Written by Max Curtis.

Spoiler-free verdict: A gorgeous emotional piece, rich with thematic depth and resonance and some wonderful high concept work.

Recommended pre-listening: None.

***

Well, that was pretty damn incredible, wasn’t it?

Classic Who has something of an awkward space in regards to characterization. There are many beloved companions, Jo Grant chief among them, but so few experience consistent growth or development. Jo, for her part, was a character elevated to spectacular heights through a winning performance by Katy Manning, but who existed as a character consciously designed as someone less strong-willed and story-defining than her predecessor. This makes her both remarkable and frustrating, remarkable because of how much she transcends to be as spectacular a character as she does, frustrating because she never quite escapes those roots. The flip side of that is, there’s a lot of blank space within her problematic confines to paint in. Enter Max Curtis, who beautifully does just that.

It’s remarkable to think that, in the 48 years since the character’s debut, nobody has ever thought to tell a story about Jo Grant’s parents (her mother still has yet to be named). Filling in this gap is immediately satisfying, and told with a sensitive touch that grips from the off. The opening scene in particular is just masterful, an instantly relatable slice of life moment far from the science-fiction conceits of Who, but which nonetheless fits into this world perfectly. But more than that, it’s built on treating the weaknesses built into Jo Grant as wonderful quirks of humanity. Of course the character designed to be a bit of a ditz got lost as a kid. And equally, of course the ditz brave enough to become a secret agent wasn’t scared so much by that as not remembering the moment she let go of her father’s hand.

This is, ultimately, a story built around all the oddities, charms, and failings of Jo Grant as a character. Facing an impulsive, clumsy, and full of heart character like her with the chance to stop time, just for a bit, to say goodbye to her father is a scenario that offers endless pathos specific to her, both in what we know of her and what needed filling in. She makes massive, selfish mistakes here in taking the Bloodline’s offer of the device, but they’re never treated as anything less than infinitely human and infinitely understandable. That it’s an obvious scam in the end, with a clever twist about the true nature of the three presses on the device she’s granted hitting that inevitable endpoint home with style, is beside the point. It’s what Jo Grant would do in all her humanity, and that’s why it’s a story worth telling.

Gorgeous as the high concepts are, they aren’t the focus here. That makes for one moment of weakness, in that the Bloodline selling the life essence of their victims, while an interesting idea, in no way fully materializes as a villainous plot, least of all because it’s presented as a snake-oil cure alongside very real ones like the timepiece this story is built around. As such, those stakes are hard to buy, and the Bloodline’s scam mostly ends up a patchy footnote in a far stronger story. But it’s a Short Trip, and hell, it’s already running on the longer side. I can accept skating over the spacey stakes, particularly when the human ones are so incredibly strong.

In the end, what matters here is the time Jo Grant gets to spend with her father, Terry, not talking about impending death or grief, or even the shocking fact that Jo fights aliens for a living, but about capturing the moments they have together, through painting. Perhaps the cleverest choice of all, in fact, is taking a story about a dying father and refusing to show the death, instead just ending on them sharing one of a dwindling number of moments together learning still lifes. This could have been a story that was more obvious and eventful, big alien action and heartwrenching deaths. But as with the fan-favorite ending to The Green Death, sometimes dialing things back and focusing on small moments has more weight than anything else could.

“While there’s still life, there’s still time”, says the Doctor, and the triple-meaning of the title carries so much weight. It, of course, references the frozen time Jo creates, as well as the paintings she shares with her father, and the final words the Third Doctor will finally share with Sarah Jane. Recontextualizing this Doctor’s final speech from Planet of the Spiders into a musing on the art of paint and capturing frozen moments in time creates something deeply stirring, in keeping with the Pertwee era’s fleeting moments of Buddhist philosophy and odd poetry that occasionaly burst forth from its military action r exterior. These are moments worth preserving to last forever, and Still Life succeeds in drawing them out and highlighting their art.

I am not, to be honest, often a fan of the era this story pays homage to. But I am a huge, huge fan of the era as this story sees it. This is a wonderful story full of love and grace, and I don’t think I’ll be likely to stop raving about it anytime soon.

10/10