The Doctor and Greg land on a death ship. It is transporting condemned prisoners across Space to their point of execution. Also on board, the enigmatic sentient computer known as BABE.
The Doctor and Greg land on a death ship. It is transporting condemned prisoners across Space to their point of execution. Also on board, the enigmatic sentient computer known as BABE.
Audio Visuals was a non-profit fan organization which made Doctor Who audios from 1984 until 1991. They included Bill Baggs of BBV fame, and Gary Russell, Nicholas Briggs, John Ainsworth, Alan Barnes, and Nigel Fairs of Big Finish fame. Looking back, this is where the BF boys really cut their teeth. In their roughly seven years of production, they produced 27 full length audio adventures, including 2 specials, comprising 4 full seasons. Several of these have since been adapted as Big Finish stories.
Blurb The Doctor and Greg land on a death ship. It’s transporting condemned prisoners across space to their point of execution. Also on board, the enigmatic sentient computer known as BABE.
The story begins with prisoners being sentenced to death in deep space for crimes against Home World. The prisoners are apparently a father, mother, two daughters and some cannon fodder thugs that I don’t recall being of any consequence. Meanwhile, The Doctor lands at a boy’s school ala Mawdryn Undead, where he meets young Turlough Greg. The two have a slightly odd and disturbingly-near-flirtatious talk about soccer balls (footballs). The Doctor ends up showing Greg the Tardis, and he takes it in stride exactly the way that anyone wouldn’t. Upon mistakenly landing on the prison ship, Greg (still not really bothered by any of this) and the Doctor get involved in the proceedings. It turns out that BABE, the sentient ship computer, is absorbing the minds of those onboard and sending those minds back the Central BABE (interesting visual) back on Home World. Prisoners try to escape, guards try to stop them. BANG BANG SHOOT SHOOT MIND ABSORB MIND ABSORB, all of the prisoners except the youngest daughter Nadia are dead or of no consequence. The ship is set to detonate itself to execute the prisoners (not very cost effective), but The Doctor rigs BABE to also destroy the Central BABE (still an interesting visual) back on Home World. It goes slightly wrong and the feedback ends up destroying Home World altogether. The Doctor pauses for about 10 seconds to absorb the fact that he’s committed murder several billion times over, but then it’s back to the Tardis with Greg and Nadia for a nice holiday! Holidays are great when you’ve committed genocide!
Evaluation
Well, it would be really unfair to judge a fan produced pilot episode too harshly. Everyone is just finding their feet after all. So let me start by saying that the AV range gets MUCH better in the following installments. It comes in at 41 minutes, and to be honest, that’s about as far as the plot could stretch. The ideas are there, but it just doesn’t come together for me.
The idea of a family of well spoken criminals kept conjuring the image of the Brady Bunch in space. They never really seemed very mean, and it wasn’t clearly spelled out what Mike, Carol, Jan and Marsha had really done wrong. Still, they were being flown out into deep space, where their prison ship was to be detonated. And that’s another thing… How economical is it to build space ships with the sole purpose of exploding when they get a certain distance away? It’s like shooting Ted Bundy to the Moon rather than electrocuting him. Tax payers on Home World couldn’t have liked that one little bit!
The Doctor and Greg have a good rapport, although Greg is strangely unimpressed for a 17 year old who has just travelled from his school to a prison space craft in the Tardis. But then it was the 1980’s, when companions were routinely hopping onboard without giving much thought to silly things like N-Space, shrunken aunties, or destroyed home planets. I did have a little trouble differentiating between The Doctor and Greg because they both sound so similar. This is a problem that is quickly rectified in the next story, when Nicholas Briggs takes over as the Doctor.
But I’ve got to say that my biggest gripe with The Space Wail is the ending. The Doctor, Greg and Nadia take off in the Tardis after The Doctor mistakenly detonates Home World. Oops. Well, 750 years old, you’re bound to have a senior moment, right? A whole planet of innocent people goes BOOM, and all it takes is a “well, you know, maybe it’s for the best…” from Nadia, and the Doctor is ready to show his new friends the wonders of the universe. So so so wrong in so so so soooooooo many ways.
Overall 3 out of 10
If the pilot episode auditioned for American Idol, I don’t think it would even get Paula’s vote. Dog, I’m just keeping it real, yo. You’ve got to start somewhere, and The Space Wail laid the foundation for great stories to come. I think it’s best looked at as a way of introducing the characters and setting up the series proper. Just try not to think about Home World too hard, because… yeesh!
NEXT TIME
A newly regenerated Doctor and company fight an old enemy in THE TIME RAVAGERS. *cue music sting*