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

Previous Story: Kiss of Death

Another mediocre outing for this team. I really thought I was going to like this one honestly; sentient rats seemed like a fun idea and the Rat King is a great example of incorporating real world oddities into a Doctor Who story. Unfortunately the actual story failed to amaze me. It had it's moments but the negatives of these 2 hours outweighed the positives.

I will start with the positives, all the performances from the cast are really great. I'm really enjoying the dynamics of this team even if their stories have not been very impressive. There were a few things in this story I liked, the twist regarding Dr. Wallace was clichéd but still managed to be a bit of a shock. It led to the sacrifice at the end which, again, while it was clichéd it hit quite hard.

The concepts here are also really interesting; rats being trained up as Cold War spies and then developing sentience and beginning to perform their own experiments is something only Doctor Who could pull off. The idea of the rats also feels like something that would have genuinely crossed someone's mind in the Cold War like many other ridiculous schemes from that era.

All that though, doesn't change the fact that for about 90% of this story the characters are mindlessly wandering around tunnels avoiding rats. This story could have been an effective horror if it went all out on the fear-factor of the rats and the way they converted humans but as it is it's left in between silly and scary making for a dull listening experience in my opinion.

Next Story: The Emerald Tiger

Doctor Who – The Monthly Adventures

#148. Rat Trap ~ 7/10

◆ An Introduction

Something I learnt the hard way is that people are the most evil things on planet Earth. We stomp over nature and all other creatures that we share the globe with, and the sad thing is that we probably always will.

Experimentation on animals is one of the worst crimes our species has ever committed, and continues to commit. Across the European Union, animal testing for cosmetics was only banned in 1998, but didn’t take full effect till 2013! That was just over ten years ago, and it genuinely horrifies me that some people think animal testing is alright.

But what happens when the animals being experimented on overpower the scientists in the laboratory? What happens when they become the lab-rats?

The answer is brutal revenge.

◆ Publisher’s Summary

1983: as the country goes to the polls, two ‘Urban Explorers’, together with a freelance journalist, break into the long-defunct Cadogan Tunnels, once a secret wartime facility… and later, so rumour has it, the site of an experimental laboratory with a nasty sideline in vivisection.

What they find, in its twisting underground corridors, is something the most cynical conspiracy theorist could never have imagined: a highly-evolved society of questing, intelligent creatures, living right under humanity’s nose for decades.

But there’s no way out of the tunnels – as the Doctor, Nyssa, Tegan and Turlough are about to discover when the TARDIS brings them, too, into the complex. It’s a rat trap – and they’ve all been caught!

◆ The Fifth Doctor

‘Rat Trap’ sees Peter Davison delivering another fun performance.

The Doctor is rather enthusiastic about his field trip to Cadogan Castle, slap-bang in the middle of the Age of Chivalry. He’s a doctor of this and that, of things that end in “ology”. He never takes death lightly.

◆ Tegan Jovanka

‘Rat Trap’ features another great performance from Janet Fielding.

Tegan saw a Ren Faire in Sydney once. They had jousting; two fat guys half drunk on larger, funniest thing she ever saw!

◆ Vislor Turlough

‘Rat Trap’ features a great performance from Mark Strickson, it’s just a shame that Turlough basically does nothing for the whole runtime.

◆ “Older” Nyssa

‘Rat Trap’ gives a lot of material to Sarah Sutton, and she does a pretty good job with it.

Nyssa thinks it’s time she went home. She needs to take the Richter’s cure with her because the vaccine from Helheim is failing; it’s been destabilising, and she’ll soon have nothing. She thinks that jousting sounds barbaric. Nyssa believes that everywhere she goes she seems to be looking at plague and corridors.

◆ Story Recap

The Cadogan Tunnels were once the beating heart of a secret wartime facility, before supposedly falling vacant. Now the Home Office have sent soldiers down them, to make sure that any secret government documents can be recovered before the tunnels are sold to English Heritage next month.

Meanwhile, two urban explorers and a journalist are also exploring the Cadogan Tunnels, after hearing that the site was actually still being used in the 1950s by scientists conducing amoral experiments on animals… experiments that appear to still be ongoing.

Genetically engineered rats wander the corridors; living in piles of their own droppings and filth, experimenting on the very scientists who created them. Led by the fearsome Rat King, they plan on releasing a deadly virus to wipe out the human race, as revenge for the constant experimentation over the years… and as it’s election day, who is going to notice an uprising of super-intelligent rats?

◆ Roland Rat Moment

‘Rat Trap’ seems to be one of the more forgotten audio adventures, despite the fact it has some excellent ideas written into it. I’ve already mentioned that I find the idea of animal experimentation absolutely abhorrent, but rats are easily some of the worst treated creatures on the planet.

My mam is always telling me how intelligent they are, so it’s understandable that they would want to get revenge on the human race for the way we have treat them.

◆ Rat Droppings

As much as I enjoy the general premise of this play, ‘Rat Trap’ is not without its glaring issues. The dialogue at times feels very forced and unnatural, like during the very first part when Caitlin, Kevin and Matthew all introduce themselves like they’re at a job interview! It honestly shattered the immersion like it was a pane of sugar glass for me.

Then there is the fact that, once the rats reveal their plans, the story basically turns into a rehash of the first Silurian story – a hidden society living under the ground, intense dislike for humanity, wants to wipe them out with a virus. The story just loses its originality, which is a damn shame, because this could have been brilliant as a claustrophobic psychological horror.

You could have had the rats carrying out various horrific experiments on the scientists, turning the story into a harsh lesson on why animal cruelty is wrong. I did enjoy this release, but I can’t deny that it positively reeks of missed opportunity.

◆ Sound Design

The echoing Cadogan Tunnels are certainly creepy, with genetically enhanced rats squeaking around nearly every corner. It’s a really polished bit of sound design from Andy Hardwick.

A rattling lock-pick, as Kevin and his associates break into the tunnels. The Rat King speaks with three echoing voices, all layered over one another (it’s incredibly reminiscent of Nihilanth’s voice from the first Half-Life game). A test tube shatters in the TARDIS laboratory. Electric lights fizzle on inside the tunnels. A scream echoes throughout the tunnels after the urban explorers find a dead soldier. An exploding grenade causes a cave in, with rubble crumbling from the tunnel ceiling. Rats scuttling away as they work on miniature computers, in a room filled with a pool of filth and excrement.

◆ Music

I absolutely adore getting to write this section of my reviews, because all the composers BigFinish employ have such different strengths. The first thing I think of when you mention Hardwick is honestly his masterful use of the violin, which he once more utilises in this score to build up the tense atmosphere of the Cadogan Tunnels.

◆ Conclusion

“One puff from this and you’ll be back to squeaking for cheese!”

It genuinely saddens me when I review a release like this one. It had all the potential to be an ultra horrifying psychological and body horror piece. Something that utterly condemned animal experimentation for the vile act it is, by having the rats turn the tables on the scientists that experimented on them.

Whilst the titular rats do experiment on their former captors in this adventure, it almost feels like an afterthought on Tony Lee’s part. ‘Rat Trap’ absolutely reeks of missed potential, and ultimately boils down to running around corridors with genetically engineered rats. I had fun with it, but probably wont remember much of it by this time next month.