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“DREAMTIME – STARS, STONE GHOSTS AND A SPIRITUAL CRISIS”

Dreamtime sees the Seventh Doctor taking his new companion Hex on his first proper TARDIS trip – and it’s one that’s anything but straightforward. Alongside Ace, they land on a future vision of Uluru, now floating in the stars, its surface home to a people caught between belief and extinction. From the outset, the atmosphere is thick with mystery. Wind howls across a deserted, dreamlike landscape. Stone ghosts loom large. The music, echoing Aboriginal traditions, evokes the titular Dreamtime – a realm of myth and memory.

It’s an evocative setup, and Part 1 is effective in drawing the listener into a strange, far-future Australia that feels rooted in something older, deeper and more spiritual than your usual space opera. There are moments of real power in the imagery – a floating city in decline, roamed by creatures out of legend and haunted by silence. It’s not an audio afraid to be strange, and it’s all the better for it – at least to begin with.

THE DREAMING TAKES THE DOCTOR

The most exciting development comes at the end of the first episode, when the Doctor is pulled into the Dreamtime itself. This bold move lets Hex and Ace step into more active roles, giving Philip Olivier a chance to develop Hex in his first full adventure. He does well enough, but the script doesn’t always give him anything particularly meaty to sink his teeth into. He reacts to the weirdness, tries to puzzle things out, and sticks close to Ace – but he doesn’t yet feel like a fully realised character.

Ace is more proactive, relying on her experience with the Doctor to keep things moving. But despite being in the thick of the action with the Galyari, she doesn’t get a particularly memorable storyline either, and Sophie Aldred doesn’t quite get the material she needs to shine.

RETURN OF THE GALYARI (AGAIN)

The Galyari, returning from The Sandman, are one of the episode’s more curious inclusions. While they’re more successfully integrated here than in their earlier appearance, they remain underwhelming. Their inclusion seems to serve more as a link to Big Finish continuity than anything truly necessary for the plot, and for listeners unfamiliar with their backstory, they feel like yet another group of generic alien traders caught up in things they don’t understand.

THE DOCTOR AND THE GURU

The real heart of the audio lies in the Dreamtime itself, where the Doctor comes face to face with the guru Baiame. Here, the story takes on a more philosophical bent. Baiame, voiced with haunting stillness by John Scholes, is a man convinced his people can be saved if they simply believe. His dreamlike presence and the way he’s woven into the landscape of Uluru itself is one of the more memorable aspects of the audio, and the scenes between him and the Doctor are some of the strongest – meditative, slow, and strangely powerful.

Through these encounters, the story brushes up against some fascinating ideas: belief as a form of resistance, mythology as memory, and whether salvation can be dreamt into being. There’s an interesting tension between Baiame’s spiritualism and the Doctor’s rationalism – though in classic McCoy fashion, the Seventh Doctor meets it with a twinkle and a quiet reverence rather than outright scepticism.

A FLAT, IF BEAUTIFUL, EXECUTION

Unfortunately, the rest of the narrative doesn’t live up to the rich ideas at its core. While the setting is compelling and the concept has weight, the structure of the audio is oddly flat. Much of the middle stretch meanders, and key characters (particularly Ace and Hex) spend too much time reacting rather than driving the story forward. The script tends to over-explain or under-develop, depending on the scene, and while the sound design is strong, the pacing feels sluggish.

The final episode offers a glimmer of drama, as the Dreamtime conjures up a sinister, distorted version of the Doctor and unleashes it on Ace. There’s a genuinely chilling moment where Ace is almost drowned by this evil Doctor, lending a surreal nightmare quality to the climax. But it comes late, and the tension isn’t quite enough to lift what has by then become a fairly ponderous listen.

A CULTURAL TOUCHSTONE?

As someone unfamiliar with the full breadth of Aboriginal Dreamtime traditions, it’s difficult to fully judge how well Dreamtime handles its source inspiration. That said, the audio seems to approach its themes with respect and a desire to evoke rather than appropriate. The use of Aboriginal musical motifs in the score and the mystic tone of the script suggest an earnest attempt to engage with the mythology, though some listeners may wish for a more nuanced or culturally sensitive take, particularly given the lack of Aboriginal voices involved in its creation.

📝 VERDICT: 59/100

Dreamtime is a story of intriguing ideas and a rich atmosphere that ultimately struggles to deliver on its promise. The setting is evocative, the music haunting, and the Doctor’s scenes with the Dreamtime guru offer some genuine depth. But the plot is thin, the pace is slow, and the companions are underused. It’s a spiritual odyssey that never quite takes flight – beautiful to listen to, but emotionally muted. A thoughtful but flawed entry in the McCoy era of Big Finish.