What’s it about: 1935: a message from a Time Lord in trouble sends the Eighth Doctor and Charlotte ‘Charley’ Pollard to the streets of London’s West End, in search of a mysterious alien adversary – unaware that something monstrous is already on their trail. They soon discover that an insidious conspiracy is indeed at work, its tentacles extending the length of the British Isles. Proving its existence won’t be easy, however, after a confrontation in a music hall ends up with the Doctor under arrest and Charley on the run, suspected of murder. All their hopes rest in a musical clue and a man named Hilary – neither of which are much consolation, with the two time travellers the object of a nationwide manhunt. And all the while, the enemy aliens are drawing closer and closer still...
Breathless Romantic: All this chatter about Rossini recalls
the Madame Butterfly motif that was used in The TV Movie, delicately reminding
fandom of the eighth Doctor’s one appearance on television. This is the early
eighth Doctor, you know the one who was great fun to be around before he went
pissing and moaning off into a Divergent Universe and forgot everything that
was nice about himself. He dances around the TARDIS controls like an over
excited puppy, desperate to get off to the next hair raising adventure with his
best friend. It is a period when the Doctor’s mood was extremely infectious
when you were around him. He’s the most tactile of Doctors and can often be
found making empty romantic gestures like trying to kiss Charley when she makes
a useful suggestion. Which is a shame because she wishes they were rather more
meaningful than that and thus tries to avoid them. Barnes uses the term ‘helpless
to resist’ when describing Charley’s reaction to the Doctor’s fervour but this
could easily apply to the listener too. The Doctor always did have something of
a bon vivant in him and he can’t resist publicly remonstrating with William
Tell and enquiring about the Enemy Aliens as though it is all part of the
showman’s act.
Edwardian Adventuress: …and this is Charley before she
turned into a lovesick sourpuss trailing after the eighth Doctor trying to get
his attention as much as she possibly can before disappearing in a huff when
that doesn’t work out. She’s a delight too, they are like a pair of overgrown
school kids that have been given an all access pass to a sweet shop. Add the
excitable eleventh Doctor to the mix and you reach an apotheosis of enthusiasm
that is hard to defy! Charley isn’t sure about the afterlife but she is certain
that something goes on after death. She has her own special kind of
technobabble that helped her get through her adventures with the Doctor:
bleeping wotsits, thingummy too and doodahs that you hit people with. You can
combine the three in any way you like and almost always explain what is going
on at any given time. Oojamaflip is rather common and therefore cannot break
into the system, her upper class sensibilities will not allow it. The Doctor
only ever calls Charley ‘Miss Pollard’ when she has poured water on his fire.
She hates to sound like a frightful snob but she just can’t help herself! When
asked what it is that she does she answers chasing and being chased by aliens
mostly. Charley should get used to being a fugitive, she would get to embrace
the role again many years in The Raincloud Man under much less agreeable
circumstances. He always takes her to the best places and they often share
delightful prison cells with slimy, wet ceilings. Ultimately Charley is
responsible for activating the slavering alien…by her incessant humming of
Rossini! Charley always did have a bit of a devil in her and was willing to
dish out the appropriate justice to wrong doers (seriously, check out her
second season – the Doctor was always holding her back!) and so the climactic
sequence where she calls down the Rossini-attracted monster to dispatch Hilary
felt very authentic. Does she want to keep him hanging, let him go or bring him
back up? Do you know if she was making that decision for me I might just be a
tad worried.
Standout Performance: Wow, I could really hear Paul McGann’s
eighth Doctor in this story. A stirring mixture of Alan Barnes’ understanding
of the character on audio and India Fisher’s lengthly experience of working
with the man and accurately portraying his mannerisms. Fisher’s eleventh Doctor
is a massive step up from Aldred’s, she always has something of a grown up
child about her performance and that is Matt Smith through and through.
Sparkling Dialogue: ‘What’s Wikipedia?’ – oh Charley, you
don’t want to know…
Great Ideas: Who doesn’t want to listen to the adventure
featuring an army of granite behemoths in London’s Bloomsbury? The Faberge egg
bomb, the Living Will…Alan Barnes offers exciting scope into many previously
unheard adventures with the eighth Doctor and Charley. Another blasted lot of
aliens (or so it would appear) up to no good in London…but let’s be honest when
isn’t there? Somebody should write a story where there are a multitude of
invasions, schemes and dodgy extraterrestrial deals going on in Britain’s
capital city and the Doctor has to unravel them all. Rarely has a Doctor Who
adventure ever seemed like such a party…where the Doctor and his assistant need
to check out an array of nightclubs, jazz venues and convert houses to try and
find aliens playing Rossini. Who would have ever thought that Six Guns Sadie
would still be rootin’ and tootin’ after 60 years! Finally there is some kind
of explanation of the eleventh Doctor’s activities as he admits that he is
trying to get messages to his former selves but something is blocking them. A
mothership emerging in the skies of 1930s London, this has a touch of
contemporary Who to it as well.
Audio Landscape: The TV Movie console room, atmospheric
London street scenes bustling with activity, dogs barking, the hustle and
bustle of an audience preparing themselves for a show in a Musical Hall,
laughing, coughing, a fry up bubbling with fat, train whistles, rifles firing
into a river, birdsong, a train chuffing into motion, bombs falling,
explosions, air raid warnings, rubble, Big Ben chiming, the screaming alien,
the Doctor’s bleeping wotsit.
Standout Scene: Look away if you don’t want to be spoiled
(although I would question why you are reading this before you listen to
it) but the enemy aliens turn out to be…Germans! It’s a typically insane
twist in this scatterbrained romp and one that makes perfect sense with regards
to the period. The Doctor and Charley got completely the wrong of the stick is
all. The secret key and lock is nothing of the sort…they are just used to these
things turning out to be big, epic, mystical adventures. It instead refers to
the more mundane secret quay and loch.
Result: ‘Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to…’
‘Run!’ What a jolly adventure! The 8th Doctor and Charley before
their relationship turned bitter, bounding about 1930s London like a excitable
kids; accused of murder, gadding around town, hopping on trains and on the
trail of the enemy aliens. There’s an energy and excitement to events that
perfectly captures those optimistic first two seasons that these two characters
shared, where the 8th Doctor was afforded an extended life on audio
and everything was right with the universe. Alan Barnes is the perfect writer
to be handed this assignment because he did more than any other to pitch the
tone and characterisation of this giddy period (penning Storm Warning and
Neverland, two superb tales that bookended the Doctor and Charley’s solo time
together) and so he knows better than anyone how to recapture that animated
innocence. I’ll be honest this isn’t the most tightly structured of scripts or
infused with lashings of intelligence but that really isn’t the point. This is
all about ambience, evocative details and the dazzling characterisation of two
time travellers that took us on a whirlwind adventure and on those terms it
succeeds admirably. I took a long walk whilst listening to this story for the
first time and I don’t think a smile left my face from the first second to the
last. As we dash through the atmospherically rendered (both in terms of the
script and the production) location, we get to meet an array of colourful
characters who are charmingly portrayed by Fisher. What’s brilliant about Enemy
Aliens is that it promises something exotic but deliberately delivers something
much more mundane…before delivering on it’s initial promise after all! It’s
another winner for the Destiny of the Doctor series, a range that has delivered
no absolute classics but has also failed to drop the ball in eight stories. As
busy as a fizzy sarsaparilla and just as enjoyable to swig down: 8/10
2 comments:
yeah, that made me feel a pang of nostalgia for the first 2 seasons of Charley and Eight.oh how I miss the breathless romantic!
Wait, their relationship sours? Shucks.
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