The Monthly Adventures #016 - "Storm Warning" by Alan Barnes

The Main Range’s original mission statement seemed to be stand-alone, classic-who adventures with familiar faces. There were a few plot threads, Seven and Ace had stories that took place one after another, Five and Nyssa referenced some previous stories they had together and Six got a whole new companion to play around with. Storm Warning is a notable story as it is the first instance of truly serialised audios, being the debut story with Paul McGann as the Eighth Doctor and India Fisher in her role as beloved companion Charley Pollard. This is the beginning of one of Big Finish’s most iconic runs, that boasts some of its most iconic stories. But every tale must have a beginning, so where did this one start?

The R101: His Majesty’s glorious airship, ready to pave the way for a new technological golden age for Britain. But there are secrets aboard the R101: spies, runaways, time lords and a mysterious passenger in Cabin 43. The voyagers of the R101 have a very deadly plan, one that could end the entire galaxy.

(CONTAINS SPOILERS)

Let’s get it out of the way, we have to talk about Charley Pollard. There is going to be a lot of stuff about Charley in the coming reviews, she is easily the most popular companion from the Main Range and possibly the most popular companion from the entire Expanded Universe, the only person I think could compete with her in terms of popularity would be Bernice Summerfield. I think Charley is… fine. I think she is on the lower end of companions from the Main Range, especially when Hex and Eveleyn are right there, but I do like her. I don’t always love India Fisher’s vocal performance but 90% of it’s fine, I just find her to not be the most narratively complex. You know the revival template that has been forced upon every companion in the last 19 years of TV? Plucky young girl that smiles whilst handing the Doctor his test tubes. She’s basically just that but from the Edwardian era rather than contemporary England, which I personally don’t love. However, I will acknowledge that Charley is great here - she has a good amount of agency, Fisher does a good job right out the gate and the story introduces her well, I feel I know the character by the end. But, Charley isn’t the only thing going on in this story, we have a whole plot to expand the British Empire via spaceships going on. The R101 is a fantastic setting: I adore the imagery of an airship on a stormy night filled with the bourgeoisie throwing back champagne to the tune of a UFO’s descent. It makes for a great atmosphere and I wildly prefer it over the spaceship we get later on, which is a lot less interesting by comparison. What also helps the sections in the airship is that we have a genuinely interesting and rather fleshed out sidecast; none of the characters felt one note and I can actually remember their names for once. And topping off our cast is of course, the Doctor, this being the first appearance of his Eighth incarnation on audio. McGann’s performance will either be brilliant or falling asleep depending on how much he likes the script but I’m glad to say he knocks out of the park for his debut, Eight immediately puts himself up there with the more popular and well known Doctors.

However, no story is perfect and this is no exception. Barnes is a writer who I have a slightly tenuous relationship with, I feel a lot of his stories can fall flat in the nuance department and Storm Warning certainly misses a few marks. Our alien race for this story - the Triskeli - are a species that have split themselves into three factions: the engineers, the intuition of the species, the uncreators, the instinct, and the lawgiver, a single Triskeli who acts as free will, turning the entire species into a construct similar to that of a brain. This idea is incredibly cool, but in the end, that’s all it ends up being. The Triskeli never feel like a real species, they never feel like an element of the world, they feel like Alan Barnes’ idea, they feel like a concept and most of the time we spend with them is exposition as to how they work. This causes most of my interest in their plotline to become tainted, as I am just not immersed by their existence. And frankly, when it comes to the climax, it’s more of an anticlimax. What happens is the uncreators trick the violent South African spy Rathbone (who has the most atrocious fake south african accent I’ve ever heard by the way) into killing the Lawgiver, allowing the uncreators to take over and wage destruction on the cosmos. They are defeated within five minutes by around twenty people shouting loudly at them because fear is an instinct or something, it doesn’t make them out to be too big of a threat and the visual is just silly. And before you condemn me as a fun sponge for saying that, I’ll have you know that the story takes it completely seriously. 20 full grown men roaring at mutated aliens is not something you play straight, but this story does and it does it a lot. The tone feels like it should be more playful, a lot of the dialogue reflects this too, which feels clunky because it seems out of place with the rest of the audio. You have colourful characters, a unique setting and a climax like that, you really should be leaning into it but Barnes doesn’t, and it makes a lot of Storm Warning feel oddly forced.

Storm Warning is the beginning of an era, one of the most important audios and the start of The Monthly Adventures’ most iconic series. A great pilot with wonderful characters and a memorable setting that mishandles the intricate parts of the script, causing an imbalance in tone and a focus on concept rather than narrative. Still, a very good time and it is only the beginning after all.

7/10

Pros:

+ Charley instantly proves herself as a companion

+ The storm-ridden airship was wonderfully evocative setting

+ McGann gives a fantastic debut audio performance

+ Well developed and interesting side-cast

Cons:

- The Triskelions felt more like an idea than a fleshed out species

- The climax left a lot to be desired

- Tonally inconsistent

- Clunky and forced dialogue