No Man's Land by: Martin Day directed by: John Ainsworth: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Another Lost

No Man’s Land stars Sylvester McCoy as the Doctor with Michael Cochrane as Lieutenant-Colonel Brook, Sophie Aldred as Ace and Philip Olivier as Hex.  It was written by Martin Day, directed by John Ainsworth and released in November 2006 by Big Finish Productions.

 

Taking Hex and putting him into historical bloodbaths seems to be becoming a recurring theme with The Settling showing him why he cannot change a lot of history and now No Man’s Land showing just what can be changed.  The story set during the First World War in a hospital shows just how desperate the Allies were to win the war after trench warfare caused stalemate after stalemate as well as a grim picture of hospital morale in the story mixed in with urban legends of experiments occurring on soldiers.  The plot is the Doctor and company trying to figure out who a murderer may be at a hospital, before a crime is even committed which is just an excuse to keep them stuck at the hospital.  It’s a standard Doctor Who plotline that has your standard mystery element from the offset, but what the hospital is hiding underneath the façade of healing is what really drags you into the story, almost kicking and screaming.

 

Before getting into the standard acting performances note must be made of John Ainsworth’s wonderful direction of this story and David Darlington’s sound design.  They both make the period come alive especially on Darlington’s end as Darlington did not write a single note of music for this story.  Instead samplings of public domain music were taken from the period and converted onto vinyl for playing in the story itself.  It really adds layers to the episode as whenever something bad happens this music kicks in the background which allows the subconscious of the listener connect with the conditioning long before the characters do.  It’s an extremely interesting concept and Ainsworth has it implemented at just the right times for it to really matter and he pulls off the reveal of the twist of who the hospital staff are working for brilliantly.

 

Brilliant however cannot be said about the supporting cast.  While they all have characteristics of soldiers who are tired of war, there really isn’t much else to be interested in as they are cut outs of the wonderful characters as seen in Steve Lyons’ excellent Colditz.  There is the exception of the villain played by the wonderfully disturbing Michael Cochrane.  Cochrane imbues Lieutenant-Colonel Brook with this sinister sense of Britishness with the whole stiff upper lip gambit all the while the experiments he is performing on the wounded soldiers are completely immoral.  He’s trying to condition them not to become shell shocked and never give up fighting which the wording of that plays a big part in his downfall which is gloriously portrayed at the end of the story.

 

While the supporting cast doesn’t make any real impression which heavily lets the story down, the main cast does.  Sophie Aldred honestly gives a powerhouse of a performance here as while Ace doesn’t do much, her presence is felt throughout the story.  She actually provides a little bit of comedic relief near the beginning which is alright, but honestly she doesn’t do much which is a testament to how Martin Day can only write one companion.  That one companion is Hex who shines as the one who actually wants to help out at the hospital, being a nurse and the Doctor allows him to do so in whatever way he can, as long as he doesn’t let anything slip about the future.  We also get quite a bit of setup for the arc that is beginning with Hex as he questions about his mother who we and the Doctor know was Cassie, but he doesn’t know that.  Yet.  Philip Olivier gives a great performance and I’m really warming to his character more than I did in his last performances.  Sylvester McCoy is also great here as the Doctor as he is up against probably his best match, which even at what is an early stage is not an individual, but an organization which has enough resources to out manipulate the manipulative Time Lord.

 

To summarize, No Man’s Land has some great ideas and works really well as a period piece and is a great setup to what is going to be happening with Hex, but as an actual story it fails with almost all its characters on some level.  It is by no means a bad story as the conditioning plotline actually works really well for the most part.  65/100.