Dreamtime by: Simon A. Forward directed by: Gary Russell: A Time for the Listener to Dream

Dreamtime stars Sylvester McCoy as the Doctor with Sophie Aldred as Ace and Philip Olivier as Hex.  It was written by Simon A. Forward, directed by Gary Russell and released in March 2005 by Big Finish Productions.

 

I’m going to have an attempt at describing the main plot of Simon A. Forward’s sequel to The Sandman, Dreamtime.  The Doctor, Ace and newcomer Hex arrive on an asteroid which is basically Starship UK from The Beast Below, but for Australia where the Galyari and some humans want to set up a trading system between species but all is not well.  The city has become fossilized and it isn’t long before the Doctor gets himself trapped in the dreamtime which is a sort of alternative reality for everything surrounding Uluru which has been uprooted from its spot in Australia and placed on the floating asteroid.  Secrets are revealed that basically say it is the Doctor who caused this mess and through a deus ex machina everything is fixed and the Doctor, Ace and Hex depart from this adventure.  This is really a story that is forgettable in almost every aspect as the plot is thinly spread across four episodes and is one of those plots trying its hardest to be somehow deep even if there isn’t anything deep or insightful about it.  It just serves to waste two hours of your time with subplots that go nowhere and boring characters.

 

Sylvester McCoy gives perhaps his worst performance in Doctor Who history as none of his lines sound natural.  We seem to be back at the dreadful performance of Time and the Rani where the Doctor doesn’t have any real motivations apart from space traveler.  I don’t know who to blame for this if it is McCoy not trying, the script just giving him nothing to do or Gary Russell giving incompetent direction.  I think the script being bad is the most likely culprit as McCoy is a good actor and Russell can direct McCoy rather well.  Sophie Aldred as Ace doesn’t give a bad performance on the other hand, but there just isn’t enough for Ace to do except to be extremely in your face.  Ace spends most of the story just sort of being there and going along with the Galyari with more of that pseudo-deep storyline about racism but the message is muddled in the idea and nothing really makes much sense.

 

This story serves as the second story for Hex played by Philip Olivier who is really the only good thing about this audio.  The material for Hex is much like for the rest of the main cast extremely dull and uninteresting, but Olivier is just a really good actor and knows this is where he has to make his best impression.  The impression he makes is of an extremely caring person in general as he is a nurse and I don’t mind it that Hex is sticking around for a while.  The supporting cast is honestly nonexistent but I do have to mention that the soundtrack is brilliant with a lot of tribal woodwinds.

 

To summarize, Dreamtime may never be as bad as Nekromanteia, but it still isn’t a very good story.  The acting feels extremely stilted from most of the actors with characters who don’t make an impact.  This is a rare lapse in acting quality from Sylvester McCoy and Sophie Aldred leaving new boy Philip Olivier to pick up the slack which he attempts to do and succeeds in some small regards.  The best thing about this story is its relaxing score which can just put you to sleep with ease.  15/100