Victorian orphan Thomas Brewster is haunted by his mother’s ghost – and by a spectral blue box.
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Styre
on May 8, 2016 at 1:16 AM
THE HAUNTING OF THOMAS BREWSTER
I was vaguely disappointed with Jonathan Morris’s recent Paul McGann release “Max Warp,” but I attributed that disappointment to the cultural references I didn’t understand. The prospect of a new, full-length Morris release starring Peter Davison was encouraging, however, and I’m pleased to say I wasn’t disappointed in the slightest by “The Haunting of Thomas Brewster,” which expertly melds a variety of styles into one of the most entertaining releases in recent memory.
The first episode is quite interesting, in that it adopts a Dickensian tone as it follows the early life of Thomas Brewster (John Pickard). The Doctor and Nyssa appear only on the periphery: rather, we follow Brewster from his mother (Leslie Ash)’s funeral to his time working for Creek (Barry McCarthy), a man employing child labor to collect valuable scrap. Curiously, Creek has retrieved a mysterious blue box from the Thames — and two strangers seem to be on Brewster’s trail, asking after him. “Doctor-lite” episodes like this are always risky, as they can lose the audience, but Morris writes Brewster as an intelligent, enthusiastic narrator, who easily holds the attention. The cliffhanger, too, is creepy, and is nicely unpredictable.
With episode 2, the narrative becomes more conventional — at least, in the Doctor Who sense. There’s the usual “problem with the TARDIS” device that has been forcing landings for decades of stories, but Morris uses it nicely by plucking Nyssa from the ship, dropping her in 19th century London, and having her meet the Doctor — who’s been living there for a year! Morris’s script elegantly builds a believable Victorian society, and Peter Davison’s Doctor clearly enjoys the opportunity to work with the Royal Society of the time, even if he steadfastly refuses to tell them anything they don’t already know.
The “monsters” in this story are among the more complicated concepts heard in the series. In brief, they originate from a quantum future universe, and are using time travel technology to seed their presence into the past, thus retroactively solidifying the likelihood of their future coming into being. They manifest themselves as “ghosts,” and their gaseous appearance suffocates their victims. Of course, the bizarre nature of these creatures means that the Doctor’s solution is particularly incomprehensible technobabble — and this leads to a fairly unrewarding third episode, with the Doctor building machines while Nyssa and the Doctor’s assistant Robert McIntosh (Christian Coulson) seal the building’s openings against gas.
But the fourth episode more than makes up for it, with the wholly entertaining temporal shenanigans Morris became famous for in his novel “Festival of Death.” The scene in which the Doctor materializes the TARDIS in its own console room almost broke my brain open, and the resulting hops between time periods had a grin on my face. It’s amazing to see how easily everything is tied up — and I don’t even think there were any serious loose ends. “Haunting” is also signficant because it ends on a cliffhanger, presumably leading into the next Davison story — and it, too, is unexpected and entertaining.
There seems to be more back-and-forth than usual between Peter Davison and Sarah Sutton, and the story is all the better for it. I particuarly enjoyed the exchange where Nyssa expressed horror at the Doctor’s TARDIS flying, while the Doctor, embarrassed, called his achievement “neat.” Pickard, though, steals the show as Brewster, whose emotional struggle and desire to help present a character who, while frustrating, is totally understandable. McIntosh is less developed — there isn’t enough foreshadowing of his frustration with the Doctor to make his decision to leave totally believable, and his subsequent heroic sacrifice similarly comes out of nowhere. This isn’t to take away from Coulson’s performance, though, which is solid. On the production front, this story has developed a controversial reputation for Simon Robinson’s odd musical score. Personally, it reminded me of the 1980s synth scores, and I loved those — it gets a thumbs up from me. However, director Barnaby Edwards overuses the musical cues, sometimes veering over 10 seconds between scenes. There are also a couple of odd instances with the sound: the episode 4 titles sound flawed at the beginning, for example.
Overall, though, “The Haunting of Thomas Brewster” is an excellent release. It drags somewhat in the middle, but is otherwise intelligent, thought-provoking, and highly entertaining. After the crushing disappointment that was “The Dark Husband,” this story once again has me eagerly looking forward to the next BF.
THE HAUNTING OF THOMAS BREWSTER
I was vaguely disappointed with Jonathan Morris’s recent Paul McGann release “Max Warp,” but I attributed that disappointment to the cultural references I didn’t understand. The prospect of a new, full-length Morris release starring Peter Davison was encouraging, however, and I’m pleased to say I wasn’t disappointed in the slightest by “The Haunting of Thomas Brewster,” which expertly melds a variety of styles into one of the most entertaining releases in recent memory.
The first episode is quite interesting, in that it adopts a Dickensian tone as it follows the early life of Thomas Brewster (John Pickard). The Doctor and Nyssa appear only on the periphery: rather, we follow Brewster from his mother (Leslie Ash)’s funeral to his time working for Creek (Barry McCarthy), a man employing child labor to collect valuable scrap. Curiously, Creek has retrieved a mysterious blue box from the Thames — and two strangers seem to be on Brewster’s trail, asking after him. “Doctor-lite” episodes like this are always risky, as they can lose the audience, but Morris writes Brewster as an intelligent, enthusiastic narrator, who easily holds the attention. The cliffhanger, too, is creepy, and is nicely unpredictable.
With episode 2, the narrative becomes more conventional — at least, in the Doctor Who sense. There’s the usual “problem with the TARDIS” device that has been forcing landings for decades of stories, but Morris uses it nicely by plucking Nyssa from the ship, dropping her in 19th century London, and having her meet the Doctor — who’s been living there for a year! Morris’s script elegantly builds a believable Victorian society, and Peter Davison’s Doctor clearly enjoys the opportunity to work with the Royal Society of the time, even if he steadfastly refuses to tell them anything they don’t already know.
The “monsters” in this story are among the more complicated concepts heard in the series. In brief, they originate from a quantum future universe, and are using time travel technology to seed their presence into the past, thus retroactively solidifying the likelihood of their future coming into being. They manifest themselves as “ghosts,” and their gaseous appearance suffocates their victims. Of course, the bizarre nature of these creatures means that the Doctor’s solution is particularly incomprehensible technobabble — and this leads to a fairly unrewarding third episode, with the Doctor building machines while Nyssa and the Doctor’s assistant Robert McIntosh (Christian Coulson) seal the building’s openings against gas.
But the fourth episode more than makes up for it, with the wholly entertaining temporal shenanigans Morris became famous for in his novel “Festival of Death.” The scene in which the Doctor materializes the TARDIS in its own console room almost broke my brain open, and the resulting hops between time periods had a grin on my face. It’s amazing to see how easily everything is tied up — and I don’t even think there were any serious loose ends. “Haunting” is also signficant because it ends on a cliffhanger, presumably leading into the next Davison story — and it, too, is unexpected and entertaining.
There seems to be more back-and-forth than usual between Peter Davison and Sarah Sutton, and the story is all the better for it. I particuarly enjoyed the exchange where Nyssa expressed horror at the Doctor’s TARDIS flying, while the Doctor, embarrassed, called his achievement “neat.” Pickard, though, steals the show as Brewster, whose emotional struggle and desire to help present a character who, while frustrating, is totally understandable. McIntosh is less developed — there isn’t enough foreshadowing of his frustration with the Doctor to make his decision to leave totally believable, and his subsequent heroic sacrifice similarly comes out of nowhere. This isn’t to take away from Coulson’s performance, though, which is solid. On the production front, this story has developed a controversial reputation for Simon Robinson’s odd musical score. Personally, it reminded me of the 1980s synth scores, and I loved those — it gets a thumbs up from me. However, director Barnaby Edwards overuses the musical cues, sometimes veering over 10 seconds between scenes. There are also a couple of odd instances with the sound: the episode 4 titles sound flawed at the beginning, for example.
Overall, though, “The Haunting of Thomas Brewster” is an excellent release. It drags somewhat in the middle, but is otherwise intelligent, thought-provoking, and highly entertaining. After the crushing disappointment that was “The Dark Husband,” this story once again has me eagerly looking forward to the next BF.
Highly recommended.
9/10