A space-time summons brings the TARDIS to the strangest place Mags has yet visited. A haven for the freakiest freaks and the weirdest weirdoes: Camden Lock, London, in the early 1990s.
But there’s a reason why former TARDIS traveller Ace has brought the old gang back together. She’s on a mission to rescue an alien being, held prisoner in a massive mansion…
A mission that can’t possibly go wrong. Can it?
AN ALIEN WEREWOLF IN LONDON
It is getting harder and harder to review these stories, as the average quality has been terrible for quite some time and there is no sign of impending improvement. The latest main range tale, “An Alien Werewolf in London,” by Alan Barnes, is absolutely awful, the sort of thing that sounds like it was produced by a bunch of rank amateurs and was written in pure ignorance.
I’ll start with the positive: the music by Joe Meiners is excellent, a unique and memorable soundtrack that is far too good for this production. And that’s literally it – every single other element of this story must be considered a failure. Normally, you can expect at least a basic level of professionalism from Big Finish: good acting, competent direction etc. But here, it’s all bad. Every single performance, without exception, is bad and unconvincing, from Sylvester McCoy all the way down to the end of the cast list. Whether this is due to director Samuel Clemens, the awful script, or both is unclear, but it’s quite clear that nobody knows what’s happening or has any idea how to approach the material. The editing and direction are incomprehensible: despite a frenetic script, the production drags endlessly, a problem exacerbated by inexplicably long stretches of silence scattered throughout.
But the real issue here is the script, something even more appalling considering that Barnes is supposed to be the script editor for this range. I’m genuinely unsure what tone Barnes wants to set: some of this is serious, some of it is overtly comedic, some of it is lampooning Australian soap operas. But rather than using comedy to balance drama or vice versa, these moments come and go with no sense of cohesion. Take the end of episode 3, in which Mags, standing in a largely silent TARDIS console room with the Doctor and Rufus (Jacob Collins Levy), takes us into the cliffhanger with a theatrical “NOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!” This is utterly ridiculous and completely unconvincing, and it’s impossible to accept that the performers didn’t know it at the time. Was this written this way on purpose? Is that supposed to be a funny moment? It’s not played that way.
Let’s also look at the characterization. This is the end of the Mags trilogy, in which she and the Doctor have been searching for a cure for her lycanthropy. At one point in the story, the Sin Eater (Shiloh Coke) absorbs Mags’ transformative abilities. Aha, I thought, this will be the path to resolution for her character – but no, she is returned to “normal” with barely a passing comment and leaves with the Doctor at the end with absolutely no resolution. So, we’re doing more of these, I guess? The story is also notable for its presentation of Ace: this takes place after her departure from the TARDIS, as she calls the Doctor back to Earth to investigate mysterious happenings. You’d expect some sort of evolution in her character, some sort of new perspective gained from her time away, maybe even a return to the thesis of “A Death in the Family” that she can’t function on her own outside of the TARDIS. At the very least you’d expect her to behave like the middle-aged woman she has become, right? Nope – she’s functionally indistinguishable yet again from her season 25 portrayal. It is insulting to the listener’s intelligence to continue to put the same character out there time after time with no changes whatsoever. That Barnes could write this, that Nick Briggs and Big Finish as a whole could release this, shows a deep contempt for the audience: truly, we will buy any old crap with the Doctor Who logo on the front, and here’s the proof.
It’s sad to say, but it feels like Doctor Who is dying. Not in terms of sales or ratings – those may be perfectly healthy – but in terms of the creativity and sense of invention that has always defined the series at its best. The books have, with few exceptions, been a creative wasteland since the return of the series to television, and Big Finish has gone steadily downhill in this regard over the past decade, apparently happy to use all of its creative power on Torchwood stories instead. The most recent season of the TV series was one of the least ambitious in the history of the program, one that has for the first time left me largely uninterested in watching the next season, even in spite of Jodie Whittaker’s magnetic performance and the strong central cast. In that regard, “An Alien Werewolf in London,” while it may be one of the worst releases in Big Finish history, is still little more than another shovelful of dirt on the grave.
Atrocious and contemptible.
1/10