1950s Kenya. The Mau Mau uprising. A disparate group of women lie low in a remote house in the jungle, waiting for a resolution or for rescue. Among these British imperialists is Elizabeth Klein, a refugee from a timeline that no longer exists… thanks to the Doctor.
A THOUSAND TINY WINGS
Big Finish under Nicholas Briggs has never been afraid to mine its own history, but this Sylvester McCoy trilogy takes such ambition to new heights. “A Thousand Tiny Wings,” written by New Adventures stalwart Andy Lane, resurrects Klein (Tracey Childs), a Nazi scientist from an alternate timeline last seen in “Colditz,” nine years prior to this story. What follows is a languid, atmospheric story light on plot but heavy on philosophy, more interested in debating morality than presenting it in action – and it’s a great success besides.
Easily the most interesting aspect of “A Thousand Tiny Wings” is the moral debate that runs through all four episodes. We all know the Doctor’s philosophy: the sanctity of life is prioritized, the ends never justify the means, every individual life is valuable, etc. Yet here he’s forced to team up with Klein, a devoted pragmatist in addition to her Nazism, and they argue throughout the story about appropriate solutions to the problem they face. Lane presents the sides of the argument eloquently, and catches the Doctor in a couple of logical traps. Furthermore, while Klein isn’t exactly sympathetic, her position often sounds eminently reasonable. We’ve been over this ground before, and even had an entire story (“Full Fathom Five”) devoted to what Doctor Who would be like if the Doctor followed Klein’s philosophy. My biggest problem with the debate, though, is that it largely ignores that Klein is a Nazi in an attempt to make her seem more reasonable. The Doctor quite reasonably asks her to justify Mengele’s experiments early in the script, and she responds by calling him a failure of action, not ideology. But he doesn’t press her on this point – if you’re in a moral argument with a genuine Nazi, shouldn’t the first question out of your mouth be “So what’s your take on the whole Holocaust thing, then?” It’s a massive elephant in the room that’s never properly addressed.
Lane approaches that elephant somewhat obliquely through Mrs. O’Donnell (Ann Bell), a British imperialist who rejects the democratic era and longs for the days of benevolent dictatorship. Her admiration for the Nazis is no secret, though her opinions, vile as they are, are more understandable coming at one remove. She makes the eminently reasonable point that not every Nazi was evil in argument against the Doctor’s moralizing – but again, this is countered by Klein’s own history. As she attests, in her timeline Hitler personally issued her assignments: this is not someone low on the totem pole. In essence, this is someone to whom the Doctor is clearly morally superior, and any struggles to enunciate this should be considered failures of argument rather than failures of philosophy.
All that said, I love the idea of the Doctor taking Klein aboard the TARDIS. Given that it’s McCoy, I have no idea if he actually intends to try to make her into a better person or if he’s just keeping her around to keep the timeline safe, but I suspect the latter. In fact, I hope it’s the latter, or if the former that he fails: if this trilogy concludes with a reformed Klein, I’ll be quite disappointed.
The rest of the story has some distinguishing features: for one thing, the cast is largely female, something rarely seen in Doctor Who. For another, the era is unusual: as far as I know this is the first trip to the Mau Mau uprising for the series. And the moral complexity holds throughout the script, as every character is proven wrong at one time or another and there are no moral absolutes on display. Flaws include the overuse of descriptive dialogue, the sort of “Look, Doctor, all the birds are landing on him! Now he’s covered in birds from head to toe!” nonsense that pulls me right out of the drama. The ending is also abrupt, as the Doctor learns nothing about the “monster” for 3.5 episodes and suddenly has everything thrown at him in a massive info-dump.
Sylvester McCoy has been on top form during this run of Big Finish plays, and this is no different: even his eccentric line readings properly fit the drama. Childs slides back into her role after almost a decade with little audible difference, while Bell ably presents one of the most complicated supporting characters in recent Big Finish memory. The sound design by Richard Fox and Lauren Yason is tense and atmospheric, well-supported by their excellent score. Lisa Bowerman directs, demonstrating the difficult ability to translate a slowly paced script without letting it flag or become boring.
Overall, “A Thousand Tiny Wings” is a success. Many have described it as one of the greatest Big Finish releases, and while I found it a bit too clunky to fit that description, I’ll still hold it up as an example of the sort of story BF should be telling. Challenge characters, ask the difficult questions, and use the freedom of audio to let a script breathe like it never could on television. This appears to be a renaissance period for the seventh Doctor – let’s see if it continues.
8/10