11. Nothing O'Clock.

1 episode. Approx. 61 minutes. Written by: Neil Gaiman. Performed by: Peter Kenny.


THE PLOT

Leadworth, 1984: Reg Browning is naturally suspicious when a figure wearing a rabbit mask appears at the door of his modest home, offering to buy the house for several times what it is worth. But the cash "Mr. Rabbit" offers is real, the contract legitimate, and the deal simply too good to pass up. So he sells, and agrees to have his family and their possessions cleared out by the weekend.

Leadworth, 2010: The TARDIS materializes outside Amy Pond's house, the Doctor returning her in time for her wedding. But as soon as the door opens, both realize that something is wrong. It's simply too quiet. Then Amy hears a voice in her head, informing her that this planet is property of the Kin, that it was taken over entirely legally, and that the human race has died out of natural causes. History has been rewritten. The point of divergence? Leadworth, 1984.

When they arrive in that year, they discover that strange things are happening in Leadworth. Realty offices are closing, because there is nothing for sale - Everything has sold. The hotels are full, and people are camping out at the edge of town while searching for places to move. A very slow, entirely legal takeover is occurring. The Kin have started with Leadworth, and will very quickly occupy the entire planet Earth - And that is just the beginning!


CHARACTERS

The Doctor: This story was penned by Neil Gaiman, who wrote two stories for Matt Smith's Doctor on television. One of those stories was outstanding, the other disappointing, but both featured strong material for the Eleventh Doctor. Little surprise, then, that Gaiman captures this incarnation so thoroughly. Gaiman's prose describes this Doctor as "all elbows" and observes how he will adjust his bowtie to either perfectly level or at a rakish angle. He also likes to use vague descriptions in place of even the most basic nouns; he seems genuinely pleased when Amy tells him that the "table-y thing in the corner" is an actual table. It seems his mind races around as awkwardly as his gangly body, scattered and all over the place... Which makes it all the more dramatic when he focuses completely at the end, his final pronouncement to the Kin very much that of a judge reading out a particularly severe sentence.

Amy: When asked about her parents, she gives an answer that's glib and evasive without even being aware of doing so. Her propensity for processing concepts quickly is shown when, after determining that the voice in her head is unaware of the Doctor, she shuts the TARDIS door before telling him all. Her faith in the Doctor is unshakable, and when the Kin tell her that he has abandoned her, she refuses to believe it.


THOUGHTS

Nothing O'Clock is Neil Gaiman's contribution to Penguin's 11 Doctors, 11 Stories anthology, and it is enormous fun. The literary voice is instantly recognizable as Gaiman, with a narrative that shifts from whimsy to doom-laden at various points. The masked Kin, who ask to be referred to according to their masks ("Mr. Rabbit" or "Mr. Wolf," for example) have a dark fantasy quality that feels like it could easily have come out of Gaiman's Sandman series. At the same time, they are an excellent fit with the fairy tale atmosphere of Series Five, in which the story is set.

The audio version runs a full hour, and it goes by in an eyeblink. The prose lends itself to an audio reading, and performer Peter Kenny does a wonderful job bringing the story to life. I particularly enjoyed his voice for the Kin, a mix of the ominous and the formal that fits these villains perfectly. Kenny's Doctor is also strong, with him capturing the enthusiasm of Matt Smith's performance. His Amy is fairly generic, but is good enough to pass muster - and female characters are so regularly a challenge for male narrators, that it's a very easy shortcoming to forgive.

The method of alien invasion is clever and suitably insidious, from an innocuous beginning to something truly devastating by the time the Kin lays out its long-term plans for humanity. There's an effective, frightening bit involving the Browning's overly-curious young daughter, and the Kin themselves are effective at every turn.

For most of the story's run, I was leaning toward a "9." But it does falter just a bit at the end, with the Doctor's method of thwarting the Kin a little too clearly telegraphed. Since we see the Doctor's trap too clearly, too quickly, we don't get the sense of him pulling victory out of defeat. Really, it feels more like the Kin are struck stupid for not noticing that he's up to something.

Even with minor issues at the end, this remains a terrific little story. Great fun, well worth taking the time either read or listen.


Overall Rating: 8/10.

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10. The Mystery of the Haunted Cottage.

Not Yet Reviewed.

9. The Beast of Babylon.

1 episode. Approx. 67 minutes. Written by: Charlie Higson. Performed by: Charlie Higson.


THE PLOT:

Ali is a typical teenage girl, living with her family on the planet Karkinos. They are all enjoying a relaxing picnic one day... And that's when the Doctor enters Ali's life, rushing up to the family and warning them to run. Ali's father dismisses him as the lunatic he appears... Until a Starman appears, a giant monster created by the collapse of a star. The Doctor uses a silver orb to banish the creature to another dimension where it can do no harm - but he loses the orb in the process, and it is Ali who picks up the strange object.

The Doctor visits Ali that night to recover the orb. There is another Starman, he explains, whose trajectory he has traced to ancient Babylon. He must use the orb to stop that starman before it destroys the whole of human history. Ali agrees to give him the orb, but on one condition: That he take her along.

The Doctor reluctantly agrees, but insists that Ali wait in the TARDIS until he is sure all is safe. When he materializes inside a temple, however, he is quickly mistaken for a foreign spy. And in Babylon, there is only one punishment for spies: Execution!


CHARACTERS:

The Doctor: This story is set at the very end of Rose, in the "gap" between the Doctor's dematerialization without Rose and his rematerialization, when she finally joins him. This solo Ninth Doctor knows he needs a companion to keep him grounded and connected, and worries that he may have come on too strong when trying to enlist Rose. When he rematerializes to offer his nonchalant follow-up ("Did I mention it travels in time?"), he is very nervous before doing so, practicing his approach multiple times before actually going through with it - Almost like a teen suitor practicing before asking a girl out on a date.

Ali: This story's one-shot companion. As the story opens, she appears to be an ordinary girl, albeit a very intelligent one. Higson drops hints from early on that there is more to her. First we see her hesitation about going into the water on her home planet, and her nervousness with the Doctor's apparent desire to dangle his feet in it. Later, we see that she is apparently armed with some kind of weapon that can stun enemies, and that the Doctor is nervous about her leaving the TARDIS while in ancient Babylon. A little after the midpoint, a major revelation is made, one that makes you want to go back and re-listen to the first half to catch all the little clues that paved the way for the twist.


THOUGHTS:

Charlie Higson is a noted author of books aimed at juvenile and young adult readers, most of them with an action and/or science fiction bent. This background makes him a good match for Puffin's anniversary series of Doctor Who ebooks. He also has an acting background; and though his voice isn't even a little bit like Christopher Eccleston's, he proves surprisingly adept at reading his own story for this audio production.

I previously reviewed Spore, Puffin's 8th Doctor story. That was a very competent story, the audio version well read by Nicholas Pegg, but it suffered from a sense of the generic: A generic Doctor who could easily have been any incarnation, with a generic one-shot companion, in a generic narrative. It was fine... just not particularly memorable.

The Beast of Babylon is much better, in no small part because Higson makes sure that his Doctor is very specifically the Ninth. He works in aspects of Eccleston's screen performance, most particularly that grin his Doctor would put on - The one that never quite reached his eyes, made him seem just a little crazy, and that would drop away in the space of a second when no one was watching. Higson returns to the grin several times in his writing, starting with the lunatic quality, then mentioning its lopsidedness. Ali is inititally put off by it, but by the end of the story has come to love it.

Ali is herself a strong character, one I would love to see revisited. She is smart, and from a civilization sufficiently advanced that she actually looks on the TARDIS as being a bit quaint and primitive. Lest she be reduced to an annoying know-it-all, ala Adric, she also has a fierce temper that she is constantly trying to control. That trait makes her a potential danger as well as an ally, and is why the Doctor cannot continue traveling with her.

Higson also takes time to slow down and establish Babylon as a distinct setting. An early chapter moves away from the Doctor and Ali, focusing on a conversation between Hammurabi, the Babylonian King, and Gurguram, the captain of the Royal Guard. This does much to establish the values of this society. We learn about the Babylonians' readiness to go to war, and that they have destroyed their past enemies and made slaves of the survivors. Gurguram talks about executing all non-Babylonians in the city, making it clear that the rights of the citizens are limited by how pure their bloodlines are. By the time the Doctor arrives, a clear stranger in this strange land, we already have a sense of how poor a welcome he is likely to receive.

The story itself is stock stuff, with the Doctor saving a historical society from an attack by an interdimensional monster, but all that work on character and setting pays off. Because the Doctor and Ali feel distinct and well-rounded, because Babylon feels like a unique place of its own, and because of the very shrewd job Higson has done of springing Ali's full nature on us, the narrative grips even when the threat itself is very standard. The results are a pleasure to listen to.


Overall Rating: 8/10.

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8. Spore.

THE PLOT

The TARDIS materializes in the Nevada desert, not far from a small town that has been cordoned off by the military. The town, named Fort Casey, has been wiped out by a fast-acting disease, one that seems disturbingly familiar to the Doctor. He draws on his UNIT credentials to force Major Platt, the officer in charge, to allow him through to investigate.

What he finds confirms his worst fears. The plague is alien in origin, genetically engineered to locate all biological matter and reduce it into a black, oil-like substance. All that bio-mass runs together to a central point, which will build into a brain. The same plague once struck Gallifrey, but the Time Lords were able to stop it by communicating with the brain, to prove their status as an advanced civilization. But at this time and place, humanity has yet to become advanced enough to pass this test.

Unless the Doctor can communicate on humanity's behalf...

CHARACTERS

The Doctor: Reader Nicholas Pegg absolutely nails the Eighth Doctor, capturing Paul McGann's vocal mannerisms so perfectly that I sometimes forgot it wasn't McGann himself while listening to this. Which is good, because for the most part the story itself provides a completely generic Doctor. There are a few tidbits that feel just right for the Eighth Doctor: musing about how much fun he had involving himself in the famous Roswell crash, for instance, or casually admitting to Major Platt that he lied about being with the CDC while gaining even more authority by invoking UNIT. But aside from a few such throwaway moments, this could as easily be the Second, Fourth, Fifth, or Sixth Doctors as the Eighth - It's a perfectly fine "Doctor" characterization, but there's very little distinctive about it.

Capt. Evelyn Chan: The one-shot companion of the story, Evelyn is the sole survivor of the team Major Platt sent into the town before the Doctor's arrival. She is terrified when the Doctor first meets her, which feels appropriate given that she watched her entire team die in front of her. She does show some resourcefulness, staying alive by isolating herself. Unfortunately, after she provides the Doctor (and audience) with some additional backstory, she then does nothing at all except tag along with him for the rest of the story, making her unremarkable even by the undemanding standards of one-shot companions.

THOUGHTS

Spore, the 8th Doctor's entry in Penguin Audio's 11 Doctors, 11 Stories 50th Anniversary collection, is a largely generic story, featuring a generic Doctor paired with a generic one-shot companion. There is nothing surprising about any element of it. It is straightforward, predictable, and overall very safe in its storytelling.

But as a slice of bread-and-butter Who, I have to admit that it is entertaining.

Spore may be generic in content, but it's well-written. Writer Alex Scarrow is able to fix the setting in the listener's mind very quickly, and his descriptions of the black goo that is the virus running from corpses and rotting fruit alike are extremely effective. The story moves briskly, with the Major Platt character serving to give us all the exposition we need before the Doctor enters the deathtrap that was once a town. Backstory is eased into the narrative in doses large enough for us to keep pace with the story, but small enough that the pace doesn't flag.

It would be nice if the storytelling was a bit more ambitious. It would be particularly nice if Evelyn Chan was a more useful character, or at least a more interesting one. Still, this is a diverting bit of easy listening. It's a very average Doctor Who story, but it's well-written and the audio version is well-read - and given how cheaply the story is available as of this writing, it is easily worth a listen.

Overall Rating: 6/10.

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7. The Ripple Effect.

Not Yet Reviewed.

6. Something Borrowed.

Not Yet Reviewed.

5. Tip of the Tongue.

Not Yet Reviewed.