The Miniaturist

The First Doctor has been many things throughout his life, but an interdimensional negotiator is definitely something new.

The Doctor and Dodo land in Yorkshire, 2019. They find themselves at the Zechstein mine, which is famous for containing a laboratory with a geological quiet space. A place of pure silence. But…. Who’s making that humming noise?

This whole story is very reliant on the threat it contains. Some inexplicable creature is messing with reality. Making people disappear, causing strange visions and randomly teleporting objects around the city. The source is traced back to a weird shell-like fossil. While the Doctor goes to investigate, Dodo gets distracted by the visions.

And within that last sentence is both the good and the bad of this story. The Doctor’s investigation is sublime. He soon comes into contact with the transdimensional being. It’s presented in an almost eldritch horror kind of way. We can’t understand the scope of this being. At the same time, this horrifies the creature, who looks for understanding and connection.

All this leads to a conversation with the Doctor. Just him and the inexplicable. No outside world, no companions. All that’s left is him and the creature, whispering in an empty void.

It’s stunning, really. Yet also hard to explain after you’ve heard it. It’s almost ASMR-esque, but instead of relaxing, it consists of incredibly dense dialogue and loads of character. It’s fun territory to explore.

At the same time, I do feel like the soundscape around the dialogue could’ve been even better. All these conversations take place within the geological quiet space, so maybe they could’ve played with silence more, rather than the blubbering and vworping of the unknown creature. I think that would’ve made it land even harder. Truly make it feel isolated.

But the dialogue itself is perfect and, as mentioned before, really dense. I’ve listened to this story twice, because the conversation with such an ambiguous being can definitely be hard to follow. But that’s a bit of a given, considering we’re talking about the interests and wants of a being beyond comprehension. I don’t fault the story for it.

What I do fault the story for, is the use of Dodo. The creature takes the shape of an older Dodo and manipulates her to hear stories of her travels. This is also where the story’s namesake comes in, since the creature makes miniatures out of relevant details in the story, as well as from objects and people that live near the mine. It’s presented as the creature just messing around for fun. I don’t really get anything from this. It feels like it is there to give her something to do, rather than being plot relevant. It adds no new layers to Dodo or the creature and has no impact in the long run. If they needed something for Dodo to do, I would’ve preferred it if they used this time to build on her character in a meaningful way. For example, maybe she could’ve seen visions of different futures for herself. A ghost of Christmas futures, so to speak. I think that would mean more in the long run.

Don’t get me wrong, what’s there is still decent filler. But this really should not be a story that should be filled up. That distracts from the core conversation the doctor has. The tales Dodo tells have no relevance. Which turns them into distractions from the main plot, which is already packed on it own.

But “The miniaturist” does still keep its strong main appeal. A new type of connection this Doctor has never made. A friend in the unlikeliest of places. Sure, the story factors outside of that friendship kind of detract from it, but they never destroy it. Which is why it is a story I can still fully recommend. If you’re a fan of confronting the unexplained, it is absolutely unmissable. If you’re not, you still see the Doctor tested in a new way, so give it a go anyway.

One of the best Big Finish dramas I’ve heard in a fair while. I could vividly imagine how it would look on screen, the miniatures being very simple to picture. I now “get” the Noonan Doctor a lot better. It might have just taken a bit of time for his voice to click as the doctor. I felt this story was tight and compelling. I wish they’d sequenced it first in this set.