The Forsaken

Love how Ben and Polly both have a story about family members in a war and feel this is a well needed Ben story

The story finds this TARDIS team in Singapore during the Japanese invasion of 1942. In a short amount of time the four of them are holed up at the local hotel alongside a squad of soldiers waiting for evacuation and the hotel owner, Maggie Bishop.

This is a fitting historical period for Ben and Polly. As ‘contemporaries’ of 1966 the war would be within living memory. Both of them could feasibly have been born during the war if we assume they are in the early to mid-twenties in The War Machines. Their parents would most definitely have lived through the conflict, probably being part of it and, indeed, The Forsaken finds Ben meeting his father as a young man and soldier.

A figure that looks like death stalks the hotel and it is soon discovered that the staff, thought fled because of the conflict and evacuation, have actually all been murdered. An alien called the Forsaken crashed in the forest and is feeding on the fear generated by the war raging across the globe. It also has the ability to temporarily take the form of others.

As an Early Adventure, this is one of Big Finish’s forays into trying to recreate an era of the show where some of the original cast are no longer with us. Initially, Big Finish did this through the Companion Chronicles where the conceit was one character telling the story. Whilst Jamie or Steven or Zoe may be telling us what the Doctor said, there was no suggestion they were ‘being’ the Doctor. With the Early Adventures, Big Finish developed the skills of actors like Frazer Hines and Peter Purves to imitate their respective Doctors and created a range of ‘full cast’ audios, albeit with some narration still intact (in this story, Anneke Wills is on narration duty). The role of Ben is filled by Elliot Chapman.

And for me, these Early Adventures can succeed or fail on my ability to convince myself I’m listening to the original cast. Chapman makes for a very good Ben, but as that really boils down to a young cockney accent it isn’t too much of a stretch. Add to that the fact that most of Michael Craze’s performances are lost and it becomes very easy to imagine Chapman is Craze.

Unfortunately, I’ve fallen a little out of love with Frazer Hines’s Troughton impersonation. In the early days it was astonishing an in the slightly heightened conceit of the narrated Companion Chronicles, worked really well. But as time has worn on, it’s become more and more apparent that Hines’s performance is a little one note. He relies almost exclusively on breathy pauses and whilst he does invoke Troughton’s voice, inevitably, he struggles to reflect Trougton’s performance. And I think Big Finish have over-relied on him. Ironically, it seems that they have realised this themselves with Hines seemingly having been retired in favour of Trougton’s son, Michael Troughton.

The Forsaken though is a good if rather slight adventure. It’s pretty straightforward and fairly obvious from the outset what’s going on. A crashed alien in the forest that feeds on fear, in a story set during World War Two isn’t hitting any particularly original beats. The squad of soldiers are a bit tricky to distinguish from each other but there are some effectively exciting scenes both in the hotel and the nearby jungle with the creature taking the form of various characters.

Sadly, the one interesting aspect – Ben meeting his father – is set up in the first episode and then more or less ignored until the final episode where it’s main contribution is a rather silly gag about Ben’s name. It’s a shame a little more couldn’t have been done with the conceit or even that Ben and his dad could have shared a few more scenes than they actually do. The whole idea is just sort of ‘there’ alongside the monster story and the two aren’t really meshed together.

Justin Richards, the writer, has delivered a story which falls into his ‘serviceable adventure’ genre. I’ve found his writing can go either way for me – a great, if traditional, Doctor Who adventure, or a by-the-numbers slightly dull ‘a to b’ plotline which doesn’t quite engage. This one definitely tips towards the unengaging end but does have some effective set pieces and good performances from the cast. The historical and geographical setting are also different enough to be interesting and Richards scatters a few elements of World War Two into the mix which haven’t featured in the marathon so far. Seeing the conflict from the point of view of combatants who are ‘escaping’ and evoking the hot jungles of the Far East contrasts with the Blitz-centred tendency to focus on the British aspect of WW2.

The horrors of the Japanese element of the war is something I’ve always been interested in as my grandfather was a prisoner of war in a Japanese camp and one of few men to survive the ordeal (apparently thanks to his first aid skills enabling him to assist the Dutch doctor in the camp). Whilst this story doesn’t even begin to touch on that part of the war, even being in that part of the world with the sort of men my grandfather probably fought alongside, adds a resonance to this story for me and a slight disappointment that Doctor Who doesn’t seem to have ventured into that world – although coupled with a thankfulness that a particularly horrific time and place isn’t in danger of being trivialised by the show. One only needs to watch shows like Tenko or the film Paradise Road to see the horror experienced by people in those camps.

But that’s not really what The Forsaken is about but, even if the story itself is a little formulaic, I’m glad it exists and acknowledges a war beyond the borders of the UK.

A fantastic story. Elliot Chapman’s Ben Jackson feels like the real thing and gives you the other half of that iconic Ben and Polly relationship that Anneke Wills truly deserves. Even today (or when this was recorded in 2015) her and Frazer sound to me exactly as they did in the 60s… and Frazer’s Doctor is as strong an approximation as you could hope for - it just *feels* right.

The writing on this one feels era appropriate but pushes the team to a location and time (Singapore during World War 2) that feels a little outside of the show’s route one comfort zone. Giving Ben a run in in the past with his much younger father is something that you’d be much more likely to see in the new series - but it’s an idea which fizzes with energy in this context. It gives the character serious development - a feat given how long Ben has been in our imaginations. Ben’s father joins an exciting guest cast - I particularly liked the hotel owner who kind offers then “a special rate”.

The “fear monster” which our TARDIS team defeat with bravery is a well worn idea in science fiction but it works beautifully in this context with these characters.