The Nowhere Place written and directed by: Nicholas Briggs: Open the Door if You Wish to Die

The Nowhere Place stars Colin Baker as the Doctor with Maggie Stables as Evelyn.  It was written and directed by Nicholas Briggs and released in July 2006 by Big Finish Productions.

 

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