The Monthly Adventures #070 - "Unregenerate!" by David A. McIntee

I’m sighing as I write this. Unregenerate! isn’t that bad. In fact, very few of the last six audios I’ve listened to have been that bad (with one exception) but god damn there is just nothing to talk about here. Another story with good ideas and a poor execution, neither good nor bad, stuck in a miserably mundane middle ground, a limbo of mehs and whatevers. I’m very tired of this type of story, it’s where the Main Range tends to struggle most: the middle of the road. I can laugh at a bad  story and be enraptured by a good one but a six out of ten? All I can get then is apathy.

Through the echoes of a mysterious institute comes the screams of the insane and one particularly mad time traveller. Separated from the Doctor, Mel begins to look into the mystery surrounding a local insane asylum and the horrific experiments going down in it.

(CONTAINS SPOILERS)

I’ve been putting off writing this review for a while because I’m just so bored with having nothing to write about. I didn’t hate Unregenerate! but I’m also completely unperturbed by the whole thing. The central idea - TARDIS consciousnesses being uploaded into people’s heads on the day of their deaths - is a neat idea that has been somewhat lessened by the future existence of The Doctor’s Wife but oh well.

Unregenerate! has a surprisingly good side cast as well, with members such as the charming unnamed cabbie played by Toby Longworth or the gestalt entity composed of six smaller organisms in a pile, which I find to be a pretty cool alien species. They all feel appropriately deep and have some interesting and varied personalities, which is certainly more than you can say about a lot of these audios.

As for the story, the mystery in the first half was good; the reveal of the institute being a hollow facade was fun and the Doctor’s situation raised some questions but by the second half, I was just not on board with anything happening. It’s a meandering run around empty corridors with a couple so-so action set pieces that eventually comes to a somewhat hokey happy ending. I liked the twist that the institute staff were all Time Lords but it wasn’t enough to keep me invested.

The biggest problems I faced listening to it however was probably McCoy, who’s gone insane due to, I dunno, sciencey stuff and is putting on one of his most grating performances. I love the guy but just let him do dark and brooding, this is too much. It also doesn’t help that it’s only there to create some forced tension and is easily solved when the story wants to be done with it.

And that’s my review. A hell of a lot shorter than usual, I know, but I listened to this two weeks ago at the time of writing this because I couldn’t work out what I wanted to say. And honestly, I still don’t. Unregenerate! is a story, it happened, it ended, and I came out of it luke-warm.

6/10

Pros:

+ Good initial concept

+ Interesting mystery in first half

+ Above average sidecast

Cons:

- McCoy’s insane acting isn’t fantastic

- The story gets more and more uninteresting as it goes on

- The Doctor’s insanity is a non-obstacle that’s easily overcome.