The Monthly Adventures #80 - "Time Works" by Steve Lyons

Between this and Conundrum, Steve Lyons is really rising in my ranks as a writer at the moment. After the one-two punch of Pier Pressure and then Night Thoughts, this immaculately scripted, intelligent wildfire of a story felt like an absolute breath of fresh air. Discovering that this was originally written for the Divergent Arc isn’t a surprise at all and it’s honestly a shame it wasn’t placed there: this is the experimentalism it desperately needed and only occasionally shined through. A techno-gothic epic with some truly enrapturing world building and direction that could’ve used a little tightening up around the edges.

The world of Industry runs clockwise, and in between the tick and the tock, the Clockwork Men come to take you away. Landing in a world that operates by the hand of a great clock, the Doctor uncovers a great conspiracy between the turning cogs.

(CONTAINS SPOILERS)

This is the sort of story we need more of; blazingly experimental, unabashedly weird and daringly high concept with some utterly breathtaking imagery to boot. We are landed in the most alien of sci-fi premises that grips the premise of the show and uses it like intended, this feels like a story that belongs nowhere else other than Who. But why is that? Well to begin with, I think this might have my favourite setting from The Monthly Adventures so far. The stunningly realised world of Industry operates under one of the most ingenious ideas ever put to the show: the whole thing is scheduled, a great clock watching over the city. Everybody must do their job to the tick of the clock, or they will be swept away between seconds. This sumptuous location is complete with a fantastic mix of regal and sci-fi decorations, with medieval peasants walking around with watches and smartphones. The decaying, gothic leanings complete the palpable atmosphere that shroud the story and this marauding sombreness of a society locked in its way is stitched into every facet and every face of the script.

And in fleshing out the world, Lyons reveals one of his greatest strengths: the characters. With a relatively narrow focus, Lyons uses a top cast to deepen his script in a sprawling way. We get a taste of the everyday world with the rebellious Vannit and her cowardly brother Revnon and a taste of the elite with the King and his heir: Kestorian and Zanith, who both excel, Kestorian as the bitter and duty-ridden ruler and Zanith as the shallow but good natured prince, hated by his people for the freedom he wishes to share with them. At a point, it stops feeling like Doctor Who and more like some great fantasy epic, I wouldn’t be surprised to find these two at the heart of a thousand-word door stopper. Our main characters are also pretty great too, even if C’rizz feels a little sidelined.

It is of my opinion that this is one of the most polished stories the Main Range has delivered so far, everything feels so on point and perfectly crafted. Props to Lyons for using expository narration in a way that actually really serviced the story, making it feel like a gothic fairy tale told by firelight. Although, the tone and immersion probably wouldn’t work quite as well without the absolutely sensational score from Andy Hardwick, whose mournful strings capture a sombre melancholy perfectly. And topping off this skillful construct is the idea itself; I find that when a story centres itself on a really unique idea, it can sometimes fail to realise it, what with trying to juggle the usual tenets of the story as well as the concept. Here, Lyons makes complete use of his idea in such a glorious way. The different forms of time manipulation and how they’re used in the story is brilliant: from the mechanics of the time freeze, to the different aspects of the Clockwork Men; there’s one really great scene where a character is erased from time from the perspective of people who can’t see the time freeze, his sentence being cut off by his erasure; it’s a real “oh, f**k!” moment that was perfectly built up beforehand. It’s little details like these that really complete Lyons’ world.

However, if I really had to isolate one positive about Time Works, this is just a good script. It’s a really solid rise and fall of action that juggles a lot of things expertly, we have time jumps and time loops and scenes happening out of order and somehow, through some crafty dialogue and an immaculate pace, it never feels confusing. A fantastic hook leads into a greater mystery that moves with a brilliant momentum plotted perfectly throughout. Well, almost. Time Works would be a lot higher in my estimations if it wasn’t for the last couple parts because for as much as I love what this story does and how the first half operates, I think it begins to lose that wondrous sense of originality that makes it so special. Remove all the bells, whistles and mystery and the story actually isn’t all that special. A computer built to restructure a broken society has become obsessed with time and efficiency and now governs a city with the use of the past, the present and the future. It’s a pretty simple underdog revolution story that Doctor Who has been doing since its second ever serial, just with some incredible world building put on it. This isn’t saying it’s bad, it just means the story slowly loses that awe it had at its beginning as it slowly reveals itself to be quite a simple affair. And honestly, I found the ending underwhelming. The Doctor makes a single speech and then very easily quickly incites revolution: I never really like when the Doctor manages to change something like an entire societal structure in a short amount of time because it makes the world feel so small and unthreatening, which is a complaint ten times worse in a story that relies entirely on its world. Also, even though the beginning managed to juggle all its plot threads relatively well, the final part does begin to get pretty muddled, with a lot of things happening at the same time.

Time Works is one of the most brilliantly original stories that has come out of The Monthly Adventures and a real showcase of what you can do with the show. A beautiful world, fantastic ideas and some really good execution are used in conjecture with a surprisingly generic story that’s overshadowed by the depth and complexity of its background. Truly sublime stuff that could have used the same amount of care in its plot as it did with its world.

8/10

Pros:

+ Absolutely gorgeous world building

+ Characters feel alive and complex

+ Makes brilliant use of a brilliant idea

+ One of the most evocative soundtracks from the Main Range so far

+ Dynamic script with a fantastic momentum to it

Cons:

- Plot begins to lose steam towards the end

- Things become a little too convoluted for their own good