The Highest Science written by Gareth Roberts (adapted by Jacqueline Rayner) and directed by Scott Handcock

What’s it about: The Highest Science. The pinnacle of knowledge and a terrible weapon. A legend – nothing more. Sheldukher. The most wanted criminal in the galaxy. Evil to the core and hungry for power, whatever the cost. The Chelonians. A vast military power, pledged to eradicate human parasites wherever they are found. The Doctor. An ancient and wise Time Lord tracking a temporal fluctuation that endangers the universe itself. Some things should never meet, but as Professor Summerfield is about to discover, the universe is full of coincidences.

Master Manipulator: He’s an expert in doo-dahs (that bleep of course) that track down Fortean Flickers. Sometimes Benny wishes the Doctor wouldn’t treat the universe as if it was all his personal responsibility. The Doctor walks from the TARDIS and is immediately shot at – it pretty much sums up his life (and certainly the end of his life in this incarnation). When he is alone he reveals that searching for the Fortean Flicker isn’t his own motive for coming to Sakrat, that he had an interest in the secrets of the Highest Science all along. The Doctor has the perfect weapon when it comes to war: diplomacy. This is script that puts the Doctor first and foremost, which is unusual for the New Adventures and he gets to pratfall his way through the disparate strands of the narrative, making silly jokes, striding amongst his enemies and generally holding up a mirror to how ridiculous everybody is. He’s a little bit magical in that sense, in how he can convince you this story is a decent one when he is around. It’s worth listening to this just to hear McCoy delivery his Irish accent. He’s quick to tell Sheldukher that he was rrrrrremembered and rrrrrrreviled. Too late is something he will never accept. He’s crossed the timelines so many times in the TARDIS that he is now extremely sensitive to temporal disturbances. His head fuzzes up and he wants to be sick. Listen to the Doctor growl when he warns of entering his mind and how nobody is ready to face that, He’s right, I certainly wouldn’t want to root around in this incarnations diseased brain. He once had to convince a deranged dishwasher that it didn’t want to take over the universe. It’s a shame we aren’t listening to that story.

Archaeological Adventuress: Given that this comes directly after Love and War and that Big Finish have already made the adaptation of that story, I was surprised at how relaxed the chemistry between the Doctor and Bernice was. They have only just met in relative terms and literally only just started their adventures together in the TARDIS and yet there is no sense that they are feeling their way in…more that they are just sort of already there. I get it, Sylvester McCoy and Lisa Bowerman have been working together since 1989 on Doctor Who related projects and there must be a very relaxed feeling between them (she has even directed him on a fair few instances). That’s where the director should have stepped in and reminded them that this is the start of their journey together (in character terms) and that they should be a little more tentative and less certain. The Doctor never warned her there would be running, which is something that she never does. Nothing is going to make you feel more ancient than listening to the music that is popular with the kids these days. That must be even more of a problem when you are a time traveller. Halfway through the story there is such a dearth of Bernice you have to wonder why they chose this story to adapt. It’s almost not worth Lisa Bowerman’s time showing up. Benny’s scenes, rubbing shoulders with the equivalent of a space hippy, are the weakest in the play.

Sparkling Dialogue: ‘When do I get to meet some monsters?’ ‘Never hopefully.’

Great Ideas: Left unchecked, Fortean Flickers can do terrible damage to the Web of Time. Have you ever come across a word somewhere or heard a place name for the first time and then seen it everywhere? It’s the chaotic forces of coincidence that snowball breaking the link in the chain of causality. The Fortean Flicker moves things and people out of place and out of their natural order. The Chelonians consider humanity to be a dangerous parasitic infection. How charming. The project is the ultimate development of the gene laboratories on Checkley’s world. It has the potential to grow, to outthink all other forms of life. Checkley’s world was settled in the year 2190 and the selected site for the proposed scientific frontier; a place where experiments and weapons of war could be conducted and built. In 2389 Sheldukher removed the project from the gene laboratories and destroyed its creator. It was predicated that he would use the project to find the planet Sakrat. The whole citadel is a trick, a trap.

Isn’t it Odd: I always rather liked the Chelonians in the novels, squat, upright turtles with a taste for war and since they were written and created almost exclusively by Gareth Roberts there was a twinkle in how they were written, knowingly masculine and a bit ridiculous for it. It reminded me of how Robert Holmes could treat the Sontarans, especially in The Two Doctors. However, there is something a little flat about their translation to audio that I cannot really explain. Maybe it’s because they are treated in a deathly serious fashion, maybe it’s because they are treated with irritating voice modulation or maybe it is the performances that fail to capture the ironic aggression of the creatures. I’m not sure but these scenes were pretty interminable, especially since they don’t really have any great impact on the main story. The Fortean Flicker feels as though it wants to a massively witty Douglas Adams idea style idea that is introduced and then goes on to have some profound impact on the plot in a very witty, silly, smart way. What it actually turns out to be is a an excuse for the writer to jam together completely disparate plot lines that fail to cohere and have a ready-made excuse for why they are there. Not on my watch mate. It’s like Gareth Roberts is saying ‘it’s funny how things happen’ and then a load of unrelated things happen and then he pops up at the end again and goes ‘see, I told it’s funny how things happen.’ That’s not hanging a lantern, it’s sloppy writing. How bizarre that this should split into episodes as though it was a TV story. The (very short) pre-titles sequence makes no sense out of context and isn’t brought up again until 40 minutes into the story. I was baffled by the lack of interest that Rayner managed to ignite in the titular secret, especially given they have three episodes of build up to play about with. The Highest Science sounds interesting but ultimately amounts to very little. The idea that this whole affair has been to ensnare Sheldukher might have generated some tension had he been a character worth investing in in the first place.

Standout Scene: Astonishingly the story ends with the Doctor putting the entire affair on pause and just leaving…a stunning lack of imagination on the original writer’s part. He suggests that there cannot always be a happy ending with all the loose ends tied up but there are far more effective ways of dealing with an inconclusive ending. Here it just feels as though the writer could not think of a way out of the situation so he just had the Doctor flicking the pause switch and leave. He suggests he might come back and tidy things up but for now this is the best he can do. Do you know what this means? This a Doctor who is out of ideas. Monstrous.

Result: I can remember gobbling down The Highest Science in prose form because after a spate of books that were attempting violently beat Doctor Who into a new adult shape it felt like somebody had remembered that the series can also (and should) be fun. The New Adventures were in danger of turning the Doctor Who universe into a dreary, angst written, violent depiction of misery and high concept pain. Actually 80% of them managed that rather adeptly. So, this book with its silly warlike monsters, gags flying off the page and much warmer Doctor without that fizzing cocktail of adolescence burdening him (Ace) felt like a return to normality. Maybe it’s my age that’s changed my perception because this time around I found the high drama of Love and War compelling and the low rent comedy of The Highest Science bored me. I think it’s more about how these two stories were adapted to audio and how they were realised. Not only does this audio feel utterly disposable for the most part, it also lacks any real comedy or drama for much of it’s run time. The script is kind of bland and the story is delivered in a very po-faced way with the comedy coming from the performances most of the time rather than the script. And when the performances are this compensatory, it’s hard to find the chuckles. It makes me want to go back and read the book because I genuinely remember chortling away to that but I’m starting to wonder now if that was just because the author adopted a frothy tone, which was extremely welcome at the time. The plot feels like a bunch of random junk thrown together but since the writer as good as admits was his intention he should at least be prepared for the audience backlash. The most notorious criminal in the galaxy, space hippies, warlike turtles, a terrible mythological weapon and some travellers from England. There’s no reason why these elements should feel so oddly juxtaposed, this is Doctor Who after all but the discordant way they rub shoulders and the lax way the plot is resolved makes this feel as though it is being made up as it goes along. The climax is particularly detestable. Sylvester McCoy was the most fun thing about this story; an impish, dazzling, unpredictable turn from the least consistent of the audio Doctors. There’s something of the showman in him coming out here, most as if he knew the script was lacking and needed a little extra Doctor razzle dazzle. My biggest problem is that I didn’t care about any of the thinly written guest characters and so it was hard to maintain interest in the mysteries and dangers of the story. Everyone felt underwritten and overplayed, which is quite a feat. This is the fifth New Adventures themed audio I’ve heard (Shadow of the Scourge, The Dark Flame, Damaged Goods, Love and War) and I would say it’s the weakest – The Dark Flame was pretty appalling on every level, but at least it wasn’t inoffensive or bland. I’ve always said Doctor Who can survive anything (even being truly abominable like Time and the Rani because stories like that are just so damn entertaining) but being vanilla. I would have adapted Head Games rather than this. Now that would have been a REALLY fascinating listen. The fact that they managed to condense a novel into a 2-hour play says everything about the denseness of the story at hand. Come the last episode I had lost all interest in what the highest science might be: 4/10