‘Love & Monsters’ is perhaps the most controversial episode of the Tenth Doctor’s time. How does it fair, some 20 years after its broadcast?
Anybody familiar with New Who will be au fait with the concept of the ‘Doctor-lite‘ episode. As the name suggests, this is an episode in which the Doctor hardly appears – a plot point made necessary by Doctor Who‘s intense production schedule. Back in 2006, the team had to shoot 14 episodes back-to-back, but they only had time to shoot 13. They got over this hurdle by filming two episodes simultaneously, meaning that the eponymous Time Lord had to be absent for one of them.
‘Love & Monsters’ was the first of this kind, with David Tennant only really appearing at the beginning and the end. The story focussed on a young man called Elton and his ragtag group of friends, and their obsession with finding the Doctor.
This is a theme that permeates many of Russell T Davies‘ Doctor Who episodes. ‘Love & Monsters’ could be interpreted as a parody of Doctor Who fandom, following in the footsteps of Clive from ‘Rose’ (who lives in a shed), and the appearance of actual Doctor Who fans themselves in the off-beat ‘Lux,’ where the production team even managed to shoe-horn the Collection boxsets and the Lovarzi scarf into the canon.
In every instance, the ‘fans’ themselves are depicted as geeky, obsessive and socially awkward. This is certainly the case in ‘Love & Monsters,’ but the Doctor Who fan club that the team form (known as LINDA) is really quite sweet. Of course, not every fan will be happy about being represented in such a manner, but Elton and his friends are quite harmless. ‘Love & Monsters’ is, essentially, a comedy. The joke may have been lost on some people, but humour was Davies’ aim – a stark contrast to the terrifying ‘Satan Pit‘ that preceded it.
And as every writer knows, comedy is one of the hardest genres to nail. Humour is subjective; for every joke a writer pens, there will be one belly laugh, and one grimace. It is far easier to shock and scare; comedy is a tough sell, particularly in the Doctor Who world where humour seldom works (‘City of Death‘ might be the only story in the series’ history where the comedy lands, and there’s a fan consensus.)
Take the paving slab as an example (yes, ‘Love & Monsters’ has a joke about a paving slab.) Elton’s girlfriend Ursula ends up as a disembodied head, immortalised in a concrete square, and Elton takes her home. “We’ve even got a bit of a love life,” he tells us. Now, this is either a piece of comedy gold or highly inappropriate depending on your point of view – or else, just not funny. It’s true, the British love their sex jokes almost as much as their toilet humour, but one could argue that such gags are out of place in a family show. At the same time, there can’t have been many children that grasped the true meaning of Elton’s words (hopefully.) The debate goes on.
Naturally, no one at the BBC has admitted that ‘Love & Monsters’ is a parody of Doctor Who fandom, but the whole story is about a group of obsessives who come together through a shared love of the Doctor, only to have their fun spoiled by a rich and rotund ringleader by the name of Victor. The similarities are there, regardless of whether they were intended.
Certainly, superfan and missing episodes expert Ian Levine believes that the aforementioned Victor was a representation of himself, and he’s not the only one. This is a risky move if true, as ‘Love & Monsters’ doesn’t paint the man in a positive light. In fact, he’s the villain of the piece – an oleaginous alien with a thick northern accent who sucks people into his very flesh, the infamous Abzorbaloff.
Now, this monster might not be the most popular in Doctor Who history, but its origins are wholesome. The Abzorbaloff was created by nine year-old William Grantham, a Blue Peter viewer who won a competition to design a Doctor Who baddie. The production team were faithful to his design, although it’s unclear if Grantham intended for his creation to sound as if it came from Salford.
This brings us back to the question of tone. ‘Love & Monsters’ is not the kind of adventure that will make you hide behind the sofa (at least, not for the traditional reasons.) The Abzorbaloff is like a pantomime villain from a fever dream in a simulation that’s glitching; it’s either a stroke of creative genius or a blight on the surface of the Whoniverse, depending on your taste. Either way, you will have an opinion on it.
So how did contemporary viewers react to ‘Love & Monsters’? It wasn’t a ratings smash, but then neither was ‘Blink’ – one of the most popular stories of all time. ‘Love & Monsters’ was seen by 6.66 million viewers, with an audience appreciation score of 76 – a low for the series, and a figure that has seldom been ‘beaten.’ At the time, there was a feeling among the Doctor Who community that ‘Love & Monsters’ would be remembered as an experimental outing, and one that dared to be different. Is this true, 20 years on? Has the story’s reputation grown with the passing of time?
Arguably not; you’d be hard-pressed to find an avid devotee of this particular adventure. Like every Doctor Who story, it has its hardcore fans, and if you’re one of them, power to you. If you’re not, ‘Love & Monsters’ is easy to skip in your marathon viewings. It’s certainly a brave departure from the norm, even if it didn’t quite stick the landing (and by ‘landing’ we mean, veer off the end of the runaway and explode in a ball of flame.)
The next question is this: How many people became a fan of ELO after watching Elton’s vlogs?
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