Doctor Who – The Monthly Adventures

#019. Minuet in Hell ~ 1/10

◆ An Introduction

Following on from three solid adventures, we encounter the first major dud featuring the Eighth Doctor. I’m going to be flinging a fair amount of gorilla excrement at this release, but I don’t deny it had potential to be something really special – though it probably didn’t help that Alan W. Lear seemed to have a difficult relationship with Gary Russell.

This review is certainly going to be interesting!

◆ Publisher’s Summary

The 21st century has just begun, and Malebolgia is enjoying its status as the newest state in America. After his successful involvement with Scotland's devolution, Brigadier Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart has been invited over to Malebolgia to offer some of his experiences and expertise.

There he encounters the charismatic Brigham Elisha Dashwood III, an evangelical statesman running for Governor who may not be quite as clean-cut and wholesome as he makes out. One of Dashwood's other roles in society is as patron of a new medical institute, concentrating on curing the ills of the human mind. One of the patients there interests the Brigadier – someone who claims he travels through space and time in something called a TARDIS.

Charley, however, has more than a few problems of her own. Amnesiac, she is working as a hostess at the local chapter of the Hell Fire Club, populated by local dignitaries who have summoned forth the demon Marchosias. And the leader of the Club? None other than Dashwood, who seems determined to achieve congressional power by the most malevolent means at his disposal…

◆ The Eighth Doctor

‘Minuet in Hell’ resurrects one of the most tedious aspects of this incarnation from the novels: his habit for constantly developing amnesia, but the script genuinely does nothing interesting with it.

I honestly pity Paul McGann for being lumbered with the written equivalent of raw sewage. He clearly didn’t care about this script, acting like a deranged nutter for most of the runtime. I genuinely think sticking sewing needles in my ears would be more enjoyable than enduring this performance again.

The Doctor has spent a night in the Dashwood Institute, hooked up to an IV drip filled with diazepam. He then discovers that he is set to be lobotomised!

◆ Charley Pollard

Our Edwardian Adventuress is appallingly treated in ‘Minuet in Hell’. She is basically sent to the Hellfire Club to be one of their “pretty little satin bottoms” – the script’s words, not mine! For some reason, she also starts spouting words like “Botheration!” and “Rather!” Just dreadful writing.

I sincerely hope that Briggsy was drunk whilst directing this story, because that’s the only possible explanation I can think of for why India Fisher gave the worst performance of her career!

Charley tells Becky-Lee that she’s absolutely no memory of where she is, or how she got there. She claims that her father is only a stockbroker.

◆ Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart

Oh yeah, I completely forgot the Brigadier was in this adventure. That honestly speaks volumes, because he made absolutely no impression at all! In all seriousness, go listen to ‘UNIT Dating’ if you’re looking for a decent Eighth Doctor story with Lethbridge-Stewart.

Nicholas Courtney wasn’t even trying to sound interested in ‘Minuter in Hell’. I can’t say that I blame him either.

◆ Sounds Like Alyssa Edwards!

Speak to anyone who has been listening to the audio adventures for a couple of years, and they’ll assure you that BigFinish have constantly struggled when it comes to convincing American accents.

Helen Goldwyn is playing the character of Becky-Lee Kowalczyck, who sounds like some deranged hybrid of Alyssa Edwards and Annie Oakley!

Robert Jezek – most well known for playing that big talking bird, Frobisher – is playing the main villain of this adventure… who sounds like a generic cowboy pretending to be a man of God! If you’ve listened to ‘The Holy Terror’, you know Jezek is capable of much better than this.

Anybody that’s seen my review of ‘The Pit’ will know that I usually enjoy talking about dreadful stories… but this garbage is genuinely too much.

◆ Sound Design

Remember when I lavished the soundscape for ‘The Stones of Venice’ with high praise? Yeah, this story is getting none of that. Nicholas Briggs, there is something seriously wrong with your sound design if I’m having to take several breaks to soothe my eardrums with ASMR!

Crickets chirrup through the night, as Brigham carries out a Satanic ritual. A crackling, blazing fire inside of the Hellfire Club. The gravelly voice of Marchosias chants “Hellfire” repeatedly. Club members chat with each other following the “black mass”. Catatonic patients mumble to themselves inside the Dashwood Institute. An organ plays as Brigham makes his speech, announcing his running for the position of governor. Advanced medical equipment bleeps away inside the Institute’s laboratory. The PSI machine explodes, overloading due to the Doctor’s brain. The Hellfire Club is smashed up, as Becky-Lee uses her powers to protect herself and Charley. Ramsay screeches and flaps about, as the Doctor ejects him from the TARDIS. A whip being cracked repeatedly, as Marchosias kills Dale.

◆ Conclusion

“Hell is where I have come to at last… and there can be no escape.”

I’ve been informed that the AudioVisuals variant of this adventure is far superior, but I’m not reviewing that one… so allow me to say that ‘Minuet in Hell’ is the written equivalent of a turd pushed through someone’s letterbox!

The acting is atrocious, the villain was boring, and our regulars are treated appallingly throughout the adventure – the Eighth Doctor loses his memory for the umpteenth time, Lethbridge-Stewart does virtually nothing for two hours, and Charley’s arc here genuinely disgusts me in the same way something like ‘Nekromanteia’ does.

I quite frankly want to drown my sorrows with many gallons of Disaronno. Seriously, don’t put yourself through this turgid excuse for storytelling.