The Monthly Adventures #76 - "Singularity" by James Swallow

Big Finish is a lot of things, but it’s very rarely cinematic. This is an audio only range, obviously, and some distinct limitations tend to arise because of that; one thing I notice is that a lot of the stories very rarely feel polished and what I picture in my head tends to be a lot of shot reverse shot conversations due to the complete reliance on dialogue. Very rarely do I get something that feels cinematic, where I can imagine the set pieces and the camera shots and the action. Singularity isn’t a story I would call special, but it does give me an opportunity to talk about direction in Big Finish because an especially good presentation can really elevate a story.

Arriving in Russia in the mid 21st century, the Doctor and Turlough become caught up in a conspiracy surrounding the shadowy Somnus Institute, and discover that somebody has been waiting for them for a very long time.

(CONTAINS SPOILERS)

The first thing that jumps out to me about Singularity is just how massive it feels. Gary Russell was the one directing this, which confuses me a little because he also directed Winter for the Adept and how those two things were put together by the same guy, I don’t know. Russell, being the Monthly Adventures’ producer for a long while, directed a ton of episodes but none are quite like this. Singularity is a subpar story with a very pretty face, very much a style over substance type of affair. Swallow is a flawed writer but one thing he excels in is scale, this a big, season-finale type script that set up high stakes and delivered upon them, which isn’t something I can fault it for.

However, as we all know, it’s not about the size, it’s about how you use it. The actual story we get here is thin to say the least, a pretty thoroughfare alien invasion plot with some body swapping shenanigans. One thing I really liked however was the actual nature of the villains, it’s really something I haven’t seen before: our antagonists turn out to be far evolved humans from the end of the universe, who are trying to swap their minds into past humans to save themselves from utter destruction. Really cool idea, and it makes for a great Part Four reveal but the problem is that the rest of the story is just back and forth running between plot points and the occasional cliché.

Really holding back this script is the characters. If the direction was above average for a Main Range story, the casting is the opposite. What the hell was going on here? The Russian accents are fine, I suppose, but the delivery is completely wooden and broke my immersion every time somebody spoke. Probably doesn’t help that Swallow’s dialogue is iffy at best and mostly consists of melodramatic exposition. Besides, we’re stuck with a somewhat shallow group of side characters anyway, the most development they get is yet another web of time debate, because we haven’t had enough of those already. It was entirely unnecessary too, take it out and the story wouldn’t change a bit, it’s a cliché for cliché’s sake.

However, there is one member of our cast who I can confidently say I loved: Turlough. Turlough might just be the most wasted companion the show’s ever had - a slightly unhinged, morally grey and childish foil to the Doctor who slowly grows and deepens over the course of his tenure in the TARDIS, or so he would be if he wasn’t in the JNT era. Every appearance I’ve seen of him so far, he’s just kind of there and all that super interesting complexity they could be playing with just turns into bickering. Here though, Mark Strickson for one puts on a brilliant performance but even past that, Turlough has such an interesting arc across this story, still the cold and smug alien but slowly warming to the sidecast. If this interpretation of the character is consistent across other stories, I might just see Turlough rise in my ranking of companions.

Another thing I think this story did well was setting; if you know me, you know I love me some international Who and Russia in the height of Winter was a fantastic set piece that the excellent direction helped elevate. Ember wasn’t as brilliant but more because it felt so bizarrely small and unexplored, though that’s more the script’s fault than anything. Fun fact though, apparently it’s been retconned that the planet from A Christmas Carol is the same one as from this, which I think is a fun detail.

Now, in a story whose greatest weakness is plot, the conclusion’s bound to cause some contention and yeah, it was by far my least favourite part of this audio. Too much happens at once and the sheer number of plot threads introduced in this story all muddle together into one. Swallow had a great idea going with the whole future humans thing but somewhat botched it by introducing a bunch of other, unrelated concepts. For instance, the titular “singularity” is a plan to combine all of Earth into one consciousness because, uhhh, not really sure. The entire finale where everything’s explained is just a lot of overlapping technobabble and the cinematic aspect actually begins to lose me because it leads to some moments where I can’t really tell what’s happening. Too many ideas go on all at once and a lot go nowhere, the final ten minutes are such a barrage of noise that I was completely lost and I’m still not actually sure how anything wrapped up.

Singularity has all the bells and whistles that make for a great story but none of the meat; it’s a completely skippable affair with some nice polish to it. If you are a huge Turlough fan, it’s probably worth it but other than that, you can get this kind of scale and excitement from better stories. I wouldn’t mind seeing if James Swallow tried again because there’s some real talent here, but this is just too long and plodding for me to really praise it.

5/10

Pros:

+ Expertly directed and cinematic

+ Turlough gets some fantastic character development

+ Great villain’s plan I haven't’ seen before

+ Russia is well realised

Cons:

- Weak cast whose line deliveries slow the story down

- Conclusion feels like a lot of technobabble

- Plodding story that meanders to an end

- Has too many ideas for them all to be realised

MR 076: Singularity

I definitely did check out of this one pretty damn quick, but there are bits of it that are interesting. It's a shame about Turlough getting continuously shafted by the main range, though. His stories haven't been great so far.

They land in Russia where they come across a mysterious religious cult, the Somnus Foundation, colloquially called the Sleepers. The Sleepers were originally a research institute that studied sleep disorders, but now they're a full on cult, pulling people in by promising them that humanity will become the "Singularity," embracing their godhood and becoming as one.

It takes a painful amount of time to get there, but we do eventually arrive at what's happening. The Somnus are a species from the far future, specifically the end of the universe, who have figured out a way to displace the minds of people in this time and send their minds back to their bodies in the far future. They're going to try to force all of their minds into humanity and create one giant hive mind. Not quite sure why they want to create a hive mind, but sure.

The big twist here is that they are actually humanity at the end of the universe doing this to survive. Yes, that's right, this is the same idea as the series 3 finale, but way more overly complicated and less interesting. Humanity displacing its own ancestors for survival at the very end.

There is an angle here that the series 3 finale didn't really go for that I find interesting. Humanity has been saved by the Doctor time and time again. Over and over, humanity was propped up by the Doctor's time travel. Humans wouldn't exist without the Doctor constantly interfering in their history. So the humans at the end of the universe know all the Doctors, every incarnation, because he's constantly in human history everywhere. Indeed, they even have a line about how they don't really fear this one because the Fifth Doctor is his more passive persona. They know that he might not like what they're doing and absolutely do blame him for letting humanity die at the end of the universe. By preventing them from displacing their ancestor's minds, the Doctor is the cause of humanity's ultimate destruction, despite also being the cause of humanity's existence at all in the first place.

The series 3 finale doesn't really talk about this angle, but is otherwise a lot more interesting. It's not as complicated, there isn't as much technobabble, and it's easier to just zoom in on the characters at play. Singularity also doesn't use the Master. I also have no idea how the future humans were defeated either, I think my eyes might have glazed over during that part. There's even a whole part where the future humans have to use the TARDIS for some reason and I don't actually know why or how or anything because technobabble. As opposed to the series 3 finale where it's very straightforward why the Master is using the TARDIS.

Ultimately there are parts of this thing that were decent, but it could have benefited from a few more rewrites to make it more interesting and less dull. This is often a problem with the two hour format. Sometimes you can use it to your benefit to expand out the world and make it more interesting, but other times it just feels like padding for the sake of reaching the time limit.

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

Previous Story: Loups-Garoux

This is a weird one, I don't have any strong opinions about it, which makes it hard to write a review. The Russian setting is a fun one and it was utilised quite well. The accents are authentic, but the voices could be a bit grating at times (specifically Lena Korolev). There's some really cool concepts here, most notably the last remnants of humanity sending their minds back into the past to escape the heat death of the universe.

I don't think it was intentional that this planet ends up being the one featured in A Christmas Carol but that's an interesting tidbit regardless. Peter Davison and Mark Strickson are a great combo, they always put their all into every story and it shows. This story isn't anything above average for them, but it shows how high their average is.

I do feel a bit bad for Mark Strickson given how little content he appears in, it took him 5 years after this to feature in another story. All in all, it's not a remarkable story. It doesn't expand anything in particular and doesn't develop this companon dynamic. But would I say I wasted my time with it? No.

Next Story: The Memory Bank