Doctor Who – The Monthly Adventures

#206. Shield of the Jötunn ~ 8/10

◆ An Introduction

It saddens me that most people tend to ignore the final seventy-five releases of this range, because there are some genuine hidden gems to be found. That’s part of the reason I decided to delve into the Constance Clarke stories, alongside the fact I could barely remember what happened in the majority of them!

The cover art for this release put me in mind of Sonic Adventure, because the antagonists bare a striking resemblance to that big watery beast, Perfect Chaos… but it’s not flooding that our dynamic duo will have to worry about.

Frost giants are rising within the state of Arizona, and the only force capable of defeating them are a clan of long-dead Viking warriors. We’re certainly in for an interesting ride!

◆ Publisher’s Summary

2029 AD. In the desert of Arizona, billionaire philanthropist Dr Hugo Macht is trying to save the world from climate change. But his great project to "scrub the sky clean" with nanoatomic machines grinds to an unexpected halt when his diggers break into something unexpected: a Viking burial barrow containing eight corpses, a mysterious shield, an even more mysterious inscription… and a yet more mysterious traveller in time and space, known only as the Doctor.

And that's not even the strangest part of Dr Macht's day. Soon, it'll begin to snow. Soon, the Doctor and his Girl Friday, Mrs Constance Clarke, will come face-to-face with an ancient horror in the blizzard. A Frost Giant, in need of a new body. In need of flesh…

◆ The Sixth Doctor

This incarnation is well known for being obnoxious and insulting, but many people forget that he can be incredibly sweet and caring too. That scene where he consoles Mrs Clarke about the future of humanity was genuinely heart-warming. He’s getting along with his new companion like a house on fire, and they’ve only had three stories together! Whenever a writer has only contributed one script it immediately sets off alarms in my head: my first thought is usually that their one-and-only adventure was so critically panned they never got asked back, but that clearly isn’t the case here. Ian Edginton captured the Sixth Doctor perfectly! I sincerely hope he’ll return one day.

Colin Baker absolutely nailed his performance in ‘Shield of the Jötunn’. His on-air chemistry with Michael J Shannon was incredible, making every scene between them just a delightful listen. If only Dr Macht had become a recurring presence throughout these adventures.

He reminds Constance of her Great Uncle Jasper; lived alone, rattling around in a huge tumbledown pile in the country. He’d spend his days talking to the dog and taking pot shots at rabbits through the breakfast room window. The Doctor claims that’s nothing like him: he abhors guns, and as for rabbits, no creature can be that cute without an ulterior motive! WREN Clarke and himself were hoping to find a restaurant, but appear to have gotten themselves sidetracked rather. He’s relieved to discover that the tumulus is part of some scientific endeavour. When he heard “Major”, he presumed with tedious inevitability that they were about to be locked up… lo and behold, that’s exactly what happens! The Doctor knows that the human race does love messing about with its environment, for better or worse. They’d shift the world on its axis if they thought it would make them more comfortable, hence the geo-engine. As terraforming machines go, it’s a modest effort: he’s seen some the size of moons! The Doctor has never been able to find the kitchen, ever. Why go traipsing round all those endless corridors when the finest eating establishments in all of time and space are right outside the TARDIS doors? He wanted to do something nice for Constance – cooking for her – but it backfired. The Doctor admits he may have misjudged Dr Macht, and this sparks a wonderful little friendship between the two of them. He finds, as in life, that good stuff is always harder to get at. Antique and anomalous has worked well for him! The Doctor has seen more suffering than Dr Macht could possibly imagine.

◆ Mrs. Constance Clarke

Ian Edginton has given our resident WREN some marvellous material. I particularly liked the scenes where her and the Professor chucked miniature napalm bombs at the Talessh!

Miranda Raison rounds off her first trilogy with a superb performance, and I simply cannot wait to discuss her next lot of adventures.

Constance remembers, at Bletchley, the Nazis once tried sending coded messages written in ancient Scandinavian script. The thing is, she didn’t work on that project, only now she’s picking out fragments of phrases on the deus runes. Hearing just how dire the climate situation has gotten by 2029 leaves Constance feeling pretty glum about the Second World War: good men and women gave their lives, and for what? So their heirs could poison the planet? Back in the old country, her governess would tell them never to use the word nice, but to find a more expressive alternative instead. But she likes nice; it’s small, it’s warm, and friendly. Dead is dead, there’s precious little consolation to be had from that! Constance just takes everything in her stride, because she’s known people go to war and never return, or return to homes bombed out in the Blitz. You can weep and wail, for all the good it’ll do you, or you can just get on with it. She’ll have you know that she’s not a deserter! Already the past seems like a long time ago, but she could go back there tomorrow, and she fully intends to, incidentally. There are certain things she has to do when she goes back, personal matters to be dealt with.

◆ Ghosts in the Machine

You might recall that I compared the antagonists of this adventure to Perfect Chaos, but their abilities make them actually quite horrifying. The Talessh make their presence known when one of them grabs Major Da Costa, picking his bones clean and using his flesh to build themselves a corporeal form!

The Talessh were unique, a techno-psionic race. They could psychically interact with machine intelligences: imagine thinking your instructions into a computer instead of typing them. That explains how they could interact so easily with the terraformer’s mainframe.

Their homeworld no longer exists. Its star collapsed in on itself around a thousand years ago. Their expedition to planet Earth was launched to save their world from that eventuality, intending to replace their star with our planet’s Sun.

◆ Sound Design

Some genuinely stunning imagery throughout this adventure, like a snowstorm carpeting the baking hot landscape of Arizona… hiding a terrifying creature within! It’s unfortunate that Martin Montague seems to have all but vanished from the audio adventures, because his soundscape here was rather impressive.

A squawking parrot deep within some forgotten room of the TARDIS. The ship comes to an emergency stop after colliding with a whopping great pulse of Artron energy; warning lights begin bleeping across the console. Whistling winds in the Arizona Desert, as someone rams a digger through the Viking tumulus… nearly crushing the Doctor under a mound of rubble! The blizzard descends on the geo-engine, while the Doctor and Constance crunch their way across frozen ground. Something howls from within the snowstorm, before reaching out and taking Major Da Costa; it proceeded to strip the flesh from his bones, then chucked his skeleton through the roof of a Portakabin! Encountering a keypad locked door, Bryce promptly rams a giant tractor through it. A crackling fire can be heard during Herger’s conversation with the Völva. Bryce has his bones picked clean in gruesome fashion. The voice of the Talessh is actually quite reminiscent of the Temperon, from way back in ‘The Sirens of Time’. Tornados start springing up all around the geo-engine as the Talessh engineers weave new bodies from the elements themselves. There is nothing more hilarious than Constance ramming a JCB digger through a crowd of Talessh: talk about making an entrance! A napalm bomb explodes… doing absolutely no damage to the Talessh. Viking warriors emerge onto the battlefield, standing twenty feet high and ready to decimate the Talessh!

◆ Music

From the moment this adventure opened with a dramatic piano motif, I knew Jamie Robertson was handling the score. I think the only reason I cottoned on so quickly is because I’m so used to hearing his work in the continuing adventures of Eight, Liv and Helen.

‘Shield of the Jötunn’ features a gloriously dynamic suite of music, which manages to balance these tender string motifs with punchy percussion when the action ramps up.

◆ Conclusion

“Welcome to the New Ice Age…”

Discovering that their star was unstable, the Talessh scoured the cosmos for a suitable replacement until one of their survey teams happened upon the Earth’s sun. They fully intended to steal it, but were seemingly defeated by a clan of Viking warriors. Several centuries later, a billionaire philanthropist has constructed a terraforming device where the warriors trapped these alien engineers… and it’s time for them to re-emerge!

Someone seriously needs to invite Ian Edginton back to create another script, because he infused this one with so much personality. There are some teething problems – a couple of minutes could be shaved off the runtime if the pacing was tightened up – but it’s generally an easy listen.

Our antagonists are wonderfully unique, possessing the ability to interact with machines through thought alone. Despite their rather goofy appearance on the cover artwork, they’re actually quite horrifying: within a matter of minutes they can pick the bones of any person clean, then use the discarded flesh to weave themselves new bodies!

Our TARDIS team are onto their third adventure together now, and they’re both working like a well-oiled machine. Their dynamic is fantastic, though they spend a lot of this adventure doing their own thing apart from each other. This actually works out incredibly well, because the Doctor is stuck with the resident comedy character… and their banter is hilarious!

I had an amazing time listening to ‘Shield of the Jötunn’, because it remembers that not every adventure has to be deeply character focused and dialogue heavy. Sometimes you just need a good old fashioned romp, one where the companion decides to ram an enormous digger through a crowd of space engineers that resemble Perfect Chaos! This story is just like a goofy old Labrador that you can’t help but adore.