The Monthly Adventures #030  - "Season of Fear" by Paul Cornell and Caroline Symcox

Big Finish is somewhat famous for “saving” forsaken characters of old, such as The Celestial Toymaker, Frobisher or even the Sixth Doctor. With such an innovative and interesting release model and an array of fresh-faced writers, it was inevitable that some would dig deep into the bastions of lore and pull out some old, forgotten and maligned figure from Doctor Who’s long and arduous history and turn them into something great. And I’m glad to say that Seasons of Fear, written by one of my favourite writers - Paul Cornell - and a name unfamiliar to me - Caroline Symcox - does just that. The rest of the story however? It simply fails to impress.

Finally reaching their destination of Singapore, the Doctor and Charley are encountered by Sebastian Grayle, a man who claims to have killed them in the future. Fighting for their lives, the pair trace the mysterious gentleman throughout the vortex, and find a deadly scourge following him.

(CONTAINS SPOILERS)

Let’s just get it out of the way. If you know Seasons of Fear, you know its claim to fame: the Nimon are back! And leave it up to Paul Cornell to make them a genuinely terrifying threat. With no stilettos or massive empty corridors in sight, the race of godmaking locusts are truly allowed to live up to their potential, and you really buy into the fact that they could absolutely ravage the planet if they so wished. The stakes actually feel quite high throughout the whole audio and tonally, Seasons of Fear feels like a Doctor Who movie, jumping from place to place to place, with the entire universe at stake. It’s an action packed blockbuster that never stops moving and because of that is anything other than boring, for which I can give it props. As usual, Cornell excels at writing character. Though we spend a significantly small amount of time with each cast member due to the story’s troubling structure (which I will get on to), they all feel alive, and I think that’s because of how fun but realistic Cornell’s dialogue is and how well acted everything is. Eight and Charley get shine especially and I know I’ve said that with every audio is Season 2 so far but the point does still stand. And helping along this action-fuelled romp is a stellar score with a booming sound to it, that greatly improves any action scene and really helps along the visualisation of any given moment.

Unfortunately, despite Seasons of Fear apparently being a fan favourite, I just can’t get behind it, and mostly because the story is an utter mess. Let’s begin with our opening: the Doctor is reclining in a Singaporean tea garden when he is approached by Sebastian Grayle, who informs the Doctor that he is an immortal, that he’s going to take over the Earth and that in the future, he has killed the Doctor, who then has ample time to go and stop him because Grayle just informed him of his entire plan. Immediately, I am not intimidated by this man, and whether or not that was the point I don’t know but what I do know is that he is our main antagonist for 3/4 of the story and for all of that time just comes off as a slightly pathetic dreamer with a serious god complex. I will say however that how he evolves over the course of the four parts, how his character changes with his life span, is a really cool take on an immortal. But then there’s the problem of the narrative, which is just all over the place; whilst the electric pace lends itself well to the speed and movement of the story, it does not lend itself well to the plot, which travels at the speed of light and never gets time to breathe, every peril coming one after another, which means you can never really get invested. Not to mention how Seasons of Fear structures itself, with a different setting and cast every part - much like The Sirens of Time. And just like The Sirens of Time, it doesn’t work. The dialogue and immediate characterisation is good, but you never spend long enough with any character to actually care about them and Grayle’s plots start and end so quickly that it really doesn’t help his image as somewhat of an intertemporal wimp.

Seasons of Fear is a weird one because whilst it is fun and it is fast and it’s chock full of some really stellar moments, it feels almost like a pantomime in how ludicrous it can get, and never in a good way. Grayle is a profoundly underwhelming villain, the plot goes too fast for its own good and the whole narrative holds itself together with bits of string that seem to unravel the more it goes on. Honestly, the biggest merit you get here is how much it sets up for later stories, name dropping Zagreus and teasing The Time of the Daleks and Neverland. It’s a good listen but not a story I can’t confidently say I like.

6/10

Pros:

+ The Nimon are surprisingly threatening and fully realised

+ Truly cinematic feeling, this feels like a Doctor Who blockbuster

+ Great dialogue that makes every character feel alive

+ Thundering score that greatly aids the action

Cons:

- Grayle is incredibly underwhelming as a villain

- Has a mess of a plot that never settles down

- Each storyline goes too fast for you to become invested

MR 030: Seasons of Fear

"Do they have orgies?
CHARLOTTE POLLARD!
I went to an orgy once.... I didn't stay."

I could have sworn I heard Daleks at some point in this story. So Nimon huh? That's one of those monsters that I never would have thought would see a return, yet here we are. Horns of Nimon doesn't exactly have the best reputation from a less than stellar season. And looking at their list of appearances, yeah, they didn't make a return appearance any other time. Nobody's out here clamoring for the return of the Nimon in the 2020s?

Fortunately, though, that's not really the main focus of this story. The main focus is on one individual who has been granted immortality by his mysterious masters from beyond the stars, the Nimon, and his attempts at bringing them into the world over time and being foiled by the Doctor.

We meet Sebastian Grayle for the first time, for the last time in Singapore when the Doctor finally brings Charley there for her rendevous with her friend. He says that he's already killed the Doctor. It's an intriguing set up. A character that's battled the Doctor throughout time, but he's taken the long way round, living all this time, while the Doctor has jumped between points in history.

We get stories set in three different time periods. In the first, in ancient rome, we see Grayle in a cult to Mithras as a priest, but he doesn't believe in it anymore because of his connection to his alien masters, who he sees as gods. There's an interesting thread of faith through this story as we see Grayle's relationship to religion all throughout it.

We see him again in pre-unification Britain where he's a priest, but of course he doesn't really believe. He's extracted uranium and created plutonium to allow his masters to come through, but again the Doctor foils him, destroying his rudimentary transmat. I enjoyed the rulers in this one, they were clever and clearly enjoyed each other's company even though the king (and maybe queen) was gay.
And finally we see Grayle in the early 19th century as a wealthy businessman who runs the hellfire club (even just reminding me of Minuet in Hell... ugh, thankfully it's not as bad as that). He has no religion at all and only believes in himself: that the world exists to serve him. He continues to believe that his alien masters will grant him the world. The Nimon manage to make it through this time, but the Doctor flings himself and the nimon into the time vortex where they end up back in ancient Rome. There he gets the cult to Mithras to attack the Nimon and he convinces the younger Grayle to back down because of an encounter with his future self.

I definitely enjoy scenes like this where a character is horrified by what they will become. And Grayle shoots his future self when his future self tries to kill the Doctor.

There's a couple of interesting ending scenes for arc maintenance, Moffat style, here. The Doctor seems to be explaining what's happening to someone. He's been narrating the whole time. And then two of the characters from the third story get apparently eaten by something that seems to look and sound like Charley. Not sure what that's about. I'm sure we'll find out in the next few stories.

Yes, overall I quite enjoyed this one. I love the relationship between the Doctor and Charley now. They're needling each other as friends do and they're very clearly familiar and comfortable around each other. Charley even calls the Doctor her best friend. I liked when she said:

"You even did that thing where you pretend to be an idiot to get people to tell you their plans.

I do that?

I always thought you did."
It's a really satisfying narrative to follow this one person throughout time and see how he gets increasingly more and more lost in the sauce and convinced of his own superiority. Because he keeps living while everyone else dies so he believes he's the only one that matters. That's why I really love seeing the confrontation between his younger self and the person he will become in the end. Grayle has some great speeches here too about why he does what he does, how he's convinced himself he's the only god, ect ect. And all throughout he thinks that his alien masters will give him control of the Earth.

Just a really fun and really meaty script to chew on. I also quite enjoy how scrappy this script is. The Doctor even talks about "the bitchiness of time lord society" which is hilarious. I never would have imagined hearing the word "bitchiness" come from the Doctor's mouth, but here we are. Great story all around and excited to see how the rest of the arc goes.

An overlooked, stellar early audio. Sebastian Grayling is a sensational villain, so well established that I fully anticipated that he would be in one of the stories that followed - you really get inside his head. (It would have been great if he was the big bad in ‘Neverland’).

Why aren’t more people talking about this?

I didn't think an audio could pull off following up on Chimes of Midnight effectively, but Seasons of Fear is almost as entertaining and spooky, even if it isn't quite as polished.  There's a lot to like here, including the way the Doctor meets Grail out of order.  I don't love when we get to Nimon near the end, but everything else including jumping around time a bit in the beginning figuring out Grail, to that blockbuster of an ending where... something obliterates a couple of characters as a final little gut punch and hint at things to come, there's so much that Seasons of Fear has to offer.  It feels like a real adventure that makes good use of the Doctor and Charley.  I would definitely recommend this early run of Eighth Doctor stories.  They aren't all perfect, but there's a consistent thread of quality here that really feels like a polished and memorable equivalent to the best of the Doctor Who shows.  It is just so great this kind of content exists for the Eighth Doctor where it otherwise wouldn't.

Love this one! Not the deepest, but if they ever wanted to do a theatrical Movie of Doctor Who (i know we got that with the Daleks Movie, but they were more Daleks Movies than Doctor Who), this one would be pretty much a good Inspiration for.

On another note, I always have a big soft spot for Stories, where we travel to different settings in each of the Episodes. How the Story starts is amazing and I really love it! The Humor here is pretty great, and I think Eight and Charley are at some of their best as a duo here. After Chimes this is such a perfect comforting “actiony” Story, which mixes some aspects of Keys of Marinus and City of Death into a delightful romp!

Big Fan of the Story!