A long time ago, two travellers came from far away…
In the perfumed palace of an omnipotent Sultan, a girl must tell stories to keep the man she cares about from a cruel and horrible death. She spins tales of distant lands she has visited with a mysterious traveller, of fabulous creatures and fantastic adventures – and of a blue box that can travel in time and space.
Meanwhile, in the dungeons below the throne room, there lurks a secret which will bring down the kingdom – perhaps even the universe.
Can the Doctor and Nyssa escape from this never-ending story before the final chapter spells their end?
1001 NIGHTS
The anthology release has become something of an annual tradition for Big Finish, and, true to form, the 2012 release year closed with “1001 Nights,” a story that abandons the prior format and attempts to link its component parts together into a cohesive whole. And while this attempt generally succeeds, the stories themselves are, unfortunately, terribly uninteresting, failing to carry their weight.
There’s scant evidence on the internet about who wrote what, but the script credits Emma Beeby and Gordon Rennie as the lead writers, with Jonathan Barnes and Catherine Harvey contributing. The linking story ties everything together: the Doctor and Nyssa are prisoners in the court of a Sultan (Alexander Siddig), with the Doctor facing execution unless Nyssa can plead his case. Naturally, this takes a turn for the mythical, as Nyssa adopts the role of storyteller, amusing the Sultan in exchange for the Doctor’s life. For the most part, this segment of the story serves its purpose, and the scenes of the Doctor and the Old Man (Nadim Sawalha) attempting to escape are quite entertaining. But when the other stories wrap up and the framing story becomes the main event, things don’t hold together quite as well. The Sultan steals the Doctor’s identity, which is amusing enough, but it’s illustrated with hammer-obvious scenes like someone pounding on the TARDIS doors begging for help against the monsters and Siddig’s Doctor refusing. It all seems forced and hurried, something that describes the other stories as well.
The first story, “My Brother’s Keeper,” is a simple tale about the Doctor and Nyssa discovering an ancient prison on the far reaches of the universe, and the terrible truths they learn about the warden and the sole inmate. I like the idea of two aspects of the same personality being compelled to keep each other in check. The problem lies in the delivery: the Doctor spends about 15 minutes investigating, then announces that he knows what’s going on, and launches into an extensive monologue explaining who the bad guys are and why they’re the bad guys. This, by definition, isn’t interesting: we don’t get to learn any of it firsthand, so it’s a great deal like sitting through a university lecture. Still, at least we learn that the Doctor views being crushed to death by force fields as a brutal fate deserved by nobody, something he’ll risk his life to prevent.
In the second story, “The Interplanetarian,” the Doctor defeats the bad guy by crushing it to death with force fields. Didn’t anyone edit this? Inconsistencies aside, I’m not sure what the author was trying to communicate here. Is it supposed to be comedic? The Doctor is so blithely disinterested in rescuing Nyssa he stops in the middle to have a cup of tea. The monster rants and raves at the Doctor, and he laughs in its face and mocks it. And then, sure enough, he wins without any difficulty. It’s almost a parody of Doctor Who, but it doesn’t have the confidence to adopt one tone over another, and falls between the cracks. At least Sarah Sutton’s having fun with her possession, though.
The final story, “Smuggling Tales,” features a fascinating central conceit: a society that uses stories rather than money as currency. When the Doctor orders a drink, for example, he is forced to spin a tale on the spot as payment. Unfortunately, the title is a clue that the story doesn’t live up to the concept – it’s just about smugglers stealing stories instead of money. The brief scene of a plagiarist being thrown out of a bar is more interesting than the actual plot – why not work the differences in this society into the central conflict? As it stands, it feels like a missed opportunity.
I don’t want to sound like I think “1001 Nights” is terrible, because there’s still quite a bit here to recommend. The actors all get fine scenes to play, especially Sutton in “The Interplanetarian,” and hearing Alexander Siddig play the Doctor, if only for a short time, is delightful. The tone of the script and production match very well, the sort of light, breezy, mythical tone one would expect from an “Arabian Nights” themed story. Much of this is due to Jamie Robertson’s excellent score and effective sound design, though Barnaby Edwards has, time and again, proven himself one of Big Finish’s finest directors and this story does nothing to change that. Overall, “1001 Nights” is an easy way to pass the time – it never offends, but it rarely inspires. As an end-of-year anthology release, it’s perfectly acceptable.
6/10