The latest in the Early
Adventures range of Doctor Who audio adventures from Big Finish takes us back to
the era of Patrick Troughton’s Second Doctor, with companions Jamie, Polly and
Ben. It’s a spacefaring tale of the far future from Simon Guerrier, with a big
drill, a big company, a potentially lethal mineral, and an ocean where
something is going very quietly, very creepily wrong.
In terms of what The
Outliers is about, it’s ‘Jaws In
Space,’ with a colony of human miners threatened by a sentient, seemingly
malevolent sea that picks people off when no-one else is looking.
As a threat, the ‘hungry
sea’ feels like it should work a treat, but it actually comes across as a
second-string villain compared to the more philosophical evil here, which is
wilful human blindness motivated by profit. How much are human beings prepared
to turn a blind eye to the suffering and death of their fellows if it’s in
their interest to do so is the main question of the piece.
Outliers, in the science
of statistics, are rogue numbers, rogue results in a calculation that can be
dismissed or discarded from a trend, and it’s this that brings the sinister in
this story. How many lives will we allow to be snuffed out as ‘outliers’ to
maintain our way of life, especially if they’re not immediately presented to
us? If we have to ask questions, defy authority, and go beyond what is told to
us by trusted sources, would we want to know how many people suffer and die to
keep us comfortable? Those are the really troubling questions that pin The
Outliers to your ears as the Tardis team arrive on the unnamed alien world and
start asking awkward questions about the disappearing people and the eerily
empty houses of the miners, flooded with water.
The Jaws In Space
comparison grows more valid when you realise what you’re dealing with in The
Outliers – all of the Tardis team are one composite Chief Brody shouting about
sharks, while Richard Tipple, the mining operations manager with a silly title
and superciliousness to spare, insists that there’s nothing to be afraid of in
the water, and that the number of unexplained deaths is merely an outlier, a
nothing, an insignificance compared to the importance of his work. Alistair
Petrie makes him a very Sixties villain, very snide and sure of himself, while delivering
21st century marketing-speak, so you really want him to get eaten by
the sea. Does he? That would be telling.
In case you need even more
deep and meaningful philosophical roughage in your Doctor Who, the decision
over who lives and dies on the planet of the creepy hungry sea has another
message hidden inside it – that being certain of your position is often a dangerous
mistake, and that the future is written not in the stars or by the gods, but by
the decisions you make today, tomorrow, and the day after that.
Balanced against these
deep themes is some cracking characterization, especially from Frazer Hines,
who takes on two roles, as Jamie, the companion he played in the show in the
Sixties, and as Patrick Troughton’s Second Doctor (in which role he has an
uncanny ability to make you forget he isn’t
Troughton). Matilda Ziegler deserves some characterization props too as Chatura
Sharma, the good company woman whose mind is opened to questioning the truth
she knows by the arrival of the Doctor and Co.
The point of the Early
Adventures, really, was to bulk up the kinds of audio adventures that could be
told using the first two Doctors, and explore both the absolutely archetypal
types of stories from their era and the things that couldn’t be done then in
terms of budgets or ideas, but can be brought to a new life in audio. The
Outliers would never have been called The
Outliers back in the Sixties, that would have been far too vague and a little
too philosophical. But in terms of what it offers, its Sixties right down to
its bones – stupid, blind authority, money, power, and an alien force that is
able to more or less fight back before it’s even been attacked. Deadly seas,
weird coral, vanishing people, and the growing, creepy sense that the humans on
this piece of space rock are rather bringing their deadly fate upon themselves.
It has a vibe of Fury From The Deep, but with a layer of uncomfortable
questions about our own nature, our own potential wilful blindness to the
suffering of others, that has a very modern feel.
The Outliers has a
questionable ending, with the people killed by the Things In The Water written
off as having deserved it simply by virtue of being closed-minded, but short of
a fairytale magic ending where they all come back to life, that’s almost
unavoidable. In terms of atmosphere, philosophical clout, characterization and
creepy, tension-building pace though, The Outliers is a story you’ll come back
to listen to again and again.
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