Dreamtime

Doctor Who – The Monthly Adventures

#067. Dreamtime ~ 8/10

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◆ An Introduction

And you thought my review of ‘The Rapture’ was controversial? You ain’t seen nothing yet! This is one of the lowest ranked monthly adventures, and I can kinda see why – it’s steeped in mysticism and is quite experimental. Simon A Forward’s scripts do tend to rub you lot the wrong way, don’t they? But after my review of ‘The Sandman’ went down like a lead balloon, I’m expecting an overall worse reaction to this one. All I ask is for a little bit of your time.

The majority of the reviews online for this story are negative, and I want to show a different perspective. I wholeheartedly believe there is a great little story here. Kick back, relax, and follow me into the Dreaming…

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◆ Publisher’s Summary

The Dreamtime is living Time. The Dreaming is living myth.

A city travels the stars, inhabited by stone ghosts. At its heart, an ancient remembrance of Earth. Mythical creatures stalk the streets and alien visitors have come in search of trade. But there is nothing to trade. There is only fear. And death. And the stone ghosts.

For Hex's first trip in the TARDIS, it's about the strangest place he could have imagined. Weird and very far from wonderful. Adjustment to his new life could prove tough. But he will have to adjust and do more, just to stay alive, and Ace will have to be his guide through this lost city of shadows and predatory dreams. And the Doctor is the first to go missing.

The Doctor has crossed into the Dreamtime.

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◆ The Seventh Doctor

Sylvester McCoy puts in a very calming and relaxed performance for ‘Dreamtime’, and it works really well.

The Doctor doesn’t really get much to do here, except for talking to Baiame.

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◆ “Just McShane”

‘Dreamtime’ sees Sophie Aldred continue to shine, with another great performance.

“McShane” thinks that having all of space staring down at them, between the buildings of Uluru City, makes her really feel like a part of the universe. She tells our TARDIS newbie that you soon get used to certain death if you’re around the Doctor long enough.

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◆ Hex

‘Dreamtime’ is the first trip in the TARDIS for Philip Olivier, and he puts in a marvellous performance. He’s really proving himself to be a welcome addition to this team.

Hex expected to see the stars zipping past him, like in Star Trek. Breathtaking isn’t his favourite word when there is only a forcefield between him and deep space. Why is it, wherever he goes with the Doctor and “McShane”, he ends up getting shot at? Hex believes that having a medical career has taught him to laugh in the face of adversity. If he lives to be a veteran at TARDIS travel, he thinks it’ll be a miracle!

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◆ Story Recap

The Doctor, “McShane” and Hex find themselves on an asteroid floating through deep space. They soon find a city filled with ghostly stone statues, whose faces are contorted into screams. Stranger than that, however, is the appearance of famed Australian landmark Uluru on the horizon.

It soon transpires that these are really people, turned to stone by an event known as the Dreaming. As demonic creatures from Aboriginal myth take the Doctor into the Dreaming, “McShane”, Hex and a Galyari trading party are left to fend for themselves… in an increasingly hostile landscape.

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◆ The Dreaming

This is a script that absolutely demands you have some background knowledge when it comes to Australian Aboriginal mythology and culture. If you don’t, then you’ll likely finish this story thinking you’ve just spent two hours in a coma (and that’s exactly how I felt the first time I listened to it)! To give you all a helping hand, I’m going to go over some of the mythos you need to know and try to break it down for you.

The titular Dreamtime, also known as the Dreaming, is a concept that is difficult to explain in terms of non-Aboriginal cultures, but is often described as an all-embracing concept that provides rules for living, a moral code, and rules for interacting with the environment. From what I can gather, it’s also seen as a term used by the Aboriginals for a point in the distant past when the land was inhabited by ancestral figures – said figures would often have heroic proportions or supernatural abilities. They aren’t to be mistaken for gods though; whilst these ancestors are revered, they are not worshipped and had no control over the material world.

In the context of this story, the second of those explanations is definitely what I’d recommend keeping at the centre of your mind. To the people of Uluru City, the Dreaming is almost like a location outside of normal space-time that acts as a gateway into the past. It’s also a place, however, that you can become trapped in (hence the screaming stone statues dotted about the cityscape).

I also really like that the Dreaming is home to some quite hostile creatures, such as the savage Bunyip. In actual Aboriginal mythology, the term Bunyip seems to represent a variety of “devil spirits” - some claim that they are amphibious creatures that inhabit waterholes, resembling seals or swimming dogs. Others claim that the Bunyip are long-necked and spindly with tiny heads. There is one thing you cannot deny about this story, and it’s that Simon A Forward absolutely did his research before writing the script!

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◆ Sound Design

I’ve been trying to think of the perfect way to describe Foxon’s sound design in this story for a while now, but I definitely think trippy is the correct term. When we step foot into the Dreaming, it’s gorgeously weird.

Rioting breaks out around Uluru City; shots are fired and tear gas seeps into the air, as Whitten attempts to subdue the Aboriginal people. The ground around Uluru shakes, as the whole sandstone formation lifts up from the planet’s surface. A Galyari trading ship lands in the midst of the dessicated urban landscape. The low hum of an electric buggy is accompanied by warning shots from the Dream Commanders. Listen to the savage chuntering of the Bunyip, like packs of angry and wild wolves. The Dreaming is an extremely strange landscape; people crying and screaming as a clock ticks away in surround sound. The part three cliffhanger is really tense; with water flooding out of Uluru, and “McShane” nearly drowning! Cracking stone statues, as the Doctor reverses the effects of the Dreaming.

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◆ Music

Steve Foxon is also behind the score for ‘Dreamtime’, and it saddens me that this appears to be the only early score of his that isn’t available on his SoundCloud.

It’s an absolutely stunning piece that wears its Aboriginal influences proudly on its sleeve, featuring didgeridoos and bullroarers. Speaking as someone who spent most of the 2020 lockdown listening to old vinyl records, I must make the comparison between this score and the excellent Kate Bush track The Dreaming.

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◆ Conclusion

“You have crossed the Dreamtime…”

Convoluted to the nth degree, but I genuinely cannot help but love it. ‘Dreamtime’ takes the concepts of Australian Aboriginal mythology and catapults it into deep space, making for a truly unique and different adventure.

This is, of course, Hex’s first trip in the TARDIS, and many will criticise Forward’s story for being too abstract and experimental for such an occasion, and I partly agree. It can be quite difficult to follow along at times, but Hex gets to prove himself in a hostile environment where he is thrown into the deep end; just him and “McShane” trying to survive whilst the Doctor is trapped in the Dreaming.

I can absolutely understand why so many people take issue with ‘Dreamtime’ – I thought it was an incomprehensible nightmare the first time I listened to it – but I really respect Simon A Forward for pushing the boat out and doing something so out there and unique. No matter your opinion on the writing for this story, you cannot deny that Steve Foxon’s music was immaculate!