Big Finish Unbound adventure, Sept. 2003
Is this the Doctor or just the Doctor if he could’ve been a writer. Imagination gone wild with his few visitors and the nurse taking care of him. He has a son, Philip, is an arrogant old codger, who is wrapped up in his own writing and personality. There are moments where we hear his dreams are breaking through, where we see Susan, the Doctor, Ian, and Barbara (Barbara Wright is the name of his nurse, too) in the Doctor’s first real, TV adventure. But with different people playing the parts. Is it his dreams coming to life or his past life coming to haunt him or something else more sinister? He’s Martin Bannister, the writer. Or is he?
Is it his imagination going crazy or is there really a monster in the closet? The rambling establishes his strange personality. It’s really fascinating to hear him talking to other characters, whether illusion or real. Is he just writing down his fantasies or are they really happening? This first half is more interesting than the second, as the adventures of the first Doctor get interwoven into reality, or reality into his stories.
It’s almost like a British soap opera instead of Doctor Who, actually. I can see how this would be a case for how the Doctor eventually ends up, old, feeble, decrepit, and out of touch. Living out the last of his lives in a home where he eventually goes a bit loopy. Or it could be the story of the writer, Martin Bannister, who wrote stories for a science fiction TV show that never happened and instead wrote for bad TV show. And was a cad—left his family behind because they weren’t “interesting enough” and treats the people around him strangely as they’re all part of his fantasy world. When he leaves, is he dying and imagining the TARDIS or really in the TARDIS? I can see both paths and it isn’t resolved here.
I choose the sad, old writer ending in my mind. Perhaps I’m just a realist in the end, despite enjoying fantasy in my life. It does all seem a bit crazy, this story. Perhaps showing how crazy the “real” stories of Doctor Who are! But those stories are of aliens, villains, and companionship. The things that Martin longs for but has left behind because they’re boring. And has the re-create for himself at the end of his life in order to feel fulfilled. I like the philosophical nature of this story but it can ramble at times. So though it’s good, the concept is different for a Who tale, but it’s just not spooky enough for me. Three jelloids it is!
Derek Jacobi, Genevieve Swallow, Peter Forbes, Jacqueline King, Ian Brooker, and Adam Manning
writer: Robert Shearman
director: Nicholas Briggs