Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Cast: Charlie Craggs, Lois Chimimba, Holly Quin-Ankrah, Anjli Mohindra, Maggie Service, Teri Ann Bobby-Baxter, Sam Stafford, Freddy Carter, Wilf Scolding, Dervla Kirwan, Denica Fairman, Alexandra Armstrong, Irvine Iqbal.
Inclusivity has arguably never had so much attention cast upon it, the weary eye of the put upon silent majority misunderstanding the point of the word, of the detail, and grasping at it as of it’s a barbed weapon they are forbidden to touch, to have no empathy to the souls who only ask for respect for being alive; of being able to live their lives without fear.
The parallels between the LGBTQ identities and the nature of alien existence in any science fiction franchise are as identifiable as those to whom understand the political satire and commentary that was hidden in plain sight during the disgraceful McCarthy Anti-American trials of the mid-50s. However, to truly understand why these parallels are important, you must see it through the people’s eyes who have been scapegoated horribly across the last couple of hundred years, and who in many cases still face the stigma of oppression by the narrow minded and rigid set.
What better way that to see the worlds that inhabit the Doctor Who universe, and in the second series of the Doctor-lite Redacted, Juno Dawson, as principal writer, brings that scope of insight to the fore as she returns Cloe Proctor, Abby, and Shawna to the Blue Box Files just as a new threat emerges to destroy life on Earth as they know it.
To have a transwoman as the main lead in any drama is to be applauded, but it goes further than in the six part series, for as all who were touched by the Doctor in the first series have slowly forgotten the experience, it falls to Chloe, played by actor and activist Charlie Craggs, to keep the faith and deal with the problem of mutant rats stalking London, of saving a group of aliens hidden away deep of what is London’s underground, of being the one to find the one person to whom might bring the often saviour of humanity to the planet to save them one more time, whilst suffering from the complex of guilt that comes from feeling as though you are not worthy of being in your own skin when others let you down.
The second series adds a deftness that arguably was slightly missing in the original series broadcast, and it is to Charle Craggs that this sense of humanity, of empathy reaches it audience with great sincerity.
An enjoyable second series of Redacted, one to which knows how to bring everybody into the action.
Ian D. Hall