Sunday, December 6, 2020

Season 15, Episode 6

Episode 6: The Shadows of Yesterday

Penelope takes Constance from 1895 to the astounding future of 1965, the era of Swinging London, Beatlemania and miniskirts… There, her path soon crosses that of the recently returned Miss Wright and Mr. Chesterton, who are doing their best to Get Back to Normal. But some memories just won’t go away - and somewhere, a lost child is screaming in terror. 



This episode was quite reference-heavy; in addition to Ian and Barbara, it also featured the Counter Measures group and the little girl from Remembrance of the Daleks - the "lost child" mentioned in the blurb above. Two years after the Shoreditch Incident, the child was still in a state of deep psychic trauma, haunted and terrorized by her own memories / ghosts of the Daleks (particulary the black Supreme Dalek). For two years she had lived under the watchful eye of the Counter Measures group, who kept her in a secret clinic near London. Her subconscious psychic struggle had connected with the recently-returned Barbara's own traumatic memories of the Daleks, creating the mystery that kicked off Lady Penelope's adventure in 1965 London.

During Penelope's own investigations and her final battle with the child's "Dalek nightmares" , Constance Norcott (the young Victorian woman who had embarked in Penelope's TARDIS at the end of the last episode) had a very long, offstage talk with Barbara, who told her how adventuring in time and space had changed her life forever - and during the epilogue of the scenario, Constance finally decided that she was not cut for this kind of life and that it was time for her to go back to 1895 Florence - to face her mother, make her own choices and build her own fate. 

So now Lady Penelope is (much to her satisfaction) back to her usual "lonely traveller" mode, ready for some advenures and fun in time and space. Next stop: Paris in the complicated time of the Directoire (1795-1799), right between the Revolution and Napoleon's rise to power - a time noted for its unbridled extravagance, with its "Incroyables" and "Merveilleuses"...

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