The Monthly Adventures #067 - “Dreamtime" by Simon A. Forward

There is nothing more disappointing than when a story fumbles a good idea. Simon A. Forward’s previous story - the dull as granite The Sandman - had a fantastic concept behind it but ended up not being able to stick the landing and is to this date the most disappointed I’ve been with the premise of a story. His second attempt at the audios also happens to have a pretty neat idea surrounding it involving aboriginal legend and a ghostly city on the back on an asteroid. But Forward has already proved that he can’t operate off a good idea alone, so how is the execution of Dreamtime?

With new companion Hex aboard, the Doctor lands in the ruins of a huge city atop an asteroid, inexplicably built around an orphaned Uluru. But what is the secret of the standing stones throughout the empty city? And what exactly is the Dreaming?

(CONTAINS SPOILERS)

Something I thought Forward succeeded at before was his worldbuilding. The Galyari world of the Clutch was a detailed (if poorly conveyed) setting and the details we got about the species’ mythology and culture were by far my highlight of The Sandman. Now, looking at Dreamtime, I can once again say I am impressed by Forward’s skill at building up a setting and history. The use of aboriginal legend and imagery was an interesting and unique approach, though I can’t say whether or not it was particularly accurate given neither I nor Forward are aboriginal. However, I felt the murky, mysterious tone built up from the use of obscure mythology served greatly in building the story’s atmosphere.

And what an atmosphere that is. The central Uluru City, where our story takes place, is a wonderfully alien and surreal setting that I find is a lot more well realised than the Clutch was in The Sandman. The eerie vista of ruined buildings floating through space, populated by petrified citizens is a wonderfully evocative image that instantly had me hooked as our characters explore the desolate wasteland in the excellent first part. The story opened extremely well, nicely cluing us into an interesting mystery and introducing us to a number of characters smoothly. However I feel about the story after this, I think it's safe to call this a brilliant opener that expertly built up an atmosphere.

On top of this, I found Dreamtime to have some incredibly detailed sound design that frequently got under my skin. Especially when designing the antagonistic Dreaming - mixing a droning score and surreal aboriginal chanting - I found sound designer Steve Foxon’s audio landscape to be incredibly enthralling and even contributing greatly to a parading sense of horror, peaking in the scene when the Dreaming pretends to be the Doctor.

However, I find Simon A. Forward has a distinct problem when it comes to his stories that I feel is even worse here than in The Sandman, even if contained in a less dull story. The problem is that for all his deep, expansive ideas, Forward really doesn’t do so well at getting them across to the audience. I’ll be honest, I’m still not sure what this story was about. It flicks back and forth between past and present constantly, with intersecting timelines and paradoxes frequently being thrown together into a convoluted mess that I struggle to wrap my head around. Chief among my issues is that this script acts like I should know what the Dreaming is. Looking it up, it turns out the Dreaming is an actual aboriginal myth, which would be a cool idea to play off but Forward really doesn’t make this clear to the audience, just having every character act like it was a commonly known concept the world over.

Past the convoluted nature of the story, I think a couple of repeat problems from The Sandman rear their ugly heads. For one, pretty much the entire side cast was incredibly dull. They mostly felt like generic grunts there to pad out our numbers and deliver some handy exposition. It also didn’t help that the cast is pretty stilted all around. However, we do get the surprise return of some Galyaris, who I do find a lot more compelling but aren’t the focus of the story and whose agency is somewhat washed over by the ending. Speaking of, I find Dreamtime to be underwhelming in its conclusion. It basically boils down to the Doctor pushing some buttons until the weird traditions-made-sentient deity let's all the people it kidnapped go. Also, as I said, a minor subplot about the main Galyari trying to kill the spiritual leader holding the Dreaming back is basically just abandoned with the conclusion that Galyaris can’t attack birds so the magic guru man summons a Kookaburra into existence. It’s forced and cheapens what little tension there was before.

I also would like to address one scene that’s a little strange to me and others have pointed out, where the Doctor explains that the Dreaming attacked because the aboriginal population started betraying their traditions. All well and good except that the example the Doctor gives is that women were allowed to work in traditionally male roles. I’m going to err on the side of caution and say this could be trying to say that you should respect traditions and deculturalization is bad and not that womens’ rights cause the end of the world but it's a slightly awkward scene to sit through nonetheless. However, it’s still only one scene and doesn’t greatly impact my enjoyment or unenjoyment of the rest of the story.

Dreamtime certainly wasn’t as painfully dull and wasted as The Sandman was, but it shared in having convoluted ideas and a derivative cast of characters. However, it surpasses its predecessor with a far improved atmosphere and setting, both of which are wonderfully explored throughout the course of a somewhat mundane plot. Do I wish Forward had another attempt at writing for the Main Range? Maybe. He’s a man with some great ideas and a real skill at atmospheric worldbuilding and I could see one of his scripts being truly great if he put some work into clearing up his complex ideas a little.

6/10

Pros:

+ Great world building

+ Fantastic setting

+ Excellent first part

+ Good at building atmosphere

+ Wonderful sound design

Cons:

- Struggles to get its ideas across

- I honestly don’t know what happened in this story

- The ending felt rushed

- Poor cast

The Monthly Adventures #066 - “The Game" by Darin Henry

What in the everloving f**k did I just listen to? What the actual hell was that? Why does this have 3.36/5? Is everybody f**king with me? Is this all some big prank? People can’t think this is good! I mean, The Game is not just a travesty of scriptwriting, it is a travesty of being, a microcosm of all the things wrong with this repugnant thing we call a “society”, a leviathan of fault, a hydra of mistake and woe! Ok, I’m overreacting, but this story was really bad and I have absolutely no idea why it seems to be relatively well received. I even saw somebody describe it as “nuanced”. We must have listened to different stories. Before The Game came along, my absolute least favourite Monthly Adventure was Winter for the Adept, an absolute trash fire with painfully bad dialogue, cartoonish characters, random plot points shoved in for no reason, a villain who we were told was threatening more often than they actually were and Five and Nyssa, coincidentally, as the TARDIS team. The Game is like that, but without the enjoyment factor of a hilariously bad script. I went back and forth on the rating but I eventually realised that I have literally nothing I can genuinely say I enjoyed about The Game, and so here it is folks, my marathon’s very first 1/10!

On Cray, anybody can play Naxy. A war that has long ago evolved into something even deadlier, the great game of Naxy is the planet’s bloody pastime. But as peace negotiations to end the slaughter begin, the Doctor arrives, and with him shadowy figures who want The Game to never end…

(CONTAINS SPOILERS)

Jesus Christ, where do I even begin? Maybe with the fact that I liked two scenes in this entire story: the commentator narrating his own death was the only time this story felt like genuine satire and Carlisle dying is good out of context of the rest of this dumpster fire even if only because of the actors in it. There, those are my positives. I can’t even use my usual fall back of “it had some good ideas” because, whilst this had a few OK concepts, it managed to screw all of them up.

Let’s start with the big one: a war that has turned into a sport. Good idea on paper, hell, I can even imagine that as a short story in an old vintage sci-fi collection, a K. Dick or Bradbury stint. It’s definitely a good idea on paper. “On paper” being the important part of that sentence. The game of Naxy is quite literally hundreds of people running onto a field and killing each other with spears. Ok, not the most inspired idea but the writer could still spin some abject horror from the sheer, mindless violence of it all. Or, he could just have the characters tell us how horrible it is and then have the scenes presented with the levity of a particularly rowdy football match, which he does.

My main problem with this story is the melodrama, I have never seen anything this blatantly unsubtle before in my life. Move over Chibnall, I have a new idol of tell-don’t-show to rag on. Not one single moment of this story is conveyed naturally to us, even moments that don’t need to be. The dialogue is astoundingly horrendous. Every time Henry attempts some kind of irony or satire, he just has to have a character, with over dramatic tears in their eyes explain to us why that is bad and we should be shocked. There’s a scene in the second part where a character spontaneously bursts into tears without warning and literally says how horrible and disturbing Naxy is. And then we get onto the point, of which there is none. A planet treating war like sport is positively ripe for some biting political satire; not the subtlest approach, sure, but violence on the battlefield merged with football culture is a neat idea, if only Henry tried. This audio isn’t saying anything, there isn’t a single nuanced thought about the nature of war or violence or why we commit it anywhere. The deepest meaning I can pull from The Game is that murder is bad. I agree, but like, come on, do better. 

Not to mention that this storyline is dropped halfway through - about a hundred moments of heavy handed allegory in, it suddenly decides to change its entire story and become about a mob boss trying to steal the Doctor’s TARDIS? What? What is the moral of this story: don’t get too into football or a mafioso will come after you? Is it not a political commentary because it is definitely trying to be?

I actually have a theory about this. See, I’m about 90% sure Henry ran out material a few parts into writing The Game and so hastily came up with a new story and stapled it on. If not, then I’m just confused. Especially when we have characters like Hollis. See, Hollis is the star player for one of Naxy’s two teams. He’s built up as ego-driven, obsessed with the game and willing to do anything to win. The Doctor is eventually forced into a one on one with Hollis (in the most pathetic attempt at writing a character dilemma I have ever seen) and Part 4/6 (because this has six parts for some reason) ends with Hollis quite literally screaming “prepare to die!”. How does the Doctor get out of this? Well, apparently, it’s because Hollis immediately drops all prior characterisation in this exact moment and decides that murder is bad actually, making an impromptu speech about how Naxy needs to end. And then a bunch of dog men invade the arena. Can you tell why I think Henry ran out of ideas here?

Not to mention Hollis then suddenly becomes a main character, despite being introduced by very creepily hitting on Nyssa. Yeah, I’m also not sure what Henry’s intentions were there because, whilst he makes multiple references to the subjugation of women on Naxy, he also has his two female characters constantly teary-eyed or falling for objectively terrible people. Granted the second one is because the villain has magic sex hormones, which is incredibly disturbing and rapey and rubs me the wrong way put in this story of all things.

You know what, let's talk about the antagonist because he might just be the worst character I’ve seen in a Doctor Who story. Morian is the aforementioned mob boss who comes out of nowhere four parts into this story and I hate him. This is the least threatening human being I have ever seen and we’re constantly told about how evil and villainous he is. It also doesn’t help that he has a cartoonish villain plan involving canine henchmen and trying to steal the Doctor’s TARDIS, all of which he explains in full to the Doctor most likely whilst twiddling his moustache. Add on the frankly unnecessary implication that he’s a rapist and he is an uncomfortably bad intrusion who I was never once afraid of.

Eventually, it all comes to a merciful end but that is no less muddled. Carlisle, a character I haven’t really talked about and don’t really care about (played for some god forsaken reason by the late William Russell) dies and Morian is quite easily defeated by, lets see here, the combined camaraderie of the Naxy players. I’m sorry? So, all that murderous sport was… good, actually, and unified the planet in the end? I ask once again, what the hell is this story meant to be telling me? They then try to set up Morian as a returning villain and I have never been happier that a story never happened. Anyway, everybody is friends now magically and they pat each other on the backs and the Doctor and Nyssa f**k off to somewhere else, yipee.

The Game is a story that tired me. That’s all it did, the dialogue was unbearable, as were the characters. It shouted at me about things it didn’t have to say, deceived me on what it was even meant to be about and forced me through a maelstrom of conflicting plot lines and motivations and that’s without having the time or space (heh) to write out 100% of my thoughts. I hated The Game and yet can not see that hate reciprocated nearly anywhere. I have looked on TARDIS Guide, I have looked on the Site that Shall Not be Named, I can not find a negative review for this and I have to ask why, I have to know what others see in it because for all intents and purposes, The Game has to be one of the worst stories I’ve ever had to sit through.

1/10

Pros:

+ I liked a total of two scenes in this entire thing

Cons (oh boy here we go):

- Painfully unsubtle and melodramatic

- Absolutely fails in writing analogy and satire

- Shoves in numerous plot points without any cohesion.

- Every character is annoying. Every. Single. One.

- Completely changes the story halfway through

- Has possibly the worst antagonist I have ever seen in a Doctor Who script

- Nyssa’s role seems to be relegated to tearfully explaining the plot to the audience

- Half the cast is stilted

- Characters have complete 180° shifts for no reason

- I honestly can’t tell if this writer is a feminist or a misogynist

- Atrocious dialogue

- Muddled ending that didn’t know what it wanted to say

The Monthly Adventures #065 - “The Juggernauts" by Scott Alan Woodard

Is there a greater task for a Doctor Who writer than writing an interesting Dalek story? Possibly not. If I’m being honest, the show needs to retire these things, send them out with a bang, not a one season absence gimmick. But why? These things are the literal reason the show still runs today, why would I want rid of them? Because at this point, every Dalek story has been written. Short of some dreadfully dull twist such as “It’s the Daleks, but in Groundhog Day!” or “It’s the Daleks, but in Fantastic Voyage!”, we’ve pretty much seen every facet of these things and their creator. Now, what we're left with is a sea of identical beings, every Dalek-centric episode stagnating in just-alright territory with little to set them apart. This was my main problem with The Juggernauts because, once I’d finished it, all I could think of was why there was any reason to listen to it.

Stranded after a crash, Mel takes up work in remote scientific colony, Lethe, whilst she waits for the Doctor to rescue her. However, the Time Lord has his own agenda; forced to work with the Daleks, the Doctor arrives on Lethe with the intention of facing down Mel’s new boss: Davros.

(CONTAINS SPOILERS)

The Juggernauts is one of those stories that I find endlessly annoying to review because what I have to say on it isn’t much. It falls through the cracks and I could probably sum up the majority of my thoughts in a sentence. However, I will try to spin something out of this, beginning with perhaps my biggest takeaway - Terry Molloy. Molloy is always fantastic, Davros (the story, not the character) can attest to that, but he’s absolutely carrying this story on his shoulders. Great both as the cruel and twisted Davros and the kindly Professor Vaso, you can tell exactly how ranged Molloy is here and every scene between him and Baker was a delight. I also love stories that don’t skimp on his cruelty and the scene where he murders an entire room of executives in order to aid his master plan was fantastic.

As for the story itself, I’ll get onto why it’s nothing to write home about but I should mention Woodard’s style here, which I found highly enjoyable. For as much as I think this story is nothing special, Woodard injects an energetic, quick-witted and altogether very mature stylishness into the story that at least makes it not as great a chore as it could’ve been. However, this is mostly carried by our lead performers Bonnie Langford, who’s always a delight, and the forever indomitable Colin Baker. They’re both fantastic here but especially Mel, who gets some, if not exemplary, decent character work done that I did appreciate, along with the amount of agency she had in the story.

However, the script itself is where the audio begins to struggle because I am simply not impressed by what I’ve got. The thing that jumps out to me immediately is just how awfully paced this thing is. It began somewhat strongly, with a small timeskip and Mel having integrated herself into this colony - it was an interesting set up the story could’ve masterfully built off of, especially with the reveal that her boss is a disguised Davros. Think about it: the tension as Davros tries not to be revealed, Mel struggling with having to let go of the friendships she made, that horrible feeling of a good life falling apart the inevitable become inevitable. And that is what we get, for the first half at least before the story goes from 0 to 100, this is all mostly dropped and we’re left with subpar Dalek shenanigans instead. There’s very little build up to this change in tone and it honestly feels like two different stories. Once the Doctor shows up, Davros doesn’t even try to hide who he is and everything begins all at once in a truly unsatisfying way.

It also doesn’t help that the sidecast is this dull - there is an attempt at playing off of the relationships Mel has formed in the three months she’s been away from the Doctor but unfortunately that relationship is with Geoff, who has uncharacteristically terrible dialogue for this story and is lumped with a very stilted performance. Other than that, the other character came and went; there was some interesting stuff with substance-abusing, cowardly suit Kryson but his storyline didn’t really go anywhere. For a story so reliant on its characters, it really struggles to give anybody for our main duo to play off besides Davros.

But that’s not why I think The Juggernauts is something to sleep on, no, my biggest problem with The Juggernauts is that it is categorically, unequivocally, astoundingly generic. It is formula to the max, everything here is in other, better Dalek stories. We literally just had a Davros/Six story that is a thousand times better and we’re about to get an Eight/Davros story that is a million times better, so really, what was the point of this audio? The Daleks feel like a generic robotic bad guy, the mechanoids are interchangeable and used purely as plot devices, the Daleks working with the Doctor are not followed through on, Davros wanting to change has already been done. The Juggernauts falls into the common trap of just rewriting better Dalek stories into something more derivative and for that, I can not bring myself to recommend this story.

I feel sorry for The Juggernauts. It was doomed from the beginning by its nature,  a fool’s errand that resulted in exactly what it was. It’s not offensive, it’s not embarrassing, hell, it’s not that boring, but when you get a story that feels like a worse version of other episodes, I find little point to it all.

6/10

Pros:

+ Yet another fantastic performance from Terry Molloy

+ The style is quick and witty

+ Brilliant performances from Langford and Baker

+ Gave Mel some great characterisation

Cons:

- Horribly paced

- Generic and derivative story that didn’t expand on the ideas it had

- Dull and often irritating sidecast

The Monthly Adventures #064 - “The Next Life" by Gary Russell & Alan Barnes

The Divergence Arc was a very strange thing. This little island in the world of post-Zagreus Main Range that never really felt wholly unique or worthy of its runtime. Apparently, this arc was meant to go on for far longer than it did and judging by how hard they struggled to make it work, I don’t know if I’m relieved or disappointed they didn’t give it another shot. Either way, it all ended up here: The Next Life. An intimidatingly long finale that has to wrap up the poorly conceived threads of the Divergence Arc? It was certainly not dealt a good hand, but it's how you use the cards I suppose. So, does The Next Life work as a satisfying conclusion? Let’s see.

Finally reunited with his TARDIS, the Doctor is quickly thrown off course again when he and his companions are stranded on a mysterious planet central to the Divergent Universe’s mythology - a world where great evils lie and the secret of time is kept.

(CONTAINS SPOILERS)

Was there really any possibility the Divergence Arc would end well? In reality, I don’t think The Next Life is quite as bad as I’m going to make it out to be, it tries some neat things and there’s probably worse stuff in other, similar stories but it’s just too incompetent for me to care. Also, it’s three hours long, which, without the innate zaniness of Zagreus helping it, just makes it a slog to get through. Firstly, I should probably say that it functions well enough as a closer to the Divergence; for a season so poorly communicated and held together, The Next Life actually does manage to bring it to a head with all mysteries decently explained and concluded, the nature of the “timeless universe” finally revealed to us as… not timeless. Granted, the explanation of a universe that constantly repeats and loops is interesting but it isn’t what we were promised and was explored better in The Last (which didn’t even explore it that well in the first place).

As for the story itself, there’s very little to write home about but I will say that the setting and central mystery, regarding the nature of the planet that ends the universe’s loop is enough to keep the story moving and is even relatively creepy at times, especially during the explanation that keeps flipping between narrators (the most ambitious this audio ever gets). It’s not much but as a foundational (heh.) element to build off of, it does well.

Which is where we run into a problem. The Next Life is a story that really does nothing for me, in nearly every way. You know it’s a stinker when the only positives I can pull out of the air are could’ve-beens. I guess I should start with my main issue which is that The Next Life is booooring. It’s so unbelievably f**king boring, three hours of derivative mess with abysmal pacing that never seems to be trying anything interesting. We have a point A and a point B and Russel & Barnes spend the next six parts just trying to fill the void. Whilst The Creed of the Kromon is certainly more lacking in ideas, that at least had some charm and fun characters to pull you through but here, everything is fundamentally disappointing.

For one, every character is insufferable; yes, even our mains. Charley and C’rizz spend the entire audio squabbling because of some basic manipulation from Rassilon (it’s predictable, contrived, annoying and doesn’t go anywhere) and every side character begins slipping into melodrama the more the story goes on. Especially Charley, I have to say, who acts ridiculously out of character here, being childish and selfish without any of the charm or personality that makes her so likeable, which is very weird coming from the guy who created her. And C’rizz isn’t much better, flip-flopping between alliances inelegantly, made out to be an idiot and easily manipulated. I hate that these two are so forcibly at each other’s throats because their dynamic has to be my favourite part of this arc. 

As for our villains, all of them fail as interesting antagonists. We have no less than four threats here and each fizzle out for their own special reasons. C’rizz’s father is barely a presence and is only there to create a little more unnecessary drama between characters before being killed off. Keep and (especially) Perfection are just a chore to listen to, overacting pushed to the extreme in a way that makes both a complete joke instead of genuine threats, even with the mad-hat reveal that the former is Eight and Charley after getting merged in Scherzo. Rassilon is the only real character here who may be considered genuinely formidable but he’s quickly made a joke and sidelined when the script gets bored with him - it’s an embarrassing checklist of poorly done characters that really should’ve been cut down to a single antagonist.

Eventually, we get to our big climactic moment and it is, unsurprisingly, a let down. The Divergence was actually just Keep (sort of) and the universe is just going to reset again. Some basic and slightly dull shenanigans ensue, some interesting ideas are thrown around but not explored and the Doctor, Charley and C’rizz escape, but not before one of the hokiest emotional moments I’ve ever sat through. Our main trio literally stops the story to go “but we need to be friends again!” and then air out their differences in a scene containing all the tact of a Disney channel show. It’s very funny to me that Russell & Barnes wrote a completely unnecessary conflict and then couldn’t find an organic way to get out of it, so just had the characters literally explain their emotional arcs to the listener until we were back at status quo. It’s an incredibly disappointing end to this run and just leaves me mentally exhausted.

The Next Life was nothing special. However, it was nothing special for 180 minutes. Adding the fact that it was a season finale and this is a complete let down, with a by-the-numbers script stretched to infinity, poor character development and no less than four terrible villains. I am glad the Divergence Arc is over, the writers were clearly floundering and the well had run dry, but I’m also sad to see it end on such a dower note, especially when it contains a couple favourites of mine. Oh well, I’ll probably forget The Next Life in a week anyway, it’s one of those stories.

4/10

Pros:

+ Manages to somewhat conclude the loose, undefined plot threads running through the arc

+ Decently creepy and intriguing mystery

+ Tries to explore the mechanics of the Timeless Universe in an interesting way

Cons:

- Unnecessarily long and poorly paced

- Every villain was ineffective and each got progressively more insufferable as it went on

- Horribly generic and derivative script

- The jealous spats between Charley and C’rizz/Perfection are predictably annoying

- The whole first act is somewhat pointless

- Muddled and poor conclusion

- Poor characterisation and dialogue choices

The Monthly Adventures #063 - “Caerdroia" by Lloyd Rose

I think pretty much everybody agrees that the Divergence Arc was wasted. Not only was the base concept of “a universe without time” thrown away in favour of “nobody knows what the word for time is” but every entry bar Scherzo seemed to have nothing in the way of experimentation like the series once promised, a whole, new universe relegated to some, if tolerable, by-the-numbers episodes with really only a couple exceptions: Scherzo in every way, The Natural History of Fear in formula and now, Caerdroia in setting. A pick and mix of various companions’ home mythologies, what is that sets the creatively prolific Caerdroia above its fellow entries of the Divergence Saga?

Finally on the track of the TARDIS, the Doctor forces the group’s omniscient warden - The Kro’ka - to tell them the location of his lost time ship. It’s answer? The mythical world of Caerdroia.

(CONTAINS SPOILERS)

This type of story is exactly what the Divergence Saga needed. Tonally and narratively unique with a brilliant cast and a plethora of fantastic ideas all working together in a new and unseen way, this is the closest we get to what was promised after Scherzo. It’s a real shame Lloyd Rose hasn’t written more because she’s fantastic here. There is such an interesting voice to this story that manages to feel both realistic and endlessly witty, most reflected in the absolutely fantastic whip-smart dialogue that blazes along the story at a hundred miles an hour, nailing every character. I don’t think I’ve commented on it yet but I love the dynamic between Charley and C’rizz, I think Fisher and Westmaas’ chemistry is often understated and Rose breathes life into them like no other.

As for our other characters, we have McGann giving the performance of a lifetime as three different versions of the Doctor, split apart into separate facets of his identity: the logical, the ruthless and the whimsical. Not only is it a nice exploration of the character highlighted by Rose writing each to suitably feel like the Doctor whilst still being different, but McGann goes from one of his worst performances to one of his absolute best. He was clearly having so much fun with this and masterfully acted out each version of himself in a way where I was never confused as to who was speaking despite them all being voiced by the same person, an astounding feat I’m still struggling to wrap my head around. I had a smile from ear to ear the whole time he was speaking and mostly because I’m sure he did too.

As for plot, it spends a good amount of time exploring the location of Caerdroia and a good thing too because this is a magnificent world we’ve been dropped into. An amalgam of elements drawn from our travellers’ heads sitting atop a winding labyrinth, exploring the quirks and oddities of this realm, like a town hall with a million departments for every little inconvenience, to a cuckoo clock with no hands that plunges into the earth, it’s joyous listening to everything Rose has got to give us. As for conflict, our main antagonist this time around is the Kro’ka, who’s been lurking in the background of the Divergence Arc up until now, finally coming to the forefront as a wonderfully hateable bagman for our mysterious puppet masters, going from smug godlike being to snivelling and petty in a wonderful turning of the tables.

However, for as much fun as this audio is, it’s not without its flaws. For one, the second half is a lot worse than the first for me. We leave behind the exploration for instead, a pretty straight forward plot that leaves the characters running in circles until it eventually meanders towards the end. The pacing, notably, is a lot worse here, Part Three being strangely short and consisting of mostly talking whilst Part Four is nearly double its length. Characters get introduced and dropped, meaningless realisations are made and the final confrontation - of the cold, calculating side of the Doctor confronting the Kro'ka - wasn’t all that exciting. Especially when it ends with the Doctor very easily finding the TARDIS after searching for it the last six episodes, this final moment done in a way that really did not justify all the build up. It’s not terrible, but it's enough to put a damper on the story.

Despite struggling towards the end, Caerdroia is an amazing audio that I never hear enough about. With an electric script and a cast giving some of their best performances, this is a riot that absolutely lives up to everything the Divergence Arc should’ve been. And now, with one unnecessarily long audio to go, we are moments away from finishing the Divergence and moving onto admittedly bigger and better things.

9/10

Pros:

+ Absolute creative wildfire

+ Easily one of McGann’s best performances

+ Incredible and witty dialogue

+ A stand out setting

+ The Kro’ka in an antagonistic role works wonderfully

Cons:

- Loses pacing in the second half

- Somewhat anticlimactic

The Monthly Adventures #062 - “The Last" by Gary Hopkins

The word “boring” gets thrown around a lot with the audios. With only one sense carrying them, it is incredibly easy to leave little for the audience and end up with something dull and repetitive, especially if the listener is the one having to introduce visuals to keep a story interesting. It is also a word I have used often and have seen given to The Last. However, I find myself disagreeing heavily with the last point despite this audio’s 150 minute runtime. So what is it about The Last that keeps me so thoroughly engaged?

The world of Bortresoye is a barren ruin, wasted by war with its leader ignorant and slowly going insane a mile underground. When our travellers arrive, tragedy soon befalls them and they find themselves faced by survivors, ghosts and the planet itself.

(CONTAINS SPOILERS)

I find that even in a very long story, there is something that can carry me through: atmosphere. A good atmosphere can elevate a story from a bog-standard sci-fi caper to an enrapturing epic and The Last especially relies heavily on its tone. This story is capital-B Bleak, it is a never ending torrent of lonely misery in one of the best executed end-of-days stories I’ve seen out of Doctor Who. From the sound design recreating a nuclear winter to the believable whittling down of our main cast, this story by the end makes you feel like the last person left alive in the world. And speaking of the world, the ruined, empty planet of Bortresoye is fantastically realised and contributes greatly to the aforementioned atmosphere. Everything from the remnants of society, to the buildings turned to glass by nuclear warfare to the mile deep bunker full of disturbed and nasty politicians is wonderful worldbuilding and by far my favourite part of this audio as just existing in it and basking in the melancholia of it all.

As for the story, I find it can be a little too long in places - especially in the first part - but it doesn’t drag too much. Still, thirty minutes could have easily been cut out. And despite this, it still manages to be incredibly tense at points. Whilst it may only be temporary, Charley’s paralysis lends a lot to this tension and the focus on C’rizz makes for some nice character work, as he’s paired with ghost of former Bortresoye citizen Requiem and is forced to confront the horrors that have befallen the planet. Westmaas also has some of his best moments here, including a standout one when he discovers Charley’s been murdered by the insane Excelsior and cries out in painfully believable anguish; the bond between our two companions is really cemented here in a brilliantly intimate way. And as we’ve spoken of our main antagonist, played delightfully by Carolyn Jones, let me just say she is easily the best character here. A genuinely chilling performance that effectively sells the cold cruelty of a thoroughly deranged person, she is one of the scariest villains I’ve seen in a Doctor Who story in a while and Jones chews the scenery of every moment she’s in, from her opening speech to her harrowing death scene.

As for the rest of our cast - it wavers. The couple politicians we get lumped with are pretty bare in character and mostly just serve as plot devices to bounce off the other characters before getting killed off and, whilst ghostly soul of the planet Landscar is more interesting of a character, he unfortunately gets little screen time. And as for our main character, boy oh boy is it obvious McGann did not like this script. This is the most bored I have seen a man whose friends have all just died. McGann is, unfortunately, not giving it 100% here and sleepwalking through a lot of his lines, especially at the climax, which is a shame but not unforgivable.

And speaking of the climax, this is where things get complicated. I’m in two minds about the final reveal: one, I love the concept of an intelligent planet looping its history until its population finally decide not to cause Armageddon out of stupidity but on the other hand it is a big friendly button resetting the whole adventure and downplaying pretty much all the emotional beats of the past two and a half hours. Plus, it’s all conveyed pretty poorly and ends up convoluted. However, that final “oh, what the hell” as the Doctor sets off a nuclear warhead was a fun final moment to leave the story on (if you ignore that kind of hokey “it was all okay in the end” bit afterwards).

Seeped in a bleak and desperate atmosphere, The Last is a suitably lonely story that really sits with you after having finished it and leaves you thinking. It could be cut down a little here and there and I think it was probably a couple drafts off perfection but as it stands, this is an underrated little gem with a couple amazing performances, a fantastic villain and a palpable atmosphere.

8/10

Pros:

+ Incredibly bleak and effective tone

+ Carolyn Jones dominates every scene she’s in

+ The ruined world of Bortresoye was a stunningly evocative setting

+ The concept of a planet looping its destruction until its saved is great

+ Gives C’rizz some excellent character work

Cons:

- Most of sidecast is filler

- McGann is so clearly bored by the story

- The story’s a little bloated in places

- The ending was mostly a copout

The Monthly Adventures #061 - “Faith Stealer" by Graham Duff

The Divergent Arc could’ve been great, it really could. It surprises me because less than ten audios before the series’ debut, Big Finish was releasing stuff like Flip-Flop and Creatures of Beauty on a bimonthly basis and yet we end up lumped with some of the most generic Doctor Who stories when it comes time to dedicate ourselves to the weird and the new. Faith Stealer is a good story, undoubtedly, but it could’ve come from anywhere, any era and from anyone, which, frankly, I think defeats the whole purpose of the Divergence. However, it still boasts some fantastic ideas. A great setting but still no acknowledgement to the nonexistence of time, is Faith Stealer worthy of praise despite its involvement in Doctor Who’s most disappointing arc?

The Multihaven: a nexus point of faiths and worships, where everything from fanatics to religious tourists go to pray. Arriving in the hallowed city, the Doctor, Charley and C’rizz hope to escape their recent string of bad luck, only to run into a new faith that’s recruiting just a little too fast.

(CONTAINS SPOILERS)

I’ve heard other reviewers compare this story to Terry Pratchett’s series Discworld before and, whilst I have yet to dive into that gargantuan (41 bloody books) series, I am familiar with that Pythonesque brand of British humour adopted by the likes of Douglas Adams and, on this occasion, Graham Duff. Duff is not a name I’ve heard before and, unfortunately, that’s because this is his only script - something I find disappointing because Faith Stealer has a genuinely fantastic sense of humour to it. It’s quick, it’s witty, it’s charming and it’s fun. Humour on audio can often be really hard to sit through but this is subtle enough to just provide a nice tone rather than try and make the whole script a bad comedy. Not only that but it nails our characters; we really needed Eight and Charley to get on again after The Twilight Kingdom tried and failed to give them some tension and Faith Stealer delivered. And as for C’rizz, I don’t love the stuff they do with him, it certainly feels in character.

As for the rest of our cast, I think they all do a great job. Laan Carder is an excellent villain with a steely, sinister air about him, the Bordinan is a wonderfully curt equaliser in the chaos and as for all the minor characters that come and go one after the other, all felt decently real and were entertaining. It’s not all-time great (I probably won’t remember many names) but it’s a good helping of side characters. 

The Multihaven itself is a wonderful idea and brilliantly creative locale. For all this story could’ve done with format to make it more unique, the individual ideas within the script work tremendously. Chief among them is our setting but you also have all the hints of different religions occupying the space, such as one that worships paper or one that worships accidents. Each bit of information we get about the world is delightful and I only wish we got more of it.

However, Faith Stealer begins to struggle when it comes to plot. The biggest problem here is pacing, this story feels weird to me, a little misshapen, nothing hits quite as it should and I think it’s because Duff doesn’t know how to control the rate of his script. It’s too fast when it needs to slow down, when it should pick up the pace, it crawls to a standstill. This makes the whole thing very stop-start and the audio becomes a somewhat clunky listen because of that. The Lucidians’ rise to power feels too quick, character arcs happen too conveniently, everything is allocated the wrong amount of spotlight. On top of this, we’re practically being smothered by subplots here. Very often, Faith Stealer feels more like a collection of tangents than a real story, and very few of those tangents lead anywhere. Concepts and ideas will come and go, characters will be introduced and then disappear. A whole church is overthrown and simply never appears again, the TARDIS materialises before the Doctor and Charley and blows up but is then revealed to have been an unnecessary hallucination, C’rizz is mind controlled, tries to kill Charley, is miraculously better by the beginning of the next part and then does a second heel turn in the climax for quite literally no reason, his threat extinguished as our other leads defeat the antagonist in the background.

And that’s another thing, the resolution is pretty weak here. I like the idea of defeating a god by making its prophet have a crisis of faith but it’s over too quickly and leaves little impression. As for Carder’s one-dimensional assistant’s mission that’s quickly interrupted by C’rizz, it has little to no bearing on anything and feels like padding, especially when there’s a forced emotional moment of her becoming the new Bordinan. Really, the thing Faith Stealer needed was more time; more time to explore the Multihaven, more time to discover this culture, more time to build on characters and grow a creeping sense of dread. Everything moves too fast except for the bits that need a little oomf and it makes the whole thing feel narratively lopsided.

Faith Stealer is a quaint but wholly enjoyable story with a great helping of wit but little in the way of script. Missing the vital qualities it needed to really pop, we’re left with a good if imperfect runaround that disappears quite pleasantly into the fuzz of this era of the Main Range. The Divergent Arc still refuses to play with concept past time not being a word in this universe, which is a stretch from it not existing entirely, but it does have some hidden gems here and there.

7/10

Pros:

+ Fantastic tone and humour

+ The Multihaven is a fantastic setting

+ Enjoyable sidecast with a fun villain

+ Brimming with a really unique brand of creativity

Cons:

- Has a weird, stop-start pace

- Contains a number of subplots that go nowhere

- The final resolution is unsatisfying

- Could’ve used more runtime

The Monthly Adventures #060 - “Medicinal Purposes" by Robert Ross

The 2000s were, let's say, a different time. A time when more things were acceptable, when attitudes were far less caring for one’s fellow man. Thankfully, things have changed since then but by golly has the time’s media not aged well. Medicinal Purposes is in poor taste for a number of reasons;  on top of everything, it's not very good, but it also just so happens to fundamentally misunderstand our main characters in a remarkably baffling way. Face to face with a pair of infamous body snatchers, what does our hero do? Congratulate them, apparently. 

Arriving in misty 1820s Edinburgh, the Doctor and Evelyn become wrapped up in the story of Burke and Hare, two graverobbers working for the enigmatic Dr. Knox - a man with knowledge beyond this world.

(CONTAINS SPOILERS)

Where do I even start with this story? It’s one of those beasts where it just feels like a list of bad moves on the writer’s part -  and this is supposed to be one of Robert Ross’ better stories! I guess I’ll begin with the main positive takeaway I had, which was Leslie Phillips as this audio’s antagonist - Dr. Knox. Knox is not a great character, he is a moustache twirling villain who rants about his evil plans to himself and sits down to talk his machinations over with our hero. He is a manual on how to write a disappointing antagonist. But god dammit does Phillips pull this pantomime character out of the depths of hell and make him a good time to listen to. Phillips manages to carry Knox with a decidedly humorous undertone, fully leaning into the ridiculous bravado of a Bondesque bad guy and making his scenes by far and away the best of the audio. It’s not good, but compared to the rest of this s**t show, it’s a blessing. Which is a shame because I genuinely like some of the stuff Ross was going for here. The idea of a galactic con man locking a historical tragedy in a time loop so he can show it off to the highest bidder is genuinely really fun and could’ve been great if somebody with half a brain wrote it. Unfortunately, it's barely capitalised on and how the “Burke and Hare Experience” works is never really outlined. It also could’ve been interesting to lean into the Doctor’s morality, what with the moral dilemma of “would you kill for science?” up in the air and this being a character who has gone from callous to kind hearted over the course of his tenure. If only the direction this throughline goes wasn’t the Doctor fully supporting and congratulating murder.

Getting into the many troughs of poor decision making present in this script, let's recap: the Doctor and Evelyn find themselves in the killing spree of graverobbers William Burke and William Hare, who murdered people on behalf of one Dr. Robert Knox for his dissections and studies of anatomy. Now, the Doctor realises this and, rather than condemn such a callous disregard for human life or perhaps way up the philosophical implications of killing to better the world, goes to shake hands with serial murderer William Hare for killing innocent people because something-something the pursuit of science. It’s a bizarre left turn for the Doctor to have and certainly not helped by the fact that Evelyn - a whip smart history lecturer - acts like an obviously doting old lady for the duration of this audio. Clearly, Ross did not understand either of these characters and so just did his own thing, making two bland and cold caricatures instead.

And then you move onto the dialogue, which practically ruins any hope of good characters in the first place. Both falling into the pit trap of trying to explain everything the listener can’t see and the pit trap of trying to be funny when you’re really not, it’s a slog to get through sometimes, especially when Ross combines the two problems and creates dull exposition bloated by poor attempts at wit. It’s not as bad as something like Winter for the Adept, but it's stilted and often overextends story beats.

However, perhaps the worst offense this audio makes is in the form of Daft Jamie, a historical victim of Burke and Hare played by none other than David Tennant, who just so happens to be a very early 2000s representation of somebody with a learning disability. Tennant certainly tries here - his performance is… energetic, to say the least - but it doesn’t save the fact that every single character treats Jamie as either an infant or an intrusion, including our leads. It's a very awkward and poorly aged mistake that makes Medicinal Purposes even harder to stomach, especially when the Doctor willingly leads him to his death at the end because of some weak web of time crap.

But, you know what? This story’s greatest sin isn’t that it’s offensive or that the characters are poor or that the dialogue is alien, it’s that it’s boring. This is a bottom of the barrel run around, a barely plotted mystery that switches between two locations with no drive, atmosphere or tension, every character barely reacting to what's going on around them and every plot reveal communicated in endlessly confusing ways that leave an overly simple story a chore to follow. Medicinal Purposes is a story that tries. It tries very hard, but is stuck with one of the worst scripts I’ve seen in a Doctor Who project, and for that I can only feel sorry for it.

It’s clear at this point that I do not like Medicinal Purposes. It has to hold every single problem I’ve ever had about a story and is only somewhat avenged because the whole cast is trying to make it work and there was a good amount of potential. What scares me though is that Robert Ross, for some reason, was invited back. And the story he wrote was Pier Pressure, which is rated far lower than this mess. I’m sure reviewing that one will be super fun.

3/10

Pros:

+ Knox was a fun villain

+ Has some great ideas

Cons:

- The Doctor and Evelyn acted massively out of character

- The dialogue was beyond atrocious

- Could barely explain its plot beats

- Oddly enough sides with the murderous bodysnatchers

- Daft Jamie was an incredibly offensive stereotype

- Dull and meandering story.

The Monthly Adventures #059 - “The Roof of the World" by Adrian Rigelsford

The TARDIS team of the Fifth Doctor, Peri and Erimem is not one I often hear talked about. And that’s no surprise really, placed in a small, one episode gap and up against such popular characters as Charley and Evelyn, this trio of adventurers never really stood a chance; couple that with the fact that their list of episodes is, on the whole, far weaker than their fellow Main Range companions and it seems the lost pharaoh was doomed from the start. I find this a terrible shame because the idea of a young woman running from an ancient throne to travel around the universe with an 80s Baltimorean and a space wizard with a penchant for cricket sounds great but these three were never really the focus. However, every once in a while, Erimem got put in the spotlight. Ancient gods are returning from the grave and the young pharaoh is at the root of it all, so without further ado, lets visit The Roof of the World.

On a trip to a remote cricket match in Tibet, the Doctor and Peri lose Erimem to an ancient and malevolent power that’s all too familiar with her. But what lies in the White Pyramid? And how does it know of Erimem of Thebes?

(CONTAINS SPOILERS)

I like Erimem, I really do, but even I can agree she’s the weakest of the original fifty’s recurring companions. Very little direction and a confused personality, paired with a sometimes decent, sometimes irritating performance from the most-definitely-not-Egyptian Caroline Morris, make Erimem often a weak link and I find that an entire story focused on her would have to do some heavy lifting to work. And boy does The Roof of the World try; for all intents and purposes, I like what Rigelsford does here. I think Part 2, purely focusing on Erimem being dragged through a series of traumatic hallucinations, was a really interesting way to build the story and a nice structural experiment but the choices surrounding Erimem in the first place I find strange. All the possibilities from having a pharaoh travel in the TARDIS are squandered by a bizarre sense of naivety that doesn’t really work. Honestly, I find Erimem to often be a lesser Leela - trying to learn of a time and place that is not her own but without the range that made Leela so enthralling. It also didn’t help that I’m often disappointed by Caroline Morris’ vocal performance, especially when she’s doing her possessed lines (what was the direction there, Kermit with a smoking addiction?).

As for story, I’m in two minds about The Roof of the World. It certainly has a lot of potential but I don’t think Rigelsford always capitalises on it. The first part especially is great: the setting is wonderful, Davison is firing on full cylinders and there’s a really good sense of atmosphere. The ominous whisperings and Erimem’s abject terror at “The White Pyramid”, along with the fantastic moment of seeing the Great Old Ones in Williams’ pictures, make this up to be a low-key horror story, built upon some good tension and ambiguity. This continues on through the second part, with the introduction of unknowable Eldritch beings as our villains and the surreal, nightmarish visions Erimem is put through. However, as the story goes on, this becomes less and less the case. It noticeably gets more generic, in the end feeling like any other Doctor Who story. The pace of the third act is nice but there’s very little tension and the choice to give unknowable alien gods personalities and voices removes any existential fear you could pull from them. If The Roof of the World had stuck to its villains being unseen “Great Old Ones”, we could’ve had something fantastic on our hands but they’re discussed without a shred of ambiguity that might leave them feeling like a threat.

In the end, we get to a climax that I find particularly dull. Near tensionless and over too soon, it mostly consists of the Doctor chatting with far too congenial ancient deities and Peri attacking a cloud with liquid nitrogen. It’s far too humdrum for this type of story though it is elevated by some particularly good sound design. I don’t know if it's this story in particular or just a few months break from Big Finish but the soundscape present here is absolutely a highlight of the audio, really helping to visualise some of the more jumbled scenes.

Is there anything particularly special to say about The Roof of the World? It’s one of those stories that tend to blend into the background for me, with nothing that special placing it above its peers. Despite a unique Part 2 and some half-decent character work for a half-decent character, The Roof of the World fails to hold any style that might save it from obscurity, although that doesn’t necessarily make it a bad time.

7/10

Pros:

+ It’s nice to have Erimem fleshed out a little more

+ Part 2 was a brilliant little departure from formula

+ Had a fantastic atmosphere in the first half

+ Unique and interesting setting

+ Incredible sound design

Cons:

- Caroline Morris’ vocal performance wasn’t incredible

- The villains could’ve been far more interesting than they were

- The second half was far more generic than the first

- The climax was somewhat of a damp squib

2024 Christmas Special - “Joy to the World” by Stephen Moffat

When I heard that Moffat would be writing this year’s Christmas special, I thought it could’ve gone one of two ways. On one hand, Moffat has written all of my favourite Christmas specials from the underrated Last Christmas to the utterly beautiful A Christmas Carol. However, he has also written The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe, The Snowmen and The Return of Dr. Mysterio, all episodes I utterly loathe. Now, I’ve found RDT 2 to be, so far, mediocre. Whilst a couple good episodes here and there regained the lost magic of the late 2000s and the cast is really trying their best with corny and unnatural dialogue, it all felt like a poor man’s imitation of what came before and I’m sad to say, I found Joy to the World to be the same.

On Christmas Day, the Doctor finds himself in the Time Hotel - a time-hopping establishment that allows you to stay anywhere, anytime. But when a mysterious briefcase psychically links to young Joy Almondo, the Doctor must play with causality to save her life.

(CONTAINS SPOILERS)

Frankly, I found Joy to the World to be indicative of all of RTD2: a visually stunning, creatively rich soap opera with a great cast of weak characters. Joy to the World’s greatest attribute is its appearance. Not only are the effects magnificent (and strangely placed) but the sets are wonderful too. Vibrant and endlessly detailed, the Time Hotel especially makes for a great setting. It’s really obvious how much bigger the budget is here than in RTD1 because I’m pretty sure they blew the cost of a Series One episode on the cold open. The effects begin to stumble towards the end - used up on the five seconds of dinosaur we get halfway through -  but mostly it’s the strong suit. Plus, since we’re dealing with a Moffat script you just know that it's going to have a good idea or two in there. The Time Hotel is a fantastic concept that’s used excellently, though not as well as it could be due to the episode’s preoccupation with the Doctor’s character. I liked the paradox stuff and using the hotel’s time zones to speed up action but this episode isn't really about the hotel, it’s more just Moffat coming up with a good idea and running with it which is fine but insubstantial. As for characters, I’ll get onto why I think this episode struggles with them but I have to say I got by on the performances alone. Despite having a personality that can be summed up in a short sentence, Nicola Coughlan adds a lot of likability to her “companion”. I found Joel Fry, an actor I always am excited to see pop up, misused and yet still the best member of our cast and Steph de Whalley did a lot of heavy lifting in Moffat’s attempt to make Anita interesting. As for the episode itself, whilst I mostly enjoy the cosmetic aspects of Joy to the World, I did find it to be a good time. Really, that’s RTD2’s saving grace, whilst I think it is undeniably flawed, it is fun, it is lively and a great big shot of character has been injected into the show’s veins. Which is strange because I find many of this era’s main problems to align with the issues of my oh-so-beloved Chibnall era: underbaked plotlines, cardboard cutout characters and cringe-worthy, inhuman dialogue are all present here, but rather than play it straight like Chibnall does, RTD manages to have a little fun with it and his ability to cast electric talent certainly helps. I didn’t hate Joy to the World, and it was certainly more tolerable than last year’s effort, but it was incredibly flawed.

For instance, every time Moffat tried to write in an emotional beat it simply fell flat. There are about five in this special alone, three of them about characters we’ve known for five minutes. Like, do you seriously expect me to care that the Silurian with five lines of dialogue is dying? When people kept complaining about 15’s incessant crying, I didn’t really see the problem before I started noticing it here and, truth be told, he cries so often it loses all emotional weight that might come with the Doctor letting his emotions slip out. And this is where my big problem comes in, this is an episode not about the Time Hotel, or Villengard or even Christmas, it’s about 15, a character whom I do not like. RTD’s attempts at making a more human Doctor simply haven’t worked and with this episode entirely based on his inability to accept companionship I start to see why. RTD has abandoned the character arc. I agree, it could be interesting to watch a Doctor become more akin to us, to start settling down, to begin a retirement and get more in touch with his emotions, but the problem is he just is this character without any development. From his first episode, this was 15 and RTD refusing to acknowledge that for 2000 years the Doctor has been a weird little alien man ruins it. Plus, I don’t know if Moffat didn’t watch the previous season or something, but these are character beats I thought we’d covered, I was under the impression that was what the whole bigeneration storyline was for - transitioning over to a more human Doctor so RTD wouldn’t have to think about it. We even get him settling down, again, which works even less this time because he gets a job and finds out he actually loves staying in one place at one time because he has a friend (the entire UNIT era is irrelevant, apparently). Also, 15 whinging about being alone forever doesn’t really work when he told Ruby to leave. Correct me if I’m wrong but didn’t she want to go with him and he told her not to because he thought she needed to spend time with her “real mum” because f**k Carla I guess. Basically, this whole episode was an attempt to characterise a character who skipped his own development and because of that, every attempt to say anything about 15 fell flat.

And as for the other characters, it's really not much better. Joy is barely even there, her personality built in one hokey speech after a scene that fully just stole from The Curse of Fenric. And really, the actual companion here seems to be Anita, the random hotel manager the Doctor spends a year with whose entire character is established in a montage sequence. Once again, I am asking why I should care? As for Joel Fry, he is immediately the most likable person in this cast (mostly because he’s Joel Fry) but is then killed in about ten minutes and I can’t actually remember his character’s name an hour after finishing the episode. Three characters established in an episode beholden to none of them leads only to a hollow side cast that fails to impress and when anything unfortunate happens to any one of them, I’m left feeling nothing. Especially in the ending, which is just weird and one of the most absurd emotional beats I’ve ever seen. You could not have convinced me before this episode came out that it would end with Nicola Coughlan turning into the North f**king Star. Plus, I really don’t know what this is trying to say. Don’t be worried because Grace from Derry Girls is up in the sky looking down at you? How many times has anybody looked at the North Star and magically felt better? It’s out of the blue, doesn’t hold any weight because of Joy’s under-characterisation and its absurdity and also means that Villengard won. Honestly, I think choosing to have a concrete villain in this episode, especially a reused one, was a misstep but it’s strange that they just… succeeded. Like, great, we’re all looking up in hope at the power source that will fuel a billion wars. In the end, I’m just confused as to what the point of this whole episode was. It was near plotless, its own namesake had little to do with it and it was strangely lacking in substance. It’s a weak attempt at a character study that doesn’t even feel like a Christmas special, with little festive cheer to it at all (and no, a title card saying “Bethlehem” does not make it any more merry). It all felt like there was no point to any of it, it had next to nothing to say and had all the impact of a Hallmark movie. Whilst not particularly painful to sit through, this is just such a nothing episode. It’s the TV equivalent of empty calories.

If I had to call Joy to the World one thing, it would be disappointing. Even some heinous mistake would’ve been more interesting than this, which I left only feeling hollow. RTD2 feels like RTD1 with all the magic and character stripped away, left with pretty lights and empty characters, a violent clash of attempts at relatability and heightened reality. This feels like the poster child for this whole era now, it’s not bad but it’s overwhelmingly mediocre, like the off brand reboot of Doctor Who. I just pray this doesn’t actually end up being Moffat’s final hour, because this is such a low note to go out on.

5/10

Pros:

+ Fantastic set design and a great overall look

+ Brimming with brilliant concepts

+ Great performances from all members of the cast

+ Effortlessly fun

Cons:

- Overbloated with poorly written emotional beats

- Nearly every companion was barely a character

- Reinforces why 15’s character just doesn’t work for me

- Absurd ending that fails to land

- Bizarrely lacking in substance

- Near plotless