Cucumber: Episode 6

"You've taken a wrong turn, but you can turn back."

I hate to simply echo what's being said all over the Internet, but this is one of the finest pieces of television in recent years. It's extraordinary.

We're shown from the framing device at the start that this episode will be different; this time it is Lance, not Henry, in the supermarket. And Russell T Davies gives the game away from the start with a caption: "Lance Edward Armstrong, 1966-2015".

Davies, in a recent interview with the Radio Times, has likened the structure of this episode to Lance's life flashing before his eyes in those last few seconds after the golf club connects. More than half the episode takes place before the start of the series, including Lance's getting together with Henry and the early part of their relationship, from his perspective. But the heart of these early scenes are in Lance's early scenes, his discovery of his sexuality, the difficult coming out and the slow acceptance, Christmas by Christmas, of his father. There is tragedy, too, with the childhood loss of Lance's mother and the loss of a partner to AIDS. All of this rounds Kance as a character and, of course, gets us to emphasise with him so that his death will hurt more. You're a right bastard of a genius, RTD. This episode feels like a punch in the face to a Eurythmics soundtrack.

It's a huge relief that Henry gets to see Lance before he dies, and to finally tell him that he loves him. Lance doesn't take the proffered olive branch, though, and coldly rebuffs him. Instead he goes off on one final, terrible night out.

Daniel gives out warning signs at every moment, as he always has. His behaviour in Canal Street is extremely disturbing yet, as Lance explains to the strange, unreal ghost of Hazel from Queer as Folk, he's handsome enough to be worth it.

These scenes with Hazel, written as a kind of fairy godmother, are the emotional heart of the episode. The fact that she is a ghost adds a note of unreality; RTD has  postulated that, if the whole episode is Lance's life flashing before his eyes, this could be a bit his subconscious has changed. But it's nicely ambiguous, and a nice choice. And dramatically, of course, it's the point of no return.

The final, fateful scenes are in real time, and are masterfully scripted and acted, with Daniel finally acting fully on his suppressed desires, but then lashing out in a fury of denial and gay panic, snuffing out this sweet man whom we have come to know and love. It is sudden, devastating and crafted to hit hard.

And then we have a masterful visual sequence from director Alice Troughton, and tears, and no more Lance. And this is going to leave a huge hole in the world.

Doctor Who: The Shakespeare Code

“Do you have to pass a test to fly this thing?”

“Yes. And I failed.”

The first thing we notice is that the London of 1599 is brilliantly realised, managing to look both convincingly real and beautiful at the same time. The pre-titles sequence is great, introducing the witches immediately. It’s important to get the witches in early and often; the kids watching are not necessarily going to be as fascinated by the Shakespeare stuff as ex-English students like myself.

Oh, and there’s Christina Cole. Mmm…

Last episode Deadly Lampshade mentioned the mixed messages the Doctor is sending out to Martha, and this time round that’s basically the whole basis of their relationship. The Doctor is taking Martha out on the mother of all dates on the one hand and reminding her that she’s getting one trip only on the other. He even sighs at one point and says they might as well stay for a bit longer. All this comes to head in the bedroom scene, of course, which symbolises everything that’s going on between them very neatly, possibly too much so. It’s left ambiguous whether the Doctor’s apparent obliviousness to the one way sexual tension here is genuine or assumed. He certainly mentions Rose at the worst possible moment.

Martha’s sci-fi literate take on time travel is great, though, and so is the Doctor’s undercutting of such things as butterflies and killing one’s own grandfather. And I love the Back to the Future element to the story’s “The world didn’t end in 1980” moment. There’s good handling of the issues surrounding Martha’s ethnicity in the European past, too; it’s acknowledged, but not made too much of. The right balance, I think.

Martha’s fantastic on her first trip- enthusiastic, resourceful, not afraid to tell William Shakespeare that his breath stinks. She’s very different from Rose; more mature and confident and less prickly because of it. And Freema Agyeman’s still lovely.

Anyway, Shakespeare. He’s a fascinating character here- witty, a very perceptive judge of character, hiding emotional depths behind a glib, rock star exterior, and enough of a genius that psychic paper doesn’t work on him. He’s very Doctorish, in fact. No wonder the two of them get on so well. It’s a great moment when Shakespeare casually explains that he’s worked out that they’re time and space travellers.

I like the stuff about words and magic, too. It’s almost like reading an interview of Alan Moore. And then there’s the Shakespeare fanwank bits- Love’s Labour’s Won, Martha being the Dark Lady of the sonnets. I wonder if one day we’ll get a sequel where the Carrionites try again with Cardenio?

Best of all, though, the script is just so witty. Another 5/5.