Doctor Who – The First Doctor Adventures (Bradley)

#1.02. The Great White Hurricane ~ 9/10

◆ An Introduction

Pure historicals have always been among my favourite adventures. The most successful of them teach you something about the chosen period, without coming across as patronising or mind-numbingly boring; they’re educational yet thoroughly entertaining, and a genre that the expanded universe has been making every effort to keep alive. I mean, one of the reasons I’ve been looking forward to reviewing these Bradley sets is that we’re guaranteed a pure historical script.

The TARDIS has materialised during one of the worst blizzards to ever hit the Eastern Seaboard of the United States… and Ian’s just been shot!

◆ Publisher’s Summary

Rival gangs turn streets into battlegrounds, and the Doctor and his friends are caught in the crossfire. They find themselves separated and lost in the cold.

As the hunt for a fugitive turns ever more desperate, a blizzard descends. The snow keeps falling. And soon it will prove as deadly as any weapon…

◆ The First Doctor

‘The Great White Hurricane’ almost immediately splits up the cast. After arguing with a member of the local constabulary, the Doctor finds himself imprisoned. It’s here that he encounters Daniel Ellis: a former member of the Mad Boar gang, whose brother kidnapped Susan and is currently on the run. Their parents passed away from cholera when Daniel was only ten years old, essentially making him primary caretaker for his younger sibling; it’s an experience the Doctor can relate to, taking on the parent role with his rebellious grandchild. Guy Adams has given him some excellent material in this script.

David Bradley already sounds a lot more comfortable in the role, delivering a charming performance. Those early scenes at the prison see the Doctor full of contempt, but realising that Daniel and his brother are orphans makes him change his tact; he becomes a lot more caring and understanding. It reminds you that this incarnation wasn’t permanently a grouchy old codger.

The Doctor is perfectly capable of dealing with the police… he says moments before being arrested! He believes the police officers should treat him with some respect. He’d have you know that he has been a guest at many of the royal houses of the world: he has played backgammon with the Emperor of China himself! The Doctor seems to spend far too much time in horrible places like this prison cell. He can’t deny, he often seems to get on the wrong side of the police; Daniel wouldn’t have thought it, a refined old guy like the Doctor. But this “old guy” has done a lot of travelling, and seems to make a habit of being in the wrong place at the least propitious time.

◆ Susan Foreman

Compared with the previous story, Susan actually receives some brilliant material. She was always something of a bleeding heart, so having her kidnapped by a member of the Mad Boars was an interesting choice. Patrick comes across as this tough-as-nails gangland thug, when he’s really a troubled kid trying to run away from his mistakes. Susan manages to break down that tough guy persona, because she treats him like an actual person.

Claudia Grant has vastly improved in the space of a single adventure, delivering a magnificent performance. It was an absolute treat when I realised that Susan barely screams in ‘The Great White Hurricane’. Most of her scenes are shared with her kidnapper, Patrick, but she can see through his tough guy façade; she speaks to him calmly about his past, almost treating him like a younger brother.

Susan doesn’t believe that Patrick is going to hurt her: she’s met enough bullies in her time, and he’s not one of them. She never knows what each day will bring; she spends much of her life facing the most terrifying things in the universe! Susan has lost count of how many times she’s come to terms with the fact that she might be about to die, and it never gets any easier.

◆ Ian Chesterton

Despite being shot and suffering from severe concussion, Ian still does everything in his power to help Rosalita get her son back. Even when injured, he still proves to be the man of action.

I’m still waiting for the moment where Jamie Glover will start chewing the scenery, because whilst he delivered a good performance in ‘The Great White Hurricane’, his acting still feels somewhat wooden.

He never was very good at doing what the Doctor told him. Ian gets an opportunity to be smug when some cretin says he’ll rescue people trapped on the train, but only if they’re willing to pay. It turns out that he can’t hold the ladder by himself, and needs Chesterton’s help; don’t you just love when people are forced to eat humble pie? Ian isn’t someone who likes to solve problems with his fists, but believe him, if that’s his only option then he’s pretty good at it!

◆ Barbara Wright

Considering how much I adore the pure historicals, it shouldn’t surprise you that my favourite member of this team is the history teacher. Barbara is horrified when she realises the date, because she immediately recognises that one of the most devastating blizzards in US history is about to hit the Big Apple! She would like nothing more than to leg it back to the TARDIS, but decides to assist a local woman, Rosalita, who ended up in the hospital with Ian. Disaster might be looming, but Barbara proves to be a good Samaritan.

Jemma Powell delivers an exceptionally good performance in ‘The Great White Hurricane’. This is a massive improvement on the previous adventure, which totally forgot that her character existed.

◆ Blizzard Peaks

“Simple and fresh and fair from winter's close emerging,
As if no artifice of fashion, business, politics, had ever been,
Forth from its sunny nook of shelter'd grass—innocent, golden, calm as the dawn,
The spring's first dandelion shows its trustful face.”

— Walter Whitman, ‘The First Dandelion’

The winter of 1888 had been unseasonably mild on the east coast of the United States – the mildest in nearly two decades – so that by early March the trees were already beginning to bud, the robins were returning to the city, and it was more than 50° Fahrenheit outside. It was so clearly the coming of spring that on March 10th, one of the most celebrated poets in America submitted the above poem about the coming of spring to the New York Herald for publication. The poem was published on March 12th, by which point it was comically ill-timed.

On the evening of March 11th, one of the most severe recorded blizzards in American history arrived: the Great White Hurricane. The storm paralysed the entire Eastern Seaboard from the Chesapeake Bay to Maine, as well as the Atlantic provinces of Canada. Snow fell from 10 to 58 inches in parts of New Jersey, New York, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut, and sustained winds of more than 45 miles per hour produced snowdrifts in excess of 50 feet. Railroads were shut down and people were confined to their homes for up to a week. Over the course of thirty-six hours, at least four hundred people lost their lives. The event would later be described in history books as the worst snowstorm to hit a heavily populated area.

Speaking as someone that’s spent their entire life in England, we never learnt about this horrifying natural disaster. I can only imagine how frightening it would’ve been to look out the window and see this wall of white encasing your home, knowing that you could potentially freeze to death in an icy tomb. The snowstorm turned the Big Apple into a winter hellscape, which Guy Adams perfectly utilises as the backdrop for a pure historical.

◆ Sound Design

One of the most severe recorded blizzards in American history has just hit the Big Apple, transforming it into a deadly winter wonderland. It’s chaos out there; gang members are causing more trouble than usual, while trains collide with each other due to poor visibility. Howard Carter has done an excellent job with this soundscape.

Gangs can be heard fighting a short distance from the TARDIS… seconds before Ian is shot! A high-pitched whistle causes the gangs to scatter as members of the New York constabulary descend on the area. Neighing horses tug carriages to the police station. Rain starts pouring down as the storm draws near. The hurricane finally arrives, bringing icy winds that howl through the streets of the Big Apple. The frozen surface of the Hudson River begins to crack and give way, turning into a series of miniature icebergs bobbing in the water.

◆ Conclusion

“Hundreds will die, and if we’re not out of here soon, we may be among them…”

In this adventure, our travellers are almost immediately met with trouble. They stumble into the middle of gangland, with Ian being caught in the crossfire; the bullet would’ve been fatal had it been a fraction closer to his head, but he managed to walk away with only a concussion. The TARDIS crew have materialised in the late 19th century, specifically New York City, and it isn’t long before they lose one another in this cold metropolis. Heavy snow continues to fall across the Eastern Seaboard, but there’s a perfectly good explanation for that: the Doctor and his friends have arrived during one of the most severe recorded blizzards in American history!

Some people will say that I’m biased towards the pure historicals, and they would be absolutely correct! Guy Adams sends the TARDIS team into a dangerous situation; if they aren’t being hassled by gangland thugs, they’re trying to avoid getting frostbite. Our heroes only goal is trying to reunite with each other, so they can leave this frozen hellscape. As previously mentioned, we never learnt about the Great Blizzard of 1888 here in England, but this adventure made me want to learn more.

‘The Great White Hurricane’ features some excellent performances from our regulars, but I also want to praise the supporting cast. Convincing American accents have never been something BigFinish excelled at – they usually end up sounding like an extra from Midnight Cowboy, or a member of Cletus’s family from The Simpsons – so I’m thankful to whoever suggested hiring actual Americans to play Patrick, Daniel and O’Connell.

A thoroughly enjoyable pure historical adventure, and one I can highly recommend. Just be careful though: it’s freezing outside…