Something inhuman and hungry is stalking Earth Colony Phoenix. Can the Doctor, Peri and Erimem save the colonists – and themselves?
Something inhuman and hungry is stalking Earth Colony Phoenix. Can the Doctor, Peri and Erimem save the colonists – and themselves?
THREE’S A CROWD
With TV and Doctor Who novel writing experience under his belt, Colin Brake seemed a natural choice to enter the Big Finish fold in the Doctor Who audio range. Brake’s novels seemed to receive an unnecessary amount of criticism, and as his television reputation was good, I approached Three’s A Crowd hoping that it would provide a much-needed shot in the arm to the lacklustre audio range. I was left disappointed, as the play revealed itself as yet another exercise in treading water.
There’s a great deal of promise to open the play. Brake has a number of interesting questions in mind, chief among them the question of how people would develop if they were raised alone, allowed to communicate with their fellows only through audio communication. How would these people react if presented with other individuals in their physical presence? What would their reactions be upon finally seeing the face of someone they only knew by voice? What happens when a person raised under these conditions actually goes outside? These are fascinating questions, and they form the core of an excellent piece of science fiction drama.
Or at least they would form the core of that piece of drama if they were actually acknowledged again after their introduction. Instead, they are resolved in simple, obvious ways. Bellip, so scared of human contact that she refuses even to use her video link, is shocked by Peri’s entrance into her quarters. What happens? Five minutes of excruciating Bellip-has-a-panic-attack-and-Peri-talks-her-through-a-breathing-exercise torture. Bellip finally meets her audio love Laroq after years (?) of loving only his voice — hugely dramatic scene, right? Nope, they briefly talk at each other in a hallway before running off. The three shut-ins finally go outside and see the sky for the first time, with an inexorably ticking bomb behind them. This has to be tense, right? Nope — two of them deal with the problem with no trouble and the third just needs to do more breathing exercises.
I mentioned a bomb, and this is an example of why the script doesn’t work as it should. About halfway through episode 2, we’re hammered with another bog-standard Doctor Who runaround plot, the sort of which we’ve seen hundreds of times before. Turns out the people are shut in to make them better eating for a militaristic race of alien lizards aboard the orbiting space station — but fear not, for the aliens are defeated by a long series of runs up and down and teleports between corridors and a gigantic explosion at the end. We learn nothing about these aliens — the Khellians — other than that they have a queen who is devoured by her offspring and that they like to eat humans. Indeed, they’re such one-dimensional villains that the surprisingly violent ending seems appropriate, despite the fact that the Doctor joyfully blows up presumably hundreds of Khellian children. But then maybe the children are terrible and dangerous? Who knows? Certainly not the audience!
The regulars are well-served by the script. Brake chooses to explore the fallout from The Roof of the World and present an Erimem who is starting to lose her enjoyment of travelling with the Doctor. After Nekromanteia and the subsequent releases, I’m hardly surprised, and this discussion is worthwhile — but unlike in the exceptional Arrangements for War, there is no cathartic moment for Erimem, who apparently decides that *this* experience of running around whilst being shot at is better than usual. Still, what material there is works well with Caroline Morris, who turns in an excellent performance. Nothing new happens with Peri, but Nicola Bryant is reliable as ever. The Doctor, too, is fairly uninteresting — and it sounds like Peter Davison smoked about ten packs of cigarettes before recording, raspy as his voice is!
The supporting cast is headlined by Deborah Watling, returning to Doctor Who after playing Troughton-era companion Victoria Waterfield in the 1960s. Unfortunately, her character Auntie (oh come on) appears to be a complete moron. After being taken in by the most obvious ruse in the history of deception, she completely reverses position about three or four times throughout the course of the play before finally deciding to take violent revenge against the Khellians. And the ending — “Oh, by the way, the terraforming worked after all” — give me strength! Apart from this, Watling’s performance is excellent, something which surprised me as she was never the strongest actor during her period on the show. The rest of the supporting cast is adequate, with Richard Gauntlett going suitably over the top as General Makra’Thon and Lucy Beresford, Daniel Hogarth, and Richard Unwin giving convincing, if uninspiring, performances as the three shut-ins.
David Darlington’s sound design is up to his usual high standard, providing all the creaks and clanks of a space station and isolated colony, while the rather minimalist score is adequate. I’d have liked to see a little more work done to play up the concept of isolation, but Gary Russell’s direction seems remarkably lifeless — nothing is done to enliven a decidedly average script. Even the cover is boring.
All of this is not to say that Three’s A Crowd is *bad* — it’s just uninspiring. This is one of the most decidedly average Doctor Who stories I’ve ever heard, and unfortunately an average play is below par for Big Finish. Sure, it asks some good questions, but it abandons them in lieu of workmanlike, uninteresting plotting. Big Finish has been stuck in a rut for a long time — is another great play on the horizon or has BF finally become redundant?
No need to buy this, unless you’re a completist.
5/10