Archaeological Adventuress: Absence is Bernice’s stop between
the Pervestan system (Glory Days) and Venus (The Venus Mantrap) where Jason’s
fortune is amassed but she is stuck here with ever dwindling funds. She doesn’t
have enough money to buy headache pills or even the water to swill them down
with! Peter is bored and restless and getting on her nerves. She’ll take any
job to raise the funds to escape this stinking hole. Its possibly the lowest
ebb we have ever seen Bernice at and things are only going to get worse. Its
quite upsetting to see Bernice so depressed and to have her ego crushed even
further (and publicly humiliated) when she makes a fuss about only one
Summerfield being allocated to the expedition and assuming that it is
her. Bernice is described as a troublemaker and a dilettante and can be seen
flipping burgers to make a living. Bernice’s maternal instincts are stronger
than ever in this story and she threatens Cindy that if anything happens to
Peter she will never, ever sleep again. She has never had to willingly let him
walk into danger for her before, its something she has always been willing to
do for him. That’s easy enough because she loves him but now the positions are
reversed it is an agonising experience for her for precisely the same reason.
From Bernice’s experience fun expeditions turn out to be anything but and she
would much rather it was a dull one for Peter. Bernice admits it has been too
long since she was last drunk or high – being a parent has stripped her of such
pleasures. When she manages to get through to Peter it is at a moment of
extreme peril where all her fears for
his safety are confirmed. The threats that she spits out to Aslanides are so
harsh and bitter you might just find yourself reeling at the power of them.
Angry Adolescent: Between The Adolescence of Time and
Absence Lawrence Miles and Daniel O’Mahony have more the justified the
continuing exploration of Peter Summerfield. Its been a fascinating journey
from his dramatic birth in The Glass Prison (still one of the best ever Who
related novels you will read – check it out) through the sitcom tug of war
between his parents (Bernice, Adrian and Jason) and his savage adolescence in
stories like The Grel Escape and The End of the World which exposed how
dangerous he could be. Since Eddie Robson took control of the range there has
been a concerted effort made to concentrate solely on the relationship between
Bernice and Peter and it has been everything from estranged (you could be
forgiven for thinking that he is hindrance in her life at times) to heartfelt.
This is the reason why this range has been able to survive so long because it
has always fleshed out its regulars so well and found fascinating new ways to
explore the character of Bernice Summerfield through others. To be handed
scripts like Adolescence and Absence are a gift to Peter and he shines like
never before in the hands of these experienced writers.
Peter is becoming ever more independent and is unhappy
simply following his mother around from place to place as she falls into a
depressing slumber. When he makes the team and she doesn’t he insists that he
wants to go because he knows how badly they need the money, even if his mother
doesn’t want him to. More than that, he wants to prove himself to her.
There are the first stirrings of a crush when he chats to Cindy and you almost
want to jump in and tell him that he is involved in a drama and no good can
come of such naive feelings. The first deaths of the expedition shock Peter
because he was so calm afterwards and it is only when he has time to think
about it that it shakes him up. When they return to the surface Aslanides is
considering offering Peter a scholarship because of how well has handled
himself.
Standout Performance: Absence is a massive ask of Thomas
Grant and he gives a superb performance – his best yet as the ever
evolving Peter Summerfield. He has to narrate great chunks of the action and
express Peter’s horror at the same time and he makes the process appear
effortless. The range has been a success primarily thanks to the gifted actress
Lisa Bowerman who has never shied away from showing fresh facets of this
wonderful character and I mean it as a massive compliment that she has never
been better than she is here. Its difficult to make such depressing material
come alive so vividly but Bowerman is more than up to the task and come the
scene where Benny is screaming blue murder at Aslanides I was astonished at the
raw emotion she had injected into this story. It often saddens me to think that
some people wont ever give this range a go because they are missing out on some
of the best drama Big Finish has to offer. And some of the best acting.
Sparkling Dialogue: ‘Peter will be gone now. Under the skin,
into the marrow of Absence…’
Great Ideas: Absence is one of the most fascinating worlds
you will ever stumble across in Doctor Who or any of its spin off media. It’s
an absorbing Russian Doll location that keeps unpeeling new layers as the story
progresses with a lawless, gypsy town exterior and chilling, mysterious
interior that is slowly and painstakingly explored. It doesn’t quite look as
though it was grown and it doesn’t quite look like it was built, its part
artefact and part organic. A cluster of human and alien matter fusing into one
great mass and turned into a habitable area – it means this world is literally
constructed of unknowable components from races we can barely comprehend. Its
probably the most idiosyncratic planetoid Bernice has ever set foot on and it
comes as a massive shock when she isn’t invited to explore its depths in favour
of her son. The spacesuit that Peter has to wear to explore the depths is
almost like a symbiont, it feeds off him as he feeds of it. If you die it
begins to break down your body until there is nothing left, not even dust. As
they sink beneath the surface the gravity gets thinner so it feels
disorientating like you are ascending to heaven. Peter is given the excuse that
it is possible that there are possibly survivors or colonies beneath the
surface to explain away the presence of crates of arms in their mission
equipment. The mystery of what Aslanides is looking for beneath the surface
grows deeper as a race of robots attacks the group and the expedition turns
into all out warfare. Two ships slip into orbit around Absence and the cartel
security systems do not detect them – not Imperial Earth ships to expose
the planetoids weaknesses and take over the free zone but Keep’s people, the
TechnoCult on a rescue mission to save their people. The TechnoCult virus infects all the technology it comes into
contact with and turns them into wild machines bent on destroying the human
race. Every world they have infected has fallen to them. Machines that think
like a man. The TechnoCult need to stop Aslanides from killing Absence
itself. An EMP fires and corrupts the ships which crashes into the surface
killing 20,000 giga-souls. Absence lives up to its name because at the core of
the planet is technological life, lots of machines coming together and
evolving into something new. Cindy used her face to seal Peter’s visor and keep
him alive because she made a promise to his mother. She is a sentient,
prototype suit built by ISA. She broke Aslanides’ neck to spare him from the
truth – ISA doesn’t belong to him anymore and he got to die happy in his own
little fantasy that it did.
Audio Landscape: Peter’s clanging footsteps, mechanical
whirring, alien burbles, gunfire, Peter’s panicked breathing inside the
spacesuit, Cindy’s terrifying scream cut short by static, the spaceship
crashing in the distance.
Standout Scene: In an unforgettable scene Bernice wonders if
the human race should never have set foot into space. You might feel like
breaking down and crying to hear her trapped in such despair and yet there is
something hypnotic and poetic about the thoughts that bleed from her
depression. The music is especially strong in this scene, dragging the listener
down into her mesmeric anguish. ‘The
human race has done great things since it left the Earth. Its created marvels’
‘And monsters…’
Result: The Bernice Summerfield range has not felt this
disquieting and haunting since Just War way back in series one and Daniel
O’Mahony’s intelligent script it is every bit as gripping. Chunks of the story
are told from the diary extracts of Bernice and Peter and how they are coping
being separated; her agonising over the danger Peter is in and him desperate to
be able to see his mother again. Maybe its because they are trapped inside
spacesuits that force you to listen to dying screams of your comrades or maybe
it is because the layers of Absence are so unknowable that you feel as though
you are scrabbling about in the dark but the scenes below ground have a
stifling, claustrophobic atmosphere that trap you down there with Peter and
each death feels like a personal loss. Absence itself is a spellbinding setting
which holds a mystery in its centre to be unearthed and I liked the fact that
we didn’t quite get all the answers so it remains as enigmatic when we
leave. The Bernice Summerfield range continues to sport some of the most
intelligent writing and devastating performances (both Lisa Bowerman and Thomas
Grant deliver their some of their best work as they are driven apart) and it
breaks my heart to think of how many people are missing out simply because it isn’t
Doctor Who. I hope we never have to experience Bernice in such pain again but
as a chilling one-off Absence is unforgettable: 9/10
No comments:
Post a Comment