Teeth and Curls: Clearly their disagreement in The King of Sontar had a profound impact on the Doctor, enough for him to retreat into the TARDIS and not seek out his companion for days. Now it appears he has reached a decision to forgive her for her actions, regardless of how much he disagrees with them. He doesn't give two hoots whether the Time Lords wanted him to eliminate Strang's clones or not, he refuses to be used as a hired assassin. His timing is never wrong. Much as he is the type of fella who likes to take things in his stride, the transformation of a woman into a gangrenous vampire is definitely worth some serious discussion. Tom Baker is at his peak when he gets to growl at Bengal that she is just a daisy with teeth, a vampire mutation. He snarls these melodramatic insults more savagely than any other actor in the part could. Leela is delighted when the Doctor conjures up a plan out of thin air, her faith in him fully justified. The Doctor heading off with a rallying cry of 'GERONIMO!' might just remind you of another incarnation. His timey wimey (I shudder every time I write that but it does seem to have entered my subconscious) return seconds later despite having been away for a while even more so. The Doctor viciously ejects Aranda and Bengal from the TARDIS by turning up the lights and abandons them on a terrifying planet, in the dark, at the mercy of the plants. I haven't seen him opt for a solution as bleak as this for an age. His justification is they did what they did to themselves and should live up to the consequences of their choices.
Noble Savage: It makes sense for a huntress to seek out
books on the monsters they may encounter if she wants to educate herself. Most
importantly it shows the Doctor that she is trying to better herself. It was
never a case of throwing Leela out of the TARDIS for having a difference of
opinion but to give her the chance to look at herself, to see if she thought
that she really belonged. As Jameson herself notes, Barnes gives Leela lots of
fun lines including a dig at the how the Doctor makes things up as he goes
along but somehow gets away with it and how she isn't a dog that needs a pat on
the head. In a wonderful moment that shows how much he has influenced her,
Leela thanks the Doctor for her education as she electrocutes the creatures,
knowing that she is safe in her rubber boots. Her description of Morandi after
her transformation is almost worth the admission price alone. Whilst Leela has
terrific wit about her, Jameson remembers this is a situation fraught with
danger and I have never heard Leela quite so on the verge of hysteria as here
before. Leela points out to the Doctor that there was more to the Sevateem than
just savagery, they were farmers too and her knowledge of that comes in very
handy here.
Great Ideas: Shades of Planet of Evil with the TARDIS
travelling to the edge of the edge of the universe where there is only dark outside.
Yes, I can see Phillip Hinchcliffe going for that concept alright, especially
if it meant turning the studio lights down and generating a little atmosphere.
As Russell T Davies proved in The Parting of the Ways you cannot really go
wrong with a missile being fired at the TARDIS at the beginning of a story! A
planet in almost permanent eclipse that somebody is trying to take out with a
missile. Why bother to decimate a dead world? Barnes figures a clever way of
maintaining the tension, the missile might have missed the TARDIS but it is
still heading towards the planetoid. This is a race against time to solve the
mystery before the weapon strikes. At the thought of a sea of writhing tendrils
snaking their way towards the Doctor and Leela I had flashes of the Animus from
The Web Planet but I am sure that with today's effects ravenous plants could be
realised with much more conviction. It makes for a tense set piece all the
same. Cleverly the missile was never meant to destroy the planetoid but to explode
before impact and release light and radiation onto the planet. Something that
the plants react strongly to. Suddenly what appears to be a straightforward
action adventure has layers, a mind at work looking to change the situation
rather than destroy it. From a collection of plants to a jungle, teeming with
alien life. The jungle is oxygenates the atmosphere so what was once a lifeless
rock has become habitable in minutes. Once before a survey team came to study
the plants during a rare period of light and they never returned. Things don't
look good for this motley crew. The roots in the ground start worming their way
into the base, breaking down their defences. If a single seed from the plants
should bed itself in the soil of a civilised world it would mean the end of all
life. The station personnel have used bat genes to mutate themselves to survive
such harsh conditions on this planetoid, a twist that suddenly puts the Doctor
and Leela in even more danger. Hunted within and without. Bengal genuinely thought
the survey was meant to alleviate famine but there was a much more sinister
mind at work. Studying long term exposure to gene therapy was the real motive,
to see if members of the population could thrive on other worlds with a little
genetic tampering. Aranda was never the 'star pupil' but the mastermind behind
the whole operation - this was a very nicely judged character reversal that
sees Bengal shift from chilling scientist to impotent victim of circumstance.
When Aranda's superiors saw the results of her work (the vampiric,
cannibalistic tendencies inherent in their infection) they vowed that they
could never be allowed to return. Like The King of Sontar, The Time Lords are
directly responsible for the Doctor's involvement in this story. They foresaw the
a planet of blood drinkers emerging and sent the Doctor in to ensure that
Aranda never made it back home to infect the rest of the population. I wonder
if their influence will continue to spread throughout the rest of the season,
perhaps leading to another Invasion of Time style conclusion?
Isn't it Odd: The Doctor and Leela's clash of ideologies in
The King of Sontar seemed to be about to spin their relationship in a new,
fractious direction. If you look at he difference between their interaction in
season fourteen and season fifteen there is definitely a shift in the Doctor's
behaviour towards his pupil (or rather Tom Baker's disapproval of the
characters continuing presence). He is a lot shorter with her, can barely look
at her in some stories and cannot wait to be off on his own getting into
trouble. Come The Invasion of Time his vicious coldness towards her was barely
out of character. I wondered if their argument in Sontar would kick start a
thread that would explain why he seemed to get colder towards her as time moved
on. However it appears that they seem to have settled their differences off
mike and on their own, only coming together at the beginning of White Ghosts to
say that they will continue to travel together. A shame because a more probing
examination of their relationship would have been very welcome. However I
suppose it wouldn't really be possible to continue their adventures for however
many season with them constantly at odds with one another. It might work for
one story but you would start to wonder, Tegan-style, why they bother hanging
out with each other anymore. There seems to be a moment where Leela can turn
the tables on the Doctor at the end of this story where he seems to be about to
do the Time Lord's bidding (just as she did in Sontar) but it never really
amounts to anything. There is too much plot to wrap up to indulge in what could
have been a razor sharp character moment.
Standout Scene: Barnes pulls off a nice trick in episode
two, the story suddenly lunging into a first person narrative as Leela fights
her way through the plants. It makes the ordeal very personal and allow the
audience to experience every blow along with her. Briggs creates a very
disorienting soundscape for this sequence, the action slowed down so we can
dragged in kicking and screaming. It is only when first person narration is
employed as effectively as it is here that I stop to think why the main range
stories don't use it more often. It is one of the main strengths of the
Companion Chronicles and why that is such an accessible range to listen to.
This could have been another bog standard exchange of blows on audio (which,
without the visuals, often don't come off) but instead Barnes and Briggs use
the opportunity to experiment.
Result: 'Don't leave us in the dark!' Unlike many a
new series episode, White Ghosts opens with an episode where all is not
explained about the setting and the characters in the first five minutes and we
are allowed the luxury of trying to figure out the situation as we proceed
through a number of exciting and dark set pieces. I really liked that. For once
the Doctor doesn't know everything and has to use his wits to try and piece
everything together. It's hard to argue with a scenario as gripping as this
one; a lifeless planetoid transformed into a deadly jungle in a matter of
moments after a missile has exploded before hitting the surface, accelerating
the life cycle of the aggressive wildlife. Barnes' tale might not have
character on he brain (Hey's character aside I didn't really remember anybody
from this story) but he has sure struck gold with his setting, ideas and
imagery. With horrific plant creatures attacking, vampire transformations and
the Doctor and Leela (both superbly characterised) being hunted within and
without, White Ghosts errs towards the Hinchcliffe era than the Williams one
but there's no denying that this story moves at a furious pace and kept my
interest up throughout. If there is one thing that Doctor Who does well more
often than not is a good base under siege story and this is certainly the most
dynamic example in years from Big Finish. The first 40 minutes are
near-flawless but the only blemish in attempting to produce a story so dense
with ideas in an hour means that Barnes has to rush through a great deal of
exposition in the final 20 minutes and a debate between the Doctor and Leela is
frustratingly cut short. There is still plenty of drama though and the fate of
Bengal and the others is one that I wont forget in a long time. White Ghosts is
an attempt to create something a little darker and deeper than the usual 4th
Doctor snog to the past and for that I commend it greatly. A few rushed
explanations aside, it is the second very strong showing for the range in its
third season: 8/10
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