Chemistry.
That, in case you’re
wondering, is what sets the Tenth Doctor’s time with Donna Noble and her family
apart in the annals of 21st century Doctor Who as the high point.
The chemistry of comic timing, chiefly between David Tennant and Catherine
Tate, but with satellites of sharpness from Jacqueline King as Sylvia Noble and
of adorable warmth from Bernard Cribbins as Wilf, all blending into a whole
that makes them an utter joy to watch, and now to listen to as the Noble family
takes its place firmly alongside the Doctor-Donna in the world of Big Finish
audio.
That said, the whole
family are only onboard for the first of the three stories in this new
collection, No Place, by James Goss. Even so, they give serious value
for your comedy money, in a story that smashes two reality TV formats together
and ends up with a story about as grim and scary as the original Poltergeist
movie, leavened by that comedy chemistry of the Tenth Doctor and the Noble
family.
The formats are
ghosthunting shows (or as the Doctor puts it here, ‘Carol Smilie screaming and
pointing at dust’) and home makeover shows. The worrying thing is that the
resultant show Goss invents, where so-called ‘haunted houses’ have their
suspicious knocks and bangings and spooky light-flickers fixed by updated
plumbing and electrics is staggeringly plausible. Opening the door of a haunted
house and being confronted with the Nobles and the Doctor though is rather a
Cruel and Unusual Punishment for presenter Justin, and James Goss goes on to
front-load the story with glorious comedy of a kind it would be unsporting to
spoil for you, while the horror of the story, by contrast, creeps up on you
slowly, subtly and despite a number of absolutely full-on jump-scares which,
remarkably, don’t diminish the tension but build it, Poltergeist-style, into
something your brain would quite like to run the hell away from – except the
Doctor’s there to see you through it. And Donna’s there to comfort you. And
Sylvia’s got the kettle on and the biscuits out. And Wilf’s always ready to
listen. That’s the balancing act at the heart of No Place – building to some
pretty prickly, skin-crawling horror, but using the relationships of the Doctor
and the Nobles to reassure you, and indeed Justin, that everything will be
alright, no matter what it looks like or sounds like or whatever’s buried in
the garden and maybe, just maybe, wants to return…
It’s the kind of gamble
that could go spectacularly wrong in inexperienced hands, but James Goss writes
the story so it doesn’t shoot its bolt of creeping horror with every
jump-scare, and director Ken Bentley keeps a rein on the reveals too, so that
you don’t want the story to let you
go until everything’s safe and good again. The cast slip back into their roles
as the Nobles and the Tenth Doctor with a tone that instantly takes you back to
their on-screen time, and in particular the back-and-forth between the Doctor
and Donna is a thing of pure joy, leaving you with a perfectly balanced
horror-Who story, saved from the weight of its own grimness by the particular
Doctor-companion combination who take us through the storyline of No Place.
Yes! Yes, yes, a thousand
times yes and thank you Jenny T Colgan for One Mile Down. Not
only does it take the Tenth Doctor and Donna to the thoroughly detailed
underwater world of Vallarasee, not only does it deliver an eloquent discourse
on the impact of tourism on indigenous populations, frequently bending a
previous reality into an uncomfortable falsehood for the sake of those who wish
to look at it through their preconceived notions of its purpose or beauty, and
not only does it introduce us to the cutest Judoon it’s yet been our privilege
to encounter, but arguably more important than all these things, it draws a
line between interstellar, intertemporal coolness and a particular kind of
plastic shoe with holes in. These are without any real-world justification in
their appalling naffness and are, if there’s any justice in the world, probably
the Nestene advance guard to destroy trendy people. Donna, naturally, loves
them, but the Tenth Doctor is firm – no companion should wear plastic shoes
with holes in. End of. Case closed. The End – Jenny T Colgan and the Tenth
Doctor have spoken. Next!
Beyond the statement on
plastic hole-filled shoes, about which it’s possible I’m slightly obsessing,
One Mile Down feels like the kind of story it would have been possible to
deliver during the Tenth Doctor and Donna era, though there are more
immediately modern influences too – there’s a racist who happens to be quite
good in a crisis, a cross-species couple with privilege clouding the vision of
one of them, there’s an act of unbridled terrorism tied to what otherwise feels
like a good cause, and there’s an eloquent example of how people driven
principally by profit, rather than by beauty, or concern for their fellow
creatures, tend to make nothing but fakery and mess.
Along the journey of the
story, which has its beats as well placed as you’d expect from Jenny T Colgan,
there’s an effective Doctor-Donna split, as they each have a strand of the
adventure and distinct things to do in order to try and save thousands of
people from an imminent disaster as nature takes back its own – with a little
help from its more radical friends. That means you get the fun of Donna having
to deal with the useful racist, while never being shy of telling him what he
is, and the Doctor and the Little Judoon Who Could finding ways to turn the
Judoon’s rigid adherence to rules of law into both an excuse and a methodology
for saving the lives of non-Judoon. While opportunities to do so seem
distinctly limited, it would be rather fun to follow this Judoon-in-training
through its ongoing career, so see the difference that an early encounter with
the bounciest of Doctors could make on even the most dogged of species.
You…probably don’t need me to tell you that The Creeping Death, by
Roy Gill, is a bit of a spooky one. Aiming for rock and roll, the Doctor
and Donna land in London in 1952, during the most deadly smog ever to hit the
capital. Death suddenly stalks the city in a positively Victorian, wispy way –
and then there are the aliens.
Roy Gill’s script has a
distinctly Horror of Fang Rock feel – a bunch of disparate people, some of whom
are grouped and know each other, some of whom don’t, are trying to find their
way to home and safety, but between them and their everyday dreams lies predation,
mystery, horror and death. And the Doctor. And Donna. Again, Gill skilfully
splits up the Tardis team early on – easy to do with a handy smog – and sets
them about comforting and helping those they meet along the way. When a
people-possessing alien force reveals itself, the focus shifts from the simple
aim of getting home to the rather more complicated and difficult business of
doing everything that’s necessary to stop the alien’s malicious intent, and it
builds with the trademark rising pulse of memorable Doctor Who to a climax that
will satisfy, for all its vaguely familiar beats.
All told, the third set of
Tenth Doctor Adventures touches three solid Russell T Davies gracenotes – a
story in the here and now, bringing in the companion’s family to help defeat an
alien menace, a planet that’s very alien, with an environment that makes it a
subtle take on the base-under-siege genre, and a historical alien escapade with
plenty of creepiness and no fear of killing off characters just as we’ve got to
know them. Each of the writers is clearly on impressive form here too, which
makes it extremely hard to pick a favourite among the stories – the comedy and
the insane balancing act in No Place probably makes it the most friendly for
repeat listening, while One Mile Down has the feeling of only lacking the
visuals to make it a full-on televised story. Then again, the persistent,
Jaws-like pulse of creeping death in…erm…The Creeping Death makes you want to
brave it again, and it does come with perhaps the largest cast of ‘genuinely
quite nice’ people aside from the Tardis team and Donna’s family(!).
In essence then, there’s
not a bum note here, and each of the stories will reward replaying on a
semi-regular basis. Pick up The Tenth Doctor Adventures #3 and remember the
days of that pinpoint, whizz-bang comic chemistry, the compassion of Donna, and
the doing-what-needs-to-be-done dedication that forged the friendship of the
Chiswick Temp and the Time Lord, underneath all their glorious bluster and
laughs.
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