Night Thoughts

I found this one rather tedious.

The pieces were all there: an eclectic cast of characters all trapped together in an old house with a dark history, each with their own secrets to be uncovered, and a murderer stalking the house, punishing them for their past crimes. It's a cliché, certainly, but one that tends to make for a gripping story nonetheless.

Night Thoughts drops the ball largely in terms of pacing. The tension is racheted up at the wrong moments, and is low during big reveals. Most of the revelations are had through rather bland exposition, and even the villain of the piece seems content to flatly explain his own deeds, feeling almost like he's summarizing the plot, rather than living it.

By the third part, the tension had all gone out, and I began to wonder why the story hadn't ended already. The subtle tension and dropped hints built up in the first part were replaced with monologues and predictable plot beats. And while I love suspending my belief for madcap Doctor Who plots, a time travel zombie embalmed and stuffed inside a taxidermied bear seemed... comical to a degree that was at odds with the rest of the story.

I don't mind the whole concept behind the story. I just feel like it could have done with a lot more polishing, and, well... some better writing, frankly.

Doctor Who – The Monthly Adventures

#079. Night Thoughts ~ 9/10

◆ An Introduction

Long before BigFinish launched their highly successful range ‘The Lost Stories’, an unmade television script was actually submitted to this range. Obviously a few changes had to be made to accommodate the audio medium, and also because everyone’s favourite Liverpudlian had just joined this TARDIS team, but it’s a story that is still fondly talked about seventeen years later.

◆ Publisher’s Summary

'I warn you, things could get very nasty here before they get better.'

A remote Scottish mansion. Five bickering academics are haunted by ghosts from their past. Reluctantly they offer shelter to the Doctor and his companions Ace and Hex.

Hex, already troubled by a vivid nightmare, is further disturbed by the nighttime appearance of a whistling, hooded apparition.

Ace tries to befriend the young housemaid, Sue. Sue knows secrets. She knows why the academics have assembled here, and she knows why they are all so afraid. But Sue's lips are sealed, preferring to communicate through her disturbing toy, Happy the Rabbit.

And then the killing begins. Gruesome deaths that lead the Doctor and his friends to discover the grisly truth behind the academics' plans, and – as the ghosts of the past become ghosts of the present – to recognise that sometimes death can be preferable to life.

◆ The Seventh Doctor

After two rather experimental adventures, we get to hear this TARDIS team working together in much more conventional surroundings. Sylvester McCoy has really settled into the audio medium by this point, and he’s really connecting with his two companions too. His performance in ‘Night Thoughts’ honestly took my breath away.

The Doctor’s discipline is mainly that of macro cosmology, but he dabbles in other fields. He’s a traveller who likes to experience and observe, and yet he finds the more things change, the more they stay the same. He doesn’t think much of Major Dickens (“One of them has cancer… cancer of the soul”).

◆ Ace

‘Night Thoughts’ features a brilliant performance from Sophie Aldred, who is thankfully out of that weird “Just McShane” storyline!

Ace starts the story by falling head-first into a freezing cold lake, and is understandably in shock. She can remember her mum crying for days when her gran died, she was only three, but the memory is sort of burned onto her mind. Over the years, she has been through a lot with the Doctor, and is convinced she should have been able to handle what she saw at the bottom of the lake.

◆ Hex

Following the experimental madness of both ‘Dreamtime’ and ‘LIVE 34’, we finally get to hear Philip Olivier in a more conventional adventure, and his performance in ‘Night Thoughts’ is genuinely marvellous.

Hex isn’t one for dreams, or reading too much into them, but he had an extremely vivid nightmare last night – there was a kid’s toy on an operating table, and a man named Hartley being forced to operate on it. He’s trained as a staff nurse. The poor bloke gets the shock of his life when looking for a midnight snack, completely forgetting that Dickens put Hartley’s body in the chest freezer! Hex tells Sue that they have something in common, never knowing their mothers. He was brought up by his gran, though he thought she was his mam until he was six – he’s on Sue’s wavelength, and sweetly gives her a bear hug.

◆ Story Recap

1996, Gravonax Island. A group of university professors are carrying out experiments to send a message through time, when they are interrupted by the arrival of a woman named Maude, and her two daughters, seeking shelter from a dreadful storm. The academics welcome them with open arms, but one of the daughters, Edie, soon went blind. Major Dickens soon diagnosed her with Gravonax Poisoning… a terminal disease.

To avoid painful suffocation, the academics carried out what they call “compassionate euthanasia”, and buried her somewhere on the island. Stricken with grief, Maude later committed suicide by drowning herself in the nearby lake. It was presumed her younger daughter died with her.

2006, Gravonax Island. The Doctor, Ace and Hex arrive to find the same group of university professors hunkered down at Sibley Hall… and then a spate of murders and suicides start, before the horrifying truth is finally revealed.

They discover that Dickens misdiagnosed Edie, and she was only suffering from a simple eye infection. But he had an ulterior motive this entire time, wanting to use the temporal experiments to resurrect Edie. All he wanted was to be famous for bringing someone back to life, which would certainly impress his old comrades back in the armed forces.

◆ Memories of Hinchcliffe

‘Night Thoughts’ is another incredibly dark story for this TARDIS team, but perhaps in a more traditional sense. The location of Sibley Hall feels like it could easily have been written for the Hinchcliffe era, with an unknown killer roaming round in the dark with a dodgy recording of the Doctor’s voice, a bunch of hypodermic needles and a spoon to gouge out people’s eyes! I think it’s fair to say that this story isn’t afraid to be gruesome with its imagery.

◆ The Orphan

My favourite aspect of ‘Night Thoughts’ is honestly the plot involving Sue, who later turns out to be Maude’s younger daughter. She’s spent her entire life in care, and now finds herself in the exact place her mam and sister perished. She’s emotionally damaged and vulnerable, and much praise should be given to Lizzie Hopley for her performance in the role.

To think that the person playing Sue would go on to write my all-time favourite BigFinish release (‘Sonny’).

◆ Military Intelligence: Contradiction of Terms

If there is one downside to ‘Night Thoughts’, then it would have to be the character of Major Dickens. Whilst he is very clearly meant to be an unhinged and militaristic psychopath, I found him incredibly one dimensional.

Martin Day would create a similar character for a story coming up called ‘No Man’s Land’, and I definitely think Lieutenant-Colonel Brook is a more convincing army head-case than the Major.

◆ Sound Design

We conclude ‘Night Thoughts’ by discussing its post-production, and this is where the adventure really comes to life. I can clearly picture Sibley Hall in my mind as this grand-old Gothic structure, isolated on this lonely island, surrounded by leafless and barren trees forming shapes in the night. Gareth Jenkins deserves so much credit for creating a really haunting atmosphere with his sound design.

A bleeping heart monitor and the pumping of a ventilator, as Major Dickens forces the academics to operate. Stormy weather batters the island, and owls howl in the night wind. A crackling radio broadcast inside of Sibley Hall. Thrashing water, as Ace falls into the lake! A rewinding tape recorder, as the killer captures the Doctor’s voice. Heavy breathing from the killer in the cellar, right before they murder Joe Hartley… whistling to the tune of Oranges and Lemons as they leave. The crackling of a roaring fireplace. An old-fashioned bear trap clamps shut, narrowly missing Ace’s legs! The taxidermied bear falls onto the Bursar with a thud… killing her instantly. Major Dickens has his eyes removed in gruesome fashion at the end of the story.

◆ Music

The other half of ERS Studios is handling the score for ‘Night Thoughts’, and I must commend Andy Hardwick for his excellent use of the piano here. It really builds upon the excellent atmosphere brought about by the writing and sound design. Oddly enough, it also reminded me a lot of Ben Bartlett’s music for one of my favourite television series, Vera.

◆ Conclusion

“Mother dead! Father gone! We think your sister’s drowned!”

A military man gave a terminal diagnosis to a girl who only had an eye infection, all so he had a corpse to use in his deranged experiments. Major Dickens thinks he can resurrect Edie, but time is a force of nature that you can rarely change.

‘Night Thoughts’ is yet another dark story, and I can definitely see why it was rejected by JNT (you’d never have gotten away with doing a story this gruesome on television).

This TARDIS team has really hit its stride now, operating like a well-oiled machine, and Edward Young clearly has a great understanding of the characters. Whilst I wish Dickens was less of a cackling villain and had a bit more depth to him, this is still a really enjoyable slice of horror Who. I’m now also petrified of taxidermied bears.