The Monthly Adventures #056 - “The Axis of Insanity" by Simon Furman

Twice in a row now we’ve had widely disliked stories that I’ve failed to see the issues with. The Axis of Insanity is fun, like really, really fun. “Insanity” is totally the right word for this, it is a cacophony of sound and absent visuals that turn into a peerlessly unique and fun story which feels like it should’ve been written for the Divergence arc - which this story is slotted between seasons of. The writer - Simon Furman - seems to be a primarily comic book author and that shows massively in the scope of this story and some of its not-so-subtle influences from a certain caped crusader’s archnemesis. A fun descent into madness with some cracking performances, what is not to love?

There is a place where chaos and instability converge - The Axis. A great equaliser keeping rogue timelines at bay. But when the Doctor and crew find themselves there, they find it tainted by a great madness, with all of time about to fall in its wake.

(CONTAINS SPOILERS)

I groaned when I read the synopsis for this story because instantly I thought it sounded so good. However, seeing as it was paired with an undesirable rating, I was prepared for some untapped nonsense keen to leave its ideas uncapitalised upon. So imagine my shock when I listened to it and it surpassed nearly all my expectations ten-fold. This is a mental story, it is a cacophony of sound and fury and dragons that I just couldn’t get enough of. Episodes that have a litany of great ideas instantly have my respect and The Axis of Insanity has one of those scripts that just won’t stop throwing new stuff at you, instantly putting it in my good books. From the bizarre, labyrinthine halls of the Axis to the dragons to the evil court jester, this is a world of surrealism and boundless creativity. The Axis itself makes for an incredible setting, a sort of Land of Fiction type affair with a bunch of overlapping realities all melded into a funhouse of universes that reminds me of something like Labyrinth, picturing this bizarre junction of possibility with all the upside-down staircases and twisting corridors of Jareth’s castle. And hell, maybe David Bowie was in the Axis too, you never know. And besides the setting, the other big thing we have to play around is our villain - the utterly mad Jarra To, who is totally not the Joker; no seriously, no parallels at all, absolutely no influence. Ok, enough with the bit, our antagonist is a camp wonder obviously inspired by the clown prince of crime, with elements of Hamill and Nicholson poking through in Hagon’s mesmerising performance. And whilst I wouldn’t dare say he matches with the greats, he gets bloody close for a Doctor Who monster of the week; his performance is utterly fantastic and by far my favourite part of this story, Hagon gives his all and it pays off. The Jester is a scary, insane and formidable foe who I can picture gloriously in my head through Hagon’s vocal efforts alone. Our other performances are pretty great too, especially from Davison; Five has always been one of my least favourite Doctors and in fact still is my least favourite Doctor from pre-2018 but in recent months I feel I’ve reappraised him. Davison turns out to be one of the most talented actors to take on the role and as I get more and more in tune with Five’s personality, which I had been foggy on beforehand, I enjoy his portrayal more and more. Especially here, battling with his Time Lord superiority and his wish to be friends with mere humans as he clearly quite painfully has to do his duty and sacrifice his life to stop Jarra To. Davison really puts his heart into this story and comes out the other end with one of his better depictions. Erimem also continues to grow on me, as she naturally becomes closer and closer with the Doctor and Peri. I really enjoy her and Peri’s friendship and stuff like her learning how to read English (though I don’t know how the chameleon circuit doesn’t just get around that) and managing to realise the Doctor isn’t the Doctor when he’s being impersonated by Jarra To, cementing her as part of the TARDIS team for good. As for other characters, we only really have one non-recurring protagonist and that’s the rather ineffectual Tog; he’s not bad and his performance is fine but he’s just not all that interesting.

One character I would like to highlight however is Peri and, whilst Nicola Bryant joins her fellow cast members with another great performance, Furman chooses to write her like an idiot for at least the first half of the story, having Peri constantly walk into the world’s most obvious traps constantly. I understand it was needed to set up stakes inside of the Axis but it feels done in such an uncharacteristic way. However, she soon recovers from this spell once we leave the Axis and get onto the third act. However, this itself becomes a problem as leaving the Axis means we stop exploring it, which I find really unfortunate. This is a very fast story and so we never really spend too long on one place, which really annoys me because it means we can never get a proper look at the Axis, briskly walking through classrooms of empty-eyed children and brightly lit Vegas casinos in the space of one scene, never stopping to explore its surroundings. Take The Mind Robber - a very similar story - for instance; that manages to both move at a highly reasonable pace and give a fantastic overview of its brilliant setting. If The Axis of Insanity simply took a little longer to bask in its worldbuilding, I think it would’ve made for a much more interesting listen. As for the main negatives people tend to bring up when criticising this story, I have to acknowledge that I think I can see why some people might dislike it. Whilst I had no problem with it, this story is a camp marvel and that is simply not to some people’s liking. And although I think it nails the tone for a majority of the story, I can admit there are moments where it goes too far. For instance, Jarra To’s true form, played rather passionately by Liza Ross, leans way to far into the eccentricities of the character and whilst the Jester form of Jarra To feels truly insane and macabre, Ross’ version just comes across as over the top and irritating, and it’s in her performance I glimpse the destructive flaws I failed to properly see. And if I did really have to nitpick, I’d have to say that Jarra To was defeated far too easily. It’s established that they have control over the fabric of reality, and yet is simply pushed off a cliff to their death. With some omnipotent villains, it’s established that they like to refrain from using their powers in battle as it would make the fight boring, however this is never established here so I’m just left wondering why this god of chaos allowed themselves to be even hurt.

However, The Axis of Insanity, I think, is a genuinely great hidden gem. Sure, it has its flaws, but they’re pretty much all minor nitpicks and whilst I can’t for the life of me grasp why this is so widely disliked, I understand why some people might not enjoy its ceaseless barrage of increasingly insane and singular ideas. However, for me, it’s a wildly creative, wonderfully acted and passionately made bit of Who that I can’t help but love.

8/10

Pros:

+ Utterly mad and filled with inspired ideas

+ The Axis is a fantastic setting

+ Davison gets an incredible performance

+ Erimem gets more time to shine

+ Jarra To makes for an all time great antagonist in my opinion

Cons:

- Admittedly could tone down the camp in sections

- Peri is underused

- If anything, doesn’t use its premise enough

- Jarra To, despite being an omnipotent being, is defeated somewhat easily

MR 56: The Axis of Insanity

What an apt title. I feel like I'm going insane listening to this. This is another vibes based story. But this one is more like Zagreus than Scherzo. A mix of disjointed ideas that don't really come together to make a coherent whole.

I generally dislike stories like this as well since there's rarely anything to really think about. Just random stuff thrown at you for an hour and a half. I'm definitely reminded of The Ultimate Foe, or the Star Trek Voyager episode The Thaw, about a simulated clown that kills people in the simulation. It's similar here too with a court jester villain.

We land on "the axis" which is apparently where aborted timelines that the Time Lords deem "mistakes" go to rot. Like a giant prison for entire timelines. Which is a pretty wild concept.

Only there's been a couple escapes from those timelines into the axis. As was inevitable. Mythological creatures and a crazed clown.

Personally I think the story squanders its own concept. You could have done anything with the idea of aborted timelines. This could have been a really good examination of the Doctor’s mistakes and how he buries them or something. Like his accidental genocide in Omega. But you went with throwing random set pieces at us and a clown villain. Alright then. Cool.

Theres a lot of running around being chased by the clown and evil mythological dragons, but I couldn't be bothered. It wasn't very interesting to be honest.

The closest it got to interesting was when the Doctor started talking about why the time lords did this. And how it's pretty monstrous. There are whole timelines here in the axis. That must mean there are entire universes full of billions of people who aren't technically "real." The scale is ridiculous. I guess they don't know that they're not in the primary timeline. It doesn't really matter to them.

I'm surprised that the timelines don't just cease to exist. Or the Time Lords don't just destroy them. It's also kind of hilarious that we're presented with an audio where the Fifth Doctor is being overly differential to the actions of the Time Lords when we've just gone through Neverland and Zagreus where the Time Lords are not trustworthy at all.

Unfortunately this story doesn't really do anything with Peri and Erimem either. They're a fun TARDIS team and their potential is usually squandered. Like the story itself. Erimem is sidelined for half the story while Peri is just kind of here. She does figure out how to fly the TARDIS though. So that's cool I guess.

14.07.2023

Mom says i'm a shitty knock-off Joker of no substance, but she just doesn't understand the evil trickster archetype.
Anyway, this play is just noise. Skippable if I've ever seen one. 1/5

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

Previous Story: Nekromanteia

Well it's not awful and just about anything is better than Nekromanteia but this story just doesn't do it for me. It's got really interesting vibes at the start. I pictured the Axis like various places out of time like we've seen before in stories like The Celestial Toymaker and The Mind Robber. Both Garrick Hagon and Liza Ross put in great performances as The Jester/Jarra To. They were a bit over-the-top but very fitting for the story.

I like that they're (rightfully) ignoring the last story and not acknowledging anything that happened there. Caroline Morris as Erimem is extremely entertaining here. Nicola Bryant doesn't particularly stand out other than her American accent here has grown much more convincing since her time on the show. Peter Davison gets to play a bit of a villain at one point which he excels at. Otherwise, this is the kind of story that gives me a headache but it's definitely an interesting one.

Next Story: The Roof of the World