved away from the two-hour serial format of previous Eighth Doctor seasons, you’d think I’d be grateful for the shorter length. But if I’m honest, I’m rather undecided on whether Immortal Beloved was enjoyable at all because of its shorter length or not. I’m actually wondering if the story could have benefited from a longer running time.

I think the overall problem for me was that, while I liked the ideas and some of the characters, Immortal Beloved wasn’t given quite enough depth for the story it was trying to tell. Thematically, love and cruelty are great to tell epic stories for. I think, if this had been given a longer length, as well as a larger cast to explore the world better, I could have liked this story more.

As it is, Immortal Beloved is a very standalone, almost throwaway episode. Far from terrible, but also far from the best example of what Doctor Who, particularly The Eighth Doctor Adventures, can do best.