Season Two (Series 15); Episode Two - “Lux” by Russell T. Davies

Why am I still watching Doctor Who? My review of The Robot Revolution was basically 1000 words of me saying why I’ve fallen out of love with the show and yet here I am, sat down for episode two. Well, I’m not completely done with Season Two/Series Fifteen yet, still waiting hopefully for another 73 Yards or Legend of Ruby Sunday. Now, Lux certainly piqued my interest, with its intriguing concept and neat visual style, but I had a sneaking suspicion it would end up being another Devil’s Chord: a unique idea with a weak execution. And you know what? I think I hit the nail on the head.

15 people have gone missing from the Palazzo Picturehouse, and now the old projectionist sits alone at night, playing movies to an absent audience. But where have the missing people gone? And what does it have to do with cartoon character Mr Ring-a-Ding?

(CONTAINS SPOILERS)

If there is one consistent positive I give to Modern Who, it’s the visual effects. So let's get the elephant out of the room: we have to talk about the titular Lux. Easily, our antagonist is the best thing about this episode. For one, the effects bringing him to life could be the greatest visual effect Doctor Who’s ever put to screen, and I am not saying that lightly; this looks f**king incredible. On top of that, we have Alan Cumming giving a spellbinding performance that lends the character a wonderful amount of gravitas, making him seem an actual threat. Plus, I liked the reveal that he was another member of the pantheon and it’s interesting to see RTD keep playing with what is undeniably a cool idea. My one grip is I don’t really get what the giggle is; like, I thought that was just the Toymaker’s thing, why is it now the call sign for every pantheon god?

Other than our villain, I did appreciate the originality of Lux after I felt The Robot Revolution dipped hard into derivativeness. For one, the setting of Miami Dade county was great as I am a firm believer we should visit some places other than England once in a while and it really reminded me of the 1960s setting of The Impossible Astronaut. Not only that, but it was well realised with a fantastic production behind it.

Obviously, there’s also the meta qualities this episode plays with, having the Doctor and Belinda getting sent into film stock and becoming animated. I definitely enjoyed what the episode was going for here and I like Russell playing with experimental formats but only a few ideas really worked for me, mostly in the realms of space with the characters flipping through frames and escaping by stopping the film and igniting it. However, we also have a few moments that really don’t land for me. This episode struggles a lot with execution; it has tons of ideas but doesn’t really follow through on most of them. For one, I like the idea of our travellers becoming animated and having to revert to live action by gaining character depth - that’s a wonderfully meta idea that is painful in this era of all things and shock horror, the scene is the characters just explaining their emotional arcs to the other person, removing all subtlety and, ironically, depth from the scene.

And then there’s the bit where the Doctor and Belinda break into our world and have tea with some Doctor Who fans. Now, on the tin, this is a great idea (that has been done better before) but I just can’t bring myself to love this moment. The fans we meet are far too eccentric and feel more like caricatures than characters and it just leaves this whole section too hokey to feel like a love letter to the audience and too unsubtle to be any kind of commentary, just causing the scene to feel like an intrusion. It also doesn’t help that Russell does that thing again. You know, the one where he forces in an emotional moment with characters we don’t know. I have to repeat this: Russell. You. Cannot. Do. Emotional. Beats. With. Characters. We’ve. Known. For. Five. Minutes. It doesn’t work and you keep doing it. In the end, what could’ve been a really cool moment just left me sighing.

As for the rest of the episode, I said before that Lux feels like a second Devil’s Chord and I stand by that fact - mid 20th century setting, dealing with a form of media and a pantheon god; hell, we even get the same costume change shot from Devil’s Cord. I will say though, the conclusion is a lot better here, using the flammability of film stock to pull an Inglourious Basterds and drowning a god of light in light, which feels like a better version of Death killing death from Empire of Death. Certainly a lot better than John Lennon appearing to play a single note and end the episode.

However, Lux is most definitely imperfect. As I said before, it fails to follow through on its ideas and the emotional beats are practically unbearable but these are more problems with this whole run. And the more I think about it, the more I think these episodes rarely have individual problems and are much more about the general direction RTD is taking the show. For one, the dialogue is something that is really grating on me and here it is especially terrible. Russell does this thing where you can really tell when he’s setting something up because he’ll just have a character force the topic into a completely different conversation, like the repeated exposition dump of what happened to Gallifrey, which he screwed up last season too. Russell mate, you did this in Gridlock perfectly, at least just do that again. I don’t know, everything feels so scripted and forced, characters will just openly explain their mental state in overly convenient ways and all subtlety seems to have gone out the window. It all lacks some genuine quality, none of these sound like real conversations actual people would have.

And before I wrap up this review, I have to address something that’s really disappointing me. I think I can see where Belinda’s character is going. Now, it’s only been two episodes, I could be wrong, but RTD’s not exactly a difficult person to read. I like the idea of a companion who’s antagonistic towards the Doctor, I really do, we’ve had far too many giddy playmates recently. But whilst Belinda might be characterised as not putting up with the Doctor, it only really surfaces when the show wants it to and the rest of the time, she is identical to every other companion. RTD either needs to up the animosity or stop treating Belinda like what she isn’t because I can already picture the forced moments of isolated arguments already and I’m beginning to dread them.

Again, Lux is par for the course that Modern Who is on. It looks stunning, it has its fun moments, but is lacking any kind of depth. A brilliant antagonist and some fun ideas that don’t always come through don’t make Lux for me and I find myself with another episode I can’t help but feel lukewarm on. It’s fun, it’s interesting, it’s not very good.

6/10

Pros:

+ The visual effects on Mr. Ring-a-Ding might be the best in the show’s history

+ Well realised and original setting

+ Interesting use of meta mechanics

+ Good conclusion with sound logic

Cons:

- Unbearably hammy and forced dialogue

- Keeps doing painfully awful emotional beats

- Belinda is becoming less promising the more the series progresses

- A lot of its ideas lack proper execution

Short Trips: Defining Patterns #12 - “Lepidoptery for Beginners” by John Dorney

Iolas Blue has the perfect villain plan. He has a step by step agenda for everything about to happen and with it, he’s going to kill the Doctor. And how could you stop somebody who knows exactly what’s about to happen?

(CONTAINS SPOILERS)

John Dorney, you son of a bitch, you did it again. Or should I say, you did it, as this was the legendary writer’s first ever contribution to the official Doctor Who canon. And what a start it was! Lepidoptery for Beginners might be the best short story I’ve seen out of Short Trips so far, nearly everything about it landed. First of all, the idea of somebody calculating the butterfly effect and using it to take over the universe is a really fantastic high concept premise that really works in short form; this whole story is basically just an extended villain monologue but it is a blast just learning the ins and outs of the cartoonishly named Predicticon. But that names a stylistic choice - our main antagonist, the fantastically weasley and egotistical Iolas is a brilliantly bombastic bad guy and a blast to listen to, his blusteringly pompous attitude makes him the epitome of a love to hate villain.

Also, I find it a real shame Dorney hasn’t written more prose because his writing is quick, witty, descriptive and genuine all in one and excels especially in the writing of our main cast. Two is a Doctor who is famously hard to capture on paper (hence why there seems to be so few well liked Two novels) but Dorney manages it and then some, I could feel Troughton emanating from the pages, along with Hines and Padbury.

The only thing I think I’d criticise Lepidoptery for Beginners for is that it’s a little dialogue heavy. As I said earlier, it’s basically an extended villain’s monologue and whilst it’s good, I do wish we saw a little more of the action because Dorney does somewhat skip over it.

10/10

Pros:

+ Utterly brilliant premise

+ Iolas is a fantastically slimy antagonist

+ Wonderful, quick moving prose

+ Really captures the characters well

Cons:

- Could use a little more focus on actual action

Season Two (Series 15); Episode One - “The Robot Revolution” by Russell T. Davies

Doctor Who doesn’t excite me anymore. I’m sorry, sorry to myself, sorry to the whole fanbase, but I just can’t care anymore. Doctor Who in its new, frankly unnecessary era, is entirely style over substance, a flashy soap opera with the depth of a puddle in a drought that I simply can not find myself excited about. The Robot Revolution was a competent episode with needlessly glorious visuals that felt as if ChatGPT was told to write an episode of Doctor Who, the bare essentials needed for an episode in a trenchcoat masquerading as the first in a new series. I’m not angry, but I am very disappointed.

Average nursing student Belinda Chandra wakes up to find herself queen of a far off planet inexplicably named after her and ruled by a tyrannical AI supercomputer. With her life and freedom at stake, she has to put her chances in the hands of rebel leader the Doctor if she wants to escape.

(CONTAINS SPOILERS)

Alright, sulking out of the way, what did I actually think about The Robot Revolution? Not much, honestly, this is a very hollow episode. But I suppose we still have a pretty face and what a face it is, this episode is one of the best looking of the new era and that is saying something, given the competition. It’s ultra flashy and incredibly impressive to look at, with not one of the many, highly complicated props cheaply made. If I have to give this era some praises, it would be that it looks utterly incredible but looks aren’t everything.

The one place I did find some genuinely interesting depth was in our new companion, Belinda, who does feel to me like a rehash of other companions still but, once again boasts a good performance and instantly likable personality. I don’t think she works quite as well with Ncuti as Gibson did last season but the idea of a companion genuinely not wanting to be in the TARDIS is a fun concept (that has already been done with Tegan but hey-ho). But even so, she seems so superficially likable at times, like with the obvious self-sacrifice attempt that’s just so mundanely trying to get me to like her when the episode was already succeeding.

And you might be saying, “Speechless, it’s just a fun season opener, don’t take it so seriously”. And, I mean, fair enough, our villains are literally called Missbelindachandrabots for christ’s sake but I have some issues with that. There were a few moments I genuinely chuckled, the aforementioned robot naming convention being one of them, but there’s just something missing for me. A single episode like this is perfectly fine - not for me, but not egregious. However, nearly every other episode in this new era is exactly the same; you can’t expect me to not judge any of them because they’re just goofing off.

Especially when the episode keeps on shoving sentimental bullshit in my face every five seconds. Russell seems to have forgotten how to write emotional beats because he keeps making the same mistakes over and over again. Try as you might RTD, you can not get me to care about a character I’ve only known for five minutes. It also doesn’t help that you do this every, single episode in an identical way, making every single moment like this feel so bland and repetitive. He also can’t write drama anymore, a character will just come up to somebody, be antagonistic out of nowhere and then disappear for the rest of the episode and we’re meant to pretend it meant anything. Emotional beats in this new era are equivalent to the “APPLAUSE” signs they put in live studio audiences.

As for the story itself, I find everything so utterly bland here. No interesting ideas, no cool moments, no tension, no pacing, f**kall structure. Russell clearly just looked at those phony buy-a-star scams and went “but what if that was actually real” and then tried to spin a whole episode out of it. You know, for an episode where the big bad is an AI, it’s pretty ironic that it feels like one of the most procedurally generated scripts of the whole show. In addition to this, it moves so weirdly quickly. I checked the time after what felt like ten minutes and I was halfway through. There is no building here, no rise and fall of action: it begins, it goes and it stops with nearly no downtime in between plot beats. Because of this, it gave me no time to care. Not one scene impressed me, the rebel shootout was contrived and barely engaging, the bunker scene felt like a checklist of character interactions and the final scene is a lot of talking and annoying dialogue, with the completely unintimidating Jonny Green robot (Oh yeah, Tyler’s actor show up) having a second “it was the wrong anagram” reveal.

You know what, I actually think Russell’s running out of ideas. The companions are all the same, all the tender moments feel copied and pasted, hell, we even get a rip off Gadget from The Waters of Mars here that just goes to prove that he had exactly four series worth of ideas in him. All of this makes me ask, why is it I don’t care? Why is it I’m just not excited anymore? I mean, last season we got a couple great episodes that felt genuine and had actual, interesting character arcs going on. Am I not at least looking forward to any more of those? Not really, everything in the new Doctor Who is just lacking something, a certain charm that made the original RTD series so endearing. Maybe it’s the fact I find the new Doctor so utterly dull, even if Gatwa is a blast in the role. Maybe it's the fact that every character interaction, every emotional beat, every dramatic moment feels so disingenuous and like it's phoning it in. Maybe it's the constant, patronising attempt to make me feel something towards characters who truly refuse to grow and deepen.

I’m sorry if I’m being a downer but just know that I want to like this, I want to be excited to sit down every Saturday for Doctor Who but I’m being honest here and I have to say that I simply can not care. I’m giving The Robot Revolution a very low score and not because it's particularly incompetent but just because it's such an utterly hollow episode and everything I get out of it, I can find elsewhere. This is truly empty TV.

4/10

Pros:

+ Looks utterly incredible

+ Belinda is easily relatable and likable

+ Had moments of some genuinely fun TV

Cons:

- Incredibly superficial and surface level

- The pacing makes the story feel like a minisode

- Has a huge cast of cardboard cutout characters

- Once again, has forced emotional moments

- Absolutely awful main antagonist

Short Trips #02 - “Old Flames” by Paul Magrs

Arriving in snowy 18th Century England, the Doctor and Sarah-Jane quickly make friends with high society and find an old flame of the Doctor’s at odds with a mysterious and unseen predator.

(CONTAINS SPOILERS)

I’ve had a somewhat shaky experience so far with Paul Magrs. Having listened to only a few of his stories - one being the dreadful The Wormery - I am yet to form a particularly glowing opinion on the man. However, I am overjoyed to say that Old Flames was an absolute delight.

Immediately, everything is now clear to me on why Magrs is such a beloved writer. Iris, being of course his infamous inclusion to the Doctor Who universe, is an infectiously fun character with a truly one-of-a-kind personality, who brightens every scene she appears in. Beyond that, he has such a clear, light but never shallow style to him that makes his stories move comfortably at the speed of light. In just under thirty pages (that absolutely do not feel even that long), Magrs manages to write a decent episode of Doctor Who with a somewhat large cast, an interesting world and a fantastic pace that really keeps the story going. That alone is a feat worth celebrating but this story itself is just so unbelievably joyous to experience. The dialogue and characters are lively, the plot is fast but underpinned with a nice emotional basis and we have some on brand idiosyncrasy such as having alien tiger people be our antagonists. It’s a ridiculously tight story and emblematic of how all short fiction should be approached.

I did have one or two problems, chiefly with the Doctor who I really couldn’t see as Four here. Magrs writes like how the revival writes the Doctor, which really doesn’t work with arguably his most alien and aloof incarnation;  a lot of Four’s dialogue does not feel like it came out of the mouth of Tom Baker, who is admittedly a hard personality to translate to prose. On top of that, I think the length is a bit of a double edged sword at points, like the relative lack of reaction to Rector’s death or the somewhat loose foundations on which Turner and Bella’s relationship is built, but both are relatively easy to overlook as the Doctor fights a space weretiger.

8/10

Pros:

+ Ridiculously fun and fast paced

+ Boasts a cast of interesting and well characterised personalities, with Iris chief amongst them

+ Manages to fit an episode worth of plot into thirty pages without feeling rushed

Cons:

- Four doesn’t feel particularly in character

- The rapidness of it all sometimes hurts the plot

Decalog 3 #08 - “Continuity Errors” by Steven Moffat

The Doctor has met his match. In desperate need of a heavily restricted book, the Doctor finds himself at odds with Angela, the local librarian whose painful life has made her steely and reserved. Determined to get his book however, the Doctor resolves to make sure Angela sides with him, no matter what.

(CONTAINS SPOILERS)

Continuity Errors is notable for a number of reasons and perhaps most for it being the first published work of Steven Moffat in the Doctor Who universe. And for that reason alone, I’d call it a very interesting (if flawed) read. For one, you get to see the progenitor of a number of Moffat’s ideas and themes that he would later go on to use, such as a library comprised of every book in existence - a la Silence in the Library - as well as rewriting a person’s history in order to save somebody’s life - a la A Christmas Carol.

Beyond that, it’s also just a very unique read. Moffat’s prose is incredibly different and playful, constantly messing with format to create a very casual, unique reading experience. On top of that, the central idea of real life “continuity errors” representing changes in a timeline is really cool, especially when you as a reader begin to notice all the strange details that don’t quite make sense. I can’t deny that Continuity Errors is a fascinating and wholly unique read.

However, I have a few problems with the central message. It tries to ask questions about the Doctor’s morality and if he should be allowed the amount of power he has by showing him rewriting somebody’s entire existence, much as he does in A Christmas Carol, but I think it’s executed a lot worse here. Mostly because we are primarily seeing it unfold from the viewpoint of the person the Doctor is tampering with, which makes the whole situation seem a lot more terrifying and the simple length of the story doesn’t allow for the character building needed to make the whole situation not feel so insidious. One idea that I genuinely detest though is the seeming implication that people only like the Doctor because of a nebulous psychic effect he has on people, which is actively antithetical to his established character and genuinely quite unnerving. The story never seems to go back on this point and for whatever reason it just rubs me the wrong way, actively conflicting the moral messaging of the rest of the story.

I enjoyed Continuity Errors for what it was and appreciated the sheer originality of it, along with the added bonus of seeing early Steven Moffat formulate his ideas that would later run the show, but his exploration of the Doctor as a legendary figure is not refined enough yet and really struggles to justify the Doctor’s actions here, just making him feel like an altogether worse and more insidious character.

6/10

Pros:

+ Really interestingly written and formatted

+ Is a neat introspective look into early Moffat

Cons:

- Struggles to realise its central conceit

- It’s portrayal of the Doctor rubs me the wrong way

Short Trips: The Muses #01 - “Teach Yourself Ballroom Dancing” by Robert Shearman

Becky is a dance teacher. Becky is not living the life she wants, with a marriage on the rocks and a daily routine that’s slowly killing her. But when a stranger walks into Becky’s dance class, she finds out there’s a lot more to life than she once thought.

(CONTAINS SPOILERS)

I am now one story closer to completing Robert Shearman. The author that has penned some of my favourite pieces of fiction ever, his speciality seems to be in the realm of short stories. However, I’m yet to be blown away by any of his short fiction Doctor Who works.

Teach Yourself Ballroom Dancing was a short and sweet story that boasted a lot of Shearman’s long running themes, such as a cynical sense of humour and themes surrounding self worth and everyday struggles. The main character, Becky, is shockingly deep for a character introduced over fifteen pages and I found her to be pretty endearing, which is not shocking coming from a writer who consistently makes relatably mundane characters. The narrative is pretty low stakes, all things considered, mostly exploring the connection between the Doctor and Becky and how each influences the other, which is a pretty nice but relatively brief character study. I also liked the Doctor flicking back and forth through Becky’s timestream, eventually teaching her how to dance; I thought it was an interesting use of time travel in a story like this.

However, I feel like Shearman is a lot better suited to writing Eight rather than Six, because really I could have put nearly any doctor but Six here. Especially in the height of his ostentatious phase, he just feels blandly nice here and I also think his ambiguous feelings towards Becky weren't handled particularly well. Honestly, my biggest problem with this story is that it really didn’t hit me the same as it did other people, which is a real shame. I liked the themes of childhood dreams and missed opportunities, but these are a recurring motif for Shearman and I think he’s done it better elsewhere.

7/10

Pros:

+ Becky made for an endearing central character

+ Used an interesting approach to time travel to build the central dynamic

Cons:

- Felt Six wasn’t particularly in character

- Not as poignant as I felt it wanted to be

The Monthly Adventures #069 - "Three’s a Crowd" by Colin Brake

What’s worse than a bad story? Well, as a reviewer, I’d say it's an unremarkable one. Three’s a Crowd is not bad, by any means. In fact, I’d say it’s rather good. However, who in the hell talks about Three’s a Crowd? What am I meant to say for ~1000 words about Three’s a Crowd? I’m still not sure. Maybe it's because Colin Brake is one of those writers; you know, the Justin Richards and Mark Gatiss types, who rarely seem to get past a lukewarm decency in terms of writing quality. Or maybe it’s just the fact that the script didn’t have much going on in it. A somewhat dull but pleasant base under siege that could’ve been better than it was, let’s talk about it, I guess.

The colony of Phoenix is a desolate place, its small population having been barricaded in its halls for generations. But when the Doctor, Peri and Erimem land, they find an altogether deadlier threat than an acute sense of agoraphobia: something hungry lying in wait in a space station above the planet.

(CONTAINS SPOILERS)

OK, as much as I ragged on the unoriginality of Three’s a Crowd in that opening paragraph, I’m mostly just salty from having yet another mediocre story in a seemingly endless run of them. In reality, Brake does start off our story with a pretty great concept, that of a colony living in such great isolation that its inhabitants have become agoraphobic (the fear of open spaces) to the point of being terrified if there are more than two people in a room. Cool idea that is for the most part used well. It doesn’t play as big a role in the story as it probably should but it lends the climax some decent tension with Peri trying to shepherd some terrified colonists across the planet surface before their ship self-destructs.

Now, you know me, side casts are one of my most important aspects in a story and personally I think this is one of the relatively few places where Three’s a Crowd excels. All three of our colonists feel very realistic and it's interesting seeing how each one is differently affected by the confinement, from gaining revolutionary tendencies to having breakdowns due to being in a slightly large room. Paired with some decent performances and I found myself actually caring for most of the cast, which isn’t always the case with these audios.

As for our main cast, I thought that Peri and Erimem got a good amount of things to do, each split between either side of the conflict. On top of that, this run of stories continues to have some stellar continuity as it tackles Erimem’s attitude following the events of The Roof of the World, exploring whether or not she wants to leave the TARDIS, which gives us a wonderful scene between the two companions set in one of the TARDIS’ many weird side rooms (this one being an entire field). I also enjoyed the surprisingly emotional pun the story chose to end itself on, it was a nice touch.

However, Three’s a Crowd has one big glaring problem: it’s boring. This script is the epitome of nothing special, a bland base under siege with a dull antagonist, little to say and a weak ending. Although it starts with a good idea, it eventually devolves into a lot of running in circles until the story eventually wraps itself up, which I find immensely disappointing. Not to mention we’re lumped with the Khellian, AKA a generic race of warrior lizards, who are basically just the Galyari from a few audios back. Actually, we’re lumped with a single Khellian, as he’s the only one we ever hear and the rest we’re just told are there, making them an incredibly unimposing threat.

Also, quick tangent, did our main characters heroically give a bunch of newborn children radiation poisoning by blasting the freshly hatched Khellian brood with uranium? You know what, that seems way too complicated a topic for a Doctor Who review, I’m just going to drop it.

Final note, I have to talk about the character of Auntie, played excellently by a surprise Deborah Watling but written in a way that confuses me. The leader of this isolated colony, Auntie turns out to be a surprise twist villain who's been sending hibernating colonists off to be eaten by the Khellian this whole time. It’s a neat twist and a good third act reveal; that is until it goes back on itself and it turns out she actually had no idea and now she’s a completely redeemed character. It’s not an egregiously bad detail but she’s a big enough part of the plot for it to be a significant annoyance.

At the end of the day, there’s not much wrong with Three’s a Crowd, it’s just not very interesting. It’s a shame really, I think there was a lot that could’ve been done great here but as it stands, I honestly see little reason to talk any more about this audio.

6/10

Pros:

+ The concept of a confined colony becoming severely agoraphobic is neat

+ The side cast were all relatively interesting with decent performances

+ Both companions have a nice amount of agency

Cons:

- Has a very run of the mill plot

- The Khellian make for a generic antagonist

- Auntie is an ultimately confused character

The Monthly Adventures #068 - "Catch-1782" by Alison Lawson

We’ve been on a bad streak with the audios recently. From disappointing finales to underbaked scripts to whatever the hell The Game was trying to be, it’s been a while since we had something truly great and the air’s starting to get a bit stale around here. And then came Catch-1782. With a cover that intrigued me, looking like an atmospheric, winter-set ghost story, and a plot involving time travel mechanics, which I usually adore, it seemed like it could be a break from the mediocre run I’ve had to endure. I was wrong.

On a trip to visit her uncle, Mel is caught up in an accidental burst of temporal energy and flung into the past. The Doctor quickly attempts a rescue mission but realises a horrifying truth: saving Mel means diverting the course of history.

(CONTAINS SPOILERS)

For a show whose entire premise relies on the mechanics of time travel, Doctor Who explores the concept surprisingly rarely. When it does however, you can end up with stories like Turn Left, which is why I often find stories messing around with paradoxes and time loops and other similar shenanigans a joy. So, is it any wonder I was so looking forward to Catch-1782? Right off the bat, the premise is golden. Mel has been flung back in time and has become wrapped up in her own family history, meaning that if she were to leave she may never have come to exist. Great idea, rife with possibility and it’s not something I’ve seen before. However, the story truly doesn’t deliver.

There were a few aspects I thought were genuinely great here, for instance, the period setting is wonderfully put together and Hallam House feels decently realised. Past that, I also appreciated its attempt at an interesting side cast. Our characters all felt like real people here, which is always a nice touch, and some I outright loved, like Mel’s charmingly humble Uncle, John. However, even here I have a few problems I’ll get onto in a bit.

As for the story itself, I have some glaring issues. I could tell where every single plot beat was going from the very beginning. Is Mel going to become Elena Hallam? Yep. Is Mrs. McGregor going to replace Mel when she leaves? Yep. I was not once shocked and at no point felt an ounce of tension because I already knew exactly how it would pan out. Of course Mel’s not going to become Elena Hallam but with such an obvious solution directly in front of me, there was basically no possibility of it ever happening and therefore no reason to become invested in what was happening. Also doesn’t help that the script has so little drive, meandering along at such a slight and insignificant pace.

I also noticed that the concept just wasn’t thought out very well past the initial premise. For one, we have moments like Mel lamenting on how there’s no way to get home after she’s already realised that McGregor can take her place, which clearly shows this story was published a couple drafts short. There’s also the detail of Mel’s ghost walking around Hallam House in the future, which is never addressed or explained. One line about timelines or time bleeds would’ve been fine but it’s just dropped by the end. There are a couple other kinks I think should’ve been ironed out, like whether or not it wants to portray Henry as outwardly villainous because it wants to portray him like a man with a mental illness but then also has scenes of him right out threatening Mel with violence for not loving him, which I personally feel zero sympathy for.

On top of all that, I think the script can be a little devoid of emotional weight at times. The dialogue for one is very wooden and unnatural throughout and prevents me from getting invested in the character dynamics, especially in the later parts when our cast just begins to outright state their point in their character arcs for the audience. However, it is undoubtedly worst in the ending, which is an overly sentimental string of exposition that completely makes light of the rest of the story. Just to recap, in this audio, Mel is sent back hundreds of years in the past, is trapped with an insane man for six months, all the while being constantly drugged and the ending might as well be a shrug and a wink without any deliberation on the untold amount of mental damage this experience has probably had on Mel. Also, this is the second story in a row where Six has accidentally abandoned Mel somewhere for months, he really ought to stop doing that.

Catch-1782 was disappointingly generic. With a slight script that had far less to say than it thought it did and a constantly declining sense of urgency and a constantly growing sense of levity, I failed to become invested throughout. I’m becoming tired of this sort of story, one that’s less bad and more unimpressive, slipping through the cracks into relative obscurity. There are worse stories but Catch-1782 is at the end of the day an entirely forgettable experience.

5/10

Pros:

+ A unique take on a time travel story

+ Excellent period setting that’s well realised

+ Has an interesting, if flawed, sidecast

Cons:

- The plot was predictable and tensionless

- Full of holes in logic that make it feel like an early draft

- Hokey at times despite a disturbing premise

- The dialogue was often wooden

Virgin New Adventures #21 - “The Left-Handed Hummingbird” by Kate Orman

Huh? What’s this? I missed a review! Where has my witty and likely genius evaluation of The Dimension Riders gone? Well, I’m afraid it fell into the void. Anyway, with that note out of the way, let’s talk Kate Orman. The books don’t really tend to have specifically celebrated writers like the audios have. Whilst Tim Foley, John Dorney and James Goss are all talked about ad nauseum when it comes to the aural landscape, the literary one has very few. Really, the only big ones people widely tend to get excited about are Paul Cornell and Kate Orman, with maybe Lawrence Miles if you’re looking at the EDAs. With the others already having proven themselves as worthy of the hype, how exactly does Orman hold up on her first ever novel?

The Blue: a latent psychic force that has followed death and destruction for centuries. At its heart is a conspiracy dating back to the Aztecs and one The Doctor is now firmly wrapped up in, especially when it is discovered the connection he has with a fearsome ancient deity.

(CONTAINS SPOILERS)

Truth be told, I have read Vampire Science before but I don’t particularly remember it so really this is my first impression of Kate Orman’s writing style. And what do I think? Well I think this is probably the most unique prose I’ve seen come out of the Doctor Who books yet. Lawrence Miles may be rich on ideas and Paul Cornell may be rich in most everything but Orman has a particular style to her writing that I really dig. It’s fast, witty and smooth as butter, gliding the reader through the story at a comfortable million miles per hour. Easily my biggest takeaway from The Left-Handed Hummingbird is that Kate Orman is an author with a fantastic voice to her and a really breezy way of writing novels.

And that’s not all, she also manages to work in a not insignificant amount of genuinely laugh out loud humour into this book. It’s pretty dark for the most part, dealing with depression, PTSD and the end of the world but very often will be actively hilarious, especially with the running gag of Ace’s never ending gun stache or the fun little subversion of the “it’s bigger on the inside!” moment years before the revival ever did it. It also really interestingly plays with formatting to create tension, with highlights during the various dream sequences and the climax on the Titanic, with a timestamp counting down until the ship sinks. It was a brilliantly immersive technique that truly set The Left-Handed Hummingbird apart from its fellow VNAs.

Past the style, I also found its characters, specifically our main cast, to be excellent. With perhaps the exception of the Doctor, who I found to be a little too brooding, basically every character was on top form but most of all Ace. The VNAs really struggle with writing New Ace, despite her being such a draw for the series, because the authors will look at her brief and go “oh ok, so I’m meant to be edgy” and all maturity goes out the window. Not with Orman however. Orman writes Ace to be a battle-scarred and torn apart woman who can never go back to how she once was, constantly at odds with the Doctor but unable to break herself from him. Benny was also consistently fantastic, although I’m still a little rocky on her as a companion. I struggle to think of her as anything other than just alright at the moment as I really don’t think she’s had a single moment to shine yet, despite having been around for over ten books now.

However, I think the best character here has to be our antagonist - the living god Huitlizin. An ancient Aztec warrior emboldened by psychic tech and psychopathy, he is an omnipresent force that parasitically worms his way into the story, hanging over every moment and bit of tension. His possession of the Doctor is honestly terrifying and the sheer fact that you can believe for a moment he might actually win and overpower our intrepid hero (despite that obviously not happening) speaks to his ability. Huitzilin is most definitely up there with the Sentience from Nightshade and The Hoothi from Love and War for best VNA antagonist and he’s a very big reason this book works so well (even if I never really understood what the Blue was meant to be past anomalous psychic thing).

However, I do have a distinct number of complaints with The Left Handed Hummingbird, and a lot of them stem from one simple fact: this is Kate Orman’s first novel and you really can tell. It feels like a lot of ideas shoved into one book without enough time for any of them to develop. The pacing is incredibly fast to the point where there is little time for any plot point to develop, things moving on too quickly from one moment to another with absolutely zero time to breathe. By the fifty page mark, Ace has been hospitalised, Benny has murdered a man and the Doctor is literally dead, and that’s before he starts growing feathers. It’s too much too quickly and the thing this book really needed was a second to breathe and some slow moments between action set pieces.

It also could’ve used just one story rather than five. The structure of this book moves on from location to location exceedingly quickly, moving from Mexico City, to an ancient Aztec empire, to London in the 1960s, to the Titanic and not one of the sections feel aligned with the others. This format makes the whole novel feel very clunky at times and the parts lack a lot of cohesion, ending often abruptly with little flow to a lot of the characters, who’ll die and reappear out of order often. And that’s another thing, this book plays with time travel a lot but in the end it just convolutes itself. I’m still a little foggy on how exactly the climax played out and why Cristian ended up surviving in the end.

The Left Handed Hummingbird was an easily digestible but by no means hollow read - a fun and passionate adventure with some great moments, interesting ideas and an all time antagonist. The blistering pace could slow down and the structure needs a little work, but these are all things that come with experience. I think it’s safe to say I am now more excited than ever to read more Kate Orman and I look forward to whatever she has to offer me next.

8/10

Pros:

+ Electric prose

+ Perfectly captures our main cast

+ Has a great sense of humour

+ Huitzilin is one of the VNAs best antagonists so far

+ Creatively messes with formatting to create effect

Cons:

- Feels very much like a first novel

- Different sections of the book lack cohesion

- Pacing desperately needs to slow down

- The time travel elements end up convoluting the plot

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