The 8th Doctor Adventures #1.5 - “Phobos” by Eddie Robson

There’s something about the classic Doctor Who adventure, y’know? Nothing experimental, nothing crazy, nothing challenging, just a fun, monster of the week outing; not spectacular, but definitely engaging enough to keep your attention. Phobos is not a popular story by any means, currently sitting at a whopping 2.87/5 on TARDISguide and my only query is to why that is because, whilst I certainly have a number of issues with this story, it’s still a good time.

The moon of Phobos has become a leisure park, home to adrenaline junkies seeking an authentic hit. But there’s something deep within Phobos, something ancient and hungry, and it’s waking up.

(CONTAINS SPOILERS)

Phobos is not a special episode, Phobos is not a script that does anything innovative with the concept of Doctor Who, but it is a fun creature feature written by a very talented writer. Eddie Robson is one of those Big Finish writers that lands somewhere between your run of the mill scribbler and John Dorney, consistently good with a couple hidden gems. If I had to give this story anything, it’s that you can clearly tell Robson’s an experienced author, this oozes style with smart, snappy dialogue and a couple really fun moments. This is most evident through our side cast, who, after Immortal Beloved’s gallery of moping bits of cardboard, are a truly refreshing group of believably flawed and likable people, with a great cast helping to bring them to life. McGann especially excels here, in full Doctor mode and able to go from charming to threatening in a (double) heartbeat.

As for the story, this is where we begin to see some catches in this script but at least for the first half it’s not terrible. Our setting is the wonderfully vibrant Lunar Park - an extreme sports venue on the Martian moon of Phobos. Some readers might know that I have a soft spot for isolated, snowy settings so the remote glacial resort made for an excellently creepy setting. And that’s just what this story is for a while: creepy. We have monsters lurking in the shadows, old ghost stories coming true, bodies turning up in the tundra, there’s a nice atmosphere that builds up to the debut of genuinely quite chilling monsters. For the first thirty minutes or so I was baffled as to why Phobos was such an unpopular story.

Unfortunately, the conclusion really misses the mark in my opinion. The downfall of Phobos begins with the reveal that the monsters are actually robots being controlled by the park’s owner in an attempt to stop people coming to the park because underneath it lies an ancient God of Fear. Now, this sounds like it could be a fun idea but in practice it would be a lot more interesting and tonally consistent if the monsters were the products of an ancient Fear deity rather than a septuagenarian with too much time on his hands. Also doesn’t help that the supposed fear entity is incredibly underwhelming, introduced suddenly and awkwardly in the third act. It also feeds on fear, but only fear that is enjoyed (a lá, the extreme sports that make Lunar Park so popular) and is allergic to actual, concentrated fear. So it’s a God of Fear, that’s allergic to… fear? Well, that’s incredibly boring. And in the end, the conclusion is just the Doctor shouting at the entity until it kindly goes away so all in all it just felt like a let down.

In addition to all this, the story gets really muddled in the third act trying to shove in some emotional core that really wasn’t needed. There’s this moment where the Doctor loses his temper (although after a very tame threat that didn’t seem to warrant it) and he has a speech about all the horrible things he’s seen, which seems to be trying to do something with Lucie beginning to doubt the Doctor. It’s not done well here and has been done better elsewhere. Even besides that, there’s stuff like the really underdeveloped relationship between fugitive Amy and the hulking alien Farl, or the park manager Kai getting multiple people killed and then being let off scot free at the end without even a single moment of consideration. Rarely have I seen a story that could be improved by removing narrative depth from itself.

Phobos should’ve been a fun monster flick but in the end, it shot itself in the foot by trying to be more than it was. Eddie Robson is a writer with a lot of ability, clearly, but sometimes people need to step back and let things be. Phobos is absolutely not deserving of its abysmal rating, but I’m not going to sit here and tell you it’s a masterpiece.

6/10

Pros:

+ First half is fun and decently creepy

+ Engaging and likable sidecast

+ Excellent performance from our leads but especially McGann

+ Fantastic and evocative setting

Cons:

- The conclusion is decidedly lazy

- The main antagonist is underwhelming

- Tries and fails to deepen its storyline

- Opts for a far inferior plot than the one we were teased

Wow! People don't like this one, do they??

Me, on the other hand, I had fun with it! It's nothing too amazing, but it's fun. You've got some great side characters, an interesting concept to start with Phobos, and I think this one is funny! I enjoyed the unraveling of this mystery.

I also, in particular, enjoyed the 8th doctor in this. I liked his speech. I liked that Lucie is starting to get more of an idea of just how ancient the Doctor is, how much terror he's seen.

This is a fun, inconsequential, run of the mill Doctor Who story. That's all it had to be, and frankly all I expected from it. I had a smile on my face most of the listen, and I kept going "people don't like this one?! What??"

But, hey, I'm glad I liked it. It's one of those moments of "I'm glad I made up my own mind about this". Because truly you have to. I've skipped stories before because of low ratings, only to come back to them later and find, oh, I liked it, or it wasn't as bad as it seemed.

I wasn't very into Blood of the Daleks or Horror of Glam Rock, but Immortal Beloved and Phobos has me interested again on continuing this season. I look forward to more!

This is mostly just a quite boring, run of the mill Doctor Who story, but I did think that the main villain (the creature in the wormhole that feeds on euphoric fear) revealed in the latter part was a very engaging concept, although not really enough to make up for the pretty tedious first three quarters.

The production of this episode is great and the voice cast do a very good job.

But the payoff if terrible, there’s a subplot that goes nowhere and a twist at the end only makes sense if you are listening to all of the stories in order.

Really disappointed.