DOCTOR WHO, MONTHLY ADVENTURES:

8th Doctor #1 (#16 Overall)

STORM WARNING

Doctor: Eighth (Paul McGann)

And introducing...Charley Pollard

April 2023

Did you know there are Doctor Who audio stories? It’s true!

Storm Warning is not the first one, not by something of a long shot (I think), but it is the first story with Paul McGann’s Eighth Doctor, formerly seen in the TV Movie, and it’s the first one I’ve ever listened to. Technically, twice now. And it’s pretty funky!

There’s a lot to like here—not least the fact that it finally lets Paul McGann stretch his acting chops. I’ve always been a fan of the Eighth Doctor, despite only having seen the one story with him—he has a certain air of obtuse melancholy, while also undeniably being a little weirdo. Which I’m a big fan of. But first, the story, and—

—hang on, actually, first, the format. Audio stories, radio plays, etc, all are a little bit strange to me as a listener. I don’t have a lot of experience with the medium—mostly just The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy—but they can be truly fascinating works of art and storytelling, because of how we’re limited to the aural reactions of the characters and the soundscape in general: there tends to be a lot of people describing things in dialogue in radio shows, compared to tv, or comics, or even prose books. And that’s for a very good and understandable reason, obviously, but it can make things seem a little stilted if you’re not careful about it. Storm Warning doesn’t really do this, but since it’s the first audio story I’ve listened to, I couldn’t not notice it.

The soundscape and soundtrack, too, is really something to behold. I’ve never really thought before about how effective extreme scene changes—and even more subtle ones—can be when purely portrayed via audio. Human brains are wired to notice subtle shifts in sound, I suppose, and Storm Warning does so excellently, which really makes me look forward to the rest of these audios that I’m getting to. The soundtrack really adds to this too: characters will talk about doing something, and then the soundtrack will naturally build to a sting that just signals to me that it’s happened, without any more necessary narration than that. This is all old hat probably if you’re a regular listener to these things, but for me it’s new, and it’s really cool! I like it a lot!

Paul McGann more or less has to carry this story from the beginning, because it’s a new adventure with a whole new cast of characters and not even a companion to helpfully exposit to and provide a second familiar face. McGann himself as the Doctor is barely a familiar face, because he only had the one movie, but he does a very good Doctor here. He’s a toned-down sort of man, compared to many of the zanier Doctors—I might draw the most parallels between him and, say, Jon Pertwee’s Third Doctor thinking deeply about science and all that, or maybe more accurately Peter Davison’s Fifth, who is charming and boyish but also knowing and strange and a little sad. It’s interesting to me that this is the Doctor as we see him before the Last Great Time War: that he’s still kinda a sad guy even before it. Then again, I’ve heard all of one story with him in the past year, so maybe I just have the vibe off for now.

We’re introduced to a new companion here, too—one of the first original-to-audio companions: Charley Pollard. And it’s a rather stellar introduction: she’s introduced here having disguised herself as a boy to sneak on board the R101 airship basically “for the fun of it” and promptly evading capture and meeting up with the Doctor. We don’t get huge amounts of her dynamic with him yet, because this is only their first story, but what we do see I like. I like Charley rather a lot: she’s extremely spirited. I’m excited to see more of her! Or, uh, hear more of her.

This adventure is set on board the R101 airship, which was a flight that crashed in France in 1930, killing 48 people. It’s in some ways funny that I’m reviewing this one right on the heels of The Time Meddler, because both of them feature the Doctor having to preserve the integrity of the “web of time” and basically having difficulties doing so. Admittedly, this is a common thread in a lot of Doctor Who stories, but it feels very apparent in this one, because he saves Charley.

We’re introduced to a few of the crew on board the ship: notably, Lord Tamworth, Lieutenant-Colonel Frayling, and Rathbone, who’s introduced as Tamworth’s valet. There’s also the matter of the mysterious passenger in cabin 43 (always a good hook) which leads into the “supernatural” portion of the serial.

This stuff has to do with things only revealed in the second half:

The supernatural portion concerns the Triskeli, who are a weirdly segmented species, one of whom crash-landed on Earth and who is trying to get back to the main corpus. The Triskeli (in addition to being the fictional original of the triskelion as an icon) are divided into three groups: the Engineers, led by the Engineer Prime, who crash-landed; the Uncreators, led by the Uncreator Prime; and the Lawmaker, who is only one intensely old Triskeli. The Engineers build, and the Uncreators destroy; the Lawmaker, meanwhile, makes the laws, acting as a sort of free will to the species as a whole. It’s a setup that feels a little cut-and-dry for my tastes, but what it ends up doing with it is fairly interesting, so I don’t mind that much.

That is, the Uncreators are essentially bound by the Lawmaker to be unable to go into wanton destruction as they desire, and as the Triskeli used to do. Rathbone, who’s revealed to be a member of the British secret service, wants this capability to be used by the government in order to...better society? Not entirely clear—I tend to rely on subtitles a fair bit when watching the TV series, which means there are some details I will always miss when listening to things purely in audio format (especially because I listen while doing other menial tasks). Obviously this would constitute a form of authoritarianism and be bad. But the Triskeli are looking for a new Lawmaker to replace the dying one, and I believe specifically a human one? Though I’m not entirely sure why, again. At first they point to the Doctor, but then it’s revealed he’s an alien; then Rathbone shoots the Lawmaker and everything goes to shit, which is a fairly compelling cliffhanger for the third episode.

Spoiler Thoughts:

The resolution feels a little stilted to me also: getting everyone to roar and thereby instinctively scare the out-of-practice Uncreators back? It’s for sure a silly prospect. But again, I don’t really mind it too much. A lot of the finale feels sort of unserious, in a weird way, especially the parts with the Triskeli. This is added to when Lord Tamworth beats the Uncreator Prime in a boxing match. A really funny moment, but since we can’t see it, it’s a little bit unclear, you know?

Still, it leads into an interesting point, which is that of Lord Tamworth (who’s based off the historical Lord Thomson) becoming the new Lawmaker, in a sort of about turn from the more colonial mindset he’s displayed leading up to here. It’s not clear how shifted his views are from colonialism and imperialism in general, though, which I sort of question, but a very strong point is made about how he was at Versailles after WWI and thought that the resolutions made would simply lead to another, later war—something which the historical Lord Thomson actually thought. This sort of makes the whole thing hang together.

The final confrontation between the Doctor, Charley, and Rathbone, however, is really good. The Doctor’s monologue about the web of time and all of this being predestined lends significant credence to his threat and drops the atmosphere in the whole room ten degrees. It’s really something. Paul McGann does an extremely good job as the Doctor, bouncing between lighthearted jokes and deadly seriousness with perfect aplomb. All of his monologues are great in this episode, in fact, but that final confrontation really stands out. His speech to himself about Charley and fate after they escape the airship, too, is not half bad.

Overall Thoughts:

Storm Warning is a strong story with a bit of a messy resolution. I like it quite a bit, especially the final climax and ending, though, and it sets up a whole expanse of later stories simply by introducing the Doctor and Charley. I can’t rate this next to any other audio stories because I haven’t listened to them; and I do not intend to listen to every single audio story, because I am made of neither money nor time. Next up will be either The Sword of Orion or skipping ahead past that, possibly to The Chimes of Midnight, which is supposed to be truly excellent. We’ll see. Possibly The Sword of Orion, though, to get a little more settled into this format and getting to know Charley and the Doctor a little better. Listen to this one if you’ve got 3 pounds to spare or if you wish the Eighth Doctor got to do a little more than just star in one movie; or if you’re interested in the audio stories. I’m by no means an expert, but this seems like a fairly good jumping on point (it’s mine, after all).