MR 41: Nekromanteia (Spoilers)

This one actually starts out kind of fun. And then about halfway through episode 1 is nosedives and never recovers.

It's an odd one. Once the story gets to the planet the guest cast are all difficult to like, and it feels like the TARDIS team have been cooped up together for too long (the nicest thing Peri says about the Doctor is that he is usually her way out of nasty situations).

It feels like the writer was going for an Eric Saward massacre and Caves of Androzani vibe, but there's no soul to it.

It's only going to cost you $2.99 and a couple of hours of your time. It's got redeeming qualities.

I'd sum it up as a plot with potential let down by the very gritty tone and very unlikeable guest cast. Except for one or two you don't like them at some point. There's one group that could have been written in a more tragic way, but instead are cackling harpies.

And hey, we've got votes across the board. Not as negative as I expected, but I never expected someone to say it was a 5.

What do you think of the concept of the witches keeping the equilibrium of the lodestone and the energy converter? It is rather lost in some horrible screeching, but conceptually it's interesting.

Nekromanteia is definitely worth buying @2.99. (Every Doctor Who main range title is worth a go @2.99!) I think people get a bit carried away with the minuses of this story and ignore the pluses. I don't think Nekromanteia is half as bad as people make out. Sure, it's dark and grittty in places but we don't want Doctor Who to always be cute fluffy bunnies do we? (Of course, I did read most the Virgin NA's as they came out so I probably was used to more adult elements in Doctor Who when this was released.) I thought the first part of Nekromanteia were very good at setting up the story and it even had a Caves of Androzani vibe early on, the plot did go a bit awry later on and had too many threads which was a bit confusing, and yes the witches cackling was very annoying too, very very in fact! So while Nekromanteia is not a perfect story by any means, it's not the worst main range story out there either, as there are some interesting elements to this story... just poorly developed.

Completely agree.

I'm still not familiar with The Doctor on the printed page, but that's certainly my impression from reading the forums is that the early Main Range was influenced in tone and content by the Virgin NA's, as well as the early MR also being given to experimentation in general.

If they did cross a line with the theme of sexual violence in Nekromanteia, perhaps it might not have been a line that was so clearly drawn previously? I think sometimes there may be a slight tendency toward implied threats of sexual violence or exploitation, where they may stand out less for either seeming a little bit commonplace in drama, or for seeming somewhat natural to the character who's making them? Maybe it was very close to the sort of thing where someone had to cross the line once to really find out that they had.

My complaint would be more that there were a couple of times that I thought the perpetrator was going to turn out to be decent person after all, and I'd much rather they'd been written as clear-cut vile from start to finish, rather than compounding a controversial move with any element that might encourage sympathy toward the perpetrator.

Perhaps I'm in the minority again, but I didn't mind the cackling, on top of my also not minding the Racnoss voices in CDNM. I thought it was well performed and had enough of an edge to it to stay unnerving even when you know what they're up to from previous listens and don't have the suspense to keep you on the edge of your seat on later ones. (I should give another listen to CDNM soon, if only I could take the Carrionites quite as seriously as I'm able to take these crones).

"It's got some redeeming qualities", isn't the most rousing of recommendations.

Never thought too much of it, but certainly don't feel as negatively as some.




Grittiness? Yeah, well, they would have a very hard time creating a sense of danger if bad things didn't or even couldn't happen, or if they do happen, only happen to red shirts.....

There are plenty of episodes with torture, death, etc., so I don't really see the beating/attempted rape as somehow fundamentally off-limits. It was a tense moment and certainly had me thinking "wait...are they (BF) actually going to do this?" But they didn't, and other characters have been put through outright torture as noted.