alien going 'chaarleeeey' is more annoying than it should be

The Monthly Adventures #016 - "Storm Warning" by Alan Barnes

The Main Range’s original mission statement seemed to be stand-alone, classic-who adventures with familiar faces. There were a few plot threads, Seven and Ace had stories that took place one after another, Five and Nyssa referenced some previous stories they had together and Six got a whole new companion to play around with. Storm Warning is a notable story as it is the first instance of truly serialised audios, being the debut story with Paul McGann as the Eighth Doctor and India Fisher in her role as beloved companion Charley Pollard. This is the beginning of one of Big Finish’s most iconic runs, that boasts some of its most iconic stories. But every tale must have a beginning, so where did this one start?

The R101: His Majesty’s glorious airship, ready to pave the way for a new technological golden age for Britain. But there are secrets aboard the R101: spies, runaways, time lords and a mysterious passenger in Cabin 43. The voyagers of the R101 have a very deadly plan, one that could end the entire galaxy.

(CONTAINS SPOILERS)

Let’s get it out of the way, we have to talk about Charley Pollard. There is going to be a lot of stuff about Charley in the coming reviews, she is easily the most popular companion from the Main Range and possibly the most popular companion from the entire Expanded Universe, the only person I think could compete with her in terms of popularity would be Bernice Summerfield. I think Charley is… fine. I think she is on the lower end of companions from the Main Range, especially when Hex and Eveleyn are right there, but I do like her. I don’t always love India Fisher’s vocal performance but 90% of it’s fine, I just find her to not be the most narratively complex. You know the revival template that has been forced upon every companion in the last 19 years of TV? Plucky young girl that smiles whilst handing the Doctor his test tubes. She’s basically just that but from the Edwardian era rather than contemporary England, which I personally don’t love. However, I will acknowledge that Charley is great here - she has a good amount of agency, Fisher does a good job right out the gate and the story introduces her well, I feel I know the character by the end. But, Charley isn’t the only thing going on in this story, we have a whole plot to expand the British Empire via spaceships going on. The R101 is a fantastic setting: I adore the imagery of an airship on a stormy night filled with the bourgeoisie throwing back champagne to the tune of a UFO’s descent. It makes for a great atmosphere and I wildly prefer it over the spaceship we get later on, which is a lot less interesting by comparison. What also helps the sections in the airship is that we have a genuinely interesting and rather fleshed out sidecast; none of the characters felt one note and I can actually remember their names for once. And topping off our cast is of course, the Doctor, this being the first appearance of his Eighth incarnation on audio. McGann’s performance will either be brilliant or falling asleep depending on how much he likes the script but I’m glad to say he knocks out of the park for his debut, Eight immediately puts himself up there with the more popular and well known Doctors.

However, no story is perfect and this is no exception. Barnes is a writer who I have a slightly tenuous relationship with, I feel a lot of his stories can fall flat in the nuance department and Storm Warning certainly misses a few marks. Our alien race for this story - the Triskeli - are a species that have split themselves into three factions: the engineers, the intuition of the species, the uncreators, the instinct, and the lawgiver, a single Triskeli who acts as free will, turning the entire species into a construct similar to that of a brain. This idea is incredibly cool, but in the end, that’s all it ends up being. The Triskeli never feel like a real species, they never feel like an element of the world, they feel like Alan Barnes’ idea, they feel like a concept and most of the time we spend with them is exposition as to how they work. This causes most of my interest in their plotline to become tainted, as I am just not immersed by their existence. And frankly, when it comes to the climax, it’s more of an anticlimax. What happens is the uncreators trick the violent South African spy Rathbone (who has the most atrocious fake south african accent I’ve ever heard by the way) into killing the Lawgiver, allowing the uncreators to take over and wage destruction on the cosmos. They are defeated within five minutes by around twenty people shouting loudly at them because fear is an instinct or something, it doesn’t make them out to be too big of a threat and the visual is just silly. And before you condemn me as a fun sponge for saying that, I’ll have you know that the story takes it completely seriously. 20 full grown men roaring at mutated aliens is not something you play straight, but this story does and it does it a lot. The tone feels like it should be more playful, a lot of the dialogue reflects this too, which feels clunky because it seems out of place with the rest of the audio. You have colourful characters, a unique setting and a climax like that, you really should be leaning into it but Barnes doesn’t, and it makes a lot of Storm Warning feel oddly forced.

Storm Warning is the beginning of an era, one of the most important audios and the start of The Monthly Adventures’ most iconic series. A great pilot with wonderful characters and a memorable setting that mishandles the intricate parts of the script, causing an imbalance in tone and a focus on concept rather than narrative. Still, a very good time and it is only the beginning after all.

7/10

Pros:

+ Charley instantly proves herself as a companion

+ The storm-ridden airship was wonderfully evocative setting

+ McGann gives a fantastic debut audio performance

+ Well developed and interesting side-cast

Cons:

- The Triskelions felt more like an idea than a fleshed out species

- The climax left a lot to be desired

- Tonally inconsistent

- Clunky and forced dialogue

On my last re-listen to this story, I started listening to it on October 1st 2020. October 4th 2020 was the 90th anniversary of the R101 airship disaster as depicted in the story (albeit with a fair number of fictional embellishments and alterations). I’m not aware of experiencing any of the historical stories so close to the anniversary of the events depicted and, having enjoyed this story immensely – even on this, probably about the third or fourth time round – the anniversarial aspect adds a new dimension.

Listening to Storm Warning again and I was transported back to 2001. It was a heady time to be a fan of Doctor Who and, especially, of Big Finish. After a couple of years of stories featuring rotating incarnations of the 5th, 6th and 7th Doctors alongside a bunch of Bernice Summerfield audios, we suddenly had Paul McGann on board. Paul McGann. The ‘current’ Doctor. The Doctor who, up to that point, was sometimes referred to as the George Lazenby of Doctors – only having one TV outing which many saw as a failure due to it not spawning the hoped-for series (I wasn’t one of those – I loved the Movie at the time and still love it now).

And here was the 8th Doctor getting a whole four more stories (with probably more beyond that). I can distinctly remember listening to the story for the first time on the stereo in my bedroom having purchased it at a signing event at Tenth Planet involving India Fisher, Helen Goldwyn and Alan Barnes.

I spent a lot of my early twenties at Tenth Planet with my friends. Travelling up to London on the train and taking the Jubilee Line to stand in line in a shopping centre in Barking on Saturday mornings was how we hung out. A trip to the Wimpy across the road for food afterwards was a common ritual. We made friends with the owners of the shop. We would see the same fan faces each time and even made a few new friends.

India herself was already familiar to us having attended a signing for her first Big Finish appearance in Winter for the Adept. Alan Barnes had just been appointed editor of DWM. Helen Goldwyn had already been in quite a few stories and was also a familiar face at the signings. It was a friendly, fun atmosphere.

In a previous life I wrote up these little misadventures and published them on the net. I managed to find what I said about this signing and it seems that, after attending the signing we listened to the first two episode together (which wasn’t something we often did – audio listening isn’t the easiest of communal experiences unless you’re sitting in a car, I find). It also seems like we didn’t actually have the covers for the CD at this point as they had been sent by Tenth Planet to be signed by Paul McGann himself.

But what I distinctly remember is that opening sequence of the 8th Doctor in the TARDIS by himself. On that first listen is was both thrilling and slightly strange listening to McGann recreate his Doctor. I recall finding the Doctor talking to himself for a good few minutes as awkward and clunky.

This time round, I really didn’t feel that at all. I thought the opening monologue actually worked. Maybe its the 11 extra years of audio listening that’s meant I’ve become more accustomed to different styles of presenting story on audio that a bit of a character talking to themselves doesn’t jar as much as it seemed to back then. Maybe I was just enjoying the wave of nostalgia.

But, even allowing for a bit of clunkiness in this scene, the story soon rips along to the Doctor being aboard the R101 and meeting the best thing about this whole story – India Fisher’s Charlotte Pollard.

The rapport between McGann and Fisher is instant and the Doctor and Charley feel like best friends after about three lines of dialogue. Barnes’ script for the two characters is absolutely spot on. The 8th Doctor is born anew in this story. It takes the TV Movie depiction and adds new layers to him which feel natural and atuned to McGann’s performance. All the ‘played tiddlywinks with the Tzarina’ and breathless excitement is perfect and the steel he later shows when confronted by various adversaries is 100% the Doctor.

Charley is perfect companion material. Awe and wonder, no nonsense around fools, determination and an adventurous spirit are all brought to scintillating life by Fisher. I love every scene she is in and when it is with McGann it’s a positive joy to listen to. More than once I found myself smiling as the audio played, wallowing in the dynamic between them.

The rest of the cast more than match the two leads. Principal guest star, Gareth Thomas, is absolutely brilliant as Lord Tamworth. Initially painted as a gruff, aristocratic entrepreneur, he softens and grows as the story progresses and he realises his folly. His relationship with the Doctor grows and forms a mutual respect as the story progresses and his decision to join the Triskeli as a guide and adviser demonstrates a man of honour and humility which maybe wasn’t evident in the first episode but bubbled under the surface of Thomas’s performance.

Big Finish stalwarts (particularly in these early days of the company) Nicholas Pegg, Barnaby Edwards and Helen Goldwyn form the majority of the rest of the cast. Pegg is a bit of comic relief as Frayling, the designer of the R101 and Edwards chews the scenery as the villain of the piece, Rathbone. His South African accent is probably a bit broad but in audio heightened accents (yes, even slightly dodgy American ones) don’t bother me as the more distinct the voice the easier it is to follow who is who on audio. There’s nothing worse than characters sounding similar when there are no visuals to guide the listener. Helen Goldwyn is lovely as the various forms of the Triskeli trinity. She is ethereal and alien in just the right measure.

The sound design on the audio isn’t always something I comment on but something about Storm Warning really struck me and I remember it being the same on my first listens. The soundscape of the Triskelion ship makes it sound vast and cavernous and it is incredibly easy to imagine. The climactic scenes of Triskeli appearing in multitude behind the the Doctor, Frayling and Tamworth whilst they stand on a three-armed sigil is a long-lasting image I have from listening to this audio even now 11 years later. Something about the imagery in this story is very memorable and the soundscape and direction are to thank for this.

Historically, the R101 disaster did occur but this audio plays fast and loose with the facts. Mentions of the Cardington base (also featured in Zagreus) are factually correct as that is indeed where the R101 was built and launched from. But whilst the Doctor is adamant there are no survivors from the crash, there were, in fact, six people who did. None of the characters are historical figures or based on anyone.

It’s a slightly odd approach for a Doctor Who pseudo-historical, particularly one based around a specific event as, usually, Doctor Who writers delight in riffing on real people involved in real events. But I imagine that a disaster which is, just, in living memory is a sensitive topic to deal with. It’s a matter of record that families of people involved in the Titanic disaster were unhappy with various elements of the movie.

It was an absolute delight listening to this story again and I think it ranks as one of my favourite audios of all time. McGann and Fisher hit the ground running and, frankly, they don’t put a foot wrong from here until The Girl Who Never Was. They are the best Doctor/Companion pairing ‘people’ don’t know about. When Big Finish does stories as good as this, it makes me cross that there is still a group in fandom which refuse to acknowledge the audios as ‘proper’ Doctor Who. If this isn’t proper, I really don’t know what is.

Thworping through time and space, one adventure at a time!

"Storm Warning: The Return of the Eighth Doctor"

Storm Warning is a landmark release for Big Finish, marking the triumphant return of Paul McGann as the Eighth Doctor after his sole on-screen appearance in the 1996 TV Movie. As his first foray into audio drama, this story lays the foundation for what would become a defining era for his Doctor, blending character-driven drama, thrilling action, and hints of a grander narrative arc.

The opening scene immediately reintroduces McGann with energy and flair, plunging listeners into an exciting and dynamic sequence. McGann’s vibrant and passionate performance reminds us of his potential as an action-hero Doctor, fully embracing his character’s youthful charisma and adventurous spirit. His chemistry with India Fisher’s Charlotte Pollard (introduced here as Charley) is undeniable, with their quick rapport and mutual wit setting the tone for a compelling Doctor-companion duo.

Charley is more than a standard companion, introduced as a spirited Edwardian adventuress with a knack for getting into trouble. Her storyline as an anomaly in time adds a fascinating layer of complexity, hinting at larger consequences to come and prefiguring similar ideas later seen in the revived series.

The setting—a royal airship navigating treacherous skies in the 1930s—provides a richly atmospheric backdrop. The sound design is immersive, from the creaking hull of the airship to the howling storm outside, effectively pulling listeners into the tense and mysterious journey.

The guest cast adds depth to the story. Barnaby Edwards is a standout as Rathbone, while Hylton Collins, Gareth Thomas, and Helen Goldwyn bring their characters to life with memorable performances. Goldwyn’s portrayal of a larger-than-life alien voice also sets a precedent for Big Finish’s penchant for imaginative extraterrestrials.

The plot unfolds in classic Doctor Who fashion, with a blend of historical intrigue and high-concept science fiction. The Vortisaurs are an inventive addition, providing both tension and an exhilarating action set piece as the Doctor rides one through the storm. The climactic crash sequence is particularly cinematic, showcasing Big Finish’s ability to deliver high-stakes drama even without visuals.

However, the story isn’t without flaws. The early sections suffer from overly expository dialogue, with characters frequently narrating their actions and surroundings. This clunky writing can occasionally pull listeners out of the experience. Additionally, Part 3 drags slightly, feeling overstretched compared to the tighter pacing of the other episodes. The high-concept sci-fi elements in the latter half may also prove challenging to follow for some listeners.

📝Verdict: 8/10

Despite these minor issues, Storm Warning is a strong debut for the Eighth Doctor’s audio adventures. It reestablishes McGann’s Doctor with charm and energy, introduces a beloved companion, and sets the stage for a new era of Doctor Who. For fans of McGann or those looking to explore Big Finish’s take on the Doctor, this is an essential listen.

Storm Warning really hits the ground running, you’d never guess it was McGann’s first outing with BF and the instant chemistry between his Doctor and Charley is wonderful. It’s the first time (as far as I’m aware) that they set up a companion is such a personable and iconic way. She’s snuck onto he R101 and is - thanks to the doctor - the only one to survive the journey. Her time and place is then thread beautifully throughout the stories that follow, culminating in Neverland, so you get a real sense of journey over their first few adventures.

I just want to hear more and more of this duo!