The Tertiary Console Room: Review - Doctor Who

"Sometimes ghosts are not what they seem..."

There was once a time when Big Finish's Sixth Doctor stories were something to savour. The Virgin Missing Adventures and, to a lesser extent, the early BBC Past Doctor novels had begun the renaissance of this once maligned character, whose evolution was unceremoniously ended when Colin Baker was removed from the role after 1986's The Trial Of A Time Lord. When Big Finish began their audio odyssey thirteen years later, it was time to let Baker himself prove what a great Doctor he could be and he did so magnificently! There's little doubt that the majority of Big Finish's greatest Doctor Who releases have featured this fantastic Doctor in stories that were as diverse as they were exciting. However, as with the rise and fall of the Eighth Doctor range, nothing lasts forever and the recent appearances of the Time Lord's sixth incarnation have been dismal, interminable rubbish like Medicinal Purposes, Her Final Flight and The Juggernauts, which plumbed depths previously unthinkable for a character who had become the champion of the audio medium.

Alas, Alison Lawson's Catch-1782 is not the play to turn the tide for this downward spiral but instead exacerbates the problem with a badly written, derivative and lacklustre melodrama that desperately needed greater depth to achieve its intent of an atypical approach to Doctor Who. The story sees the Doctor and Mel visiting a scientific Foundation after she receives an invitation from her uncle who works there, inviting them to the centenary celebrations marking the organisation's inauguration. She takes the chance to delve into her family history for the building the Foundation is housed within once belonged to them, but she soon finds herself blasted back into the past leaving the Doctor to rescue her. There is some promise in this premise, but it soon becomes clear that there's little originality about this play with much of it reminiscent or actively cannibalised and recycled from other previous releases, albeit not so well realised.

Catch-1782 most closely evokes Jacqueline Rayner's The Marian Conspiracy, which featured the memorable introduction of Evelyn Smythe as the Doctor's first audio-only companion. It saw the Doctor investigate a mysterious MacGuffin that facilitated the companion's journey into her own past to meet her ancestors, endangering her future in the process - much like the substance of Lawson's play with the "temporal nexus point" of Rayner's play replaced with the far less plausible sounding "kink in time". The big difference between the two plays is that Rayner uses the scenario as a springboard for an intriguing political plot with a historical basis, whereas Lawson has little else but the uncomplicated story of Mel's acceptance within the house of her ancestor, Henry Hallam. What disappoints is that this seems little more than sub-Victorian melodrama. The past cast consists of a collection of stock characters such as the grieving Lord or the Manor who falls for Mel out of sympathy yet turns out to be (naturally) mad and obsessive, the insanely jealous housekeeper who wants Henry for herself as well as the ineffective, ethically-torn physician who's blind to the truth of what's before him.

The similarities to other stories are pronounced within Lawson's script with Mel's inadvertent method of travelling back into the past recalling Nyssa's journey to the Alps in Winter For The Adpet. The idea of Mel spending several months away from the Doctor featured before in The Juggernauts - which given that was only released three months prior to this makes it seem extraordinarily poor planning, particularly when there's no reference to events so similar. It's hard to believe in the development of Mel when she shows no sign of awareness of loosing nine months of her life trapped in places she doesn't want to be, thanks to the Doctor's failure to rescue her sooner on two occasions in such close proximity. Even the catch-22 situation that the play gets its title from, with Mel's knowledge of the future seemingly condemning her to a life in the past she has become part of, was done with far more flair and invention in Steve Lyon's The Fires Of Vulcan.

Aside from its hackneyed leanings, Catch-1782 offers itself as a gentle character piece that contrasts the usual fare with no real villain, no typical Doctor Who plot in order to create something small and intimate that wants to revel in its simplicity. Such a story should be perfectly possible, but Lawson sets about achieving it all wrong with a superfluous first episode. It's purpose is to introduce the history of Henry Hallam and his mysterious women, but it does so in a very false manner. This is yet another story that focuses upon Mel heavily and so it's not difficult to anticipate what her place within that history will be. The way Lawson gets the Doctor and Mel to the Foundation is extremely dubious for he pulls out of nowhere an invitation from her Uncle John to partake in the ceremony of burying a time capsule in the Foundation grounds. Given that Mel's legitimate query as to where the invite came from is casually dismissed ("never mind that"), are we to believe that the Doctor casually pops back in time to collect all his companions' mail on the off chance there's something interesting? No, it's just a very badly contrived method of moving the characters into position. Unfortunately, this heavy-handiness is symptomatic of the entire approach to the script, something the lack of thought in setting these episodes on certain dates highlights further.

The Foundation's celebration takes place on the 12th December 2003, there is nothing wrong with that except the "Who's who?" notes in the CD booklet (and He Jests At Scars... for that matter) show that director/producer Gary Russell has accepted his own origin novel for Mel, Business Unusual, as gospel which means she left Earth for a life with the Doctor in 1989, so why would her uncle be sending her an invitation fourteen years later? Why doesn't Mel question this? As Big Finish's policy towards novel continuity seems to be to ignore it totally unless useful, we can discount Head Games's neat solution (it clashes anyway, grounding Mel as a 1986 girl) but there's no real consideration of the timeframe in Catch-1782 itself as John acts like he's only just seen Mel a few weeks ago, never mind fourteen years.

Despite Mel's apparent enthusiasm at attending the celebrations, citing being "hooked on science" and the invitation giving her the chance to "think of all the people there", she instantly seems rather bored, choosing to shy away from scientific discussion and giving preferential treatment to the champagne and nibbles before slipping away to read up on her own family history. This inconsistent characterisation is more than a little slipshod; creating the sense that Lawson is bending Mel's character to what she needs for the plot to develop rather than allowing her natural persona to flourish. Despite spending the entire episode creating and establishing the mood of the Foundation, Lawson jettisons the setting and the characters completely in favour of the historical one for the remainder, which makes the opening seem unnecessary as there could have been better ways to impart the important plot points and introduce the character of John. Had the action moved into the past sooner, it might have made this a more satisfying play but as it is it has the feel of those old six part stories that spend two weeks faffing around with one plotline before the real story begins in week three.

The great appeal of character-based stories is their ability to say far more about the characters involved than those that feature a greater emphasis on plot. This is especially true of a continuing series like Doctor Who as there's the capacity to explore the regulars and supporting characters equally. With Catch-1782 Lawson seems to have little to say about either Mel or the Doctor, with the former spending much of the story suffering a post-temporal time travel sickness or drugged up on laudanum while the latter simply turns up to save her. With a cast of cardboard-like stereotypes making up the supporting characters, there's no real chance of the Doctor and Mel's relationship with them forming a strong, dramatic backbone either with which to build the drama around.

The historical sections of the play bask in sheer melodrama with the waif wandering into the gentrified house of Hallam where its master takes pity on her and gives refuge until she can recover her senses. Unfortunately for Mel, the physicians of 1781 (for that is the year when she arrives) misdiagnose her daze and put her into a drugged stupor for six months, during which time Henry Hallam's kindness turns into affection as he looks to replace his late wife with Mel or, as he believes her to be called, Elena. In setting this up the plot again twists towards the too convenient, as Mel becomes ill and ever so slightly amnesic only a while after her arrival in the Hallam household without a satisfactory explanation for why, which undermines what happens afterwards. The idea of a time traveller's behaviour conflicting with the accepted standards of the era they have arrived within, forcing the locals to reconcile them in whatever way they can - in this case, Mel is clearly deranged - is a good one with lots of potential but Lawson prefers to run with the clichéd idea that Hallam develops feelings towards Mel. Throw in the resentful housekeeper Mrs McGregor, whose own eyes are fixed upon the master and the local doctor, horrified at Hallam's intentions and you've got the basis of a very old-fashioned story, dressed up in minimalist science-fiction terms. While there is truth in the maxim that Doctor Who has the ability to tap into any genre it likes, Catch-1782 is proof that it should not necessarily do so.

Lawson makes some very strange decisions in creating her episode endings, with two cliffhangers feeling way off. Concluding with the companion in peril is such a cliché nowadays but as Mel feels herself being sucked back through time her scream is certainly the point which episode one should have ended upon, not several minutes later when John, frustrated at the Doctor's strange words, asks him what's happened to Melanie and who is he. The second episode is similarly underwhelming and misses the chance to feature the more dramatic incident of an unwilling Mel getting her first dose of sedative to render her docile, which happens mere seconds after the third's recap.

The only cliffhanger that really works is the final one, featuring the Doctor's realisation that Mel has become part of history and the only way they can preserve her and John's future is to leave her in 1782. Shamefully, Lawson takes the easiest way out possible in determining this quandary, displaying none of the subtle plotting that made the resolution of the similar problem facing the (Seventh) Doctor and Mel in The Fires Of Vulcan much more memorable. It simply turns out that there was no catch-22 situation in the first place and Mel is not trapped there afer all, as it's all been a massive misunderstanding. Despite there being a nice symmetry to the way the future events witnessed in the opening episode are set up, it would have been better if there had been an interesting story to go with them rather than the bland, empty nothing we do get.

The acting is adequate, which is perhaps the best that could be hoped for given the limited material of the script, but Derek Benfield as John, who with Mel missing assumes the role traditionally allocated to the companion, steals the show. While his character is defined with little more depth beyond "eccentric scientist" Benfield's performance is energetic and lively, giving his scenes with Colin Baker plenty of vigour. Baker himself is good without reaching the highs we know he's capable of but this is down to the scripts focus on Mel, which like the similarly angled The Juggernauts, leaves the Doctor as a marginal figure. The Doctor does have a few good individual scenes though, such as his reunion with Mel in the Hallam house where he must deny her to preserve his own cover. Langford herself benefits from another Mel-centric script with the nature of the plot allowing her to do something a bit different by being forced into a situation she doesn't want to be in, which she doesn't just blindly accept as in her last audio appearance. Keith Drinkel makes Henry Hallam a big presence in the past and more convincing than he should be, given the limitations of the script, as a man on the edge driving his affection for Mel into an obsession.

Catch-1782 is not a successful story as though it has a kernel of potential Lawson never comes close to realising it because much of this production feels contrived and lacks credibility. While this play continues the current trend of conforming (more of less) to the duration of a four part original series story, it still feels drawn out due to the underdeveloped, and, consequently, padded script and with no strong storyline or interesting achievement in characterisation, it begs the question of what is the point? It fails to entertain and there's not enough substance for the themes to resonate enough to create an emotional investment in what's happening for the listener. At a time when the new television series is redefining dynamically the very nature of Doctor Who, stories as gentle and twee as this stand out as an archaic relic of a bygone era.