Shoreditch, London, 1963. The Beatles have beaten John Smith and the Common Men to No. 1 and satellites are being launched in outer space. Back down on Earth, strange goings-on are occurring: the normally placid teenagers of Coal Hill are running riot and a master thief is stealing highly specialised equipment.
Schoolgirl Susan Foreman just wants an easy life for herself and her grandfather, the mysterious Doctor. She wants to be liked and accepted by Cedric and all the other pupils at Coal Hill School. But there’s trouble in the streets and bombsites around Totter’s Lane.
The teenagers are becoming dangerous… Their mission: to hunt down anyone different, or alien… Susan’s quiet life is about to spiral out of control. Having inadvertently started drawing attention to herself, she finds herself drawn into a desperate situation. Suddenly, the chase is on and she and her grandfather are now the hunted.
HUNTERS OF EARTH
As part of the elaborate celebrations for the 2013 anniversary year, Big Finish and AudioGO teamed up to produce a series of 11 dramatic readings, one for each Doctor, with the umbrella title “Destiny of the Doctor.” The first of these, Nigel Robinson’s “Hunters of Earth,” features the first Doctor and Susan in a time preceding “An Unearthly Child” but after their arrival on Earth. As a story it’s solid but unspectacular; as the first in a series it features some intriguing elements.
Stylistically, the “Destiny of the Doctor” series is solidly in the AudioGO camp: rather than Big Finish’s full-on dramatizations, these are readings with dramatic elements. Here, Carole Ann Ford serves as narrator, primarily portraying Susan and the Doctor, while Tam Williams provides a few additional voices, primarily Susan’s schoolmate Cedric. Ford proves a capable narrator: she provides a surprising approximation of her own voice from fifty years prior, and her capturing of William Hartnell’s vocal mannerisms is largely accurate, despite (obviously) being an impression. Some of her other characters do less well; her portrayal of Rook, in particular, just sounds like she’s putting on a silly voice. Williams, meanwhile, is quite listenable in his limited role.
Robinson’s script impresses in many ways. Once the editor of the Target range of novelizations and the author of four such books, he clearly relishes the chance to portray a pre-series Doctor and Susan. We see the Doctor’s cynicism and paranoia from his very first scene, hurrying through a dark alleyway, one eye constantly fixed over his shoulder in search of pursuers. Conversely, we see Susan’s interest in her surroundings as well as her struggles to fit in – standing awkwardly amidst a crowd of students with nobody to talk to. These are interesting characters that we haven’t seen very often, and Robinson spends a good percentage of the story with them before the actual plot kicks in.
The story really plays up the bleakness of postwar London, and Robinson skillfully ties the sense of isolation and paranoia felt by the Doctor into the same paranoia felt by the citizens. With gangs of youths threatening the Doctor over his alien nature, Earth itself feels like an inhospitable place. Unfortunately, Robinson doesn’t do much with this fine setup. While I approve of his decision not to incorporate any bug-eyed monsters, the actual explanation for the increasing violence is shrug-inducing, and the resolution is as simple as the Doctor building a machine out of various parts and turning it on. There’s room for more depth here, for tying together everyone’s fear of the Other, but Robinson doesn’t go for it. “Hunters of Earth” is in many ways a textbook example of a story with a brilliant setup that does nothing with it in the end, apart from an ominous warning that may or may not become the series’ linking theme.
The production revolves around the narration, of course. Director John Ainsworth opts for a minimalist soundscape, with many scenes featuring little or no music whatsoever. Simon Hunt peppers the story with little details: doors opening, background chatter, and so forth, all complementing Ford’s words. Overall, “Hunters of Earth” is frustrating: it’s great to hear Carole Ann Ford narrating a Hartnell story for the anniversary, but at some point the script needed to go past that and do something interesting with its setup. Not bad, but nothing I’m going to rush to hear again.
5/10