Doctor Who – The Fifth Doctor Box Set

#1.02. Iterations of I ~ 10/10

◆ An Introduction

Christopher Bidmead was the outgoing script editor when Season 19 was airing, meaning he commissioned most of the stories we saw. His era was characterised by hard-hitting science and dramatic storytelling, so I wonder how he would’ve coped with a haunted house adventure.

A missing cult, an empty house full of computers, and one unimaginable foe…

◆ Publisher’s Summary

The house on Fleming's Island had been left to rot. Ever since a strange and unexplained death soon after it was built, and plagued with troubling rumours about what lurked there, it remained empty and ignored for decades until the Cult moved in. As twenty people filled its many rooms, the eerie building seemed to be getting a new lease of life.

But now it is empty again. The cult found something in its corridors... and then vanished.

Trapped on the island one dark night, the Doctor, Tegan, Nyssa and Adric look into the building's mysteries, its stories of madness and death. Their only chance is to understand what terrible thing has been disturbed here... before it consumes them utterly.

◆ The Fifth Doctor

Since when did this incarnation get so sarcastic and playful? This TARDIS crew are undoubtedly known for their cattiness, but John Dorney manages to make it seem more like banter between unlikely friends. I think his take on the Fifth Doctor is excellent, especially when he takes control of the situation on Fleming’s Island.

One of the easiest ways to identify a good script is to look at the acting. If the immaculate performance Peter Davison delivered is anything to go by, then ‘Iterations of I’ ranks up there as one of the greats.

The Doctor might not know what he’s doing, but he doesn’t know what he’s doing from a position of knowledge, according to Tegan. He’s finally gotten round to reading Cranleigh’s book – Black Orchid – so will likely be in the library for hours. It’s always best adopting an optimistic approach to life, he finds: a positive attitude works wonders! Tegan believes that it never ends well when he gets curious. She also claims that even the Doctor wouldn’t bring them to a haunted house… before immediately backtracking, because that’s exactly the sort of thing he would do! The Doctor believes it can be worth paying attention to superstition, as sometimes it’s based on truth; it’s all well and good being rigid and rational, but you only need to be wrong once, and there’ll be nothing to help when the ghosts come out to play! He thinks you should never dismiss the imagination: it’s one of the greatest tools we have. He doesn’t think demons exist, at least, not in the form DeValley thinks. The more he sees here, the less convinced he is of any supernatural explanation for what’s going on.

◆ Adric

A derelict mansion that’s being haunted by a sentient number. An excellent premise, especially considering one of the companions is a mathematical prodigy. I was actually surprised how involved Adric got with the action: he took a shotgun shell to the leg, mere minutes before leaping out of a helicopter!

‘Iterations of I’ features an excellent performance from Matthew Waterhouse.

Adric thinks it’s perfectly safe for him to be flying the TARDIS, because he’s flown it before and it was fine. He states that everything in this world has an explanation: we shouldn’t be frightened of something just because we haven’t worked out what that explanation is. Adric is an Alzarian, and they heal much quicker than humans; his constitution means that he can recover from a shotgun blast to the leg in mere minutes, before jumping out of a helicopter like it’s nothing!

◆ Nyssa

Nyssa has always been a rational thinker, so it’s actually quite frightening that the i can leave her a trembling mess who is questioning the existence of ghosts. She gets some great material in this adventure.

Sarah Sutton delivers her a-game in ‘Iterations of I’.

The moment Nyssa walked through the door of Fleming’s Mansion, it was like her brain was filled with numbers and voices for a fraction of a second, then they were gone. She is unusually sensitive to certain telepathic frequencies; something must have left residual psychic echoes in the air, causing her to collapse. Aoife is angry, and Nyssa can understand why: she lost her father too, he was taken from her by someone who might as well have been a demon. It destroyed her, ripped out her heart, but she had to get over it and let it go. You never forget the pain, but you get better, in time. Believe her, revenge doesn’t help.

◆ Tegan Jovanka

Several adventures have clearly taken place between ‘Psychodrome’ and this outing, because Tegan doesn’t want to go back to Heathrow anymore: she’s finally assimilated into the team, and what an asset she is to them. I love how she takes on the elder sister role with Nyssa, showing that she really cares about her fellow travellers. Some exquisite material from Dorney.

Janet Fielding is going to be at EM Con at the beginning of next month, and I’m considering getting my copy of this adventure signed. She delivered a fantastic performance in ‘Iterations of I’.

Tegan has flown the TARDIS before and it wasn’t fine. It’s a time machine, piloting it isn’t like learning to drive her uncle’s tractor; they crash it, and there’s worse things to worry about than a short fall and a face full of cow pat! Never let the passengers fly the plane: that’s rule number one. Tegan has learnt to leave well enough alone; she doesn’t want to go back to Heathrow anyway, she’s over that now. In her experience, listening to the Doctor is usually the safest option. Tegan hasn’t kept up with the Doctor since he had curly hair and a scarf! One of these days, she hopes they meet killer wallabies, so someone else can be out of their depth for a change.

◆ Story Recap

In August 1981, several students had been offered research posts on Fleming’s Island by a mysterious cult: it was their belief that God was actually an impossibly long number. They needed a mathematician to identify the number – hence why they hired Imogen Frazer. Once they were sure, they could then speak to God and change the world!

Imogen never came home. Four months later, her boyfriend travels to Ireland and reports her disappearance to the Garda. DeValley, the local constable, offers to accompany him to her last known location… knowing that Fleming’s Island is reputed to be a place of evil.

Around the same time, the TARDIS materialises on the island… and almost immediately falls into the sea. The Doctor and his friends begin searching the nearby mansion for assistance, but walk straight into trouble: DeValley and his shotgun toting search party!

Something strange is happening on Fleming’s Island: all the cultists seem to have vanished without a trace, their belongings have been untouched since the Summer. Could they have really found God in the numbers? Or have they unleashed something far more terrifying?

◆ The Square Root of Negative One

The i were a species that existed on a plain of existence tangentially connected to N-Space. Described as being analogous to a sentient number – i being representative of the square root of negative one – the true nature of the i was virtually incomprehensible to both humans and Time Lords.

It was accidentally captured by the cult on Fleming’s Island: this attracted the i Predator to the area – another sentient number – which hunted down and slaughtered all the cultists.

BigFinish have previously dabbled with sentient words – ‘...ish’ introduced us to the longest word in existence, which had a sentient affix that consumed words like they were food – so why not sentient numbers? John Dorney has happened upon a really interesting concept here.

◆ Sound Design

Fool Circle have leaned into the haunted house vibes for this adventure. Fleming’s Island has been isolated by a thunderstorm; inside the mansion, whispering voices follow our protagonists through the corridors. The sound design is gorgeously atmospheric.

Computers print out endless streams of data for cult researchers to analyse. Martin’s voice begins to distort and crackle, as the i Predator murders him. Squawking seagulls off the Irish coast are accompanied by waves lapping against Fleming’s Island. The TARDIS materialises on top of a cliff… which rapidly crumbles into the sea! A storm breaks out on the island; rumbling thunder, snapping lightning, and it’s raining cats and dogs. Whispering voices can be heard throughout the mansion, as the i make their presence known. The whirring of a generator; fluorescent lights flicking on throughout the mansion as power is restored. All the computers within Fleming’s Mansion explode with tremendous force, flinging bricks and mortar across the island. Constable DeValley tries to make a swift exit in his helicopter – the blades whirring through the sky – before the i Predator attacks it, causing it to come crashing down.

◆ Music

Episode one is a masterclass in how to build atmosphere, but it would appear that Fool Circle have taken inspiration from the Moffat era when creating their score.

Off-key notes have been peppered throughout, reminiscent of Murray Gold’s score for ‘The Doctor’s Wife’, yet they have been seamlessly melded with synthesisers faithful to that Season 19 period. Some genuinely stunning work.

◆ Conclusion

“I think our number might very well be up…”

In August 1981, several students had been offered research posts on Fleming’s Island by a mysterious cult: it was their belief that God was actually an impossibly long number. They needed a mathematician to identify the number – hence why they hired Imogen Frazer… but she never returned home. Why have all the cultists vanished without a trace? Could they have really found God in the numbers? Or have they unleashed something far more terrifying?

John Dorney could’ve easily written a bog-standard haunted house adventure, but the inclusion of a mathematical foe cements this firmly within the Bidmead era. These creatures are so abstract that their true nature cannot be comprehended by humans or Time Lords, which makes the i – and the Predator that hunts them – all the more fascinating. BigFinish have dabbled with sentient words before, so why not sentient numbers?

Peter Davison was easily the stand-out performer in this adventure: you can tell he absolutely adores working with his original roster of companions. Speaking of which, they were all on top form as well.

‘Iterations of I’ puts the creativity back into haunted house stories, and I would happily call it one of the best Fifth Doctor audio adventures out there. John Dorney once more proving why BigFinish hold him in such high regard; magnificent work!

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

Previous Story: The Darkening Eye

This is a story where you really feel the stakes, from the moment the team land on the island and the TARDIS falls off a cliff to a numerical value converting reality into numbers. It's one of the most fascinating concepts I've seen for a villain and it's horrifying. It's Doctor Who at it's best and the importance of numbers in this story really reminds me of Logopolis. Adric is basically tailor made and is, in my opinion, the highlight of this story.

The side characters are fantastic and allow for the entities to really show off their capabilities. I saw the twist coming regarding Constable DeValley coming a mile away, what an infuriating character (in a positive way). The ending is a self sacrifice, it was touching but it felt like an quick way out for a villain that had been established as such a large threat.

Otherwise, I struggle to find anything bad about this story. If you're a fan of horror mixed with reality-bending sci-fi then this a story absolutely worth checking out. It is also technically the last chronological story with Adric before Earthshock, atleast in terms of audio stories.

Next Story: Earthshock

Though there are still an absurd amount of Fifth Doctor stories I have yet to encounter, so this statement is far from definitive, this is to date my favourite Fifth Doctor story. It reminds me a lot of the Chimes of Midnight in that both do horror really, really well. This sort of thing is subjective but for me, my favourite type of spooky is done through atmosphere and tension, which I think Iterations of I pulls off expertly. There's a foreboding sense to the whole setting with a creepy island where someone died just after a house was built there and a cult has mysteriously disappeared. That, coupled with Nyssa suddenly and inconspicuously repeating the word "I" leaves you feeling like something is just plain wrong. You want the Doctor and his companions to escape but the TARDIS falls off a cliff so they can't. It's plot convenient but adds to the sense something is very wrong with this island. You know they are in danger, even if the danger isn't all that obvious or present. It's so good.

Then they also get into some really interesting notions of numerology and math. As a fan of such things, this audio was practically tailor-made for me and I just love Iterations of I because of it. I recognize that these particulars aren't going to appeal to everyone, but as someone already familiar with the strange notion of i as an imaginary integer, I was just hooked the second they started getting into such concepts. The Doctor talking about how numbers are sort of imaginary concepts rather than concrete things is not only true but fascinating, and to me is a great little bit of science fiction at its best. It makes the monster and this story wonderfully unique and a real gem of a Doctor Who experience.

All the characters are pretty great too. Our TARDIS crew has a lot of solid scenes, even if there is slightly less for Tegan to do compared to Adric and Nyssa. They run into a group investigating the island and each character adds a little something to the story while also giving us a potential body count to show what could happen to our main characters. Meanwhile, we listen to recordings of someone named Imogen who was investigating these numbers before she disappeared. Her recordings add a lot of suspense and build up on the growing sense of dread and doom that permeates much of the audio. There's something interesting going on with Adric, too. I guess we are setting this character up for Earthshock a bit, which works pretty well here in a tragic way. You can see how a story like this might put him in the head space he was in for that television story nicely. You can definitely tell Waterhouse is much older at this point in making this recording but it hardly matters and he, along with the rest of the cast, all do a great job.

Sure, the plot kind of gets hand waved away at the end and little things do blemish the script slightly - but the positives of the audio to me vastly outweigh the negatives to the point I don't really feel they really hold Iterations of I back. The ending might be a little rushed, sure, but it's interesting, positing a whole little world of beings - some of which are malicious, and others far less so. I heartily recommend this one. It might not be for every one but if these sorts of concepts interest you or if one wants a good story this is a great experience overall.