The Monthly Adventures #73 - "Thicker Than Water" by Paul Sutton

Arrangements for War has been a true highlight of this marathon so far: a beautifully sombre character piece with one of Who’s best cast and best endings that utterly blew me away when I last heard it. Since then, the name Paul Sutton has sparked my interest as I’ve always been hoping for something like his breakout story. Whilst nothing’s quite reached the highs of Arrangements for War just yet, there have been some gems nonetheless, not least his follow up to his debut - Thicker Than Water - though it suffers from being stuck under the shadow of its older sibling.

Many years and multiple companions later, the Doctor is returning to Világ, where he left behind his close friend Evelyn Smythe. Now married, Evelyn’s been facing opposition to a controversial research project, and things are beginning to boil over. Violently.

(CONTAINS SPOILERS)

Paul Sutton, time and time again, has proven himself to be up there with Joseph Lidster for Doctor Who’s best character writer. His ability to effectively create interpersonal, often tragic, conflict is masterful and just about always sweeps me off my feet. Arrangements for War is obviously the number one example of this but Thicker Than Water certainly doesn’t disappoint. Whilst I’ll get into specifics later, this is still a slick, stylish, emotional action adventure with a great personality and some fantastic character arcs. The pace especially elevates the script, moving everything along in a really nice way that never slows down but still leaves room for the cast to develop.

And out of the cast there are two standouts: the Doctor and Evelyn. This is Evelyn’s last story… sort of. It depicts her leaving the TARDIS in a really interesting way - as a flashback in a story with a later companion - that I feel really works. Evelyn would keep appearing for a while after this but I personally think this should’ve been her last feature, it’s an excellent send off. And yes, that includes A Death in the Family (boy, that review will be fun when we get to it). It’s really great seeing her grapple with a tough personal life, leaving the Doctor and the mental issues brought forth by this story.

The Doctor too gets a really great end to a character arc, one that has been subtly building since The Marian Conspiracy. His final conversation with Evelyn is the pièce de résistance of this audio - an immaculately scripted final touch to ninety minutes of fantastic character work. It’s these two and their performances that ground Thicker Than Water and is the real reason people should seek it out.

But I will admit, it hasn’t got as strong a cast as Arrangements for War. In fact, it’s the side characters that bring Thicker Than Water down for me. When we get down to brass tacks, this is basically its predecessor but with a less compelling central conflict. Rather than the intricate political landscape and the Romeo and Juliet notions of Kristina and Marcus’ relationship, we have a much more action focused, less nuanced plot that instead revolves around Rossiter from Arrangements for War’s daughter - Sofia. This is where things really get muddled for me because I just do not like Sofia. The audio’s not really certain on exactly whether or not we’re meant to be on her side and it also doesn’t present it as particularly morally grey. Like, she’s introduced as antagonistic towards Evelyn but then is revealed to be a lot more complex and isn’t trying to smear Evelyn out of spite. But then you get things like that moment when Mel very calmly brings up that the incredibly shady Dr. Szabó, who’s been lurking in the background of the whole audio, could be connected in some way to what’s happening, and in response Sofia immediately f**king punches her. There are just a few moments like this that feel indicative of a completely different character, especially since they’re never explored. There are elements of a more interesting person here but I just find Sofia too unlikable.

Mel’s also pretty sidelined, which is fair considering this is a story about Evelyn but she still felt like dead weight for most of the audio, mostly there to exposit or move the plot along; she was definitely shallower as a character compared to the others. The final person I really had an issue with was our main villain: Doctor Szabó. Arrangements for War didn’t really have a singular antagonist, more consisting of a number of political factions that I praised for their depth, especially in moments like when the villainous Suskind put aside his differences to stop the Killoran invasion. Here, we have a mad scientist. Sure, his performance is sinister enough but he’s treated almost like a big reveal, when he’s so obviously involved and we’re just waiting for him to implicate himself. He’s relatively one note and instead of seeing all his villainous schemes in action, we’re just explained them in a lengthy monologue at the end, which is simply disappointing. Frankly, the weasley, lovetorn Sebastian made for a more compelling adversary as a twisted subversion of the central romance of Arrangements.

The story itself is definitely not what I’d call bad, but it is somewhat of a let down after what we got last time. On its own, it’s a very by the numbers action plot with crazy genetic experiments and mad scientists but then it’s also mixed with moments of very serious political conflict and the two really struggle to mix. The actual villain's plan of using Killoran DNA as a cure-all drug belongs in a completely different story. Also, it always annoys me when an alien species is inherently violent per their DNA because it’s both unrealistic and mirrors actual world eugenics arguments.

Thicker Than Water is a very worthy successor to Arrangements for War, but it’s not an equal one. A thinner story and a less engaging cast do detract from it but it doesn’t work to destroy the sublime character arc at the heart of the story, wonderfully capping off a storyline that’s been building since the sixth entry into the Main Range. Vital to the listening order and an ultimately rewarding listen, but perhaps not the magnum opus it follows up.

7/10

Pros:

+ Paul Sutton effectively and believably writes character drama once again

+ Moves with a slick pace and some nice action

+ A really fantastic send off for Evelyn

+ Neatly completes Six’s character arc

Cons:

- Sofia is not compelling as a central character

- Mel is mostly sidelined

- Szabó is a pretty underwhelming and one note villain

- The plot is undeserving of this audio

MR 073: Thicker Than Water

Well excuse me while I just start bawling. Excuse me what. This is a proper send off for Evelyn... before we're threw her stories. I'm curious as to why we did this at this point rather than as her last story. Perhaps Maggie Stables was in poor health or something. I remember when I heard that she died and I cried, but it was later than this point in time.

Anyway, the story is about the tension between Evelyn and her step daughter Sofia. Sofia and her friend Sebastian disagree with Evelyn's ongoing research on the Killoran technology after the invasion in Arrangements for War. Evelyn has left the Doctor presumably awhile after that story, coming back because she fell in love with Rossiter. Rossiter is now the most powerful person on the planet, in charge of all three countries which have since united after the invasion. So Evelyn and Sofia are both rather high profile individuals.

Evelyn wants to study the Killoran tech while Sofia and Sebastian want to destroy it. The intro is fun with a live tv debate between them and Evelyn storms out. It's good at setting the stage for the story. Sofia then makes an off hand comment about how she wishes Evelyn were out of the way and Sebastian takes it to heart.

Meanwhile the Doctor and Mel come to visit since Mel says she'd love to meet Evelyn. The Doctor always insists that Evelyn had a calming influence on him and that he's positively mellow compared to how he started and he's not wrong. Poor Peri had to deal with the brunt of it in the horrible season 22.

Only as soon as they show up, Evelyn gets kidnapped and Mel gets dragged along. It turns out the kidnapper is Sebastian who is doing this for Sofia since he loves her. Sofia comes to the rescue with the Doctor and Rossiter himself and Sebastian gets shot.

We then learn that something is not quite right here. This is only halfway through the story after all. Sebastian gets taken to the hospital where he dies after surgery. Evelyn has been in this hospital as well for treatment for her heart condition. But she's been very aggressively of late and had massive migraines which have knocked her unconscious a couple times, including during the kidnapping.

The Doctor and Rossiter uncover a hidden lab underneath the hospital where one of the doctors, Szabo, has been experimenting on Killorans. He's been working with Sebastian, taking the Killoran DNA and putting it into coma patients to see if they recover, which they do. Evelyn was one such patient. Which is why she's been very aggressive and irritable. I'm not a big fan of the biological essentialist thing here, that this species is aggressive because of their DNA, but it's not really the focus so I'll ignore it.

Szabo was trying to create a red herring by stirring up political debate about experimenting on the Killoran technology so nobody would think about the Killorans themselves. It's pretty f**ked. And then he kills himself so he won't be put on trial. It turns out Sebastian had just kidnapped Evelyn to help Sofia, Szabo did not direct him to do that. Indeed, it led to their undoing and Szabo killed Sebastian on the operating table because of it. He even shoved Mel down a shaft when she found out what was going on.

And then we get the really sentimental stuff. The Doctor never really properly said goodbye to Evelyn when she left. Because of course he didn't. He has a hard time saying goodbye at the best of times. But now he really does get to say it as he gives Evelyn away at her vow renewal and they dance together.

There is a special cameo here, as well, where McCoy shows up and Evelyn can tell he's the Doctor. He tells her that he's traveling with Hex who is Cassie's son and how much that means to the both of them. Excuse me while I start crying. I didn't care for the Project stories, of course, but I did like the character stuff that Arrangements for War and Doctor Who and the Pirates did with them. Of course we haven't really gotten to know Hex yet. He was just in two stories so far, his introductory story and a pretty terrible one, but it's not about him so much as who he's related to.

And that's that. This was a really special coda on top of Arrangements for War. The story was very fun and really served as a good reason to get the Doctor and Evelyn back together again. I love Mel's presence in the episode as well. She has good chemistry with Evelyn and does her investigation quite well as I'd expect.

It was really sentimental at the end there. Evelyn never told the Doctor about her heart condition while the Doctor just didn't ever really want to say goodbye. They were both sentimental towards each other, but couldn't really speak their feelings towards each other. Now here they can. Evelyn starts to say her feelings and the Doctor cuts her off, but Evelyn won't hear of it. She says it anyway. She says that the Doctor means a lot to her and that she loves him. Which is really special. She's now the second companion to say she loves the Doctor, after Charley, and she really means it. This relationship is special. Rest in peace Maggie Stables. I miss your voice and your character in these stories. This is such a moving tribute to her.

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

Previous Story: Catch-1782

And finally the long awaited return of Dr Evelyn Smythe. If there was any story that deserved a sequel, it was definitely Arrangements for War and this certainly lives up to it. This story is just as intense and gripping as it's predecessor and Paul Sutton is a writer who clearly understands how to get emotion out of his audience.

The characters here are brilliant, the guest cast really bring Világ to life. From Justice Rossiter (played by the Gabriel Woolf) to the chilling Dr Szabó they're all characters whose stories you really want to hear play out, often more than the Doctor and Mel themselves. I loved the twists in this story, trying to guess who was behind it all and why was really entertaining.

The 7 cameo was interesting. He really likes to worm his way into 6 stories, this is the third time that's happened now. But overall, an excellently crafted story. No complaints.

Next Story: The Wishing Beast