Establishing a tone for a
story is extremely important in getting the plot to work and for those
experiencing the story. Doing it in a
visual medium can be done with establishing shots and low lighting when you
want to have a tense story. It can be
done with music on audio, but sometimes just having performers giving it their
all is enough to make the tone work. The
opening scene of The Cold Equations
is enough to set the tone as hopeless.
Before even the credits we are treated to a scene where Steven and
Oliver are running out of air. They’re
in a spaceship that has broken off from its main structure, the Doctor is in
the section with the air and cannot get to them, the TARDIS is off in space,
and the air is nearly gone. Purves and
Harper speak softly and Steven asks, what is Oliver’s secret. Cue credits.
It is an amazing hook for a story and you know that there really isn’t
anyway the characters can survive the situation. Peter Purves in particular just gives this
sense that he is about to die in this situation which I think is partially due
to him using his natural voice for this scene.
This is a double edged sword for the narrative as the first part of the
story while dedicated to explaining what the equations of the title are, has
the problem of being just a lot of buildup for the inevitable destruction at
the cliffhanger while the second half is Steven and Oliver together in the
spaceship.
The story really only has
enough energy to keep the audience invested in the second half which causes the
first half to drag on before getting to any sort of conclusion. It’s really down to the actors and Lisa
Bowerman’s direction to allow the story to feel real, as the music is done
extremely subtly. I can only praise Lisa
Bowerman for the work she’s done on crafting this story into something
completely realistic for the futuristic setting. It has that same tone that worked for The Edge of Destruction and could easily
have been seen on television with some minimal sets with the exception of
revealing Oliver’s secret. Bowerman’s
directorial strengths are played to when crafting this audio for the
listener. Peter Purves as Steven Taylor
works incredibly well as the narrator for the entire story. He’s got one of those voices that could
engage a listener in a dramatic reading of the phone book. Steven also gets to play the action hero as
he’s the one working towards finding a way to get more oxygen or even get back
to the TARDIS. Purves has to deal with
an absurd amount of technobabble, but technobabble that according to Simon
Guerrier is accurate to the story. Tom
Allen as Oliver Harper gives a different little light to the story as Oliver
works as the man from 1966, but Guerrier writes him with such ingenuity, giving
him a chance to really by a fluke find solutions to part of the problem. The drama comes with how he reveals what his
secret is. Allen portrays it as a crime
tantamount to murder, but the reveal has this cathartic release of tension when
it is revealed that he’s gay. That’s the
secret and Guerrier plays it with the assurance that change is just around the
corner from the 60s. It doesn’t come
across as bad or forced, but just feels natural.
To summarize, The Cold Equations does an excellent job
at exploring Oliver Harper and creating a story from the old base under siege
storylines to one of a spaceship running out of oxygen. It gives us much to look forward when it
comes to the next story with all three being arrested on the planetoid Grace
Alone. The story only fails in a very
slow start but the performances make up for a lot of those flaws in
abundance. The direction is also
excellent. 90/100.
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