The Monthly Adventures #068 - "Catch-1782" by Alison Lawson

We’ve been on a bad streak with the audios recently. From disappointing finales to underbaked scripts to whatever the hell The Game was trying to be, it’s been a while since we had something truly great and the air’s starting to get a bit stale around here. And then came Catch-1782. With a cover that intrigued me, looking like an atmospheric, winter-set ghost story, and a plot involving time travel mechanics, which I usually adore, it seemed like it could be a break from the mediocre run I’ve had to endure. I was wrong.

On a trip to visit her uncle, Mel is caught up in an accidental burst of temporal energy and flung into the past. The Doctor quickly attempts a rescue mission but realises a horrifying truth: saving Mel means diverting the course of history.

(CONTAINS SPOILERS)

For a show whose entire premise relies on the mechanics of time travel, Doctor Who explores the concept surprisingly rarely. When it does however, you can end up with stories like Turn Left, which is why I often find stories messing around with paradoxes and time loops and other similar shenanigans a joy. So, is it any wonder I was so looking forward to Catch-1782? Right off the bat, the premise is golden. Mel has been flung back in time and has become wrapped up in her own family history, meaning that if she were to leave she may never have come to exist. Great idea, rife with possibility and it’s not something I’ve seen before. However, the story truly doesn’t deliver.

There were a few aspects I thought were genuinely great here, for instance, the period setting is wonderfully put together and Hallam House feels decently realised. Past that, I also appreciated its attempt at an interesting side cast. Our characters all felt like real people here, which is always a nice touch, and some I outright loved, like Mel’s charmingly humble Uncle, John. However, even here I have a few problems I’ll get onto in a bit.

As for the story itself, I have some glaring issues. I could tell where every single plot beat was going from the very beginning. Is Mel going to become Elena Hallam? Yep. Is Mrs. McGregor going to replace Mel when she leaves? Yep. I was not once shocked and at no point felt an ounce of tension because I already knew exactly how it would pan out. Of course Mel’s not going to become Elena Hallam but with such an obvious solution directly in front of me, there was basically no possibility of it ever happening and therefore no reason to become invested in what was happening. Also doesn’t help that the script has so little drive, meandering along at such a slight and insignificant pace.

I also noticed that the concept just wasn’t thought out very well past the initial premise. For one, we have moments like Mel lamenting on how there’s no way to get home after she’s already realised that McGregor can take her place, which clearly shows this story was published a couple drafts short. There’s also the detail of Mel’s ghost walking around Hallam House in the future, which is never addressed or explained. One line about timelines or time bleeds would’ve been fine but it’s just dropped by the end. There are a couple other kinks I think should’ve been ironed out, like whether or not it wants to portray Henry as outwardly villainous because it wants to portray him like a man with a mental illness but then also has scenes of him right out threatening Mel with violence for not loving him, which I personally feel zero sympathy for.

On top of all that, I think the script can be a little devoid of emotional weight at times. The dialogue for one is very wooden and unnatural throughout and prevents me from getting invested in the character dynamics, especially in the later parts when our cast just begins to outright state their point in their character arcs for the audience. However, it is undoubtedly worst in the ending, which is an overly sentimental string of exposition that completely makes light of the rest of the story. Just to recap, in this audio, Mel is sent back hundreds of years in the past, is trapped with an insane man for six months, all the while being constantly drugged and the ending might as well be a shrug and a wink without any deliberation on the untold amount of mental damage this experience has probably had on Mel. Also, this is the second story in a row where Six has accidentally abandoned Mel somewhere for months, he really ought to stop doing that.

Catch-1782 was disappointingly generic. With a slight script that had far less to say than it thought it did and a constantly declining sense of urgency and a constantly growing sense of levity, I failed to become invested throughout. I’m becoming tired of this sort of story, one that’s less bad and more unimpressive, slipping through the cracks into relative obscurity. There are worse stories but Catch-1782 is at the end of the day an entirely forgettable experience.

5/10

Pros:

+ A unique take on a time travel story

+ Excellent period setting that’s well realised

+ Has an interesting, if flawed, sidecast

Cons:

- The plot was predictable and tensionless

- Full of holes in logic that make it feel like an early draft

- Hokey at times despite a disturbing premise

- The dialogue was often wooden