The Monthly Adventures #067 - “Dreamtime" by Simon A. Forward

There is nothing more disappointing than when a story fumbles a good idea. Simon A. Forward’s previous story - the dull as granite The Sandman - had a fantastic concept behind it but ended up not being able to stick the landing and is to this date the most disappointed I’ve been with the premise of a story. His second attempt at the audios also happens to have a pretty neat idea surrounding it involving aboriginal legend and a ghostly city on the back on an asteroid. But Forward has already proved that he can’t operate off a good idea alone, so how is the execution of Dreamtime?

With new companion Hex aboard, the Doctor lands in the ruins of a huge city atop an asteroid, inexplicably built around an orphaned Uluru. But what is the secret of the standing stones throughout the empty city? And what exactly is the Dreaming?

(CONTAINS SPOILERS)

Something I thought Forward succeeded at before was his worldbuilding. The Galyari world of the Clutch was a detailed (if poorly conveyed) setting and the details we got about the species’ mythology and culture were by far my highlight of The Sandman. Now, looking at Dreamtime, I can once again say I am impressed by Forward’s skill at building up a setting and history. The use of aboriginal legend and imagery was an interesting and unique approach, though I can’t say whether or not it was particularly accurate given neither I nor Forward are aboriginal. However, I felt the murky, mysterious tone built up from the use of obscure mythology served greatly in building the story’s atmosphere.

And what an atmosphere that is. The central Uluru City, where our story takes place, is a wonderfully alien and surreal setting that I find is a lot more well realised than the Clutch was in The Sandman. The eerie vista of ruined buildings floating through space, populated by petrified citizens is a wonderfully evocative image that instantly had me hooked as our characters explore the desolate wasteland in the excellent first part. The story opened extremely well, nicely cluing us into an interesting mystery and introducing us to a number of characters smoothly. However I feel about the story after this, I think it's safe to call this a brilliant opener that expertly built up an atmosphere.

On top of this, I found Dreamtime to have some incredibly detailed sound design that frequently got under my skin. Especially when designing the antagonistic Dreaming - mixing a droning score and surreal aboriginal chanting - I found sound designer Steve Foxon’s audio landscape to be incredibly enthralling and even contributing greatly to a parading sense of horror, peaking in the scene when the Dreaming pretends to be the Doctor.

However, I find Simon A. Forward has a distinct problem when it comes to his stories that I feel is even worse here than in The Sandman, even if contained in a less dull story. The problem is that for all his deep, expansive ideas, Forward really doesn’t do so well at getting them across to the audience. I’ll be honest, I’m still not sure what this story was about. It flicks back and forth between past and present constantly, with intersecting timelines and paradoxes frequently being thrown together into a convoluted mess that I struggle to wrap my head around. Chief among my issues is that this script acts like I should know what the Dreaming is. Looking it up, it turns out the Dreaming is an actual aboriginal myth, which would be a cool idea to play off but Forward really doesn’t make this clear to the audience, just having every character act like it was a commonly known concept the world over.

Past the convoluted nature of the story, I think a couple of repeat problems from The Sandman rear their ugly heads. For one, pretty much the entire side cast was incredibly dull. They mostly felt like generic grunts there to pad out our numbers and deliver some handy exposition. It also didn’t help that the cast is pretty stilted all around. However, we do get the surprise return of some Galyaris, who I do find a lot more compelling but aren’t the focus of the story and whose agency is somewhat washed over by the ending. Speaking of, I find Dreamtime to be underwhelming in its conclusion. It basically boils down to the Doctor pushing some buttons until the weird traditions-made-sentient deity let's all the people it kidnapped go. Also, as I said, a minor subplot about the main Galyari trying to kill the spiritual leader holding the Dreaming back is basically just abandoned with the conclusion that Galyaris can’t attack birds so the magic guru man summons a Kookaburra into existence. It’s forced and cheapens what little tension there was before.

I also would like to address one scene that’s a little strange to me and others have pointed out, where the Doctor explains that the Dreaming attacked because the aboriginal population started betraying their traditions. All well and good except that the example the Doctor gives is that women were allowed to work in traditionally male roles. I’m going to err on the side of caution and say this could be trying to say that you should respect traditions and deculturalization is bad and not that womens’ rights cause the end of the world but it's a slightly awkward scene to sit through nonetheless. However, it’s still only one scene and doesn’t greatly impact my enjoyment or unenjoyment of the rest of the story.

Dreamtime certainly wasn’t as painfully dull and wasted as The Sandman was, but it shared in having convoluted ideas and a derivative cast of characters. However, it surpasses its predecessor with a far improved atmosphere and setting, both of which are wonderfully explored throughout the course of a somewhat mundane plot. Do I wish Forward had another attempt at writing for the Main Range? Maybe. He’s a man with some great ideas and a real skill at atmospheric worldbuilding and I could see one of his scripts being truly great if he put some work into clearing up his complex ideas a little.

6/10

Pros:

+ Great world building

+ Fantastic setting

+ Excellent first part

+ Good at building atmosphere

+ Wonderful sound design

Cons:

- Struggles to get its ideas across

- I honestly don’t know what happened in this story

- The ending felt rushed

- Poor cast

Thworping through time and space, one adventure at a time!

“DREAMTIME – STARS, STONE GHOSTS AND A SPIRITUAL CRISIS”

Dreamtime sees the Seventh Doctor taking his new companion Hex on his first proper TARDIS trip – and it’s one that’s anything but straightforward. Alongside Ace, they land on a future vision of Uluru, now floating in the stars, its surface home to a people caught between belief and extinction. From the outset, the atmosphere is thick with mystery. Wind howls across a deserted, dreamlike landscape. Stone ghosts loom large. The music, echoing Aboriginal traditions, evokes the titular Dreamtime – a realm of myth and memory.

It’s an evocative setup, and Part 1 is effective in drawing the listener into a strange, far-future Australia that feels rooted in something older, deeper and more spiritual than your usual space opera. There are moments of real power in the imagery – a floating city in decline, roamed by creatures out of legend and haunted by silence. It’s not an audio afraid to be strange, and it’s all the better for it – at least to begin with.

THE DREAMING TAKES THE DOCTOR

The most exciting development comes at the end of the first episode, when the Doctor is pulled into the Dreamtime itself. This bold move lets Hex and Ace step into more active roles, giving Philip Olivier a chance to develop Hex in his first full adventure. He does well enough, but the script doesn’t always give him anything particularly meaty to sink his teeth into. He reacts to the weirdness, tries to puzzle things out, and sticks close to Ace – but he doesn’t yet feel like a fully realised character.

Ace is more proactive, relying on her experience with the Doctor to keep things moving. But despite being in the thick of the action with the Galyari, she doesn’t get a particularly memorable storyline either, and Sophie Aldred doesn’t quite get the material she needs to shine.

RETURN OF THE GALYARI (AGAIN)

The Galyari, returning from The Sandman, are one of the episode’s more curious inclusions. While they’re more successfully integrated here than in their earlier appearance, they remain underwhelming. Their inclusion seems to serve more as a link to Big Finish continuity than anything truly necessary for the plot, and for listeners unfamiliar with their backstory, they feel like yet another group of generic alien traders caught up in things they don’t understand.

THE DOCTOR AND THE GURU

The real heart of the audio lies in the Dreamtime itself, where the Doctor comes face to face with the guru Baiame. Here, the story takes on a more philosophical bent. Baiame, voiced with haunting stillness by John Scholes, is a man convinced his people can be saved if they simply believe. His dreamlike presence and the way he’s woven into the landscape of Uluru itself is one of the more memorable aspects of the audio, and the scenes between him and the Doctor are some of the strongest – meditative, slow, and strangely powerful.

Through these encounters, the story brushes up against some fascinating ideas: belief as a form of resistance, mythology as memory, and whether salvation can be dreamt into being. There’s an interesting tension between Baiame’s spiritualism and the Doctor’s rationalism – though in classic McCoy fashion, the Seventh Doctor meets it with a twinkle and a quiet reverence rather than outright scepticism.

A FLAT, IF BEAUTIFUL, EXECUTION

Unfortunately, the rest of the narrative doesn’t live up to the rich ideas at its core. While the setting is compelling and the concept has weight, the structure of the audio is oddly flat. Much of the middle stretch meanders, and key characters (particularly Ace and Hex) spend too much time reacting rather than driving the story forward. The script tends to over-explain or under-develop, depending on the scene, and while the sound design is strong, the pacing feels sluggish.

The final episode offers a glimmer of drama, as the Dreamtime conjures up a sinister, distorted version of the Doctor and unleashes it on Ace. There’s a genuinely chilling moment where Ace is almost drowned by this evil Doctor, lending a surreal nightmare quality to the climax. But it comes late, and the tension isn’t quite enough to lift what has by then become a fairly ponderous listen.

A CULTURAL TOUCHSTONE?

As someone unfamiliar with the full breadth of Aboriginal Dreamtime traditions, it’s difficult to fully judge how well Dreamtime handles its source inspiration. That said, the audio seems to approach its themes with respect and a desire to evoke rather than appropriate. The use of Aboriginal musical motifs in the score and the mystic tone of the script suggest an earnest attempt to engage with the mythology, though some listeners may wish for a more nuanced or culturally sensitive take, particularly given the lack of Aboriginal voices involved in its creation.

📝 VERDICT: 59/100

Dreamtime is a story of intriguing ideas and a rich atmosphere that ultimately struggles to deliver on its promise. The setting is evocative, the music haunting, and the Doctor’s scenes with the Dreamtime guru offer some genuine depth. But the plot is thin, the pace is slow, and the companions are underused. It’s a spiritual odyssey that never quite takes flight – beautiful to listen to, but emotionally muted. A thoughtful but flawed entry in the McCoy era of Big Finish.

This is part of a series of reviews of Doctor Who in chronological timeline order.

Previous Story: The Harvest

After the slog that was The Sandman, I didn't think Simon A. Forward's scripts could get any worse. And then I listened to Dreamtime. Not only is it just boring, nonsensical and surreal (in the bad way) as The Sandman, it's also got some incredibly dodgy messaging. It has a moment where the characters just basically stop to say that all this was caused by multiculturalism and diversity messing up old traditions which is such a baffling direction for Doctor Who to take. It really just takes you out of it because it's not even subtle. I wish I could say it ruined a good story but there wasn't all that much to ruin.

Next Story: LIVE 34

It's bizarre, I don't know if I like it or hate it, all I will say it's messy and bizarre.
There are Things to like here. It has a unique Atmosphere to it, which can hardly be denied, I find. The Core Idea is interesting, if a little iffy to me in places. The Performances do fit this Story, even if they are hardly some best. I don't mind the World building, and I think it's an Improvement for its Writer and his previous Monthlie work.
And at least it's not boring.
Yet, I feel like as a Story, it does leave a lot to be desired. Despite all those Things working for it, the actual Story leaves me cold. I appreciate its ambition and it's.. an Experience. I really don't know how to comment on the Story, because quite frankly I am not sure if I got this Story in the slightest.
I know this is a very messy and all over the Place Review, but I think it perfectly shows off this Story. A bizarre one.

Doctor Who – The Monthly Adventures

#067. Dreamtime ~ 8/10

◆ 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…

◆ 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.

◆ 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.

◆ “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.

◆ 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!

◆ 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.

◆ 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!

◆ 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.

◆ 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.

◆ 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!

MR 067: Dreamtime

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This is the most incomprehensible garbage story I've ever heard. I still don't really know what happened in it, but I'll try to piece it together. Something something "reject modernity, embrace tradition."

This is the best I can piece together the plot:

There's a city floating through space where there are statues of nightmare people. Some aliens, the Galyari from Sandman, try to land on the city to trade. Which seems like a terrible idea. The statues are actually people trapped in some incomprehensible concept called the dreamtime. The Doctor gets pulled into it which sends him back in time while Ace and Hex wander around and try not to die.

The Doctor is in the distant past where he convinces the person organizing the city going up into space to allow an ethnic minority to live in the city when that guy just wanted to let them die on the surface. And then an hour of who the f**k knows what happens where the Doctor is possessed by evil spirits or whatever. And then he comes back and figures out that he caused the evil spirits to arrive because he pushed for progressivism.

You see, by getting the guy to accept an ethnic minority in their space city, the evil spirits are mad. They've embraced modernity and corrupted/forgotten their traditions. Like women inhabiting a traditional male space. Therefore the ancestoral spirits are angry and are trying to pull everyone into the dreamtime and destroy the city. So the Doctor SIDES WITH THE SPIRITS (LOL WTF) and helps reset the entire city back to a more traditional state and reject those evil modern concepts like gender equality and multiculturalism so that the spirits will be satisfied.

That's the best I can do, and I'm still not 100% sure that's accurate. Besides being incomprehensible, the parts that I could comprehend were still extremely bad. This is Hex's first trip in the TARDIS and we're doing whatever the f**k this is. This is like when C'Rizz's second story was Natural History of Fear, only in a bad direction. It doesn't really help us understand anymore about who he is as a person because we're struggling to comprehend what's happening.

It absolutely baffles me, as well, that this Doctor decides to side with the evil ancestoral spirits who hate progressive values. The Seventh Doctor often has a reputation for being a rebel and a revolutionary, but that reputation is entirely unearned. So far, he has had the MOST conservative stories and political views in the main range including Fearmonger, Flip-Flop, and now Dreamtime.

I remember that when I first heard this story over a decade ago, I had no idea what was happening in it either. It faded immediately from my head like a bad dream. Listening to it certainly feels like a dream. The things happening have a very dream like state to them. Fortunately, it's already fading from my mind a mere hour or two after listening to it. It's ok, it was all a bad dream....

Possibly the most nothing story I have ever listened to. I cannot recall a single plot detail.