Doctor Who Review: ‘The Eighth Doctor Adventures: Human Resources – Part One’ (audio)
By James Aggas
It’s ‘Doctor Who’ meets ‘The Office’, as the first season finale of the Eighth Doctor Adventures begins…
Unlike the opening story Blood of the Daleks, I’m reviewing each part of Human Resources separately. The reason for this is that, if I’m honest, I found the opening story of The Eighth Doctor Adventures difficult to review as two separate episodes. It was a strong story, don’t get me wrong. But it was hard to distinguish the two parts separately.
You see, with a lot of New Series two-parters, there’s usually an element that makes each episode stand out on their own more. For example, Bad Wolf is a great satire on game shows. The Parting of the Ways, on the other hand, is an epic battle as well as a huge emotional rollercoaster. They’re both halves of one story, but they’re very distinct and contrasting halves, at least.
Human Resources is another great example of that. Part one is a strange kind of mix between Doctor Who and The Office. Part two is…well, we’ll get to that in the next review.
Even the title has one of two distinct meanings, depending on the episode you’re listening to. In this case, it refers to Lucie’s new job, and the organisation she works for. There’s something strange about her office that she can’t quite put her finger on. Why aren’t there any windows in the building? Why is the office in Telford when she had applied for a job in London? And didn’t she used to travel with a Doctor…?
Once again, like with Memory Lane and The Condemned, writer Eddie Robson has given us a nice mix of something as ordinary and everyday as an office, with a classic Doctor Who mystery where things are not what they seem.
The finale begins
The arc of the whole first season is nicely explored in this first half of the finale. It’s great that Lucie’s new job, which was briefly mentioned in the first episode, is fully explored here. We also find out why she had been hunted down across time and space by the Headhunter, a recurring character throughout all the previous stories.
Speaking of which, I love how much the Headhunter is focused on in Human Resources. Before, she was someone who had only briefly appeared at the end of previous episodes. In this story, however, she’s given a much larger role, and we get to see just how strong a character she is in her own right.
I love how the name really does say it all. ‘Headhunter’. A bounty hunter with a more corporate edge to her. That’s a classic idea for a Doctor Who villain if ever there was one. She’s also written and portrayed rather well, and I particularly love her scathing sense of wit. It helps her to stand out more than your regular sci-fi bounty hunter.
Office comedy
As an individual episode, there’s a lot to like about this one. What instantly leaps out is the humour. Like I said, there’s definitely a clear influence from The Office in Human Resources. It’s more family friendly than the original BBC series, but it still shares a lot of the same awkward, cringing humour.
This is especially notable of the character Jerry. A boss who tries to appear both “nice” and “modern”, he usually just comes across as sexist and terribly socially awkward. As a huge fan of The Office, I have no problems with a Doctor Who take on it, especially when it’s done as brilliantly as this.
I also like how smoothly the mystery unfolds over the course of fifty minutes. By the end of the episode, there are still plenty of questions left to be answered, but the core situation has been explored and explained nicely, at least. In fact, by the end, the Doctor feels like he knows enough to take action and save the day!
And that’s when he finds out that he’s just made things much, much worse.
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