Doctor Who – The Ninth Doctor Adventures: Shades of Fear Review

Christopher Eccleston said in a Big Finish question and answer session he found it incredibly easy to slip back to being the 9^th Doctor for Big Finish mainly due to the writing. However, there’s definitely something about the actor I think that brings an earthiness, directness and strength to his Doctor regardless. This is no eccentric classic Doctor of old but a more serious at times traumatised character and I love it!

Doctor Who Shades of Fear is my first boxset listening to the 9^th Doctor but I’m sure for many more devoted fans it will be a welcome return for Christopher Eccleston with a new boxset of adventures.

4.1 The Colour of Terror by Lizzie Hopley

The box set gets off to an intriguing start when Marla a customer in a charity shop in the high street requests to try on a red dress. Writer Lizzie Hopley creates a base-under-siege story set in a normal small town West Morebry and it works allowing for the development of the variety of characters within the script. What surprised me was the dry humour within the script alongside the “terror” once the Doctor’s Tardis materialises in a changing room.

I love the way the Doctor just turns up in the story already with a nose sniffing for a mystery. There is an opportunity for banter and battle as Mrs Bevell the waspish dismissive and obsessively proud charity shop owner clashes with everyone, including the Doctor, to keep her charity shop rating.

I must admit I don’t usually look at the cast list for Big Finish stories before listening to a story so it was a big delight afterwards to discover actress Susan Penhaligon, tagged the “British Bardot in the 1970’s” was playing Mrs Bevell, Events in the story enable Susan Penhaligon to create almost a caricature of Mrs Bevell and it’s easy to dismiss her as unlikeable. Her young assistant Robbie on work experience bears the brunt of her ire as well as Sahdna her neighbour cafe owner. 

Mrs Bevell wants to keep the star rating for her charity shop at any cost – but why does she stock so many items of one particular shade?

The Doctor soon finds the cause of the terror which is alien (of course). However, The 9^th Doctor travelling on his own needs a team to sort this situation so Robbie, café owner Sahdna and Cath searching for her fiancée, Pete who has lost his cat, become one of the small teams the Doctor gathers around him. The Doctor doesn’t care about anyone’s past. He just wants people who are willing to help. It feels very contained and it’s a thoughtful enough script to explore each character’s hopes and dreams.

There are a couple of really touching, bittersweet moments that feel well-earned between partners Marla and Cath. One of the unexpected supporting cast is Frank Skinner with his highly distinctive voice as old codger Pete Snow Sometimes it’s a disadvantage knowing Frank Skinner was in Mummy on the Orient Express as it feels like it’s just Frank Skinner being funny Frank Skinner. I would have liked his character t be a bit better developed really. 

I love the ingenuity of the idea of the aliens, the Vermeen travelling along the colour red spectrum. They work in audio really well, sounding sinister, as the aliens move amongst objects and people to communicate. They aren’t benign which allows for some tense situations including Mrs Bevell but also some very funny ones mainly such as when Pete’s missing cat Ginger turns up and the Vermeen is speaking through him. “Gingerrrrrrr” bemoans an incredulous Pete! I also loved the idea of exploding tomato ketchup bottles in the cafe as people dived for cover.

4.2 The Blooming Menace by James Kettle

This story reminded me so much of Day of the Triffids with its theme of an invasion of giant flowers moving around 1923’s London but without any real characters, I liked to root for. The “Blooming Menace” flowers have a strange effect of making young men fall in love with them. I’m not really a fan however of the humour of P.G Wodehouse of feather-brained men where this story takes its inspiration.

I was really pleased though that Toby Entwistle, a young gentleman at the club, inadvertently hires the Doctor as a valet and that gives rise to some of the subsequent humour in the story. The Doctor doesn’t valet or know how to be one. The Doctor isn’t someone, always ready to judge, but I do get a sense the northern working-class accent he has highlights some of the absurdity and pomposity of the gentlemen’s privileged world. A club where the only female figure is the presence of Nanny Lewis who is seen more as a motherly figure. 

Toby Entwhistle and his bachelor chums in the Fellows Club are falling victim to a plague – of marriage! The chaps are all besotted by giant flowers – but Toby’s new valet seems to know what’s going on. The Doctor could be London’s only hope…

The character of “Phil” threw me for a moment as from the second she speaks she is so obviously a woman (Milanka Brooks) in disguise at the Fellows Club. The Representation of the People Act 1918 allowed women over the age of 30 who met a property qualification to vote so I wasn’t sure if this idea of dressing as a male (I’m guessing she was dressed as such from the others describing her as a good fellow) was her signalling of female emancipation as it comes in many forms.

Finding out later that Phil has an attachment to Toby Entwistle and this was a sign of her devotion lessened her impact slightly creating her as an object of his female love interest. Saying that the 9^th Doctor being perceptive though knew who he preferred to help him with the flowers “brains with me, brawn downstairs” or words to that effect. The story does have a charm of sorts and Doctor does make everything alright in the end and it all ends happily. Just don’t call Nanny.

4.3 Red Darkness by Roy Gill

You know I have to admire how Steven Moffat was able to take the every day and make it something that plays on a basic primal fear in Silence in the Library. Fear the shadows and darkness. Red Darkness concludes the box set and the best is definitely saved for last. It is a well-structured story which I couldn’t really find much fault with. The Vashta Nerada, microscopic entities, the “piranhas of the air” are swarming on Solis Kailya.

A base under siege story reminiscent of Waters of Mars with a threat that seemingly can’t be beaten and with the isolation of the planet, the location does become a “will anyone survive” kind of story as the number of alive humans from the group reduces.

The sunlight from Solis Kailya could revolutionise colony farming. While his mother researches its properties, Callen and his seeing (and talking!) dog Doyle meet a new arrival – and discover an impending threat…The Vashta Nerada are closing in, and they are not alone.

 Being introduced to the young Callen Lennox (played really well by Adam Martyn) out scavenging with his dog Doyle (Harki Bhambra) there is such a close, so charming relationship between them that I rooted for both of them. Doyle is able to talk due to an AI chip in his collar and is naturally inquisitive and protective of Callen when the 9th Doctor turns up. He becomes useful by using his doggie senses to sniff out what Doyle calls “the teeth in the night”. Callen’s mother, Dr Lennox, a smart scientist is working on sunlight research and worries about her teenage son. I really warmed to her practicality and spirit. 

As with The Colour of Terror, the audio medium allows the aliens ample scope to communicate through people and is actually quite scary. They aren’t a threat that can be reasoned with. The Vashta Nerada are hunters and need to eat, nothing more, nothing less. This Doctor that always seems to be most comfortable exploring on his own takes it upon himself to try to save this small group of people when it becomes clear that a “Red Darkness” will devour everything. I like the way the pressure is ratcheted with a development, a connection to the 1st story The Colour of Terror which then threatens everything the few colonists there are trying to achieve. 

This box set particularly with Red Darkness (and The Colour of Terror to a lesser extent) was one that I was left thinking about and wanting to listen to again. That hasn’t happened very often. I’ve rather enjoyed how the 9th Doctor just seems to breeze into the right vicinity still willing to help although he seems more vocal than other incarnations to criticise the actions of humanity at times. I think my enjoyment is a lot to do with Christopher Eccleston’s layered performance. He knows who his Doctor is, by necessity of the Time War, he is a bit of a loner. His detachment or battle-hardened attitude allows him to give a sharp at times perspective reflecting upon us.

It’s not always necessarily the right one. Then for all his watchful, knowing alien persona the 9th Doctor praises and acknowledges the bravery of the human race which is a joy to behold and listen to when it comes. 

Check out the trailer – Doctor Who – The Ninth Doctor Adventures: Shades of Fear and you can pick up the story on cd and download from Big Finish now.

What are your thoughts on Shades of Fear? Post your thoughts here, on the Big Blue Box Podcast Discord Server or on Twitter. Let’s talk.