The Monthly Adventures #77 - "Other Lives" by Gary Hopkins

For whatever reason, I’ve been dreading the next two audios. Before I decided to work my way through the Main Range, I had already listened through the whole Charley Arc - all the way up to The Girl Who Never Was - and there was just something about Other Lives that really did not gel with me. It’s not bad, it’s not even mediocre, it’s just so unbelievably not my thing;  a comedy that’s light on jokes and heavy on aimless, boring meandering. It’s not particularly badly made or anything and on a second listen, there are some bits I genuinely liked, but it still remains one of my least favourite Eight stories from the Monthly Adventures.

Landing in the Crystal Palace in 1851, the Doctor, Charley and C’rizz are separated by a series of misadventures and must face the perils of dukedom, freakshows and long lost husbands.

(CONTAINS SPOILERS)

Gary Hopkins previously wrote The Last - a vastly underrated end-of-days story that I really vibe with - and for him to go from something so up my alley I can fearlessly defend it’s lukewarm reputation to something completely ruined by my inability to connect with it is surprising to say the least. Hopkins’ strengths are still on full display here, he writes our main characters marvelously and if there’s one positive I have to give Other Lives, it’s that it’s completely competent. The dialogue is good, the characters aren’t shallow, the direction and message is all fine. Hopkins’ ability to build a setting is still there - the 1850s feel totally alive throughout. There’s really very little actually wrong with this story besides my personal taste, but that’s exactly where the problems lie. I just can’t get into this story, it’s so very much not for me and I think that a lot of my issues with it stem from the plot.

My first priority, whenever I’m assessing something, is story. The backbone to any piece of fiction, in my opinion, is a good plot and once you have that down, the rest is just window dressing. Some people, it would seem, don’t agree with that and make things without any kind of actual plot to them, Gary Hopkins seeming to be one of them. There’s very little momentum to this story; props to Hopkins for writing so many different plot threads and balancing them enough that none felt completely underbaked but the actual drive of the story doesn’t seem to exist. All we have are our characters running around aimlessly in increasingly droll misadventures until they’re eventually reunited at the end, with little sense of resolution or victory.

Actually, let's go through these narrative strands quickly: the Doctor gets mistaken for a woman’s lost husband and has to convince her he isn't who she thinks he is. Georgina Marlowe is an utterly fine character but it’s not like there’s any question of the Doctor staying with her so it’s mostly just frustratingly slow plodding towards a predictable ending. Charley is doing a number of miscellaneous things and eventually runs into the Duke of Wellington, who she promptly tells about time travel. It’s a very ineffectual plotline that really has little going on in it but is saved by being the funniest. Other Lives is a difficult story to categorise because it seems to both want to be an emotional character piece that separates and analyses our main cast but also wishes to be a light slapstick comedy, with our characters getting into various shenanigans. It’s decision to make no decision as to which it wanted to be leads to a clash in tone that really downgrades the story for me. However, Charley’s subplot is the funniest and Hopkins can do comedy when he wants to. It’s just a shame he didn’t try and focus on this aspect.

And then there’s C’rizz’s subplot, which just rubs me the wrong way. As an alien wandering around the 1850s, he’s quite quickly kidnapped and sold into a freakshow. This whole section of the audio feels mean-spirited to me, it’s not exactly doing much with C’rizz’s character and consists of him being whipped and humiliated until Charley can come along and save him in the final part. The conclusion of C’rizz “saving” his abuser is a little more interesting and the closest we really get to the ending of Terror Firma being followed up on but it’s still misery for misery’s sake that I was just waiting to be over with.

Other Lives is a story that really would have benefited from direction. As it stands, it is a dull little affair consisting of a number of ok historical plots that go nowhere and feel completely aimless. It didn’t know if it wanted to be a comedy or a drama but what we actually ended up with was just a bit naff. Some alright comedy and a competent script makes it go down a little easier and I’m upping its score by one to account for subjective elements but I won’t be returning to Other Lives for quite a while.

6/10

Pros:

+ Well written and composed

+ The 1850s are wonderfully realised

+ The comedy can be hit or miss but really lands when it wants to

Cons:

- A story with little momentum or stakes

- None of the many plot threads really work for me

- The stuff with C’rizz feels needlessly mean spirited

- Doesn’t really know what it wants to be