The Doctor arrives in present day Iceland and receives a frosty reception from Inspector Yrsa Kristjansdottir when he becomes the chief suspect in a murder enquiry. But the Doctor knows that the real killer is of extraterrestrial origin.
Joining forces with Yrsa, the Doctor goes in pursuit of a ruthless alien that is hunting humans for sport. Yrsa unearths a dark conspiracy which reaches back into her own past.
Determined to expose the truth and prevent further deaths, the Doctor and Yrsa soon find themselves running for their lives, prey on the hunting ground.
THE HUNTING GROUND
I’m entirely unsure what kind of story “The Hunting Ground,” by AK Benedict, wants to be. The synopsis and the setting hint at a story that will follow the Scandinavian noir pattern, the introduction and characterization of the Doctor hint at a fairy tale style, and the plot and resolution are generic, boring Doctor Who. In other words, it’s a confused, subpar story, one that needed a lot more time with an editor.
The Doctor lands in Iceland and stumbles across a murder scene, immediately becoming Inspector Yrsa Kristjansdottir (Amy Beth Hayes)’s chief suspect. As usual, that conflict takes about five minutes to resolve, but we seem to be settling into a pattern: the atmosphere is bleak, Yrsa is downbeat, there are hints about her father’s mysterious death – we’re heading into a murder mystery in the “Wallander” vein, right? The Doctor and Yrsa discuss “hidden folk” and trolls, so here’s your Doctor Who twist: a dark murder mystery about supernatural creatures of myth. That sounds awesome! Unfortunately, the story never pursues any of these avenues, taking an abrupt right turn into generic Doctor Who: there’s an alien hunter, a client of an evil corporation, pursuing prey on Earth, and the Doctor needs to stop it.
You might well say that an alien hunter pursuing prey on Earth sounds a lot like the recent season premiere “The Woman Who Fell to Earth,” and you wouldn’t be wrong – the similarities between the Hunter (Michael Griffiths) and Tim Shaw are obvious. But while that story introduces new characters you want to learn more about, this one does no such thing. If you remember the popular guest character DI Menzies, you’ll recognize Yrsa, who is exactly the same save for being played by a different performer. Yet the Doctor invites Yrsa along with him in the TARDIS for some reason in a confusing, disjointed ending scene. The whole story is like this: incongruous elements rammed together without a great deal of coherence. The two main plot threads – Yrsa’s father, and the Hunter and the parent company – trundle happily along until the final episode when they awkwardly (and predictably) come together.
There are some interesting elements. Benedict leans into the magical aspects of the tale, with constant references to the hidden folk and a portrayal of the Doctor tantamount to wizardry. He can speak the language of inkjet printers and he has a gadget for every situation, including a wolf translator, that gets him out of each cliffhanger. There’s nothing wrong with this – in fact, a story that really embraced this tone would be uncommonly interesting – but the atmosphere of the story completely fails to carry it off. It doesn’t feel Nordic at all: even if you’re going to shy away from the “noir” feel, the sound design should at least communicate a wintry chill, but it doesn’t. Nor does it feel magical. In fact, it doesn’t feel like much of anything; if you changed a few lines you could set this story literally anywhere and it would work practically as well.
The cast is fine. Hayes gives a very appealing performance and Griffiths amuses as the arrogant Hunter. Will Hislop and Joe Jameson go for the double-act thing as the two-headed Marficks, though they’re not as funny as the script thinks they are. This is the first time in a long time, however, that I’ve found a Colin Baker performance utterly boring. His playful interactions with Yrsa at the beginning sound like they’re building toward an interesting relationship, but all the bumps are rapidly smoothed out and Baker settles right into his cuddly old grandpa persona. The script, which plays up the Doctor’s alien nature, could really use a spiky, provocative lead performance, but instead it gets the same thing Baker has been turning in several times a year. I don’t know if this is on Baker, the director (John Ainsworth), both, or neither, but it’s another letdown in a story full of them.
Overall, “The Hunting Ground” is a failure. It never figures out what sort of story it wants to be and, as a result, lurches from tone to tone and setting to setting with little regard for consistency or entertainment value. The story isn’t interesting, the lead performance is dull, the atmosphere is nonexistent… there’s very little to recommend here. All in all, just another monthly range story to throw on the massive pile of bad, forgettable Doctor Who.
3/10