Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS

Doctor Who - Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS
Written by Steve Thompson
Directed by Mat King
Broadcast on BBC One - 27 April 2013

This review contains plot spoilers and is based on the UK broadcast of the episode. 

This is a bottle episode of sorts, but it’s set inside a very unusual bottle – one that’s really more of a box, infinite indoors, and capable of architectural reconfiguration as well as generating multiple “echoes” of any particular room. Whether this sort of impossible space could ever actually possess a “centre” may be a tough philosophical nut to crack, but it’s a classic episode title nonetheless. And just in case we’re not aware of the rich promise conveyed by ‘Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS’, the Doctor informs the Van Baalen gang that he’s confident he can deliver on “the salvage of a lifetime” (echoing the tagline which accompanied Doctor Who’s 2005 return, although back then it was a trip being promised rather than spectacular flotsam and jetsam).

Making the TARDIS the story’s main environment also makes it highly likely, or at least thematically relevant, that time-travel shenanigans will be involved. And sure enough we get a time rift, Time Zombies, frozen time, and a 'History of the Time War'. All set against a ticking clock. Rarely has Doctor Who been this fixated on temporality. I kept waiting for a sequence where assorted clock faces would mysteriously melt, in homage to the very first ‘trapped in the TARDIS’ story from 1964, but plenty of other fan service aimed to press fans’ buttons – including ninth Doctor dialogue from ‘Rose’ and other audio treats, along with glimpses of TARDIS rooms such as the swimming pool and, rather oddly, what appeared to be the telescope from ‘Tooth and Claw’. Does the TARDIS incorporate copies of the Doctor’s previous destinations so he can re-enact adventures at his leisure, in his very own private version of the Doctor Who Experience? It’s one way to break up all the repetitive corridors, I guess.

Although TARDIS-centric storytelling licenses all the chronic time malarkey, this episode’s resolution still comes across as immensely convenient. Yes, it draws attention to the fact that everything can be made better via a “big friendly [reset] button”. And yes, Edward Russell will probably be pleased that this is the first ever Doctor Who story where branding officially saves the day (oops, no, sorry; it’s the wrong sort of brand awareness). More than that, though, you can almost picture Steven Moffat and Steve Thompson chortling over the fact that they’ve come up with the ultimate “handy” solution to a Who story. I say Moffat and Thompson because for me this episode has the exact same problem as ‘The Curse of the Black Spot’. Where that felt too strongly like Thompson imitating Moffat’s preferred tropes (technology gone awry), this was the same hired hand again borrowing showrunner tricks – a rift or crack in time, paradoxes, memory loss, a ‘reveal’ of unexpected identity, and yet another 'reveal' hidden in plain sight (thanks to the torn photograph which we assume is merely set dressing and character background when we first see Gregor). Instead of "Doctor Who in an exciting adventure with the TARDIS", a little too much of this resembled Moffat-era storylining on auto-pilot. It reminded me of series five and its epic rewind through previous stories, but crammed into the space and time of a single tale. I can understand contributing writers wanting to please the big boss, but all this faux-Moffat pastiche arguably produces story predictability rather than elegant brand consistency.

On the plus side, director Mat King made some good choices: the opening ‘walk and talk’ between the Doctor and Clara had them circling the TARDIS console at pace, giving some basic dialogue a whirling dynamism, and nicely prefiguring the characters’ later TARDIS disorientation. And in terms of visual style, King used an unusually large amount of out-of-focus or blurred material for HD, effectively heightening the menace of the Time Zombies. The exploded engine room was also a definite high point, resembling something you’d expect to see in promotional footage for 3D television, whilst its stark white backdrop was brilliantly combined with an absence of incidental music, at least up until the turning point of the Doctor taking Clara’s hand. If these directorial decisions all smartly served the story, then by contrast the end of the pre-credits sequence felt poorly edited and lacking in rhythm – it crashed rather haphazardly into the titles rather than building up to a dramatic punctuation, almost as if King didn’t quite have all the coverage he would’ve wanted.

Greater ethnic diversity is surely something modern Who should be striving for, but casting three black actors to play the shifty Van Baalen team – salvage being represented as boring manual labour lacking in creativity and job satisfaction – struck a debatable note. Another odd moment arrived in the form of Clara’s self-referential “good guys do not have zombie creatures. Rule one, basic storytelling!” Seemingly approaching her travels with the Doctor as if she’s wandered into a “story”, I only hope that the eventual explanation of Clara’s multiple deaths doesn’t involve her being unveiled as some kind of fiction or fabrication. Yet her sudden 'meta' invocation of “basic storytelling” was so ham-fisted it’s tempting to wonder whether this'll carry any further significance in the scheme of things.

There’s also some set-up for ‘The Name of the Doctor’ – presumably material requested by Moffat, just as he’s previously instructed the likes of Matthew Graham and Neil Gaiman on arc duties. It’s a pity, though, that Clara’s reading of 'The History of the Time War' is immediately erased from Doctor Who: ongoing storylines would surely have been more interesting given her unfolding awareness of “the Doctor”. Yet neutralising Clara’s character development is what really makes this a bottle episode, essentially disconnected from what surrounds it. In the end, it’s the guest characters who seem to retain after-images and echoes of what they’ve learnt, with Gregor discovering “a scrap of decency”, whereas over-arching mysteries are safely put back in their box... for the time being.

The Roots of Evil (Puffin Books)

Doctor Who - The Roots of Evil
Written by Philip Reeve
Puffin Books
UK release: 23 April 2013

This review contains plot spoilers and is based on the UK edition of the ebook.

Philip Reeve has won many awards across his writing career to date, and reading this month’s e-short it’s easy to see why. As well as effortlessly capturing the spirit of a fourth Doctor and Leela story (it feels like something developed by Hinchcliffe and Holmes but made by Graham Williams… with a budget), Reeve’s own authorial voice also rings out loud and clear. When ‘name’ authors work on non-TV Who there can sometimes be a tussle between different incarnations – will it be a Michael Moorcock novel, or a Doctor Who story, for instance. But in this case, there’s a seamless integration of something that’s at once very “Reevian” but also contains dialogue which wouldn’t feel out of place in a classic Chris Boucher script. Leela’s curt explanation of what a scarf is, for example, offers up particular humour. And perhaps as a nod to the Sevateem there’s something intriguing and very unexpected about certain character names…

To call this a partial compositing of ‘Planet of Evil’ and ‘Face of Evil’ does it a disservice; the world swiftly and colourfully sketched in by Reeve would have been tricky to realize in the 1970s TV show, and it really belongs to written Doctor Who. It has the same coherent inventiveness which marked out Reeve’s Mortal Engines – but where that introduced mobile cities, this has the “Heligan Structure”, a tree that's grown into a kind of "wooden space station". And there’s an entire accompanying culture set out for readers, whether it’s the Heligan’s “heartwood”, “digestion chamber”, or “trunk-roads”. Reeve has fun naming his world’s tangled arboreal features – the Heligan’s bark has plenty of bite – but he also acutely captures Tom Baker and Louise Jameson’s performances. There are moments of description which resonate with Baker’s joyous inhabitation of the role, particularly a focus on that infamous, life-affirming grin.

All the language games with tree-like features and attributes – plenty of copse markers, one might say – make this sound like a very fantasy-oriented tale, riffing insistently on a single set of ideas. But Reeve also branches out into sharply observant character moments such as Leela missing the woodland of her own planet, as well as linking the oxygen-producing capacities of the vast Heligan Structure to one of SF’s staples, namely terraforming. With the Doctor and Leela being well served, poor K-9 remains very much the unwanted tree decoration on this occasion, left in the TARDIS to charge up his batteries. Perhaps this makes sense in a novella, however, as it means there are only two lead characters to follow, whilst also avoiding questions of K-9’s mobility on a tree-world, not to mention whether his laser would’ve promptly burnt the whole place down.

Given recent speculation over which actors might or might not be appearing together in the fiftieth anniversary TV special, Roots of Evil has a rather canny structure which at least allows the fourth Doctor to express clear views on his eleventh incarnation. They might not meet, but their paths cross glancingly in this adventure, albeit sufficiently for the Baker Doctor to express some trenchant views on whether certain items of clothing are “cool”. And Leela also has a view on the future Doctor, as aspects of the show’s current format fleetingly intertwine with retro gothic stylings. The sonic screwdriver is even retconned into line with facts established by Steven Moffat, as two eras of Who are brought into dialogue, and tendrils of connection are lightly stretched across the programme's family tree.

Reeve paces his tale incredibly well. We get clever back story, a well-crafted and believable alien society, a lunatic villain for the Doctor to spar with, and some great monsters – all without events feeling too rushed. The monsters, although perhaps being slightly predictable in form and function, are still smartly depicted, carrying a requisite sense of mulched menace.

Roots of Evil is by far the best Puffin e-short to date. This really is a five-star adventure for the fourth Doctor, and hopefully later contributors to the sequence will take a leaf out of Philip Reeve's book in terms of intelligently balancing authorial style with authentic Doctor Who.

Eldrad Must Die! (Big Finish)

Reviewed by Andrew Batty

Eldrad Must Die!
Big Finish Productions
Written by Marc Platt
Directed by Ken Bentley
Released April 2013

The TARDIS brings the Doctor, Nyssa, Tegan and Turlough to the Cornish coast. But something is very wrong. The local wildlife has been corrupted by a bizarre crystal infection, an infection which seems to be spreading to humans. Soon Turlough is hearing voices, voices which demand that “Eldrad must die!”

Eldrad Must Die! continues Big Finish’s propensity for sequels to TV Doctor Who stories, and specifically the Hinchcliffe years of the programme. Having already mined the most popular stories of the era for sequels, Big Finish is now turning to the lesser regarded tales, and following on from the return of the Kraals from The Android Invasion in last year’s The Oseidon Adventure, it is now Eldrad’s turn to come out of retirement (he was last seen in 1976’s The Hand of Fear).

The script is from Marc Platt, one of Big Finish’s most prolific, and occasionally one of their best writers. Platt has previously done great things with bringing back monsters, most notably in Spare Parts where he explored the origins of the Cybermen in original and unexpected ways.

Platt goes out of his way to find new and interesting ways to use Eldrad and the Kastrians. The clever inversion of the ‘Eldrad must live’ mantra from The Hand of Fear and creation of a rival Kastrian faction are the most obvious examples of this. Even so, there are only so many ways you can bring back such a specific villain, and despite Platt’s efforts the play does retread much of the same ground as The Hand of Fear. We have a modern-day earth setting, discovery of an Eldrad-artifact, possession of a companion, and a similar structure, with the action moving to Kastria for the play’s conclusion.

The play is most successful in Platt’s wise choice to take explore the unique crystalline biology of the Kastrians. The Hand of Fear’s mental possession here becomes physical, with numerous members of the cast infected with Kastrian crystals. This allows for some decidedly creepy imagery, for example the discovery of a dead bird with its wings interlaced with crystals, and later possessed villagers with crystal masks covering their faces. However, despite these strong, chilling moments, the play’s tone is that of a fast run-around, and it could have been stronger if the early episodes had focused on building chills and atmosphere.

As if being a sequel to The Hand of Fear wasn’t enough, the play also draws from elements of Mawdryn Undead. While the mystery of Turlough’s solicitor (which the TV show left dangling and never followed up) is an interesting one it feels out of place and Turlough’s connection to puppet henchman Charlie seems unnecessary and overcomplicates the story. Perhaps Big Finish are sowing the seeds for a fuller exploration of Turlough’s life at Brendon School, but here it just feels superfluous. Where the focus on Turlough does succeed is in his dream sequences, where the rest of the TARDIS crew get to flex their acting muscles as figments of Turlough’s imagination.

With the exception of Stephen Thorne as Eldrad, the supporting characters are all rather generic and forgettable, and this is not helped by a weaker supporting cast than usually. The inclusion of four regulars, and attempting giving them all enough to do, is also a problem, and the Doctor comes off worst. This is the tenth release featuring the Fifth Doctor, Tegan, Turlough and Nyssa in a relatively short space of time, and it would be nice to see the Fifth Doctor used in a more varied way.

Eldrad Must Die! is packed with strong ideas but it never quite comes together. The main problem is that The Hand of Fear dealt with Eldrad quite satisfactorily, and the whole concept of a sequel feels unnecessary. While returning foes and sequels may bring in more listeners, Eldrad Must Die! shows that it is important to consider how much there is to say about these aspects of Doctor Who’s past, rather than bringing them back for their own sake.

Destiny of the Doctor: Babblesphere

Reviewed by Tom Buxton

Destiny of the Doctor: Babblesphere
Released by AudioGo
Produced by Big Finish
Written by Jonathan Morris
Directed by John Ainsworth
Released: April 2013

This review is based on the CD release from AudioGo and may contain minor spoilers.

“Yes- I dare say he had a good reason. I usually do...”

Satirical productions are everywhere these days, with recent Doctor Who episodes like The Bells Of Saint John proving shining examples of modern writers’ takes on current social trends and technology. For the Fourth Doctor instalment in their Destiny Of The Doctor audio range, AudioGo have taken it upon themselves to echo these growing commentaries on our reliance on knowledge and communication. Babblesphere marks a shining highlight in the franchise so far, and with any luck should set a precedent for the remaining seven adventures still to come.

Set on a human colony inhabited by a seemingly omniscient and omnipotent technological matrix, Babblesphere once again perfectly encapsulates the vast science-fiction and inherently interplanetary tales of Tom Baker’s Doctor and Lalla Ward’s Romana. Although Baker isn’t present on recording duties for this script, Lalla does an exemplary job of reviving her companion character and indeed mimicking her former co-star throughout the story. Roger Parrott provides superb support too, taking on the role of a bewildered user of the Babble network who finds himself in the middle of a growing catastrophe.

What’s perhaps most reminiscent of the rather defining 1974-1981 era of Doctor Who here is the sense of an inherent investigation of the human condition even in the context of a distinctly alien society in comparison to our own. Yes, there’s plenty of satire on offer to link the Babblesphere to Sol 3, yet undoubtedly we’re in extraterrestrial territory, so it’s testament to the sound creative vision of writer Jonathan Morris that he can make the entire narrative experience feel just as grounded as the legendary Who works of classic writers such as Douglas Adams did back in the good ol’ days.

Of course, no entry in the Destiny audio range would be complete without an allusion to an ominous future to come for the Eleventh Doctor in the franchise’s finale. As we’ve previously mentioned, the Fall of the Eleventh and the Fields of Trenzalore will no doubt be dealt with on screen in The Name Of The Doctor, yet whatever the various references to events that have to be preserved to help the Time Lord’s current incarnation in a battle to come are building to, we can be sure that November’s The Time Machine will provide a pay off in a satisfying fashion. It’s sadly the only real weakness of Babblesphere that this month’s arc reference feels a tad shoehorned in for the sake of it, yet for dedicated fans of the range the reference will at least provide further interest for the evolving story in the months ahead.

Whereas past instalments in the Destiny range - particularly last month’s Vengeance Of The Stones - have presented numerous shortcomings of note, it’s a pleasure for this reviewer to confirm that that particular franchise story arc niggle is the only real gripe to be found this time around. Beyond that, Babblesphere is easily the most confident, audacious and compelling instalment in the range yet. Lalla Ward is an incredible narrator both in-character and of the events surrounding the story’s constructs, the atmosphere of the world and its inhabitants is palpable, and more than ever there’s a sense of true dedication to this release’s chosen era of the show’s fifty-year history. Doctor Who has produced its fair share of groundbreaking and memorable satirical stories in the past, and without a doubt this reviewer can add Destiny Of The Doctor’s Babblesphere to the widening list of the finest examples of this budding new genre.

Hide

Doctor Who - Hide
Written by Neil Cross
Directed by Jamie Payne
Broadcast on BBC One - 20 April 2013

This review contains plot spoilers and is based on the UK broadcast of the episode. 

The thing about ghost stories is they’re full of rules: mysterious noises, flashes of lightning, cold spots, psychics, detecting equipment replete with oscilloscopes and toggles (noun), plus photographs revealing the impossible. And there are contemporary film conventions too: a burst of light illuminating something right next to our protagonists; a dark, menacing shape flitting across camera (a trick used back in ‘The Eleventh Hour’). ‘Hide’ throws itself into this maelstrom of whirling tropes with gusto and sincerity. And being set in the seventies, it almost feels like a classic BBC TV ‘Ghost Story for Christmas’ reanimated at the wrong time via anachronistic technology: it’s as if the theatrical-yet-brilliant Stone Tape has been worked over for high-def, high-style TV.

Despite the opening “ghostbusters” reference, we’re treated to a greatest hits’ collection of spooky goings-on that are played pleasingly straight. Jessica Raine is outstanding as the emotionally suppressed and confused empath Emma Grayling, radiating fragile luminosity and stern verity as she warns Clara off the Doctor, instantly reading him as a “liar”. Professor Alec Palmer is also well realized, with Dougray Scott putting in a strong performance as the guilt-ridden researcher unable to shake off  revenants of his past.

You can see why Neil Cross was asked back to contribute ‘The Rings of Akhaten’. This is a fantastic script; a blend of believable, character-led emotional moments (rather in the vein of Russell T. Davies’s writing on the series) and Moffat-style inversion and tricksiness as we get around to the final genre-shifting kicker. There’s also a clever, parable-like challenge to our interpretation of monstrosity:
what we’ve assumed to be grotesque and terrifying (the half-glimpsed, gnarled stuff of nightmare) is simply a form of life and love we’ve been unable to recognize. Cross handles it all with skill, making me suspect possible problems with ‘Akhaten’ may have been far more to do with budgeting and production issues.

Although the sequence where the Doctor disappears off to monitor Earth's planetary life-cycle seems to puncture the episode’s rhythm and atmosphere, it rapidly gives rise to two great pay-offs – not just the Sapphire and Steel-type explanation of what’s going on, but more importantly Clara’s realisation that “we’re all ghosts to you”. Time travel will do that, jumping from birth to death, hurtling from joyous presence to jaded memory. And of course the Clara-Doctor exchange isn’t just a mirror of its surrounding ghost tale, but also neatly harks back to ‘The Snowmen’ and the Doctor’s graveside visit there.

Cross’s paralleling of the Doctor and Clara with the Professor and his “companion” also draws attention to the different genres that the two couples occupy – while Alec and Emma are part of a love story, the Doctor and Clara are instead tied together by a “mystery” that needs solving. For all their banter, and the Doctor’s exaggerated discomfort with talk of love, this Doctor-companion pairing is perhaps overly dominated by ongoing arc stuff, not quite giving Clara the space to really come alive as a three-dimensional, flesh and blood character. Her ghostliness is partly a product of the need to keep the ‘Oswin’ Oswald puzzle flickering away in the background.

And while I know the Doctor has to get used to new teeth with each incarnation, “Metebelis” seems to be pronounced strangely. Surely a DVD of ‘Planet of the Spiders’ could have been sent to Matt Smith or director Jamie Payne as additional homework? Otherwise, though, Payne plays an absolute blinder: the scary, mist-wreathed forest visuals are especially gorgeous, reminding me of Adam Smith’s work on series five. Echoing laughter and sweeping, dream-like camera work also somehow put me in mind of ‘The Deadly Assassin’, placing this episode’s flashes of surrealism in very good company indeed. As for the stillness and silence immediately following in the wake of Emma’s furious bid to retrieve the Doctor, this was an inspired, chilling instant. I’d expected “boo!” moments from ‘Hide’, a perfectly unimaginative expectation which sure enough the pre-credits sequence promptly answered, but I hadn’t expected such a startling soundtrack punctuation. Not since Graeme Harper’s outer space silence in ‘42’ have separation and absence been so well calibrated. In short, more Payne, please: this was smartly directed, making impeccable use of guest actors and capturing a visceral sense of the Doctor’s fear.

‘Hide’ sells itself as one kind of story, turning all its ghostly paraphernalia up to eleven before sharply sidestepping into a whole different pocket genre where the rules are different. Crammed with quotable dialogue (the “I’m not holding your hand” business even felt like Moffat pastiche, unless it was an uncredited showrunner contribution), its ending – “jump!” – had the sort of vitality and irreverence that perhaps only a newcomer to the fold would attempt. Hiding its twist in plain sight, ‘Hide’ nevertheless represents the most audacious and spirited genre switch in Who’s recent memory as it toggles (verb) between love and monsters.

Night of the Stormcrow (Big Finish)

Reviewed by Andrew Batty

Night of the Stormcrow
Big Finish Productions
Written by Marc Platt
Directed by Nicholas Briggs
Released as subscriber bonus December 2012, on sale December 2013

This review is based on the bonus subscriber release and contains mild spoilers

On a remote island a group of scientists have been observing the stars. But when the shadows start moving and people start dying, it seems that something might have been looking back at them. Something that has decided to pay them a visit...

“It’s teatime 1977 all over again” proclaimed the ubiquitous advertising for Big Finish’s first season of audios starring Tom Baker, clearly positioning nostalgia as one of their primary objectives.

Despite the fact that Tom Baker hadn’t appeared in Big Finish until last year, the Phillip Hinchcliffe produced series of Doctor Who have often tacitly positioned as the ‘golden era’ of the programme and have cast a long shadow across the company’s output. For example, when Big Finish first started releasing Doctor Who plays featuring Doctors five to seven they used the Hinchcliffe era version of the theme tune and when choosing villains for the high profile Eighth Doctor series it was Wirrn, Zygons and Krynoids who were brought out of retirement.

Yet, when the man himself returned, and this ‘golden era’ was finally unlocked to Big Finish, there was something missing. It was the Doctor himself. Tom Baker’s performance as the Doctor shifted incrementally during his seven years in the show and when he finally returned to the role, perhaps unsurprisingly he played the part differently. In the Hornet’s Nest series produced by the BBC, Baker perfected a bombastic, whimsical version of his Doctor, very different from what had gone before, and rather suited to the excessive campy tone of that series. It was a slightly muted version of this Doctor which Baker brought to his first series with Big Finish, meaning that in spite of what the scripts, producers and audiences wanted, the tone they were trying to recapture was just out of their grasp.

Night of the Stormcrow marks the return of the Hinchcliffe era Doctor. Baker has chosen to reign in his performance and give us the alien, moody and at times portentous Doctor familiar from fan favorites Pyramids of Mars and The Ark in Space. It feels like the first time all the elements have come together in a Fourth Doctor play, with the cast and writers and production all singing from the same hymn sheet. This is very much helped by the tense, claustrophobic feel of the story and the wonderfully evocative speeches Marc Platt gives the Doctor. A highlight comes when the Doctor declares to the scientists that “Something found you here, something from the darkest corner of the night”, invoking memories of similarly tense moments from his early years as the Doctor.

Louise Jameson is equally well served by the script, and delivers a superbly written monologue for Leela in Episode Two. Throughout her appearances in various Big Finish productions she has proved herself to be one of their most adaptable and hard working performers. She has given subtly different performances as Leela over the course of the character’s life in Gallifrey, The Companion Chronicles and The Fourth Doctor Adventures, and here she once again skilfully recreates the cadences of 1970s Leela’s voice. My appetite has been thoroughly whetted for what the second series of plays starring Baker and Jameson will bring.

The story is a spooky, scientific haunting in the style of Nigel Kneale’s The Stone Tape (or in Doctor Who terms, Image of the Fendahl), with many standout creepy moments. While some may feel that the hour running time may work against the nostalgic aims of the Fourth Doctor series, here it works in the play’s favour. It means that the emphasis can be on building atmosphere rather than the denouement, which is often where sci-fi haunting stories fall down, when they struggle to explain the events away in rational terms.

If there is a fault in the play it would be that Platt’s decision to introduce two monsters, the eponymous Stormcrow and the ‘no-thing’ creatures, make things a little harder to follow in the second half, and perhaps he should have stuck with one or the other.

For fans who may have felt slightly disappointed by the first series of Fourth Doctor Adventures this play will be a welcome nostalgic trip to one of the most enduring, influential and popular eras of Doctor Who. Night of the Stormcrow is currently only available as a Big Finish subscriber exclusive, but will be available to buy separately from December 2013, when it will hopefully gain the wider audience it deserves.

Cold War

Doctor Who - Cold War
Written by Mark Gatiss
Directed by Douglas Mackinnon
Broadcast on BBC One - 13 April 2013

This review contains plot spoilers and is based on the UK broadcast of the episode. 

In the promotional build-up to this episode it seemingly became compulsory to make jokessssssss about the Ice Warrior’s sibilant speech patternssssssssss. So, now that’s out of the way, how successfully did this week's Who reimagine the Martian race? Mark Gatiss’s script was determined to depict them as a terrifying and plausible threat. As Clara says at one point, “it’s all got very... real”, and that could almost have been the mission statement of 'Cold War', where monstrous realism was the order of the day.

Instead of clunky design, the Ice Warrior’s “shellsuit” is shown to be body armour with an extremely useful line in sonic remote control. And we get the same Alien-style trick used all the way back in 'Resurrection of the Daleks' – the not-quite-seen entity out of its housing and busy stalking its prey. It’s unsurprising that ‘Dalek’ has instantly become a reference point for this adventure – the lone, reimagined creature in a lock-down situation makes comparisons too tempting to resist. But however many similarities can be drawn between ‘Dalek’ and this ‘sub-under-siege’ scenario, there is one vital difference: Rob Shearman’s much-redrafted magnum opus never punctures its sense of reality.

By contrast, ‘Cold War’ unwittingly stresses its artificiality right from the outset. The decision to depict a Russian submarine’s crew speaking English from the word go emphasizes a profound tension between narrative reality and production anxiety – clearly it was felt that Russian voices and subtitles would frighten off the early Saturday evening audience. We get a production decision which assumes the worst of its audience, rather than crediting them with curiosity and intelligence, because the English-speaking opening sadly can’t be rationalized through any TARDIS intervention. It’s a production choice, pure and simple, indicative of how weirdly mixed-up and inconsistent this episode becomes. Text is given in Russian-style lettering in the submarine, as if to remind audiences of the setting (in case they’d forgotten), yet this doesn’t clearly correspond with previously established TARDIS continuity either. It’s all a bit of a linguistic tangle, where playing-it-safe production decisions are constantly screamed out, puncturing the sense of immersive reality that a base-under-siege story absolutely calls for. Given how brilliantly TARDIS translation was handled in, say, ‘The Christmas Invasion’, where a sudden shift into English corresponds with a punch-the-air moment and a vital plot point, this episode sadly missed its chance to show us the TARDIS translation matrix kicking in, in what could have been a truly startling, stunning instance of the Doctor’s Time Lord powers. Imagine if suddenly, just as the order to launch a nuclear missile was given, we’d shifted from subtitles into spoken English. What could have been a stone-cold classic Who moment, transforming Russian characters from exotic, stereotyped others into our trustworthy protagonists, remains something that can only be imagined on Saturday night telly.

For me, the 1980’s music references were also clumsier than a 1960’s Ice Warrior costume. Despite David Warner’s strong performance, and he even made the query about Ultravox’s break-up work brilliantly, his character was lumbered with a habit designed to reinforce the eighties’ setting. I think this patronized the audience yet again – can’t we recall that it’s the eighties from an on-screen caption, talk of nukes, M.A.D. and mention of shoulder pads? Do we really need ‘relatable’ pop references to ram the time-frame home? Professor Grisenko was certainly an eccentric, but he felt too much like a designed creation rather than a flesh-and-blood character: blatantly there so that the “song” theme could get its pay-off via Clara’s Duran Duran rendition. Pop music was crow-barred into Chris Chibnall’s ‘42’ (hardly a fan favourite), but its inclusion here is no more convincing, I’d wager. Again, the reality effect worked so strongly around Skaldak is undermined by some of these surrounding decisions.

And if the Ice Warrior out of its shell is a scarifying highlight of the story, helping to ramp up the tension by playing to Gatiss’s formidable strengths as a writer, whilst also benefiting from sympathetic direction and lighting, then the choice to reveal Skaldak’s face feels a little misguided. It slavishly emulates a horror genre template: the big reveal of the bravura monster effect, after a lot of tantalizing and audience anticipation. But in this case, the effect wasn’t spectacular enough to warrant the reveal, and I think the mystique of the Ice Warriors, as well as Skaldak’s presence, would have been better served by refusing to give the audience this visual FX reverse shot. If we’d only seen the Doctor through the Martian’s eyes, without ever glimpsing what turned out to be Skaldak’s rather generic appearance, then that very absence would have been infinitely more thrilling and unsettling. By following the established plot beats of a literal face-off (even seeming to playfully reference Moffat’s “don’t blink” via a contest of wills) Skaldak and the Ice Warriors were diminished a little, when previous events had industriously set out to achieve the exact opposite.

There’s much fan-friendly stuff to welcome here: impeccable model FX work on the sub; HADS gets a mention (though wouldn’t that have been better explained earlier in the story rather than at the very end?); and (this) Clara treats her first historical outing as a test of her own performance, in a rather touching and well-played device where she constantly seeks reassurance. ‘Cold War’ has atmosphere in abundance, and is consistently well acted by all of its cast, with Liam Cunningham deserving just as many plaudits as David Warner. It also has a cleverly integrated bit of business about Skaldak’s singing – paralleled with Ice Warrior sonic technology – and his own family relationships. He has a daughter, so in the sentimental codings of family entertainment, we know right away he can’t be an irredeemable monster. And given that Skaldak doesn’t definitively leave until immediately after Clara’s singing, I interpreted her effort as reminding him of his daughter’s songs (indeed, Clara had already emphasized the link to “daughters” in dialogue). The new romantics save “Planet Earth” (why couldn’t that have been Grisenko’s favourite? “looking at planet earth… this is planet earth”). Clara’s emotional intelligence and resourcefulness are neatly reinforced here.

But the Doctor appears to rather strangely teach Skaldak, and by implication us, that nuclear deterrence is basically A Good Thing, and that mutually assured destruction handily works to keep the peace. I can’t help but feel that these aren’t unquestionably Doctorish ideologies, and I wonder if this section of the script underwent many revisions or generated much in the way of contention across the production process. It wouldn’t have been like this in the days of the Virgin New Adventures, I suspect. Further back in time, in 1984, Doctor Who mounted a version of this story as science fiction allegory (‘Warriors of the Deep’). The intervening years mean that ‘classic’ allegory can now be safely tackled as ‘new’ popular memory, swapping one kind of distancing shell for another.

‘Cold War’ is an incessant conflict between two power blocs where neither can entirely triumph. Intended realism fights against (unintended) displays of production artifice, and what is very nearly a chilling classic finds itself marred, though not sunk, by specific production decisions. The Ice Warriors are now a more complex and convincing on-screen race than ever before, but this particular Ice Warrior hero finds himself encased by narrative techniques (especially the language issue and the pop song gimmick) that threaten to jolt audiences out of Gatiss’s finest sub-under-siege storytelling, despite all its dripping, dripping water and its damp, desperate physicality.

The Justice of Jalxar (Big Finish)

The Justice of Jalxor
Big Finish Productions
Written by John Dorney
Directed by Ken Bentley
Released March 2013

This review is based on the MP3 download from Big Finish, and contains spoilers.

At long last, Henry Gordon Jago (Christopher Benjamin) and Professor George Litefoot (Trevor Baxter) are reunited with Tom Baker’s fourth Doctor. And there are more than a few nods to ‘The Talons of Weng-Chiang’ – that opiate of the fan masses – in John Dorney’s script, despite this otherwise being a stand-alone story rather than a definite ‘Talons’ sequel. The Doctor spends some time digging out his deerstalker and ensemble, much to Romana’s consternation; thanks to their ensuing dialogue this audio gets its visuals just right in the mind's eye. And there are even some familiar bread products available to toast a satisfactory outcome at story’s end. It’s a nostalgic wallow in 1970’s BBC Victoriana – the ideal backdrop for an adventure all about acquiring anachronistic artefacts, as Jago might say.

That the Doctor is accompanied this time by Romana rather than Leela does prevent this from being an all-round reunion, and in some senses it’s a shame that the basic story idea wasn’t held over by Big Finish, or pursued earlier, so that Louise Jameson as well as Tom Baker would’ve had the opportunity to revisit this milieu. However, the change in companion is marked by some lovely moments as Jago and Litefoot are suitably charmed by Romana, though having another character refer to her as an “ice maiden” does seem to hinge too strongly on fan knowledge and production/publicity cliché from back in the day, rather than being drawn out of actual story events and characterisations. Mary Tamm puts in another fine performance, engaging in plenty of banter with Baker, while the verbose alliterative tendencies of Jago (and Litefoot) are repeatedly pushed for their comedic value.

The story itself is rather predictable, and there’s little to relish in the way of Filipino armies advancing on Reykjavik. Whereas ‘Talons’ excelled at sketching in breathtakingly vast and genuinely surprising vistas in just a line or two of dialogue, The Justice of Jalxar doesn’t make such flowing use of what Piers Britton, in his book TARDISbound, refers to as the “epic vignette”. Jalxar's narrative plays out without huge surprises, featuring alien justice-serving technology that's been appropriated by a vigilante dubbed ‘the pugilist’. Although the overall narrative template isn’t earth-shattering, Dorney nevertheless has a lot of fun with its details, giving a very funny superhero gag to Romana, and rewriting one of Conan Doyle’s most famous lines from the Sherlock Holmes canon, as well as riffing on a plot point from A Study in Scarlet, not to mention 'A Study in Pink' more recently.

Jago and Litefoot are as delightful as ever, both as a double act and, separately, as foils to the Doctor and Romana. Part one builds to a precisely engineered, satisfying cliffhanger, though as this is only a two-part story we’re sadly deprived of any further cliffhanging action. If the measure of success is to leave your audience wanting more, then this is a resounding hit. Appearing right after The Sands of Life and War Against the Laan effectively formed a four-part story, I could happily have listened to another two episodes of Henry Gordon and Professor George getting lost in pea-soupers, exclaiming “lawks!” or “crumbs”, and generally offering a lot of mannered, pastiched fun. For true neatness, this could even have paralleled its TV counterpart by stretching to a box set release of three discs and six parts. But perhaps trying to directly emulate the form and reputation of its Hinchliffe-Holmes' model was deemed too high-risk, and what could have been Big Finish Baker gold is instead crafted as a less consequential two-parter. Beyond Jago and Litefoot, the guest cast are all excellent – particularly Mark Goldthorp as Bobby Stamford, who doesn’t have a tremendous amount to do, but sells key parts of the storyline very well.

There’s a startling instant where the fourth Doctor ponders his own guilty feelings, abruptly sounding more like his ninth or tenth incarnations. Baker’s performance modulates between deadly serious and gentle self-mockery, as if neither he nor director Ken Bentley are quite sure how to sell the gambit. If Jalxar technology detects the guilt people feel in their own innermost thoughts, then just how guilty would the Doctor seem to its detectors? Personally, I would’ve liked a deeper exploration of this and slightly less of the “passing wind in a built-up area” whimsy (hailing from the Doctor’s discussion of what people might feel a sense of guilt about). The story deflates any powerful focus on the Doctor’s character, but a new series-style tackling of the fourth Doctor’s woes, all that blood potentially caked on his scarf and his psyche, could have been darkly compelling in Baker’s more than capable hands, even if it might not have taken listeners comfortably back to a fabled 1970’s teatime. Whilst I like my Who to be as Proustian as the next fan, sometimes twenty-first century dramatic intensity is sadly passed over here in favour of better serving the talismanic 'Weng-Chiang'.

In essence, I simultaneously wanted this to be more like ‘Talons’ (a six-part blockbuster with greater implied scope) and less like ‘Talons’ (delving into the Doctor’s unearthly psyche). But in each case, I should confess my own guilt: it was still that rollicking great Bob Holmesian template which dominated my thoughts and responses. And therein lies the greatest injustice afflicting The Justice of Jalxar – it’ll probably always lurk in the giant rat-shaped shadow of a TV classic.

Love and War (Big Finish)

Reviewed by Andrew Batty

Love and War
Big Finish Productions
Written by Paul Cornell
Adapted by Jac Rayner
Directed by: Gary Russell
Released October 2012

Adapted by Jac Rayner from Paul Cornell’s 1992 novel, this audio version of Love and War was produced to celebrate 20 years of Bernice Summerfield. Since her debut barely a month has gone by without an original novel or audio drama featuring her, quite an astonishing feat for a spin-off character. However, the New Adventures novels have greater significance to Doctor Who than simply giving us Benny. The novels fundamentally changed the types of stories Doctor Who told. Building on the foundations laid in the McCoy era the New Adventures focused on strong-character led stories and ‘adult’ themes in a way which the TV show had never really attempted (or could in its family orientated slot). As such the New Adventures are a key stepping to Russell T Davies’ resurrection of Doctor Who, which would have a far greater focus the characters emotional arcs and everyday lives than the classic series. It is no coincidence that Paul Cornell was among the first batch of writers to work on the show when it returned and that Davies himself penned a novel for the line.

Love and War is one of the New Adventures’ key texts. Along with introducing Bernice it also (temporarily) writes out Ace and takes the concept of the ‘dark, manipulative’ Seventh Doctor to its absolute limit. Despite being Benny’s first adventure the focus of Love and War is squarely on Ace. Her past, her relationship with the Doctor and her new lover Jan are all fundamentally important to the story. This version marks the first time that Sophie Aldred has been able to perform Ace’s departure, an opportunity she clearly relishes and she puts in a very strong performance. Aldred very noticeably ‘ages down’ her vocal performance and mannerisms making this a very different Ace to the one we’re used to hearing in her ongoing Big Finish adventures. It’s great to see Big Finish’s regular actors stretched like this, and it would be good to see more of it in future.

Sylvester McCoy and Lisa Bowerman (as the Doctor and Bernice) also put in very good performances, and have excellent chemistry together. Over the years McCoy has perfected a quiet, contemplative version of his Doctor and puts it to good use here. It’s a shame that Bernice doesn’t have more to do in the first half of the play, but her scenes with to Doctor at the end of the play go some way to addressing this, establishing a relationship very different to the one between him and Ace. These scenes also put forward the idea that the Doctor needs a companion to give him something to fight for, and keep him grounded, a concept which has been hugely influential on the new series, most recently in The Snowmen where Clara lures the Doctor out of retirement.

On the whole Rayner does an excellent job of condensing the action but at times things can feel rushed and confusing. It’s a play that rewards multiple listens, with some of the details becoming clearer the second time around.

Wisely, Jac Rayner’s script doesn’t attempt to update the source material, meaning the early 90s feel of the story remains intact (for example the cyberpunk influenced ‘Puterspace’ scenes and the way that the villains, the Hoothi could be read as a metaphor for AIDS). Consequently the adaptation does an excellent job at giving the listener an insight into this period of Doctor Who’s development.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, given that it is an attempt to recreate a past era of Doctor Who, this adaptation is reminiscent of Big Finish’s Lost Stories series. However, while the Lost Stories focus on recreating scripts which are interesting as historical curios but of little importance to Doctor Who as a whole, Love and War is representative of a significant time in the series’ history. With the TV show dead writers like Cornell were working out new and interesting ways to take the show forward. Now that Doctor Who is back on our screens and in excellent health, this audio gives an excellent insight into the transition it took to get there.

Summer Falls

Doctor Who - Summer Falls
Written by Amelia Williams
BBC Books
UK release: 4 April 2013

This review is based on the BBC Books' ebook and contains some spoilers  

Summer Falls is a curious novella, more ‘Doctor fic’ than ‘Doctor lite’, since it’s supposedly written by Amelia Williams (formerly Pond) and involves a lightly fictionalized version of her Doctor. The ‘Curator’ has a mysterious “shed” in place of a Police Box, says very Doctorish things like “magic is cool” and “I love a little shoppe”, and is highly knowledgeable about all sorts of unusual entities and events. Oh, and the Curator also has a sort-of companion: one of the most brilliant, amusing companions that we’ll never get to see on-screen. No, it's not a shape-shifting talking penguin, but rather a grey talking cat, which enables real-world writer James Goss to explore all manner of great cat jokes. Essentially, what we learn is that cats do not fit at all well into the template of a Doctor Who companion, particularly given their tendency to get comfy and warm and have a doze mid-adventure, or their need to start cleaning rather than answering a question.

Returning to thoughts of Amy Pond strikes me as a faintly curious thing to do just as a new companion and a new mystery are launched in the TV series. Having Clara Oswald refer to an Amelia Williams’ story could be read as a passing of the baton; a way to honour and remember what’s come before as the franchise moves remorselessly on (and where everyone’s replaceable – not just companions, but even executive producers and showrunners). Perhaps this particular tie-in offers a kind of reassurance to fans of the Ponds. Amy hasn’t been erased from Who, after all, and the show is allowed to remember her in its passing details. Either that, or there’s method to the reminiscence, and Steven Moffat doesn’t want audiences to forget Amelia for a specific, yet-to-be-revealed reason. Given that ‘The Angels Take Manhattan’ was so insistently book-ended, circling back to ‘The Eleventh Hour', for this story/character thread to be picked up again so soon feels strange at the very least.

For my money, James Goss has consistently been one of the best recent writers of original, off-screen Doctor Who and Torchwood, and there's a tendency towards playful pastiche evident across his work. He’s a strong choice for this sort of material, given that Summer Falls was supposedly first published in 1954, and so is tailored to resemble a quaint, mildly jolly-hockey-sticks children’s fantasy adventure. Not only does it not feature the Doctor (by name), it’s also strongly fantastical rather than science-fictional, a genre shift which Who itself occasionally indulges in, but which seems to have dismayed some audiences of late with regards to ‘The Rings of Akhaten’. Although Summer Falls has the Doctor-type character muttering about “psycho-temporal” factors, it doesn’t really make very much effort to pin matters down into a science fiction template, instead preferring the broader poetic license of talking cats, frozen seas, and strange, powerful objects which have to be collected.

Goss repeatedly toys with readerly expectations. Summer Falls features the Lord of Winter, which in a novella released shortly before ‘Cold War’, and not long after ‘The Snowmen’, one might guess would implicate either the Ice Warriors or the chilly Great Intelligence. What we get remains tantalizingly vague, and I’m not at all convinced that this tale ties into ongoing series 7 events in any unexpected way. Of course, the big gimmick is that Summer Falls appeared on screen in ‘The Bells of Saint John’, meaning that we’ve already seen its heroine Kate depicted as a Spoonhead, as well as knowing that Chapter 11 is a tear-jerker (something it strives to live up to). This creates a complex layering of fiction-upon-fiction: the real book that you can buy and enjoy is itself part of the Doctor Who universe, as well as featuring a fictionalized version of the Doctor. When will Clara ask the Time Lord if he’s really the Curator? Will this fiction-within-a-fiction be played with in the TV show itself, I wonder, even perhaps in its anniversary special? I’d hazard not, however: the reference-spotting of Summer Falls suits fandom all too well – it’s a sort of roman à clef revolving around a key which has to be found, while readers can use the master key of Doctor Who to interpret what’s going on. But I’m not convinced that such "meta" would necessarily translate well to the broader mass audience of Christmas and Anniverary Specials, so perhaps ‘Doctor fic’ will remain a little-known tie-in subgenre for now.

Having said that, I’d like to see a series of Amelia Williams’ tales, perhaps written at different times across her life, each giving a different refraction and revision of her adventures. Re-fictionalized alt-Daleks or Screaming Cherubs could get an outing. Pursued as a series of reimagined slants on the Moffat era, this sort of playful Who manqué could start to build up into far more than the sum of its parts. But as things stand, and as a one-shot, Summer Falls is a clever, cool experiment in meta that doesn’t always feel like it really matters to ongoing arcs and questions.

The Life and Scandalous Times of John Nathan-Turner

Reviewed by Anthony Weight

The Life and Scandalous Times of John Nathan-Turner
Written by Richard Marson
Published by Miwk Publishing
Released April 2013

When I was a teenager, in the late 1990s, for a while I had an after-school paper round, delivering copies of the Brighton-based Evening Argus around my village in Sussex. It was never a paper of choice in our family, but while I had the round we used to buy a copy, which I would often peruse after I’d finished delivering the others.

I can distinctly remember noticing the features by John Nathan-Turner, an instantly recognisable name to any Doctor Who fan. He was a familiar figure from documentaries such as More Than Thirty Years in the TARDIS, and I’d read his memoirs serialised in DWM not long before. With a name like that it couldn’t be anybody else, and he even had his own byline photo to confirm it.

His features in the Argus were interviews with minor local celebrities, usually actors. I don’t remember how many of them he did – Richard Franklin is the only one that I specifically recall – but I do very clearly remember thinking, and even saying to my dad, “That’s a bit sad, he used to produce Doctor Who – how come he’s ended up writing cheap showbiz features for a local paper?”

As JNT: The Life and Scandalous Times of John Nathan-Turner reveals, the whole of Nathan-Turner’s post-Doctor Who career, which has perhaps been something of a mystery to fandom, could be described as being “a bit sad”. His name had become mud at the BBC, and despite a series of increasingly desperate and bizarre pitches, he was never able to persuade any broadcaster to work with him again, or to take up any of his programme ideas.

Richard Marson has done excellent work with this book, delving into the life and career of a man who seems utterly familiar on the one hand to Doctor Who fans, but who really it seems we only ever knew a certain side of, in a certain way. It’s the tragedy of many who are associated with Doctor Who that they are remembered only by us, and only for their Doctor Who careers – but Nathan-Turner’s association with the show became a burden even while it was ongoing.

Marson, a former producer and then editor of Blue Peter, himself points out the parallels between himself and his subject – both producers of long-standing, iconic BBC television series, who ended up having somewhat bitter partings from the programmes they had loved. But just because Marson has some empathy for Nathan-Turner, don’t make the mistake of thinking this book ever strays into the territory of being a hagiography – indeed, as you may have noticed from some of the press attention it has garnered, it’s anything but.

The fact that Marson is unafraid to tackle head-on some of the less pleasant aspects of Nathan-Turner’s character – and, to a greater extent, those of his partner Gary Downie – caused argument and debate in fandom in the weeks before the book was even released. There are some who are appalled by the revelations in the book. Some who are appalled that accusations have been made against men who are no longer alive and unable to defend themselves. Some simply embarrassed that Doctor Who has become associated with such squalor in its anniversary year, and particularly in the wake of the wider scandals that have engulfed the BBC in recent months.

It’s true that this book would almost certainly not have been written, at least not in this way, while Nathan-Turner and Downie were still alive. But that’s probably true of almost any honest biography, and time and distance can help to lend a vital objectivity. While it’s also true that the book contains details some Doctor Who fans may find unpleasant reading, in the same way that the book is not a hagiography, it’s never a hatchet job either. Marson is scrupulous in reproducing as many points of view and versions of events as possible, putting quotes from various interviewees one after the other to offer all the different sides of an argument, or versions of events.

The reader is left to make up his or her own mind about Nathan-Turner. Myself, I was chiefly left with the impression of a man I personally wouldn’t have ever wanted to know, but at the same time also a man rather sadly crushed by circumstances, and by a changing world at the BBC.

‘The BBC’ – dangerous as it always is to regard it as a single-minded monolith – almost comes across as a personality and a character in its own right in the narrative, and how interesting you find the book may depend on how much of an interest you have in the internal workings of the drama department, in the days of multi-camera videotape drama being made at Television Centre. I personally find such things fascinating, and it’s a real treat to get an insight into the labyrinthine workings of the Corporation and its drama department in the 1970s and 80s. It’s fair to say, however, that others may find such things less involving, and if you’re not really enthused by the structures and workings of the BBC drama department then this is possibly not the book for you.

Doctor Who fans generally, however, do tend to be interested in the behind-the-scenes workings of the show they love, perhaps more so than fans of any other television series. It’s why Doctor Who is quite possibly the most well-documented television programme ever made and why, as Russell T Davies once pointed out, in generations to come it will be the case study for how British television drama was made.

You sometimes have to remind yourself when reading this book that the fans do actually love the show, however. There are times when fandom comes across as being utterly repulsive and full of unpleasant people. I realise this isn’t entirely representative of how fandom was in the 1980s any more than the worst bitchers and moaners of Gallifrey Base or Roobarb's Forum represent it now, but I have to say I am rather glad I wasn’t old enough to be anywhere near fandom at the time. We perhaps don’t always appreciate how lucky we are in the 21st century, when fandom is so much larger, and online. If there’s a particular website or group of people you can’t get on with, you can easily find another place to share your love of the show, with people and things that make you laugh. No longer do you simply have to put up with whoever happens to attend your local group meeting.

Doctor Who and fandom recovered from the – at times – dark days portrayed in this book. But the shame of it is that Nathan-Turner never got the chance to. But on the other hand, I think he would have been pleased that he’ll be remembered, and that’s where the curse of Doctor Who is at least paying him something back. Jonathan Powell – refreshingly honest as an interviewee here – may well have been a far superior drama producer to Nathan-Turner, with a track record the latter couldn’t hope to match. He’s produced several BAFTA-winning productions of high quality. But he’ll never have a biography written about him. Nobody will ever research his life in detail, track down and speak to his teachers and schoolfriends. Trace the progress of his career in television, from the studio floor to the producer’s chair. When he dies, it will be little-noted outside of his friends and family.

Doctor Who can destroy careers. But Doctor Who fans remember. And because Doctor Who fans tend to be creative and industrious, we end up with superb books like this one. It’s not always an easy read, but I would recommend The Life and Scandalous Times of John Nathan-Turner to anyone with even a casual interest in television history in general, and Doctor Who’s history in particular.

The Rings of Akhaten

Reviewed by Matthew Kilburn

Doctor Who - The Rings of Akhaten
Written by Neil Cross
Directed by Farren Blackburn
Broadcast on BBC One - 6 April 2013

This review contains plot spoilers and is based on the UK broadcast of the episode. 

Doctor Who isn’t specially made for those of us who go online and watch multiple trailers multiple times or devour previews, but it is concerned with those who catch trailers between other programmes or might occasionally view online previews. The audience for The Rings of Akhaten was carefully primed to expect a story set in space with multiple alien species and a child-threatening monster. This is of course what they received, but to get there they took the public footpath rather than the motorway. There the themes of the season were restated and the moral of the episode prepared for, and the background of our new heroine explored further.

The Rings of Akhaten unexpectedly proved to be the first of this series’ visits to the recent past, with the central narrative being framed by the Doctor’s research expedition to establish Clara’s personal history. That history so far appears unencumbered by otherworldly or extradimensional intervention beyond the Doctor’s periodic sampling of her life, but the episode does raise the puzzle of the TARDIS’s unwillingness to open its doors to her, and provoke expectations surrounding the early death of Clara’s mother. On the one hand the loss of Ellie and the refusal of the TARDIS doors to open are both perfectly regular occurrences. People die, sometimes early; and Clara does not have the TARDIS key. Still, the idea that the TARDIS doesn’t like Clara is expressed in the shadow of the personalisation of the ship in The Doctor’s Wife and the affinity it displays with Melody/River in Let’s Kill Hitler. We are given many reasons to admire Clara in this episode, but there are unsettling notes in the background.

Those unsettling notes are not provided by Murray Gold, whose music moves back into being part of the narrative rather than a commentary upon it. His soundtrack to this story recalls his earlier choral works, especially those in Journey’s End and The End of Time, both in implying doomsday and in offering salvation from it. There were moments where one felt one was listening to a bland contribution to a fashionable modern hymnal, but there had to be contrast with the ritual hymn and subtlety of mood is difficult when a composer has so few minutes to work within, and so many other elements within the episode to underwrite. Overall, Gold continues to recognise and project the tone of the series: peril is interpreted in a less self-indulgently sinister manner than Dudley Simpson might have managed in the mid-1970s, but Gold’s scoring is intelligent and poignant, working with the emotions of the characters rather than trying to impose a mood on the viewer.

Doctor Who makes selective use of popular music, but a willingness to use it at all was one of the refreshing points of the revived series in 2005. ‘Ghost Town’ by the Specials is used to signify 1981, juxtaposed with the Doctor reading The Beano Summer Special of that year, but the use of the song has further implications. It plays over the first meeting of Ellie and Dave, Clara’s parents; does this somehow prefigure apocalypse? More specifically for the episode’s plot, ‘Ghost Town’ concerns collective memory and experience. In terms of The Rings of Akhaten this is the history taught in song to Merry so she can feed her people’s god, and also Clara’s remembrance of her dead mother and the stories she passed on to her. ‘Ghost Town’ also echoes the Doctor’s long life and the memories which he rarely discusses but which he is willing to offer to the god to be devoured. If these ghosts are reflections of the past they can be confronted and digested. It’s the reflections on what might have been which can’t be faced, because they were never realised in the first place. As such, their form is unfixed and insubstantial and it’s appropriate that they give the Old God of Akhaten indigestion.

The Rings of Akhaten has been promoted as another instalment of cinematic Doctor Who, but it seems more at home within the confines of the small screen than many of its predecessors. The bazaar set is crowded and claustrophobic, and while this was set up in Roath Lock, one can imagine something similar being realised in Television Centre or with ingenuity and still narrower camera angles in Lime Grove or Riverside. The CGI is limited and relatively static compared with recent episodes and there is one space exterior very visibly realised using that age-old standby, the black cloth with lights shining through it. The great exception is the sense of distance suggested by the cuts between the Mummy’s temple and the open theatre where Merry sings her lullaby before her audience. Nevertheless, the concentration on a series of undynamic images mostly works to the episode’s advantage. The episode is substantially the story of Clara and Merry and the sets and effects function largely as background to a series of portrait shots rather than as features in their own right. They do register as a series of references to a cinematic heritage. The Rings of Akhaten suggests Ancient Egypt in its title (though misleading some fans, and journalists, to expect a connection to the natives of Phaester Osiris and Pyramids of Mars). The design of the sets is placed in the broad western tradition of Orientalism (and ‘Ghost Town’ too contains musical references to middle-eastern music or at least a twentieth-century Euramerican theatrical idea of what middle-eastern music was). Set designs which recall depictions of Egypt, Arabia or India in film are joined with a script inspired by Chinese or Japanese orthography. The plot, too, has echoes of various generations of The Mummy, and the Indiana Jones series. The episode could be construed as cinematic in its referencing rather than in its execution; though it’s also been seen as a literary episode, one more familiar with literary SF than me having noted links with Ursula K. Le Guin’s Earthsea books. It’s the influence of cinema, and the depiction of Islamic, south and east Asian societies in adventure films, which lingers the most; perhaps it is appropriate then that the Old God is depicted both as Ancient Egyptian sun god and American Halloween pumpkin.

In performance, the episode demands most of Matt Smith and Jenna-Louise Coleman, with special mentions for Michael Dixon and Nicola Sian as Clara’s parents, who had to carry much of the pre-credits sequence, and for Emilia Jones as Merry. The latter’s role at first seems to have clear analogies with a schoolchild wanting to avoid embarrassment before peers and parents when faced with a solo song or reading. Emilia Jones conveys Merry’s predicament as the Queen of Years as if it is nothing extraordinary, the better for Jenna-Louise Coleman to reinforce Clara’s affinity with children, and later displays a fierce determination to fulfil her destiny. In contrast to the Clara of The Snowmen, this Clara seems more like the folk image of a Blue Peter presenter than Mary Poppins; she is compassionate, brave, willing to take risks as extreme as driving a space vehicle she’s only known briefly as a passenger, and able to think laterally at times of crisis. Matt Smith’s Doctor continues to evolve, becoming yet more attached to Amy’s glasses (does looking through them, perhaps, remind him of the human perspective?) and in doing so coming more to resemble Harold Lloyd than Norman Wisdom or Michael Crawford-as-Frank Spencer; this comparison seems also fitting for his Doctor’s greater physical self-control and proactivity.

The Rings of Akhaten furthers Doctor Who’s attitude to religion. The Doctor won’t disassociate himself from the beliefs of the inhabitants of the Akhaten system completely. His description of their faith as a ‘story’ is not a dismissal in a series so self-aware of its own storytelling. He gives a rationalist, empirical, cosmologist’s account of the making of the universe and what individuals are made of in order to convince Merry of her worth in her own right, not as the Queen of Years. Souls, the Doctor says, are stories; the roots and merits of this idea in the context of various religions should be left to those with more skill in comparative theology, but it’s an appropriate foundation for a belief system in Doctor Who. More frivolously, red is still the colour for religious orders in Doctor Who, five years from The Fires of Pompeii, but just over three from The End of Time.

Though the Old God is defeated and extinguished at the end of the episode, the return of the ring which Clara gave to Dor’een indicates that the best of the faith, a respect for lived experience and giving of oneself, survives. The Doctor gives that ring to Clara in a gesture which recalls the way in which he gave her Victorian counterpart the TARDIS key. For Clara this restores what she surrendered to the Old God with the leaf from 101 Places to See and confirms her integrity, which the Doctor’s mention of “someone who died” then seems to undermine. A viewer remembering The Snowmen might see the ring as a provisional commitment, short of the TARDIS key which marks the Doctor’s whole trust and performs a quasi-sacramental role within what The Myth Makers would remind us is the Doctor’s own ‘temple’. The Doctor is still no closer to finding out who or what Clara is at the end of the story; together with his mistaken identification of the Mummy as the Old God, this episode places unusual emphasis on his fallibility.

The Rings of Akhaten is a change in setting and tone from the expansive ebullience of The Bells of Saint John. The jumps in character progression which enable the telling of this story in forty-four minutes place a little strain on credibility but they are sustained by convincing performance and assertive editing. It’s an intimate story which could do with a little more breathing space in order to develop its themes of learning to explore and appreciate lives lived as a basis for future actions and discoveries. The fact that Clara has lived the life which enables her to understand and deploy her own story and the stories of others which influenced her against the Old God becomes not just a character strength and crisis resolution, but for Doctor and viewer, a frustrating and engaging narrative problem.

War Against the Laan (Big Finish)

War Against the Laan
Big Finish Productions
Written by Nicholas Briggs
Directed by: Nicholas Briggs
Released March 2013

This review is based on the MP3 download from Big Finish, and contains spoilers.

Following on directly from The Sands of Life and its cliffhanger, this two part story continues the Conglomerate’s scheming, as led by their CEO Cuthbert (David Warner). Warner revels in his megalomaniacal role, with Cuthbert buying whatever scientific expertise he needs while going head-to-head against the Doctor and testing the mettle of Earth’s newly elected President, Sheridan Moorkurk (Hayley Atwell).

The Sands of Life configured an intriguing dilemma: respecting the Laan’s life cycle could mean all of humanity facing extinction. War Against the Laan picks up this puzzle, but the titular struggle is not one readily engaged in by the Doctor and Romana. Unlike the ruthless Cuthbert, our heroes are instead seeking a peaceful way to resolve the situation; it’s jaw-jaw not war-war for this TARDIS team, especially given that the scenario they’re up against is not at all an archetypal ‘invasion’.

Nick Briggs’ script gives both Warner and Atwell more to do this time round, and Tom Baker lavishes actorly attention on a number of his anti-Cuthbert expostulations, as well as sneaking a mention of badgers into his performance (I refuse to believe that moment was penned by Briggs, unless and until I see evidence to the contrary!). K-9 basically vanishes from proceedings  – having not been well utilized in this adventure – and Cuthbert also disappears at the very end, leaving the President to tie up a few (but not all) loose ends and bid the Doctor and Romana adieu. A closing scene between the Doctor and Cuthbert would have been more dramatically satisfying and less conventional, but this possibility is instead displaced by a slightly run-of-the-mill goodbye scene.

Combined with The Sands of Life, War Against the Laan ends up feeling like a strangely cosy four-parter despite some of its hard-hitting subject matter. It resists emulating the new series or “doing a Moffat” and shifting its second half to a wholly different time zone, setting or subgenre, and even finds time to revisit Genesis of the Daleks again, after its dialogue had already been referenced in the preceding release. I felt slightly let down by the resolution of the Laan conundrum, though. Having defined a brilliant, epic problem for the fourth Doctor and Romana to tackle, one with a real emotional and moral kick to it, things are clarified here until the main issue is pretty much sandpapered way. Tough questions are posed; easier answers are supplied. Likewise, a scientist whose services are bought and paid for by Cuthbert is called upon to wield his “auto dissect tools” on a child-bearing Laan, and although the emotional darkness of this is gestured at, any moral grey areas are fairly rapidly done away with. War Against the Laan tends to retreat into pulp fiction certainties or dodges, despite depicting a complex world of real politik and rampant commercialism.

There’s a mystery left dangling: Cuthbert’s thwarted experiment in the Proxima Four System evidently concerns some sort of time-space manipulation, but beyond that we learn little of the specifics. Presumably this will be returned to later in the current run of fourth Doctor tales, though the villain who wants time travel is itself a fairly well-worn Who theme. Perhaps Cuthbert wants total brand domination across all temporalities as well as all territories… less the Master, and more the evil Merchandiser. If so, Cuthbert’s moment as a zeitgeist baddie may well have arrived; initially an Audio Visuals’ creation of the Thatcher years, it is striking that he's been reimagined both as Doctor Who itself enters a peak of (anniversary) commercial activity, and as the UK simultaneously faces a resurgence in free market rhetoric and privatization. It seems fitting that the fourth Doctor's contemporary Moriarty figure should be a corporate celebrity, operating outside the law and above the government.  

The Laan are also an interesting creation, pregnant with possibilities, and represented almost as a kind of time-vortex salmon (though they’re actually described and visualized as giant seacows) instinctively returning to a particular space-time to spawn. I realize their massification is part of the story’s bid for scope and scale, but I still would have liked a greater sense of Laan culture or individuation. There are implications and hints – they refer to “sisters”, and there are “elders” who lead the birthing – but when Romana communicates empathetically with them we don’t get much in the way of Laan personality, quirks or differences. Instead, they seem to be a resolute collective; a big society of seven billion or so.

War Against the Laan does an excellent job of building Cuthbert's villainy and character, as well as seeding plot points which are sure to return. As a complete story alongside its predecessor, however, it promises more than it quite delivers. But there's real storytelling ambition on show here, and I'm already looking forward to Cuthbert's reappearance, not to mention the next full-on performance skirmish between David Warner and Tom Baker.            

The Scorchies (Big Finish)

Reviewed by Damian Christie

The Scorchies
Big Finish Productions
Written by James Goss
Directed by: Ken Bentley
Released March 2013

This review is based on the MP3 download from Big Finish, and contains minor spoilers.

“You must change the channel – even if it’s Space: 1999! Just this once, it’s worth it! The Scorchies are evil!”
Jo Grant

I first met Katy Manning at a convention over a decade ago in my (and back then her) native Australia. The first thing that struck me about her is how extroverted and mischievous she is in comparison to her softly spoken alter ego Josephine Grant. The second thing that struck me was what a talented voice artist she is. She kept her audience thoroughly entertained for an hour by breaking into an assortment of voices belonging to characters she had portrayed in animation and children’s programmes at the time.

The Scorchies, her latest contribution to Big Finish’s Doctor Who Companion Chronicles, is right up Katy’s alley. It gives her the chance to not just reprise her role as Jo but to also voice some of the wacky characters that infest this oddball tale.

In the context of the story, the Scorchies are a bunch of madcap, homicidal extraterrestrials masquerading as children’s TV show puppets! Author James Goss, director Ken Bentley and sound designers Richard Fox and Lauren Yason bring to life a narrative in the guise of a fictional 1970s TV programme that can only be best described as The Muppets, The Teletubbies, Play School, Romper Room and Basil Brush on acid, complete with crazy, juvenile songs – and Jo Grant as a hostage on live TV! Jo is at one point trying to make a psychic anti-Scorchies gun out of cardboard tubes, sticky backed plastic, a pipe cleaner and a mind control crystal. Then there’s the Scorchie (TV) scanner, the sort of thing you might have seen on Play School or Romper Room in your tweens! The story also has a very pantomime feel which is, of course, very deliberate, especially when Jo herself ends up breaking into rhyme with some of the characters!

Like most Companion Chronicles, The Scorchies is a two-person affair. However, unlike previous titles, in which the story is told from the perspective of a narrator, assisted by some additional dialogue from a guest performer, the story is very much carried by the interplay between Manning and guest star Melvyn Hayes who clearly relishes the opportunity to play the villainous Scorchies, led by their leader Grizz Fizzle. Hayes, of course, is the ex-husband of former Who companion Wendy Padbury and father to their daughter Charlie Hayes (who has also appeared in other Who audios). Like Manning, Hayes has also done his fair share of voice work in children’s programmes, including Pongwiffy (in which he also voiced a character called Grizz), a TV adaptation of Jack & The Beanstalk and Super Ted (which, of course, starred the late, great Jon Pertwee). Clearly, Hayes is also in his element, playing other off the wall characters like Cool Cat and Professor Baffle.

I haven’t listened to too many Companion Chronicles so this is the first time I’ve heard Katy Manning as Jo on audio. Although you can sometimes detect the more seasoned tone to her voice, for the most part Katy captures Jo’s naïveté and youth perfectly – impressive when you consider that (her recent appearance in The Sarah Jane Adventures aside) she hasn’t played the part for the best part of 40 years. Even the token Jo piece of dialogue – “But the Doctor can’t be dead! He just can’t be! You’re lying!” – is delivered with the same teary inflection and emotion that Katy was so famous for delivering on-screen all those decades ago.

Indeed, this style of storytelling literally pivots on the back of emotion. In an interview with Big Finish’s Vortex newsletter (which is available as a downloadable PDF file on this release), Katy discusses her approach to mixing her own portrayal of Jo with her other character voices (including the Magic Mice – “Would it help if we ate her a little bit?” - and Amble the ugly doll) on The Scorchies. She says the key to getting all the characters right is by “being in the moment ... with all the emotions that are happening at that time”. With the exception of the songs, which were recorded separately, Katy and Melvyn Hayes effectively performed the story “live”, effortlessly jumping between voices rather than recording the dialogue of each of the different characters separately. As a result, you as the listener get carried along rather convincingly, just as Jo, the hostage to this bizarre collection of aliens, is also powerless to influence the events of the story-cum-children’s programme.

The extras at the end of this release feature an interview with sound designers Richard Fox and Lauren Yason. They discuss the songs they had to compose for the story – Jo is Making a Thing and We killed the Doctor Dead – along with untreated performances of the songs before they were delivered to Katy Manning and Melvyn Hayes and treated electronically. This is actually quite refreshing, as we don’t often hear enough about the actual sound design work on a Big Finish audio, as opposed to the usual interviews with some members of the cast and production crew. What it does underline, though, is how important an aural experience The Scorchies is and how much it exploits the medium.

The Scorchies is an entertaining hour of childish mayhem, almost as if you really were watching a puppets’ TV show – and not listening to a Doctor Who audio. From that perspective, the story succeeds in parodying 1970s children’s programmes. If you’re not a regular listener of The Companion Chronicles, I urge you to try a few of the more conventional plays first. You won’t pick up on the nuances and emotion that Katy Manning refers to if you come to this cold.

House of Cards (Big Finish)

Reviewed by Andrew Batty

House of Cards
Big Finish Productions
Written by Steve Lyons
Directed by: Lisa Bowerman
Released February 2013

Polly finds herself in a literal race against time after the TARDIS brings her, Jamie, the Doctor and Ben to a futuristic casino with a strict ‘no time travellers’ policy.

In the CD extras which accompany House of Cards, writer Steve Lyons and producer David Richardson discuss how they were “channelling” Season Four of Doctor Who in this release. While this may have been their intention, the finished product is reminiscent of a more recent sub-genre of Doctor Who. With its simple storyline, cartoonish villains and broadly drawn supporting characters the adventure feels closest in style to the BBC books/audios produced for younger audiences since 2005 (notably The Stone Rose with which it shares a similar structure). It’s an odd approach for a Companion Chronicle, given that they are geared to a more sophisticated, adult fan audience.

Once you accept that House of Cards is a more straightforward adventure than a typical Companion Chronicle there is much to enjoy here. Anneke Wills gives a typically spirited performance as Polly, with able support from Frazer Hines as the story’s secondary voice. A highlight comes in the first episode when Polly is confronted by Fortune, the mastermind behind the casino. Here Lyons capitalises on Polly’s strong sense of morality, calling to mind similar scenes with the Cybermen in The Tenth Planet.

While the first half of the play is a fairly standard set up, manoeuvring the regulars into varying degrees of peril, things get more complicated as we move into episode two. Here, Polly travels in time back to an earlier point in the narrative, and Lyons has a few clever tricks up his sleeve to stop things getting predictable. The identity of the lady in the china mask, who appears at key points in episode one, is central to this. Lyons deliberately wrong-foots the listener a number of times, making what first appears an obvious ruse a lot more fun than you’d expect. It’s in episode two that Jamie’s role as secondary narrator clicks into place. His present is Polly’s past, allowing us to see the impact her journey in time has had.

You would think that a casino would be a perfect setting for the mischievous Second Doctor but he takes a surprisingly small role in House of Cards. When he resurfaces towards the end of the story he is given a wonderfully ‘Doctorish’ moment (which I won’t spoil here, but concerns the game he picks to play to decide his fate) and it’s a shame there couldn’t have been more of these throughout the play. With Polly’s story neatly wrapped up, it falls to the Doctor to defeat Fortune. However, after being built up as a sinister, formidable foe her swift dispatch is something of a disappointment.

Overall House of Cards is one of the weaker instalments of the Companion Chronicles, but if you’re a fan of Polly and Jamie there are plenty of moments to enjoy. The disc’s extras confirm that Lyon’s will be penning a further adventure for this TARDIS team in the near future. This is welcome news as he captures them all very well, but it would be nice to see him return to the more nuanced, complex storytelling he is widely praised for (stories like Resistance, Colditz and The Crooked World).It would also be good to see more experimentation with the ‘second voice’ in Polly’s Companion Chronicles, as this is the third release in a row that has seen her paired with Frazer Hines as Jamie. One of the most successful aspects of the range as been the pairing of companion actors with co-performers/characters who bring out new and interesting sides of them, and it would be good to see Wills benefit from this, especially as it worked very well in her first Companion Chronicle (the previously mentioned Resistance).