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| Short Trips: Past Tense "Bide-a-Wee" Written by Anthony Keetch Published: 20th May 2004 Read: 26th February 2016 BUY: Amazon UK  |
Short Trips: Past Tense - "Bide-a-Wee"
We're only a few stories into "Season 0" and already it is time for the Doctor to have a holiday. Allowing Susan to run off with a group of children and a dog, the Doctor checks into the "Bide-a-Wee" guest house where it is always Summer 1933. Literally. In the series itself, we've rarely seen the Doctor taking time out and relaxing. Indeed, in my own fan fiction I've explored this on a couple of occasions (long before "The Power of Three"). Whereas his successors would be bemoaning at the boredom, the First Doctor throws himself full pelt into various walks along the sea front, several naps a day, formal dinners and parlor games.It all comes across as being rather quaint and, being a Brit myself, I found myself reminiscing about family holidays by the sea and the characters that populated the guest houses. However, the story doesn't dwell in nostalgia too long as the Atkins family arrives. The Englishman, his Indian wife and their mixed race child draws out many of the racial stereotypes of some of the older residents and reminds us that back in the 1930s that we weren't so enlightened after all. Of course, the family is from the year 1999 and the Doctor determines that one of the guests is a time traveller who has kept this guest house and the surrounding area in a bit of a time warp.
There are two main themes to this story, one is that which I've already mentioned, look at the racism which was quite rampant in the United Kingdom in the 1930s and, let's be honest, is still prevalent among the older generations. The guests outrage when Mrs. Atkins pronounces that she is a brain surgeon plays on both the racial and gender stereotypes. The second theme, although not as much of a social commentary is the time traveller himself. From the descriptions he is much as the Doctor was, he fought evil, saved the universe countless times and eventually he had seen so much suffering that he hid himself in a guest house in 1930s. One couldn't help but think of how we found the Eleventh Doctor at the start of "The Snowmen", and certainly made me more sympathetic to the "baddie" of the piece.
7/10
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