1950s London: newcomers arrive daily on British shores seeking a fresh start, new opportunities, or simply the chance of a different life. However, some are from much further afield than India or Jamaica…
After an emergency landing, the TARDIS crew must make the best of it, and look to their new neighbours for help. But the Newman family has more than the prejudices of the time to contend with. A sinister force grows in strength amid the pubs, docks and backstreets of London…
And without the Doctor, marooned in a time and place as alien as anything they’ve ever encountered, Steven and Sara may well face their greatest challenge yet. To live an ordinary life.
THE EARLY ADVENTURES: AN ORDINARY LIFE
Doctor Who has always embraced the fantastic – even the stories that take place in or around the present day largely involve alien invasions or other problems greater than everyday life. Matt Fitton’s “An Ordinary Life,” the final story in the first series of Early Adventures, pushes against this a bit by showing two companions trying to adapt to daily life in the 1950s. Yet unfortunately it’s the science fiction elements that ultimately let the story down.
It’s an idea so simple I’m surprised we don’t see it more often: the Doctor disappears for a protracted period of time and his companions are left to fend for themselves for days, even weeks. By setting the story in the 20th century and using Steven and Sara, Fitton is able to make the ordinary seem alien without having to resort to “What is yon horseless metal beastie?” comments from characters rooted in the past. Furthermore, by placing these characters in a Jamaican immigrant household, Fitton deepens the alien nature of “ordinary” London – a place where racism and prejudice are a serious problem and gainful employment is often difficult to find.
Yes, some of it gets ridiculous – Sara thinking she can get a job as a police officer by attacking a police station is a particularly silly example – but overall Fitton does a fine job of portraying everyday life and the attempts of the TARDIS crew to fit in. I enjoyed the cute scene of Steven and Sara trying to cook before giving up and getting fish and chips, and I thought the scenes of prejudice were played well without going too far over the top. I also appreciated Big Finish’s casting in these roles – Ram John Holder, Damian Lynch, and Sara Powell were all convincing without the performances or the script resorting to stereotypes.
My biggest problem with “An Ordinary Life” is that, ultimately, it’s not about an ordinary life. It starts out that way, but soon enough the tale of two TARDIS crew from the future acclimating to the 20th century becomes yet another story about an alien invasion of Earth. Perhaps the title is meant to be ironic, showing that people with the Doctor never lead an ordinary life, but as there’s no hint of this in the script, I doubt it. And perhaps the story would be better if the science fiction elements weren’t quite so generic – seriously, an alien race who create duplicates of people but need to keep the originals alive in some sort of organic machinery? They’re the Zygons in all but name.
Actually, the big problem is that they’re local – the “monsters” in this arose from the sea, telepathically activated by a dreaming Michael Newman. So they’re living beings that share the planet with us, but that we haven’t had experience with until now, when they start arriving on our shores – and instead of integrating with our society, they overrun it, literally transforming our people into crude duplicates forced to live a subhuman existence under their control. Fortunately, we are able to drive them completely from our shores and back from whence they came, thus regaining our way of life from these dangerous invaders. Holy crap – and this story claims to be *opposed* to racism?
The production, from director Ken Bentley and sound designer Toby Hrycek-Robinson, is as solid as ever. Overall, “An Ordinary Life” is a story of two parts – the great part about ordinary living, and the mediocre part about an alien invasion with some questionable (and surely unintentional) politics. It’s an enjoyable listen, and a solid conclusion to the first series of Early Adventures – and hopefully, now that the range has found its feet, we’ll get some true greats in series 2.
Recommended.
7/10