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Post by omega on May 10, 2018 7:11:00 GMT
DOCTOR WHO - MAIN RANGE » 129. PLAGUE OF THE DALEKS Released December 2009
SynopsisStockbridge used to be such a lovely place. The loveliest village in all England, according to the guide books. But hardly anyone visits Stockbridge now: a few tourists, a couple of Trust guides, the odd beady-eyed raven. But something is coming to Stockbridge. Something which turns village cricketers into ravening zombies – a plague such as the Earth has never seen, falling through history from a time when humanity's greatest enemy was a race known as the Daleks. The Doctor and Nyssa visit Stockbridge for the final time, to confront the terrible secret buried at its heart. The storm clouds are gathering… Written By: Mark Morris Directed By: Barnaby Edwards CASTPeter Davison (The Doctor), Sarah Sutton (Nyssa), Keith Barron (Isaac Barclay), Liza Tarbuck (Lysette Barclay), Richenda Carey (Alexis Linfoot), Barry McCarthy (Vincent Linfoot), Richard Cordery (Professor Rinxo Jabbery), Susan Brown (Mrs Withers/Mrs Sowerby/Computer Voice), Nicholas Briggs (Cricketer/Dobson) ___________________________________________________________________ BONUS EPISODE! THE COMPANION CHRONICLES: THE THREE COMPANIONSBrewster's Story by Marc Platt: As Polly and the Brigadier become acquainted with Thomas Brewster, chaos erupts. UNIT troops are on the streets of London and the Hunter is on the prowl…
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Post by omega on May 10, 2018 7:21:10 GMT
This is a disappointing ending to the Stockbridge trilogy. It's got the horror set up, but because the writer had recently done a Torchwood novel about zombies, he got cold feet on that aspect so it never pays off. As we saw in Amy's Choice, a rural village with evil old people can be creepy and unsettling. Instead the village population is limited to a five minute scene at the end of a cricket match in the first episode and Susan Brown rounding out her Stockbridge experience as a barmaid who needs to be turned off and then on again. The story could have explored the morality of clones, but it's ignored after Isaac laments their dying (because of the Doctor's retrovirus!)
The Daleks also don't shine much. We get something about the resilience of their tech, but otherwise it's business as usual. There's an effort in the last episode to make the whole thing even more tragic for Isaac and Lysette, but it doesn't really have heart.
Early working titles for this include The Ancients and Village of the Damned. The former sounds like it was meant to tie off the Veridios thread from the previous two stories, which would have made a much more satisfying finale. Village of the Damned plays up a horror vibe, and wouldn't spoil what would have otherwise been a genuinely surprising villain reveal halfway through. Really. There's nothing until the end of episode two to indicate Daleks specifically are involved, and the title goes and ruins the surprise, because Daleks mean more sales.
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Post by omega on May 10, 2018 8:00:09 GMT
If I had to rewrite the story, here's how I'd do it
The Village at the End of the World
The Doctor and Nyssa come out of the Vortex disorientated, and end up in Well's Wood. Unsure as to what's happened, they wander off and end up separated. Nyssa is discovered by the village custodians, while the Doctor is caught by a group of three people not wanting to be discovered by the custodians. Turns out it's the future, and someone or some group has funded for custodians to maintain Stockbridge as it is, while the rest of the world is developing for the future. It's shielded from outside scanning and tracking, and the group with Doctor are treasure seekers who have gotten an inside tip off as to something valuable in Stockbridge, a Stasis Vault that Stockbridge's benefactor also seeks. They learn the Doctor has a close history with the town, and forcibly recruit him for his knowledge of the town.
Meanwhile Nyssa is having telepathic experiences, which the leader of Stockbridge believes can lead them to the Stasis Vault. Nyssa knows the feeling is familiar, but can't place where. She also notes that the custodians are very particular to routine, which unnerves her. As the day goes on, she starts doing things she can't account for, including blackouts of memory.
The treasure hunters aren't having much luck, and out of frustration one of them takes a shot at a statue that intrigues the Doctor. The treasure hunter dies for an unknown reason, and a group of custodians circles the Doctor and the remaining two treasure hunters, moving and speaking in unison. Only the leader and the Doctor escape, fleeing into the church.
While Nyssa is talking to the leader of Stockbridge, she has a severe psychic attack, where the leader collapses. When Nyssa goes to them, something comes over her.
The Doctor, the surviving treasure hunter are able to use a tunnel leading from the crypt to find an underground room that contains the stasis vault. The Doctor opens it to discover the TARDIS. As he gets the key from his pocket, Nyssa enters the room, but when the Doctor addresses her as Nyssa, she instead claims that she's Veridios.
Veridios tells the Doctor how they (Veridios) are tied to Stockbridge physically as well as keeping it together and verdent, and that if Stockbridge was allowed to develop it would lose its anchor on our plane of reality. By keeping Stockbridge a slice of the past, it was preserving its foothold. When the rest of the world went high tech, Veridios would ensure Stockbridge got left behind. The Time Bubble was a means of doing this, but that ultimately failed. When the TARDIS was left at the end of Castle of Fear, it was drawn underground with the intention of being used to perpetuate the foothold. Eventually it became a lure to draw interested people who could fall under the influence of Veridios. After Nyssa's psychic experiences in The Eternal Summer, she showed herself to be the perfect person to take over, and try influence the Doctor to do something to guarantee Veridios being around.
Veridios lets go of all the custodians, who drop dead for no longer having any will of their own, and tries to use that energy to create another time bubble. This ends up creating a time fissure. With Veridios distracted the Doctor slips into the TARDIS and uses the telepathic circuits to boost his own telepathic ability and evict Veridios from Nyssa. With nowhere else to go, Veridios falls into the fissure, falling back to the early days of the area that would become Stockbridge, becoming a time loop.
The fissure erases all trace of human influence on the land, and the treasure hunter resolves to rebuild it. Even at the end, there's a beginning. The Doctor and Nyssa depart, Stockbridge now only a memory.
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Post by aussiedoctorwhofan on May 10, 2018 8:15:18 GMT
This was 1 of the very 1st stories I listened to. Been ages.. Might have to dig it out again  |
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Post by Tim Bradley on May 10, 2018 9:00:37 GMT
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Post by Ela on May 10, 2018 20:05:23 GMT
Just curious, omega : Any particular reason you needed to post three times in a row when you started this thread? Seems to me, at the least, that you could have combined the second two posts into one. I sort of understand your having the first post separate, with the basic information about the release, but three posts in a row is unusual, especially when they're all pretty much posted at the same time and on the same date. Just wondering. |
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Post by Deleted on May 10, 2018 21:23:45 GMT
A detailed and thoughtful review Tim. I thoroughly enjoyed this story - an easy listen which i found very 'visual' and the kind of isolated village setting with enough voice characters to keep your head around without losing track - always the first thing that causes me to lose the thread of the drama (who said that? which one is this?). The idea of the village preserved as a kind of snow shaker bubble in a dead earth populated by living 'exhibits' set it off as the kind of slightly macabre setting that only Doctor Who can make convincing (Star Trek TOS used to get away with before the idea of Holodecks in TNG provided a reset button for anything format stretching, IMHO). Shame it gets flak by reviewers due to its predecessors in the trilogy. I listened to it first and whilst i like to engage the brain cells with timey-wimey ideas now and again, an easy listen is perhaps more suggestive of good writing as no heavy handed exposition is required - twists are easier in a visual medium, but on audio, i sometimes ame left thinking 'oh. the story has just changed track. what/why?' One worth a re-listen and a solid stand alone - the trilogy is a setting rather than story device anyway. |
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Post by omega on May 10, 2018 22:13:54 GMT
Just curious, omega : Any particular reason you needed to post three times in a row when you started this thread? Seems to me, at the least, that you could have combined the second two posts into one. I sort of understand your having the first post separate, with the basic information about the release, but three posts in a row is unusual, especially when they're all pretty much posted at the same time and on the same date. Just wondering. First one was the product page info (as I always do), second was general thoughts and third was how I'd have done the story. I've done an alternative treatment before where I've felt the story could have been told better, with the Unbound story Exile. I don't do that often though, this is the second time I've done it. |
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Post by Ela on May 10, 2018 22:17:36 GMT
Thanks for the explanation.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 31, 2021 7:02:21 GMT
Well have to say this always comes across as the weakest of the stories in the Trilogy.It is still though a well written tale.I am never a fan of the Daleks(overused)and i wonder if Mark the writer was given the brief of shove some daleks in as the script is a hell of a lot better in the first half’s without them.there are some good horror elements which he writes so well .the problem is we know the reveal through the cover and perhaps that was an error Earthshock had just the right title.
The end of an episode which should be a reveal is spoiled by the cover title lol and two Daleks on cover 🤪
i did notice the author is listed as Jonathan Morris instead of Mark Morris on the BF website...get onto that Mr Morris 😂
Peter Davison for me works so well on audio either with a solo companion or with a large Tardis crew and i have been following him through a few of Nyssa stories and in this one he definitely seems to relish the solo.
I wonder what kind of story Mark would have written if he hadn’t been lumbered with the Daleks 🤪
As A Dalek story it does what dalek stories do but its still an enjoyable tale nonetheless the first half more than the second but the writer does a good job with the characters and on this listen i got more enjoyment definitely Time has definitely mellowed me
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