Welcome to Tantane Spaceport – where the tribes of Business and Economy have been at war for all of four hundred years…
Welcome to Tantane Spaceport – where a terrible creature called the Wailer prowls the corridors around the Control Tower, looking to eat the unwary…
Welcome to Tantane Spaceport – where there is one Arrival: a battered blue Police Box containing the time-travelling Doctor and his companion, Mel…
Welcome to Tantane Spaceport – where there are no Departures. Ever.
SPACEPORT FEAR
With the anniversary release year underway, Big Finish followed up the unconventional “The Wrong Doctors” with the second release in the sixth Doctor trilogy, William Gallagher’s very conventional “Spaceport Fear.” And while Gallagher certainly improves on his previous effort, “Wirrn Isle,” there are still some odd problems confronting this story that prevent from reaching any significant heights.
We’ll start with the most obvious feature of the story: its central conceit. “Spaceport Fear” involves a civilization that has evolved over centuries while trapped inside an intergalactic spaceport. If that’s not entirely clear, listen to the play for ten minutes: you’ll definitely understand after that. Gallagher hammers and hammers and hammers this: everything the citizens say, everything they do, every part of their civilization is defined by terms and concepts from airports. The people are divided into Business and Economy classes; the summer season is defined by the lights coming on; births take place in Arrivals; children come of age by stating “I have something to declare,” and so forth. This never stops, from the first minute to the last. Of course, a strongly defined culture is not a problem, but the question here is simpler: why did the author go this route? The story doesn’t have much to do with the setting – indeed, this story could be told pretty much anywhere with a few cosmetic changes – and there’s really no attempt at social commentary past the blatantly obvious. This wouldn’t matter, either, except that Gallagher foregrounds it so heavily the listener naturally expects the conceit to go somewhere, and it never does.
This effect bleeds through to the other characters. The Doctor and Mel spend significant time pondering the history of the station, the nature of the moving walls, and the power drains, but only those strands directly related to the plot are given significant explanation. Elder Bones (Ronald Pickup, excellent) evidently created this society to further his own goals, but the explanation of why isn’t as obvious, unless it’s “for his own amusement.” Indeed, the whole thing starts to fall apart when the story asks us to accept that he’s been trapped in this spaceport for over four centuries without ever making use of the emergency-open buttons to get to the control tower. Really, this is a very standard one-location Doctor Who story with a cultural wrinkle on top; I’ve seen comparisons to “Paradise Towers” and “The Face of Evil” and it is indeed best described as a combination of both.
That said, Gallagher does drive the story along effectively without as much stalling for time as was evident in his previous script. Character revelations are well timed, and the Doctor and Mel working to escape is paced effectively without ever seeming repetitive. Some ideas are fantastic, too: I like the Doctor having to play a video game so he can leave Mel a message in the high scores table, due to the failure of other communications systems. But then, other parts make very little sense. What is it with Gallagher and strange names? First it was Toasty in “Wirrn Isle,” now it’s Pretty (Gwilym Lee) and Beauty (Beth Chalmers). Again, this would be different if the names had some significance, but the other characters have sci-fi names like Galpan (Chalmers again) and Naysmith (Isabel Fay) and an explanation for the differences is not forthcoming. Also – and I admit this is a minor quibble – what on earth does the last line before the first cliffhanger mean? “Sorry, Mel! Looks like it’s time to check out!” Eh? Are they in a hotel? Does “check out” mean something specific in British airports? Is this just a dreadful twist of “check in?”
From a production perspective, everything runs smoothly. Barnaby Edwards directs well as usual; the performances are effective and the story never flags. The sound design from Richard Fox and Lauren Yason is also successful – it’s very easy to accept the setting as an abandoned spaceport. Overall, “Spaceport Fear” hits enough basic Doctor Who marks to afford an average grade, but rapidly grows confusing or nonsensical whenever it tries to surpass that point.
Not bad. But not great.
5/10