Season 17, Episodes 7-8

Episode 7: Trail of the Vishklar

What better place to rest, recover and have a jolly good time than West End London in 1928? But when Penelope and Indira meet the mysterious master of mysticism known as Dr. Khan, their jazzy holidays take a decidedly darker turn, bringing the Time Lady on the psychic trail of the elusive Vishklar, nightmare entities which were once battled by a dear, long-lost friend.

Episode 8: Carcosa

For the first time in her seven lives, Lady Penelope takes the fight against her old enemies, the Porphyrs, on their own territory, the dimension-locked, entropic city of Carcosa, in the hope of freeing its prisoner, her old friend Everett Blake, from everlasting torment. At the heart of the  temple of the Nameless God, the sinister Three Mothers await. So does the Phantom of Truth…

This diptych concludes the first half of our seventeenth season (we’ll take a short break and return to Lady Penelope’s Odyssey in a few weeks) as well as our Time Lady’s long-running struggle against her old arch-enemies, the Porphyrs… or does it? 

Sure, Penelope’s actions and decisions did bring an apocalyptic Judgment Day (by none other than the mysterious Phantom of Truth…) on the sinister City of Carcosa, its population of emotional vampires and their ruling Three Mothers – but she already knows that some of them have managed to escape the probable destruction of the accursed, trans-dimensional megapolis, like rats fleeing a sinking ship… 

Where and when did those survivors flee to?  And how will they adapt to their new conditions?  Will the scattered, homeless Porphyrs evolve into some new horrors?  Try to rebuild Carcosa?  Attempt to ally themselves with other dark powers? That remains to be seen…

The episode itself allowed me to indulge in some pretty wild imaginary crossovering, my Porphyrian lore being a mix of three different fictional mythoi: Robert W. Chambers’ King in Yellow / Carcosa tales (for Carcosa, the Phantom of Truth and other fascinating concepts), Thomas de Quincey’s Three Mothers (also present in Dario Argento’s famous trilogy of horror movies – although I didn’t use this source - at least not directly) and, of course, our beloved Whoniverse (with the Vishklar revealed as the original ‘psychic ancestors’ of the Porphyrs).

It was a very satisfying, tension-packed episode, with a lot of weight on Penelope’s shoulders. It started with her decision to drop her current travelling companion Indira back in 2024 London - for she did not want to expose her to the horrors and dangers of what was coming. Penelope's deliberation and the temporary farewell with Indira contributed to build up the dramatic tension - and when the Time Lady finally entered Carcosa, Sylvie really felt like her character was stepping into the mouth of hell / maw of madness / crack of doom...

It was a very important episode, at the scale of the series itself. Penelope's discovery of the nightmarish city felt like the climactic culmination of a long-escalating theme (the Porphyrs have been around since season one!).

As the GM, I unashamedly played the dark baroque horror card, using Christopher Young’s excellent musical score for Hellraiser as the main background soundtrack and some pretty nifty images created with Midjourney and ImgCreator – I’ve just posted them HERE if you wish to risk a glimpse...

The downfall of Carcosa felt like the end of an era - but I also wanted it to be a real game-changer, hence the last-minute escape of some of its inhabitants, which will allow me to re-invent / re-imagine the Porphyrs the next time Penelope encounters them (yes, I did pretty much the same with her other arch-enemies, the Lloigor at the end of our previous season: vanquished, beaten at their own game, deprived of their main source of power... but NOT completely erased from the universe and probably re-inventing themselves as we speak).

At the end of the episode, Penelope came back to Avalon with the psychic remains of her friend Everett Blake stored in her Gallifreyan fob watch – it was all that she could save from the unfortunate Edwardian psychic investigator - but Professor Chronotis (who has himself lived perfectly happily as a disembodied psyche encapsulated in a small hovering sphere since his body’s terminal demise) will help the poor soul recover from his terrible psychic trauma… and the Doctor (who has been working on regenerations for several seasons now) might well be able to build him a new body (just like he once did for Zoe). 

One sure is certain: if Everett Blake ever returns as a guest player-character in Lady Penelope’s Odyssey, it will most probably make a fascinating story!