Council of War (2013)

John Levine is the last of the companions from the Third Doctor era to tell a Companion Chronicle. He is an interesting individual and I base that on purely on the DVD commentary of ‘Inferno’, Levine does his own track which at the time I thought was down to him not being available but it seems like he wanted to be on his own. Whatever the reason for this, it is a commentary that you should listen to.

The Council of War is the final story of the penultimate season of the Companion Chronicles and new writers have been chosen to pen this story. The story initially deals with ghosts and missing people and with all due respect to the writers, its not the most exciting topic in my opinion but I am willing to be won over. However what starts off as a ghost story becomes something quite different and I like how it pulls you in an just changes what you think its going to be. The story takes place after ‘The Green Death’ and Jo has left and the Doctor isn’t reacting well to her exit. Also Mike Yates isn’t there due to what happened in that story. Benton has to go undercover by pretending to be a councillor.

Sinead Kenean plays Margery Phipps. The name sounded familiar and a bit of work on Wikipedia led to me find out that she played the cactus looking alien Addams in ‘The End of Time’. Marjorie Phipps is an MP and considers herself to be more of a hippie than a member of parliament. However what seems like a character that is going to get dragged into the story is in fact someone who’s involvement was always part of the story. It takes until the second episode (or 35 minutes) to explain to Margery Phipps and more importantly to us to explain why she is on trial. It turns out that in 1992 she would become Prime Minister. The planet is rather amusingly called Kettering after Phipps. It seems like they have got all of their beliefs and understandings from a book that she wrote.

It was something different that Margery was trying to fit what she saw into something that she could comprehend. She thinks that they have landed in the council archives. Before we know what’s going on the Margery has been put on trial and with what seems like flimsier evidence that what we got in ‘The Trial of a Timelord’, she is found guilty and Benton gets to do a breakout.

The cliffhanger was ok. The line that Benton gives about them not being on Earth was one up on “I don’t think were in Kansas anymore”. It’s delivered perfectly fine and perhaps the right way to end the episode. The second half essential becomes a battle with Margery. It’s well into the second episode before the Doctor makes an appearance after Benton and Margery have worked hard up until this point.

There was a nice jokey line which was similar to ‘Reverse the polarity of the Neutron Flow’. It was a nice bit of humour after the past few minutes of drama. There was even an intergalactic version of UNIT called UGIT which sounded quite funny and also double up as an insult. The story was wrapped up in a just the right way and I didn’t think that it was rushed. John Levine’s long awaited debut in the range is a good one. Hopefully this wont be the last time that we hear from him because I thought that he put in a good performance from start to finish. I liked the Benton that we got here because it seemed like a more serious Benton and there was no sign of the loveable yet slightly simple Benton. Hopefully the next Benton story would carry this on.

As the final story of the Seventh Series I thought it was a good way to sign off. The writing was solid and the pace of the story was just right. It was the right length and I really liked the humour. In short, Council of War is a highly enjoyable adventure.