In the Series Four
episode The Doctor’s Daughter writer
Stephen Greenhorn posits that the Doctor is the man who would never would harm
another being. Of course two years
earlier Big Finish released The Nowhere
Place a story where by the end the Doctor is responsible for the genocide
of countless races when he could easily have saved them if he only killed one
race. So of course as the man who never
would, he kills trillions of sentient life forms whose only crime was existing
and it was the Web of Time’s fault that they cannot be allowed to exist. This story is of course going to be a
completely uncontroversial one I write sarcastically. Nicholas Briggs gets to flex his mystery
writing muscles this time around as the first three episodes of The Nowhere Place is one that unravels a
mysterious door on a spaceship near the edge of the solar system where the only
doors should be airlocks that apparently leads to nowhere. The door is a captivating idea as it draws
people to it with little clues as to the mystery of its existence. It’s almost a character in itself as it doesn’t
want to give anything up too soon before it causes some terror to the
inhabitants of the spacecraft. The story
sees the Doctor try to rescue Evelyn from the door’s influence and unravel the
mystery which leads them from the far future to a train on the 1950s where the
door also appears to be. I won’t give
too much away but I will say that the ideas are extremely frightening in that
brilliant way that Nicholas Briggs can pull off.
As always Colin Baker is
on top form as the Doctor who in this story acts out for the protection of the
human race and even wants to avoid genocide of the other races involved in the
titular nowhere place as they have a right to exist. He knows however that no matter what he does
they are going to die by the end of the story and that’s the final say. The Doctor is also extremely caring to Evelyn
who is possessed by the door in the story for a period of time which continues
to show just how suited the pair of Six and Evelyn are. Maggie Stables of course shines as Evelyn
Smythe as she has to play possessed on top of the already large amount of
character baggage. Of course that doesn’t
come without comedy as Stables and Baker have this double act that just comes
with the two of them playing their parts.
They get this great moment in Part Three where the Doctor gets into
period costume and Evelyn calls him out on how it really isn’t going to fool
anyone and proceeds of course to fool the passengers into thinking he’s a guard
and she’s a passenger which just shows how their relationship is solid and what
a real team they make. The supporting cast
is rather limited to three roles. First
is Martha Cope as Captain Oswin who is the captain of the spaceship where the
door first is. Oswin is the complete
military mind and is obviously looking out for her crew even if they are a
bunch of red shirts for the slaughter.
The Doctor leaves her in front of the door for two months which is a
terrifying concept as the door is hypnotic to anyone who comes in contact with
it. The other character of importance is
Palmer who is a mainly silent bodyguard used for a little bit of comedy in Part
Three which is honestly alright, but nothing special.
I think a word should be
made about Nicholas Briggs’ involvement in this story as not only writing and
directing the story, he is responsible for the music, sound design and playing
one of the major characters. I wouldn’t
be surprised if Briggs provided the lunches for the actors while recording as
he basically took this entire audio on himself and unlike Embrace the Darkness he does it extremely well. The music is extremely haunting as Briggs
creates a darker 1950s style score even for the portions of the story in the
far future which works really well for the dark atmosphere created by the
ideas. Briggs’ character, while he gives
it his all and is a good actor, is a bit of a cookie cutter stereotype of a mad
scientist that really goes nowhere.
To summarize, The Nowhere Place sports some great
atmosphere and ideas as Nicholas Briggs really gives it his all to make a good
story and it shows. The acting is great
all around with Baker and Stables doing their best, but a lot of the characters
aren’t very interesting. 85/100
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