| THE SHADOW OF THE SCOURGE by Paul Cornell |
| Story 13 Synopsis: Kent, 2003, and the Doctor brings Ace and Bernice to a hotel, where three parties are taking place at the same time. One involves experimental particle physics, a second has a group of people trying to summon spirits, and the third involves cross stitch. The summoners unwittingly provide a channel for fearsome aliens called the Scourge, whom the Doctor is expecting. They transport the hotel through to their dimension. The Doctor has a plan to stop them getting to Earth, but the Scourge foil it, and he becomes partly mutated into one of them. Ace cracks her eardrums to prevent the Scourge getting her, and sets off for the TARDIS. Bernice enters the Doctor's mind to try and help him fight off his Scourge. Inside the TARDIS, Ace is able to overcome more Scourges. The Doctor is able to encourage those taken over to throw off their Scourges, and the invasion is foiled - though the Scourge still remains within. |
| Review:- A prominent New Adventures writer tries to adapt the style to the new audio format... with mixed results. The great triumph of this story is the use of Bernice Summerfield. Lisa Bowerman had been cast previously in the role in her own adventures, and she makes the best of the role, helped by a script from her creator. With Sophie Aldred expected to portray a slightly different Ace than usual, Bowerman does at least provide something solid to focus on, with the Doctor up to his old tricks. The problem with the NAs is the idea of the Doctor as a cosmic chess-player who sets up all his stories in advance, and then waits whilst his opponents fall into traps. This is boring. Worse, it leads to the other kind of plot, where his plans all go wrong, and he looks a berk, before somehow still producing a new plan that saves the day. Here, it's the latter course. The Scourge invasion is pretty workaday, as supra-beings from another dimension who thrive on human misery. They bear some similarity to Marchosias and friends in the later Minuet In Hell, though probably more compelling. Their lack of names marks them out as pretty dreary types, though, their manifestation through human hosts causes some memorably nasty effects, especially the Doctor's transformation. With the Doctor's plan scuppered and himself lost, things look bad. They don't improve when Ace decides to blow her own eardrums. This makes a vague sense, but is hardly the most credible reaction to make in the circumstances. Sadly, though the combat-happy Ace is more believable shinning up lift shafts, she's still lacking a warm personality. Big Finish missed a trick not doing any work with this Doctor just with Bernice. Of course, if Plan A falls apart, Plan B can never be too far behind, and after a self-indulgent interlude in the Doctor's mind, where Bernice takes a shine to his next incarnation (as you wouldn't, in that sort of crisis), a bit of stun gas puts the kybosh on the Scourge plans, and they're whittled away one by one. Everyone goes back to normal, and learns to live happily ever after. Except Ace, whose definition of happiness seems very narrow. Whether this is a fair extrapolation of a New Adventure is probably a moot point. As a chance to see a new team tackle terrors in time and space, then it has novelty value. But the clunking stuff about inner demons is nauseating and insulting in the extreme. The genuinely depressed would take no comfort from this play at all. Nice enough, but highly disposable. |
| Disclaimer: I own a copy. |