Young children can be difficult. Benny’s son Peter has the Time Rings and knows how to use them! Cue mayhem and adventure!
Young children can be difficult. Benny’s son Peter has the Time Rings and knows how to use them! Cue mayhem and adventure!
FACT: I shall be reviewing The Grel Escape from the Bernice Summerfield range.
ADDITIONAL FACT: I shall attempt to speak like a Grel for the entire review.
CONCLUSION: I hope it wil be more amusing than annoying.
FACT: The Grel Escape features Benny, 2 year old Peter Summerfield, Jason Kane, Joseph the Porter, Sophia (from The Glass Prison) and Bad Grel.
FACT: The story centres around Peter and the Time Rings. The story starts with Jason teaching Peter about the 20th Century, funfairs and seaside holidays (through Joseph the Porter showing documentaries).
ADDITIONAL FACT: Jason has found Benny’s Time Ring and was thinking about using them to take Peter to the 20th Century.
FURTHER FACT: Jason hears Benny approach, he tells Joseph to show another random video and hides the Time Rings in Peter’s toy airplane. Joseph intercepts a Grel transition where they announce that they are going to kidnap Peter to study him and find facts.
CONCLUSION: Benny is upset at this. She takes Peter, yells at Jason and tries to hit him, Sophia tries to take Peter from Benny because she is upset, Peter holds onto his airplane and says ‘Fair’ which transports all of them to a fairground.
FACT: This angers Benny but is very proud of Peter for saying a new word.
FACT: Peter says ‘sand’ which takes them all to Ancient Egypt.
ADDITIONAL FACT: Benny is very proud of Peter for taking them to an important archaeological site and tries to teach him about the Ancient Egyptians.
NEW FACT: The Grel have a time machine which they use to lock on to Peter and track him down. They turn up and shoot Benny. While Benny is unconscious, Jason is obviously scared and confesses his love for her.
FURTHER FACT: Jason seems to only ever confess his love for Benny when he thinks she is dead.
GOOD FACT: This shot does not kill Benny and they escape the Grel again.
CONCLUSION: Benny is very good at escaping death.
FACT: One of the Grel chasing Peter (who has the ultimate Grel weapon) recognises Sophia.
ADDITIONAL FACT: Sophia recognises the Grel as her son.
FURTHER FACT: The Grel choses not to kill Peter as Sophia has promised him more facts.
BAD FACT: The Grel conclude that the ultimate weapon does not work and proceed to investigate.
CONCLUSION: This does not end well for all involved.
FACT: The Time Rings take over Peter.
FACT: Peter does not have to say anything and they still transport them to random places in the universe.
ADDITIONAL FACT: This makes Peter red hot and impossible to touch. This also makes all involved feel very ill.
FURTHER FACT: The Time Rings make Peter grow up in front of their eyes.
BAD FACT: He kills Sophia’s son and the other Grel.
ADDITIONAL FACT: Sophia grabs the ultimate Grel weapon and uses it to destroy the Time Rings.
CONCLUSION: This results in Peter reverting back to a baby but leaves Sophia very upset.
FACT: Joseph announces that Benny, Jason, Peter and Sophia are the only life forms on the planet (excluding a few birds)
FACT: Benny and Jason seem to accept that they are stuck there.
GOOD FACT: The Grel were following the in a time machine which Sophia got working.
ADDITIONAL FACT: The machine can only make one trip and will take them back to their time but Sophia could not pilot it to the Braxiatel Collection.
CONCLUSION: They decide to risk it.
FIND FACTS! FIND FACTS! FIND FACTS!
QUERY: Who do you think of this audio?
QUERY: What do you think of the Grel?
QUERY: Do Benny and Jason make good parents?
QUERY: Is Peter annoying or cute?
The Grel Escape
I’ve always been slightly perplexed by the picture of Bernice on the cover of this story, she looks completely out of it… But then actually that fits the nature of this story; its patently absurd from the get go.
Firstly let’s recap. Oh No It Isn’t! showed a group of Grel, armed and dangerous, trying to make sense of a pantomime world. That was ridiculous as well but most of the humour didn’t actually come from the Grel, they came from everything else. Jac Raynor then brought one back, a solitary Grel called Sophia, allowing us to get to know her intimately in a way that would have been completely impossible otherwise.
So this is the difficult third outing for Jac Raynor and the Grel, who evidently turned to Doctor Who’s most famous monster for inspiration. The Daleks got a story at home, a story away, and then one that went…. Everywhere. So if it’s good enough for them then its good enough for everyone.
Although I found the Grel amusing in Oh No It Isn’t! and found myself warming to Sophia in the Glass Prison, this might be an outing too far for me. The Grel Escape offers nothing new to the aliens, but it does have bloody good fun repeating the same joke. Facts! Warnings! Exposition! The bulbous squid faced aliens steal the show with an ongoing running gag and some really, really, really, really crap technology.
“I am the real Bernice Summerfield. I drink lots. I have no breasts. Give me the child Peter, husband Jason!”
Yes, considering this is a direct copy of ‘The Chase’, there’s a good reason for that. Unfortunately it’s a joke that I just don’t find… that funny. Its all right, definitely but not amazing.
So, ignoring the repetition of the Grel running gag, and the fact 70% of the plot is a piece for piece subposition of the Chase, what new does this story have to offer?
It starts with Jason trying to ‘normalise’ Peter by showing him days out in standard twentieth century earth. Bernice arrives with Sophia, character last seen in the Glass Prison, and simultaneously falls out with Jason and discovers that Peter is in terrible danger.
Sophia’s character worked in the Glass Prison because she had that sense of unnerving danger that the story needed. Although she was outwardly kind and friendly, the strangeness and claustrophobia of the setting had you imagining she was dangerous. Learning about her became an important part of the story. Here though she gets very little to do aside from be a gooseberry for Jason and Bernice, a role already partially occupied by Steven Wickham, as well as to give a little insight into the Grel pursuing them. She gets something to do at the end with a wonderful, highlight of the play, completely unexpected plot twist at the end, but by then the story is practically over.
Jason suffers similarly, although he gets much more to do. He’s a character whose very easy to get wrong, and although Jac Raynor doesn’t exactly struggle to write for him he does come across just the wrong side of annoying. On the other hand, it is nice to see the character from another perspective. Up until now writers who didn’t enjoy the Jason and Bernice coupling have tended to sideline him, here however the tension between him and Bernice becomes paramount and drives the story forwards.
It’s nice to finally have a voice for Peter, and the snippets of dialogue from Dacey Warriner work well. I’m not sure by his voice at the climax at the end, with a frenzied fight between a monstrous Peter and half a dozen Grel. Additionally I’m not sure about the scene leading up to it where Bernice dreams that the Egyptian gods are judging Peter unworthy.
I suppose there’s a lot to enjoy in the Grel Escape. The writing is humorous, the story simple if a little absurd. If you enjoyed the Grel’s first appearance and want to see more of them then this is for you. If you enjoyed The Chase, a 1960s Doctor Who story which featured the Daleks zipping from timeline to timeline whilst being absolutely crap at catching the Doctor, this is for you. Otherwise, it’s just an amusing diversion, but nothing special.
7 / 10