Doctor Who – The Monthly Adventures

#208. The Waters of Amsterdam ~ 8/10

◆ An Introduction

Amsterdam is home to so much culture: seventy-five museums, fifty-five concert halls, and a plethora of art galleries. Its appearance in the Command & Conquer series also caused me a great deal of stress when I was younger. The final Imperial mission took place there, and the opposing factions were just relentless in their attacks!

Athena Cannons are raining orbital death on your base from the beginning, whilst the Allies wait for two Proton Colliders to fully charge up. If you don’t manage to destroy said super-weapons, just restart the mission. If that wasn’t enough to be dealing with, the Soviets turn up about halfway through the battle, and they’re armed to the hilt with Apocalypse Tanks!

Following their ordeal with a murderous lunatic from the realm of anti-matter, the Doctor and Nyssa have been reunited with Tegan. It isn’t long before her ex-boyfriend shows up… which leads to an encounter with water goblins, a renowned Dutch artist, and the creation of an alternate timeline. Oh, and did I mention that said ex-boyfriend happens to be an android?

◆ Publisher’s Summary

Reunited with the Doctor and Nyssa, Tegan joins them on a trip to Amsterdam's Rijkmuseum to see a new exhibition of the work of Rembrandt van Rijn, featuring his drawings of “Vessels of the Stars”. The Doctor is astonished to discover that they are designs for spaceships that would actually work, and decides to pop back to the Dutch Golden Age for a quiet word with Rembrandt – but the world-weary artist is no mood to help.

Meanwhile, strange forces are swirling in the canals, creatures from ancient myth, the watery, goblin-like Nix. What is their connection to the mysterious Countess Mach-Teldak – and to the events of Tegan’s life during her year away from the Doctor?

◆ The Fifth Doctor

I’m delighted that I chose to jump back into the audios with such an enjoyable little romp. Peter Davison sounds enthusiastic and full of energy throughout.

The Doctor hasn’t met Rembrandt yet. Though living a non-linear life, one can’t be entirely sure. He gets mistaken for a tour guide in the Rijksmuseum, and ends up rattling off facts about artists from the Dutch Golden Age like a Wikipedia article!

◆ Nyssa

Nyssa gets sidelined in ‘The Waters of Amsterdam’. This would usually bother me, but the character recently had a fifteen part story arc dedicated to her, so I can let it slide. Sarah Sutton still delivers a great performance.

Nyssa attempts to console a world-weary Rembrandt by telling him that his work would be highly valued and regarded in the future… but that doesn’t really help the artist now, doesn’t help with his ever mounting debts.

◆ Tegan Jovanka

Janet Fielding is afforded some excellent material in ‘The Waters of Amsterdam’. She even gets given a robot ex-boyfriend to deal with, but more on that later.

In the last twenty-four hours Tegan has seen her cousin turned into a zombie, been held hostage by an alien with a henchman which looked suspiciously like a plucked chicken, been on a wild goose chase through Amsterdam, and had her ex-boyfriend turn up out of the blue. Tegan admits that she probably wasn’t cut out to be an air stewardess; being polite to complete idiots is not really her strong point. She doesn’t dance, though she does a mean Charleston.

◆ Robot Ex

BigFinish are extremely well-known for making sure every gap in the established continuity is filled, like a plumber who got a little carried away using the expanding foam! ‘The Waters of Amsterdam’ is no exception, taking place directly after Omega’s expulsion back to his own universe at the end of ‘Arc of Infinity’. This works in Morris’s favour, allowing him to explore what Tegan actually got up to during the year she spent away from the Tardis – including getting sacked from her job as a trolley dolly, pursuing a relationship with someone who is absolutely loaded, and then kicking said boyfriend to the kerb when she realises that he’s completely lacking a backbone!

Kyle initially appears to be this fiercely attractive and charming young man, with a bank balance reaching into the millions! Managing director of his own import-export company, dealing in luxury cars, speedboats and yachts. His apartment also happened to be situated in one of the most prestigious neighbourhoods in Sydney, offering panoramic views of the bridge and the opera house. He almost appears too good to be true… and that’s because he is!

This slick entrepreneur was actually an android created by the Countess Mach-Teldak to scour the planet for other extra-terrestrial visitors. And since Tegan had picked up some harmless temporal particles whilst travelling in the Tardis, he found the perfect person to latch onto. Kyle’s whole reason for getting into a relationship with the mouth on legs herself was to gain access to the Tardis… and I’m honestly shocked that she didn’t deck him upon finding this out!

Considering what an interesting character he is, it surprises me that no writer has decided to bring back Kyle. BigFinish could definitely get some great storylines out of him.

◆ Thunder, Rain and Lightning. Danger, Water Rising.

If I were pressed to pinpoint the weakest aspect of ‘The Waters of Amsterdam’, then it would have to be the two main villains. The Nix were basically a race of goblin-like people that lived in the canals of Amsterdam, and looked almost identical to Perfect Chaos from Sonic Adventure! They lived as water-based molecules and behaved as such, meaning that they could be frozen or evaporated (hence why a fire extinguisher filled with carbon dioxide makes for a very effective weapon against them). My main issue with the Nix is that I cannot understand a word they’re saying. Instead of just adding on the water effects in post-production, the director got Robbie Stevens to sit in his booth gurgling water like his life depended on it. I’m sure that made the recording sessions incredibly fun – for everyone barn the cleaners – but it makes all of the lines absolutely incomprehensible!

As for the other main villain of this adventure, generic is the best way to describe her. The Countess is your bog-standard cackling villainess, who committed genocide against her own people and tried to blame it on the aforementioned gurgling goblins. When that lie disintegrated around her like a house of cards, she attempted to change the course of human history by getting Rembrandt to draw up spaceship blueprints because she wanted to annihilate the Nix. Her motivations are completely nonsensical and her actual plan just felt needlessly convoluted. I would expect these sort of issues from a rookie writer, not someone with a portfolio as extensive and vibrant as Jonny Morris’s.

◆ Sound Design

Trams rattle through the city as the people of Amsterdam go about their day… at least until the squelchy water monsters of death decide to gatecrash the Rijksmuseum! Martin Montague’s sound design for this release is marvellous.

The hustle and bustle of a Dutch café, and the ringing of bicycle bells as people ride along the banks of the canals. The humming of an aeroplane in flight, where Tegan gets into an argument with an arrogant businessman! Rain pouring down onto the roof of the Rijksmuseum, thunder crashing in the distance. The gurgling voices of the Nix are quite honestly rancid, like Daffy Duck with a mutated larynx! The hissing of a fire extinguisher as Kyle freezes one of the Nix. Muskets are fired at the Nix, as they attempt to access East India House.

◆ Music

Jamie Robertson is handling the score for ‘The Waters of Amsterdam’, and there is something incredibly jaunty about it. Especially during the first part of the adventure, where Tegan is basically recounting her time spent back on Terra Firma.

◆ Conclusion

“I doubt Tegan would be pleased to find out that her former boyfriend was an alien…”

Rembrandt has been drawing spaceship schematics thanks to a deranged alien countess who blew up her own race. Pursued by aliens who strongly resemble Perfect Chaos from Sonic Adventure, the Countess Mach-Teldak decides to alter the course of human history in order to blow the Nix’s world to kingdom come!

Jonathan Morris has long been revered as one of the greatest writers for Doctor Who, with his adventures consistently appearing on people’s “Top 10 Greatest Stories” lists. That might explain why it’s a real shock to the system when he creates anything less than perfect.

Whilst the adventure does tend to drag on a bit towards the end, and the villains have all the depth of a daytime talk show, I still managed to have a good time listening to ‘The Waters of Amsterdam’. It’s a fun little romp through the Venice of the North, but nothing more.

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

Previous Story: Arc of Infinity

Man it's great to have Janet Fielding on audio, especially since I was getting really tired of 5 and Nyssa alone. This is a story that understands Tegan's character perfectly and she's absolutely the stand out character in this one. The actual premise is really fun, Rembrandt is an interesting historical figure to explore and I like how they've handled him in this story. The main thing this story has going for it though is absolutely the dynamics between the main characters.

There's a lot of general timey-wimeyness in this adventure as the characters constantly zip up and down history, the parallel reality where the Dutch were the leading power in the world was also interesting (and one of the scariest things in Doctor Who, ever. /j)

Overall, just a very fun story with a solid premise and some nice fairly touching moments.

Next Story: Omega

An alien android makes Tegan listen to The Talking Heads in this one!