Book Review 4: Apollo 23, written by Justin Richards (2010)

Released: April 2010

Story Summary (BIG SPOILERS!):

A strange asphyxiated death and a stray astronaut in a burger bar lead the Doctor and Amy to uncover a secret American Moonbase, who are having trouble with a malfunctioning quantum displacement system – a secret technology used to transport crew and supplies between the Earth and the Moon. However, when the Doctor discovers sabotage, he is separated from Amy, who is now trapped on the Moonbase alone.

Investigating by herself, Amy discovers that alien minds are slowly taking over the minds of the crew via a brainwashing machine, operated by the already taken over Professor Jackson. Amy is eventually captured and ‘blanked’ by Jackson’s machine, but rescued by a free Major Carlisle and the returning Doctor, find out that the victims of the brainwashing process all have their minds backed up in an elaborate water data storage system. After Amy restores herself, by drinking the water containing her own mind and personality, the Doctor sets into motion an idea to restore all the other human minds by venting the water-stored data backups through the fire extinguisher system.

The aliens though, who we learn are Talerians, transmat themselves into the Moonbase, once they discover their first plan has been foiled. The Talerians themselves are pale and fragile creatures with viscous insides, very vulnerable to damage, and desire to inhabit humans for their more robust bodies. After the Doctor frees Professor Jackson from his own personal Talerian invader, Jackson creates an air vacuum in the base, which kills and sucks out the remaining Talerian forces.

Story Placement

Between Victory of the Daleks (TV Serial) and Night of the Humans (BBC Book).

Review:

Apollo 23 is the first Doctor Who story I’ve reviewed that leaves me with a large feeling of ambivalence. It’s certainly not a good thing when looking for exciting adventure and mystery, but it’s not a particularly bad book either. There are many understandable reasons for this, including tight deadlines, and the fact that this had to be written before any of Matt Smith’s first episodes were transmitted.

There’s certainly good features to recommend, in particular the good characterisation of the regulars. For a book written in late 2009, it’s a surprise and a welcome joy to discover how close the character of the 11th Doctor is to what we saw on-screen, as well as how brilliantly Justin Richards has captured Matt Smith’s delightfully offbeat and quirky performance. My favourite part of the book by far, was the nice joke set up around the moment when a car park attendant signs the Doctor’s Psychic paper. Amy reassures him by turning the paper round, only the next time he uses it, the message is amusingly the wrong way round as well. Amy though, is a bit generic as a companion, but considering that Amy’s character took longer to develop on-screen than the new Doctor’s, that is to be expected. However, there was one thing that jarred for me, which was Justin Richards’ specific reference that Amy liked Earl Grey tea, and was rather particular in how she liked it too. Considering Steven Moffat’s jokes around Amy hating the Doctor’s bow tie, this development by Richards did seem rather extraordinary and more than a bit contradictory with Amy’s more hip character.

Far more generic than Amy though, is the story of Apollo 23. It’s basically The Body Snatchers (or Invasion of the Body Snatchers if you only know the 1978 film) on the Moon, only without the wild paranoia or the horror. It’s a nice idea, but not one that has the material to last a plot the size of a novel, or if it was made for TV, the plot of a 90-minute serial, or at least not convincingly anyway. It had me hooked with a really good setup at the beginning with various mysterious happenings, and it’s great to visit the Moon again, as well as an actual Moonbase, but as soon as the Doctor discovers that the Moonbase is being sabotaged, he is quickly whisked back to Earth, leaving Amy alone to solve the mystery. This is only a quarter of the way through the book, and yet here begins an expert exercise in padding. It doesn’t take long for Amy and by extension the reader, to get the gist of what’s been going on, but meanwhile the Doctor is just left pottering down on Earth, until the right position in the book for him to return back to the Moon, albeit, in a lovely Seeds of Death-inspired twist, aboard a magnificent Saturn V space rocket. None of this feels especially dull, as Justin Richards, with his big experience with Who novels paces the story just right. The long traditional plot twist of the Doctor being separated from his companion is well executed here and Richards tries to keep the reader’s attention through a string of well-judged set pieces, but ultimately I still couldn’t shake off the feeling that this was just passing the time till the inevitable confrontation on the Moon that occurred towards the end of the book. All in all this was still quite a good novel, all considered, but then it took a decided turn for the worse.

After a simplistic, but brilliant idea for the Doctor to expel the alien intruders from their stolen human bodies by releasing all the data backup of the colonist’s human personalities in the fire extinguisher water supply, the writer feels obliged to write in a second comeback by the aliens. I can understand the reasons for this, to have a more certain defeat, but the aliens themselves, the Talerians are quite pathetic in the flesh. This is entirely the point, as they required more robust bodies to live and survive in, but unless they expect to come into aggressive situations such as this, surely the planet they evolved on would be fine to house them without any problems. Then again, as the book also seems to imply, the Talerians are just yet another empire-building species who want to take over the Earth. The real let down though, is that the Talerians are also rather pathetic in character too. Even aside from their Earth-conquering stereotype, they just growl, and waddle up and down corridors like a 2010 answer to the Myrka from the Warriors of the Deep TV serial, and when the book reaches its intended page count, they are just killed off without a second thought. Then happy ending. The end. That whole penultimate scene feels just so lazily written, with the main villain in particular, the lead Talerian in control of Professor Jackson’s body, just endlessly spouting vacuous dialogue. It’s such a shame that Apollo 23 ends really callously and poorly, given how much effort Justin Richards has clearly taken making the beginning of the novel full of mystery and suspense.

Of course it doesn’t help that a lot of Justin Richards’ writing throughout the novel is so functional too. Again, it’s not particularly dull, but there’s no real creative description or flair, so it comes across as a bit lifeless. Many of the futuristic gadgets used on the Moonbase, including the quantum displacement system, sometimes feel almost too futuristic for 2010 too, even when recalling Torchwood; and often, like the water data storage system, turn up just in time for their use in the plot. In addition, most of the plot developments often come across as rather predictable, which with the padding as well, adds to this feeling of Apollo 23 being a rather generic novel. I don’t blame Justin Richards though, as with the tight deadline, and the rush to make this without the same knowledge that viewers of the 2010 Doctor Who TV series would gain, I’m sure this isn’t a true example of his work and ability. In fact, he’s already produced sterling efforts for the pre-2005 8th Doctor novel series, but I’ll come back to that another day.

The overall impression of Apollo 23 then is that it’s generally a ‘filler’ story that helps to get the 11th Doctor’s book range up and running. There are a few nice character moments, and the adventure certainly feels very at home amongst Doctor Who’s 2010 TV episodes, but in the long run, it won’t matter if you take it, or leave it.

Score: 6/10

Audio Review 6: Hornets' Nest - 1.The Stuff of Nightmares, written by Paul Magrs (2009)

Released: September 2009

Cast:

The Doctor – Tom Baker

Mike Yates – Richard Franklin

Mrs Wibbsey – Susan Jameson

Percy Noggins – Daniel Hill

Main Production Credits

Producer and Director – Kate Thomas

Writer – Paul Magrs

Script Editor & Executive Producer – Michael Stevens

Incidental Music – Simon Power

Audio Editor – Neil Gardner

Production Assistant – Lyndsey Melling

Studio Engineers – Simon Willey & Wolfgang Deinst

Story Summary (SPOILERS!):

The Doctor stumbles on a plot by an alien hornet species to invade the Earth through animated stuffed animals. As the stuffed animals only come alive at night, he tricks the alien hornets, and their stuffed animal vehicles to follow him back to his resident cottage, the Nest, whereupon he traps them there with a force field from the TARDIS’ dimensional stabilisers. During the night, when the stuffed animals reawaken, the Doctor has to subdue them with hypnotic suggestion to stop them attacking him. Feeling alone, the Doctor, through a specifically-worded advert, invites the retired Mike Yates to join him for company at his cottage, in which he has also employed a housekeeper called Mrs Wibbsey. The Doctor relates this adventure back to Mike, and starts to tell him of other encounters he has had with the alien Hornet creatures...

Story Placement

Between The Invasion of Time (TV Serial) and Demon Quest (BBC Audio series).

Favourite Lines

Mike Yates – “But then I heard that you changed, and changed again!”

The Doctor – “Did I? How annoying for all of us”

Percy Noggins – “My head is like a sieve! Have you heard that expression before?”

The Doctor – “I think I invented it”.

The Doctor – “I don’t do fear, you know. I can never take it completely seriously”.

Mike Yates – “A force shield.”

The Doctor – “Yes”.

Mike Yates – “How did I get in then?”

The Doctor – “Semi-permeable. Has to be. Otherwise the Milkman gets suspicious”.

Review:

Before I go into any critique, may I say how wonderful it is to have the legendary Tom Baker back in original Doctor Who adventures again! In the 28 years since Logopolis in 1981, Doctor Who went through numerous changes, was axed, then brought back...twice, and had branched off into numerous different mediums and formats, and gone through six more Doctors. In all the whirlwind of events, it seemed that we would never again enjoy the pleasures of experiencing one of best ever Doctors come alive in a brand new exciting adventure. I suppose, dare I say it, that some of you may have even forgotten quite how magnificent Tom Baker’s portrayal truly was in the intervening decades (not me). With the arrival of Hornets’ Nest though, and later the announcement of Tom Baker joining BIG Finish, thankfully, for now at least, such ideas are things of the past.

The Stuff of Nightmares, the first part of BBC Audio’s Hornets’ Nest series, is a decidedly unusual beast in many respects. The adventure is produced as three-quarters narration, akin to an audio book, but with one-quarter performed action. Having just listened to the first half of the second season of BIG Finish’s Lost Stories audio series, I was less thrown by this than other listeners seem to have been, although it still feels more like an audio book reading than a BIG Finish production, as there’s a distinct lack of sound design. As a result, the narration really stands out at you, which is just as well, because it is certainly Hornets’ Nest’s best feature as far as I can tell. The music is also rather minimal, and appears to be quite generic and functional, supporting the narration efficiently, but without much character in comparison to BIG Finish’s composer team.

Then there is the choice of characters and setting. Mike Yates wouldn’t be the natural choice for a returning companion, but I’m very glad they did. It certainly makes a change to have a male companion back in the spotlight for a change, and Mike Yates was always one of the greats, even if he was eclipsed by the unbeatably brilliant Brigadier Lethbridge Stewart, and the kind gentlemanly Dr. Harry Sullivan. Another unexpected development is the Doctor’s earthbound base of operations in the rather quaint and cosy Nest cottage. It’s particularly surprising since its owner is one of the most restless and mad of Doctors. Nevertheless, this too is an inspired idea, and produces a wonderful and enticing image of Doctor Who mixed with rural Britain that I would love to see re-used for the show’s television escapades.

However, the most off-the-wall aspect of The Stuff of Nightmares is the story itself. The invasion of the Earth by animated stuffed animals is possibly one of the most ridiculous and outlandish storylines that I’ve ever heard of in Doctor Who, let alone the fact that they are also controlled by alien hornets. It’s so ridiculous, that the story feels like an expanded Monty Python sketch. As a result, I, like the Doctor, just can’t take it that seriously. The apparent mad silliness is highlighted by the Doctor in fact, when he points out that on one night he appeared to have been attacked by a stuffed team of creatures that resembled the cast of The Wind in the Willows. Even the lyrical puns unleashed by the writer when important figures are attacked by the beasts, sounds positively Two Ronnies-style.

The story isn’t particularly helped by the characterisation of the villains either. The alien Hornet creatures sadly appear to be one of the all-too many generic and featureless Doctor Who monsters out there who want to just invade and conquer for the pure sake of it. There are little distinctive characteristics at all, other than the obvious gimmick that they are Hornet-like in almost every respect, and can forge wasp-like hive-brains to help control the stuffed animals. There is an interesting character arc to them though – that the Doctor has interfered in their past affairs before; affairs that we are about to discover as we progress through the Hornets’ Nest series. Paul Magrs also finds it a bit difficult to quite get a handle on the right kind of dialogue for the characters to start off with, particularly when trying to replicate Tom Baker’s brilliant style of improvised dialogue he would do during his television episodes. As a result, a lot of the dialogue sounds a bit irregular and clunky at first. Well, except for Percy Noggins, who is so obviously a comedy character, that his dialogue sounds clunky and stilted almost all of the time.

Fortunately, Paul Magrs wins over the listener in other ways, in particular through his highly imaginative and well-written prose and narrative passages. I haven’t had much experience of Paul Magrs’ work, but it always makes a striking impression, displaying a magnificent visual imagination. He manages to instil an industrial factory plant with the same level of character and colourful description as a maddened baboon, and all delivered with a delightfully warm and knowing sense of humour, that suitably feels apt in comparison with the equally colourful and fun Graham Williams-era (1977-1980) of Doctor Who that his writing seems to subtly evoke. Of course, this is why The Stuff of Nightmares works well. Due to the fact that this particular audio series is mainly narration, it means that Paul Magrs’ creative descriptions help make the story come alive, and with Tom Baker’s sumptuous vocals, makes the result at times feel like sheer aural poetry.

Speaking of performances, Tom Baker is undoubtedly the star of show. Although he sounds a bit wooden for the first ten minutes, after a while, he doesn’t take long to get into the spirit of the production, and starts to shine by the end. Richard Franklin and Susan Jameson put in assured and near flawless performances throughout the audio from beginning to end. Richard Franklin in particular is surprisingly good, given that until very recently, his spell away from the Doctor Who world has surely been longer than even Tom Baker’s, even including The Killing Stone (2004 BBV audio). Daniel Hill is possibly something of a sad exception though, hamming up the part of Percy Noggins as much as possible, which along with his stilted lines makes him sound like a character from Psychoville. The Hornets don’t seem to be much better either. It could well be the case that this pantomime-style was intentionally added to the character, either via the director, or even Paul Magrs himself, but it certainly grated with this particular listener after a short while.

I must confess that I enjoyed The Stuff of Nightmares a lot. It may be a simplistic, silly, and absolutely bizarre story, but all in all it’s a pure joy to listen to. It feels like I’ve revisited the late 1970s with a piece that truly feels at home amongst the other weird and wonderful stories that were part of the Graham Williams’ seasons. We have pantomime characters and villains, some classic jokes and one-liners, and a strong leading performance from Tom Baker. Then there’s the brilliantly written narration from Paul Magrs which not only helps the adventure come alive for the listener, but also gives Tom Baker some great material that helps to remind me why I love his Doctor so much. The Stuff of Nightmares may not be the best of what Doctor Who, or even Paul Magrs has to offer, but is fantastic fun to listen to if nothing else. I urge you to try it.

Welcome back Tom! We’re overjoyed to have you back in Doctor Who. We can only wonder at what possible gems could be heading our way. I can’t wait!

Score: 7/10

Spin-off Review 1: The Daleks - The Destroyers, written by Terry Nation (2010) - 7/10

Released: December 2010

Cast:

Sara Kingdom/Narrator – Jean Marsh

Mark Seven – Alan Cox

Jason Corey – Chris Porter

The Daleks – Nicholas Briggs

David Kingdom – Alex Mallinson

Other characters played by members of the cast

Main Production Credits

Producer and Script Editor – David Richardson

Writer – Terry Nation (adapted by Nicholas Briggs & John Dorney)

Director – Lisa Bowerman

Incidental Music and Sound Design – Jamie Robertson

Recording – Toby Hrycek-Robinson at Moat Studios

1960s Dalek Sound Effects – Brian Hodgson and the BBC Radiophonic Workshop

Executive Producers – Nicholas Briggs and Jason Haigh-Ellery

Story Summary (SPOILERS!):

A newly established human colony on the M5 asteroid, Explorer Base One, is attacked by a mysteriously large and unknown force of Daleks. A trio of Space Security Agents, including the feisty Sara Kingdom have been surveying the asteroid during their visit to help the new colony settle in. On their discovery of the massacred human base, they attempt to seek out and rescue Sara Kingdom’s brother, David, the sole-surviving member of the colony left alive, but missing.

David is a prisoner of the Daleks, kept alive for interrogation and to supply intelligence on Earth and its human civilisation. The Daleks are secretly planning an attack on Earth, and currently lie in waiting within an underground base on the asteroid. Sara and the Security agents, through their wits and cunning, successfully penetrate the underground Dalek base, but are just too late. The Daleks have evacuated the asteroid in a rocket, to join a bigger Dalek force elsewhere, as their Earth attack plans advance, taking David with them.

Story Placement

Possibly before Mission to the Unknown (TV Serial), but most likely outside of known Doctor Who continuity.

Favourite Lines

‘These tubes glow with a soft, pulsating green light, eerie and luminous in quality’.

‘The metallic tube jerks up at him. It flares with energy. Carson is blasted, engulfed in a merciless glare so bright that it would burn the image of his helpless writhing form as a negative onto the retina of any human onlooker’.

Review:

I have a confession to make. I still have yet to enjoy the pleasures of Nicholas Briggs’ acclaimed Dalek Empire audio series. BIG Finish have produced so much great material, that even for those of us who have followed their work since The Sirens of Time, it’s been hard to catch up with it all. The Destroyers though gives a helpful taste of what it might be like. Of course I’m fully aware that Terry Nation is a much different writer to Nicholas Briggs. For a start, Nicholas Briggs can get to the heart of a character, and help make a story come alive with imaginative touches and interesting dialogue, whereas Nation’s forte was all about the big ideas. Fortunately in this production, we are blessed with both, although Terry Nation’s work doesn’t always deliver on the promise that the impressive entrance hints at.

The first thing about The Destroyers that leaps into your attention is the gloriously evocative descriptions written for the narration. From every tense extermination to every shadow and plant, the attention to imaginative detail here is astonishing, making the world of the lonely asteroid feel so very alien. Harking back to Terry Nation’s own past work, the asteroid feels just as creepy as the planet Kembel from The Daleks’ Masterplan, full of weird creatures totally unlike life on Earth, such as the sponge-like rock creature and the Spider-like ghostly spectre in the Dalek cave. One almost expects a forest of Varga plants to be lurking nearby. The behind-the-scenes material informs us that a lot of this great descriptive material actually comes from Terry Nation’s own stage directions. This was a happy surprise considering Nation’s infamous history of pragmatically-written scripts like The Keys of Marinus, The Chase, Death to the Daleks, The Android Invasion and Destiny of the Daleks (The Daleks and The Dalek Invasion of Earth were substantially script-edited by David Whitaker, while Genesis of the Daleks was script-edited by Robert Holmes). However, a fair amount of credit for the narrative passages also has to go to Nicholas Briggs and John Dorney. Being two of BIG Finish’s strongest writers at this point of time, I have no doubt that they improved the script for The Destroyers immensely.

The story of The Destroyers is an intriguing, but overall inconsequential one. Sadly it feels a lot like a missed opportunity for Nation as the plot consists of a string of set pieces without a substantial storyline to make it all feel worthwhile. We have the early Dalek attack on the human colony, weird alien creatures attacking our ‘heroes’, humans hiding from Daleks, humans attacking Daleks, and then suddenly that’s it. There’s no indication of Dalek intent or motivation, other than the fact that they’re planning to attack the Earth...again. I know this story was supposed to take place outside of Doctor Who continuity, but the lack of substance seems to hint at a lack of inspiration and imagination on Terry Nation’s part, which seems rather paradoxical considering some of his great prose in the script. The rescue attempt of David Kingdom, by Sara and the other Space Security agents is a reasonable plot in itself, helping to keep the narrative moving and interesting. However, the fact that they fail at the end of the episode, coupled with the fact that we know that the Daleks will exterminate David shortly once they’ve extracted what they can out of him, makes the whole endeavour ultimately feel a bit like a waste of time, both for the listener, as well as the characters. Of course I fully realise that this was supposed to be a pilot into a whole bigger adventure series, but it’s hard to see where the series could have gone, except into a more downbeat and protracted rehash of The Dalek Invasion of Earth, without the Doctor.  There are certainly no indications to suggest the contrary. To be fair though, the set pieces are truly magnificent and atmospheric; it’s just a shame there doesn’t appear to be much of a story to go with it.

It appears that Terry Nation’s prose is also significantly better than his characterisation, which I discovered was also true during The Destroyers. The lead, Sara Kingdom is a happy exception. Resourceful, brave, courageous, and yet vulnerable, Sara is every bit of the inspiring and wily modern-day heroine that viewers experienced during The Daleks’ Masterplan. Inquisitive and intelligent, she examines and takes in the alien environment around her with due caution, and when trouble strikes, can put up a fair fight. When Sara learns that her brother is missing and prisoner of the Daleks, we see her vulnerable and emotional side show, as a tragedy close to home reveals cracks in her usual calm and focused manner. This is partly why I’m glad Nicholas Briggs made David Kingdom the Dalek prisoner, rather than Sara just running around the jungle and becoming the prisoner, as it was in the original script, because it now means we can enjoy a more layered interpretation of one of Doctor Who’s strongest companions, rather than waste her in a more thankless role. This now means of course that David Kingdom is an even more thankless and dull character, because we know next to nothing of him, and all he does is throw a couple of protests at the Daleks, and that it’s entirely up to Sara to sell the loss of David to us. The other characters are only marginally better. Mark Seven is a clever and strong android, with a very casual and almost monotone delivery, and is actually supposed to be a one-note character, whereas Jason Corey is a stereotypical soldier type, who also has no depth in character to interest us. So once again, it is entirely up to Sara to sell the whole drama of the story. Even the Daleks fail to impress. Although every utterance in Dalek voice is usually music to my ears, they seem to spend the majority of the story just doing rather mundane duties, and appear to be just waiting for the call to evacuation. It really is a shame that even the stars of the show feel like a shadow of their former selves.

Fortunately though, The Destroyers is backed up by some wonderful production from BIG Finish at their usual high standard, and a good cast to match them every step of the way, with some more positive, dynamic direction from Lisa Bowerman. Jean Marsh delivers a masterful performance throughout the production, especially considering the 45 years that have passed since she played Sara Kingdom on-screen. Jean really brings the description to life with a brilliantly-judged reading, full of wonderful expressions; and also is able to perform young enough to make the character of Sara believable. A difficult feat indeed; and Jean Marsh pulls it off splendidly. Nicholas Briggs also continues his superlative Dalek voices with ease, although I just wish he had greater lines to say. The rest of the cast, namely Alan Cox, Chris Porter, Alex Mallinson, also perform well, doing their best, with what is fairly weak material for them to voice.

Meanwhile, supporting Terry Nation’s (and Nicholas Briggs and John Dorney’s) lovely prose is a great music soundtrack by Jamie Robertson. Beautifully simple and very effective, his score perfectly captures and reinforces the creepy atmosphere set out in the script. At times it sounds positively Dudley Simpson-esque. Even the Daleks have their own action motif. However, the style of the ‘title’ music is rather questionable. It’s good, but sounds more like The Incredibles than an adventure sci-fi series. No doubt Robertson had a brief to make something James Bond-like, to reflect the space security agents, but in this case I think it’s just unnecessary and rather brash and unsubtle in comparison to the rest of the brilliant score.

The Destroyers is an impressive and interesting example of what could have been. It succeeds as a pilot, in so far as it feels like the beginning of a setup to an epic Dalek adventure, and that there are many unanswered questions that would help intrigue potential viewers in the coming weeks. However, I’m not sure if it would have the substance to last the duration of a proper series well. I feel there are almost too many unanswered questions. What was the Daleks’ purpose in being stationed on the asteroid M5, and what was there that was worth protecting? What are the Daleks’ true intentions, or are we experiencing just another re-write of The Dalek Invasion of Earth? It wouldn’t matter so much if we hadn’t had any concrete answers, but surely there should’ve been some hints that this was a story that would be worth following. This lack of storyline, particularly for the Daleks, is certainly a important flaw, even if it does succeed as a pilot episode.

However, this is in some respects, all in the past, because a new and arguably better audio series was born out of inspiration from this unmade script, Dalek Empire (by Nicholas Briggs). What we can do though, thanks to BIG Finish is enjoy this missing adventure for what it is – a lovingly produced string of glorious, adventurous and atmospheric set pieces, tied together with expert narration, performed by a great cast, and set to an imaginative score. From the Dalek attack to the sponge-like alien predator; hiding in a living forest to the creepy spider-like spectre creature; these are all moments that we can sit back and savour with delight.

Score: 7/10

Audio Review 5: Prison in Space, written by Dick Sharples (2010) - 3/10

Released: December 2010

Cast:

Jamie McCrimmon – Frazer Hines

Zoe Heriot – Wendy Padbury

Chairman Babs – Susan Brown

Story Narration and other characters voiced by Frazer Hines and Wendy Padbury

Main Production Credits

Producer and Script Editor – David Richardson

Writer – Dick Sharples (adapted by Simon Guerrier)

Director – Lisa Bowerman

Incidental Music and Sound Design – David Darlington

Recording – Toby Hrycek-Robinson at Moat Studios

Title Music – Ron Grainer, Delia Derbyshire and the BBC Radiophonic Workshop

TARDIS Sounds – Brian Hodgson and the BBC Radiophonic Workshop

Executive Producers – Nicholas Briggs and Jason Haigh-Ellery

Story Summary (SPOILERS!):

The TARDIS trio arrive on a future Earth, ruled over by a predominantly female dictatorship, instigated and overseen by the 122-year old leader, Chairman Babs. Here, men are labelled and treated as inferiors, while women are taught and conditioned to believe in their own superiority. Despite the Doctor’s polite reasoning, Jamie’s barbaric and chauvinistic views get the two of them sent to a correctional space prison, while Zoe is forced to be conditioned into supporting Chairman Babs and believing in female superiority.

The Doctor and Jamie manage to successfully escape their cells and start a revolt from within the prison. After early success, Chairman Bab’s forces eventually outwit them. However, on Chairman Bab’s return to Earth, where the Doctor, Jamie and their allies are to be trialled, the more free-thinking female council stage a revolt of their own to overthrow the Chairman, inspired by the Doctor’s earlier attempt. Jamie breaks Zoe’s conditioning by repeatedly smacking her bottom.

Story Placement

Between Foreign Devils (Telos Novella) and The Krotons (TV Serial).

Review:

There are some unmade Doctor Who television stories that were clearly unmade for good reason, a point sadly proven by Prison in Space.

The story appears to be a failed attempt at a Doctor Who twist on the type of comedy tale spun by the Carry On... or Ealing comedy film series. The sexism, both in the script and characters, is so blatant, that even its obvious uses to attempt satirist humour fail to make any impact. The story itself of a future Earth dominated by a mainly female society where men are the inferiors just reeks of male paranoia. It’s unclear whether the story is trying to support the liberation of women and their political rights, or is trying to suggest that the rights, roles and freedoms of men are under threat by the growing feminism movement during the 1960s. The script certainly seems to be critical of the idea of ‘superior’ or independent women, frequently referring to it as “unnatural”; and through Chairman Babs ludicrous lust for the Doctor, promoting the value of ‘masculinity’. Sure, the idea of men not being the child-giver, or the bread-winner in society is a prescient one for the time, as it is certainly a reality now, but the script misses the point of what really matters. In fact, the removal of these roles could almost be said to make relationships purer as they are more about the mutual love of each other, and less about a marriage of personal convenience. If the story’s premise had occurred on an alien or parallel world, minus the overt sexist script, meanings and dialogue, than it may have just passed muster. However, the poor characterisation and some awful plot resolution, betrays the writer’s old-fashioned views.

The awful plot resolution I am referring to is the ludicrous and outrageous method that Jamie uses to successfully free Zoe from her conditioning by putting her “across his knee”. Such is the outrageousness of the event that it’s clear that the writer intended it to be a joke, albeit a chauvinist one in bad taste. Don’t get me wrong, the Ealing and Carry On film comedies may not be among my favourite comedy media, as a child of the 1980s and 1990s, but I still find them amusing. The ‘humour’ in Prison in Space though, falls almost completely flat for me.

Of course none of this is helped by the weak characterisation either. The women are stereotyped as either butch shouty types (that take exception to anything that remotely hints at gender equality) or overly nervous and indecisive types, whereas the men are stereotyped as slightly yobbish, (at times weirdly mockney-like) and at times equally sexist too. In other words – paper thin. This is a real shame as the total lack of depth in characterisation takes away any need to care about what happens, and turns any satirical elements into a total farce. The central characters don’t fare much better. Chairman Babs is nothing more than a croaky pantomime witch that sounds more like a villainous Beryl Reid than the fearsome tyrant who we are supposed to hate. When conditioned, Zoe appears to turn into Chairman Babs’ personal propaganda-spouting robot, and becomes very whiny and annoying during part four. Jamie meanwhile is either the butt of almost every other joke, or the voice-box for the majority of the chauvinistic insults that the writer felt he could get away with, given that Jamie was from the 18th Century. It didn’t feel as bad during The Invasion, because the occasional chauvinism on display was a script device that helped to highlight the strengths of Zoe as a character, but in Prison in Space it is usually a bad attempt at humour. Even the Doctor has an odd moment when he very vocally champions male rights during the prison revolt.

If that wasn’t bad enough, the narrative has problems of its own. For one thing, Prison in Space has probably one of the most basic plots and storylines ever made for Doctor Who, and sadly is the epitome of all the negative excesses of Doctor Who that occurred during the Patrick Troughton era in the 1960s. There is padding to the hilt, a near-endlessly meandering plot that develops at a snail’s pace, far too many corridor scenes, and a convenient last minute plot device to resolve the story (the female councillors stage a last minute revolt on Chairman Babs, inspired by the Doctor’s efforts). I lost count of how many escape and re-capture sequences there were, and each cliff-hanger takes a painfully long time to assert itself (episode one in particular spouts out paragraphs of dialogue when only one or two lines would suffice). Even the Doctor’s gadget that helps the first revolt to work is a contrived one that appears at a convenient moment, having supposedly to have been acquired during The Dominators when the camera wasn’t looking. The result is to take an already badly-written story and turn it into a tiresome and often tedious listen.

Fortunately though, there are some great things about Prison in Space that make it occasionally likeable, even if they stem almost entirely from the production. The only significant good thing to come out of the script is the amusing sequence when The Doctor and Jamie first arrive at the correctional prison, and are chased around the station and even in the shower room till they finally cooperate with the prison authorities. It feels so synonymous with the amusing and fantastically fun camaraderie setup by Patrick Troughton and Frazer Hines, between the characters of the Doctor and Jamie during the television series that one can easily picture it and smile, just like so many similar sequences setup in The Invasion and The Dominators.

By extension, one of the equally great parts of this audio are the main narrators themselves, Wendy Padbury and Frazer Hines who like in their recent 2010 audio releases with Colin Baker, effortlessly recreate their characters over 40 years on with great aplomb and enthusiasm. Frazer Hines is particularly impressive, with a near flawless impersonation of Patrick Troughton, channelling the true spirit of the great man himself into a very believable recreation of the 2nd Doctor. One of Frazer’s other brilliant assets is his talent for great comic timing, which still comes across, even if the written jokes aren’t mostly as good as what they should of been.

Meanwhile BIG Finish’s production values, well-directed by Lisa Bowerman are even better here than in Farewell, Great Macedon and truly feels like we are listening to a genuine soundtrack to a 1960s television episode. This feeling is strengthened by the magically poetic and ethereal music composed by David Darlington in one of the best ever BIG Finish scores to date. It is also worth praising Simon Guerrier for taking out some of the worst sexist dialogue, particularly that originally spoken by the Doctor, even though the majority still had to remain in order for the adapted script to remain faithful to the original.

Sadly though, even BIG Finish cannot turn a poorly conceived story such as Prison in Space into a work of art. With the tedious padded narrative, lazy characterisation, overt sexism, and a plot so basic you could write it on a post-it note, this serial was never going to work, either as a drama or a comedy. Even the idea of the correctional prison is ridiculous, feeling positively Victorian, and even more harsh in treatment to the male offenders here than the real-life suffragettes during the first half of the twentieth century. Take away the padding, deeply chauvinist meanings and dialogue in the script and it may have just worked as a light farce. As it stands though, Prison in Space is one of the weakest Doctor Who stories ever written. Fortunately we can count our blessings that this was never made for television, as any of Patrick Troughton’s weaker television serials would be more preferable to experience, even The Underwater Menace, The Dominators and The Space Pirates. We have top class actors, highly imaginative music and sound production, but just as most Doctor Who producers have discovered, it is nigh on impossible to succeed without a good script.

Score: 3/10

Audio Review 4: The Paradise of Death, written by Barry Letts (1993) - 8/10

Released/Broadcast: August-September 1993

Cast:

The Doctor – Jon Pertwee

Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart – Nicholas Courtney

Sarah Jane Smith – Elisabeth Sladen

Freeth – Harold Innocent

Tragen – Peter Miles

Jeremy Fitzoliver – Richard Pearce

President – Maurice Denham

Onya – Jane Slavin

Captain Waldo Rudley – Jonathan Tafler

Grebber/Reporter – Brian Hall

Clorinda/Sec Gen of the UN – Jillie Meers

Odun/Patrol Leader – John Fleming

Greckle – Emma Myant

Kaido/Ungar/Jenhegger – Trevor Martin

Rasco Heldal – Michael Onslow

Medan/Hunter – David Holt

Yallet/Officer of the day – Philip Anthony

Nobby/Kitson/Wilkins – Dominic Letts

Crestin – Andrew Wincott

Lexhan – Julian Rhind-Tutt

Main Production Credits

Writer – Barry Letts

Producer & Director – Phil Clarke

Incidental Music & Sound Design – Peter Howell

Title Music – Ron Grainer; Peter Howell

TARDIS Sounds – Brian Hodgson and the BBC Radiophonic Workshop

Story Summary (SPOILERS!):

An unusual death leads the Doctor and Brigadier into an investigation of a brand new theme park called ‘Space World’. With their new friend Sarah Jane Smith in tow, they discover it is being run by two bloodthirsty aliens from the planet of Parakon – the ruthless Chairman Freeth, and his vicious killer henchman Tragen. The Doctor’s suspicions about their true motives are raised by the technologically advanced entertainment that Freeth is trying to peddle, called ‘Experienced Reality’. E.R. is a collection of real-life recreational memories, recorded in every sensual detail, and can be re-lived by users as though they are really there. However, the E.R. transmissions can be used to control users as well as playback to them.

Investigating at the theme park alone one night, Sarah gets herself kidnapped by Tragen, who takes her to Parakon. Meanwhile, the Doctor, Brigadier and Jeremy (an assistant from Sarah’s magazine company) races off to Parakon in the TARDIS to rescue Sarah, and find an even worse truth waiting for them.

The planet’s interplanetary business, the Parakon Corporation has slowly been destroying its client planets in the pursuit of wealth and greed, through its ‘miracle’ crop, Rapine. Rapine is a crop that, once grown, (and sold back to the Parakon Corporation for wealth) can be used in any type of material manufacture, as well as food, but it takes all the nutrients in the soil without putting them back. The crop fields eventually turn into a desert, creating economic turmoil, unrest, and finally civil war on the planet that uses it. In order to replenish the soil, the Parakon Corporation takes the bodies of soldiers and refugees, and turns them into fertiliser to use on the barren deserts, from which they also make a profit. To perpetuate this process, they even sell arms to the warring planets.

Upon discovering this the Doctor and Brigadier, with help from some sympathetic Parakon natives stage a successful coup in order to enlighten the planet’s old president, who has been kept in the dark from Freeth, his son, who he has been left to manage the Corporation. Freeth is killed while attempting to kill the Doctor for his interventions and Tragen is arrested.

Story Placement

Between The Time Warrior (TV Serial) and Invasion of the Dinosaurs (TV Serial).

Favourite Lines

Freeth – “Don’t let them both be eaten. A corpse could be good publicity”.

(After Tragen has recaptured The Doctor and Sarah)

Freeth – “Congratulations. I must admit I had the utmost lack of confidence in you”.

Review:

In many ways The Paradise of Death seems to be a ‘greatest hits compilation’ of the Jon Pertwee era of Doctor Who. It has the mysterious unnatural death that starts off the Doctor’s involvement (The Green Death); ruthless and murderous villains (any Master episode); the Doctor coming back from the brink of death (The Daemons, Planet of the Daleks); a race against time across the stars (Frontier in Space); a short flying car chase (Planet of the Spiders); Venusian Lullabies (The Curse of Peladon); an ecological moral, and predilection on the nature of greed (The Green Death, Colony in Space, Invasion of the Dinosaurs); a heroic raid (any UNIT episode); and a gladiatorial fight to-the-death that ends with the Doctor saving his opponent’s life (The Curse of Peladon).

The result is a highly enjoyable, but fairly traditional Doctor Who adventure that finds it hard to rise above the sum of its parts. At times, particularly in the first two episodes, there are dull moments that feel shoehorned in to please the fans like the Brigadier again being outranked, not once, but twice by the UN (The Green Death); and the Doctor once again showing off that he knows the scientist’s work (The Green Death, Invasion of the Dinosaurs). However, there are some really good ideas here. ‘Experienced Reality’, for instance is a great concept, a logical extension of the fast evolution of computer games that dominate the entertainment industry today. It’s an idea that would have been rather odd back in the 1970s, but is very relevant in the 21st century, and in the 1990s it was another fantastic and prescient piece of fiction that was very much a trademark of some of Barry Letts’ best Doctor Who script work (he co-wrote The Daemons, The Time Monster, The Green Death and Planet of the Spiders).

Another good trademark of Barry Letts’ work, the humanitarian political message, is also present. The predilection on the dangers of capitalism gone mad through the Parakon Corporation and its operatives also gives the story some welcome political weight, even if its message is a simple one (give as well as take, the sanctity of life, and the exploitation of the third world). Another fascinating political message is the impact of ‘experienced reality’ on the society of Parakon itself – a warning about how a complete lack of censorship on extreme violence and death in public and commercial entertainment leads to a breakdown in moral values.

However, the edge of this near-perfect recreation of Jon Pertwee-era Doctor Who is taken away, partly by some excessive padding, but mostly by simplistic characterisation and dialogue. The regulars trot out all their popular phrases and clichéd character traits, and the villains are very typical Bond-like and Pertwee-esque villains, who are far from original, although, like a soft living room sofa cushion, their familiarity is cosily satisfying in itself. The characterisation of Sarah in The Paradise of Death though feels rather erroneous, in the sense that it feels more akin to Jo Grant’s portrayal than Sarah Jane Smith. Instead of the brave, independent young adult we saw throughout The Time Warrior and the rest of Season Eleven’s television serials, Sarah seems to be at times, weaker and more emotional than we usually expect, particularly considering how early this audio story takes place in the character’s personal continuity. Then of course we come to the audio’s supporting characters, who although try to break new ground, ultimately fail. The biggest of these failures is Clorinda, Sarah’s boss on the Metropolitan magazine. It’s clear she was supposed to bring some welcome depth and development to the character of Sarah Jane Smith, but because the dialogue is so redundant, tedious and lifeless, the opportunity is completely wasted. The other unsuccessful original character is the new pseudo-companion, Jeremy Fitzoliver. An assistant to Sarah from the Metropolitan magazine, Jeremy is perhaps the most annoying companion ever created. Squeamish, rude, snooty, whiny, cowardly and very simple, the character makes Dodo and Adric seem like good companions. As other commentators have noted, I can see that Barry Letts was trying to reverse the traditional male stereotype, but the character has so many negative qualities that it’s quite hard to like him. Added to the fact that Sarah has gone against character to oddly revert closer to the usual female stereotype, means that Jeremy just ends up being a hanger-on for the entire adventure. Goodness knows why they decided to keep him on for The Ghosts of N-Space.

There’s also a frequent amount of dialogue which can only be described as functional, and even some that is downright bizarre and ludicrous. One example of this being when the Brigadier shouts upon taking off on a giant Parakon bat for the first time, “If only the Quorn could see me now!” (Quorn as in the old traditional fox-hunting pack of Leicestershire). However, the most stupid line has to be: “Right Brigadier, how good are you at throwing grenades?” Seriously, did they really not see something wrong with that line? (The Doctor and the Brigadier have been friends for several years by this point, and fought more alien invasions than eaten hot dinners).

Fortunately though, however inconsistent or simple the dialogue and characterisation are, all the actors raise their game brilliantly to help bring this story to life. Jon Pertwee, Nicholas Courtney and Elisabeth Sladen are on top form, so much so, that it feels like they never went away. While for some Jon Pertwee’s age may show greatly given the length of time since his era on television (1970-1974. This audio was produced in 1993), because I saw The Five Doctors before most of Jon Pertwee’s other Doctor Who serials, he doesn’t seem that much older to me at all. In fact, Pertwee’s enthusiastic performance at such a late age, just confirms how great an actor, and Doctor he always was; helping to make the audio a great entertaining listen throughout. Harold Innocent also puts in a star turn, giving Freeth a marvellously unhinged performance that helps him to stand out from other Doctor Who villains, which is a success in itself, given that the character is very basic on paper. The performances are also backed up by some outstanding sound production, courtesy of Peter Howell, one of Doctor Who’s former resident composers from the 1980s. Considering how long this is before BIG Finish started working their audio magic, the attention to detail here is outstanding, even down to the sounds of the TARDIS, specific to the Jon Pertwee-era.

Despite its clichés, padding and occasional character faults, The Paradise of Death is a fun nostalgic return trip through Jon Pertwee-era style Doctor Who. Full of great ideas and a magnificent cast who deliver in spades, it is without doubt, one of the better Doctor Who audios ever produced. Not all the ideas may work, Jeremy Fitzoliver in particular, but the high level of Barry Letts’ imagination, is more than matched by the quality of the production. In fact in many ways, The Paradise of Death and The Ghosts of N-Space set down the template for successful Doctor Who on audio that BIG Finish later took up and improved upon. More poignantly though, is the fact that this was one of the last ever official Doctor Who productions that featured Jon Pertwee, Nicholas Courtney and Elisabeth Sladen, who were always at the top of the game, delighting us with their brilliant work, right till the end. We shall never forget them.

Score: 8/10