‘Beautiful Chaos’ is set amid Series 4, with the Doctor bringing Donna back home a month after the events of ‘The Poison Sky’. The reason for the trip is a sad one though, as she returning to her family to mark the first anniversary of her father’s death.
With Donna busy, and the Doctor avoiding domesticity, he finds himself caught up in the buzz of an imminent product launch. After receiving a mysterious message on his psychic paper he begins to look into the M-TEK console, a new gadget apparently set to revolutionise computing.
As well as the sad memories, there is excitement in the Noble household. Granddad Wilf has discovered a new star and the Royal Planetary Society is holding a dinner I his honour. With the Doctor and Donna accompanying him, we get to meet Henrietta ‘Netty’ Goodheart, his charming and redoubtable lady friend who is suffering the early stages of Alzheimer’s.
As well as Wilf’s new star, there is another new light in the night sky that disturbs the Doctor greatly. A so-called Chaos Body heralds the return of a malign energy force bent on subjugating the Earth. Presenting itself in the form of an eccentric AI, named Madame Delphi, the Mandragora Helix controls and kills with pulses of purple energy. It also creates a face in the stars, which put us in mind of the 80’s version of the show’s titles.
This story serves as a sequel to the 1976 tale ‘The Masque of Mandragora’ with some clever links to that tale. As well as the sci-fi, this story feels grounded in modern day Earth. There is a running gag over who is paying for taxis and ample use of mobile phones to connect the characters across London.
Gary Russell provides some pitch perfect characterisation with Wilf, Donna and Sylvia Noble, and it is good to spend some time with them again. Mum Sylvia enjoys some sympathetic treatment, although amusingly she gives the Doctor a slap round the face at one point, continuing his tradition of falling foul of companion’s mothers. Meanwhile Donna has to confront how much travelling with the Doctor has changed her and the implications of leaving her family behind.
For poor Wilf we start and end the tale in reflective mood up at the allotment, post ‘Journey’s End’, seeing the effect the returned Donna has on the family. Heartbreaking as they are, the Doctor cannot fix some things and Netty’s slowly deteriorating condition is never trivialised, but rather treated with a gentle mix of both comic and tragic notes as well as making a clever contribution to the story’s resolution.
Published on Thursday 7 March 2013 by BBC Books.
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