Main Range #252: An Alien Werewolf in London (Spoilers)

If I am honest, I am not sure what to make of this one. It isn't terrible, but it isn't great either. The final episode does help to piece the story together, the absence of which would have made this a very difficult and confusing story.

I think Alan Barnes is trying to be a bit too clever with this and that it hasn't worked here. What starts off as a deceptively simple plot (i.e. a rescue mission from a haunted house), turns into something a lot more complex and there are many twists and turns along the way that the listener sometimes gets lost. The fact that things are not what they seem with the characters (sometimes working out who is who is a difficult one as there are not many clues) and the narrative is not linear does not help - especially as parts 2 and 3 veer off in different directions. I also think Barnes is trying to play with the concept of an unreliable narrator here - I got smatterings of Christie's The Murder of Roger Ackryod - the characters are not telling the truth. On subsequent listens, I would expect these issues would disappear, but they do make this a difficult story on first listen. I am certainly planning on re-listening to this at some point to ensure that I have got everything.

I agree with Paz, I don't think this fits the 1990s timeline and I really do not think Barnes thought too much about this. Whilst there are some 1990s references, the whole thing smacks of the 1980s - especially the faux-Australian soap opera and key wedding and the reference to Yazz. I would put this at 1988/1989. In many ways, this is the weakness of the McCoy era - it is so grounded in the 1980s that the cast and characters have always struggled to escape it in a way that was never really seen with the UNIT stories of the 1970s. I also disliked the constant continuity references being thrown in and got tired of that aft a while.

There is some standard gothic horror elements - notably the haunted house, creature in the basement, sinister medical professional and vampirism. However, this story is less rooted in those elements than the first two releases in the trilogy and I thought that this was a shame as the tone of the first two was better suited to the use of Mags. The 'return' of Ace was something that we could have avoided as I am not sure that she is entirely necessary to the plot and was rather superfluous once the story had started. The Doctor takes quite a back seat as well and only really gets involved in the last part - whether this is due to him being the 'master manipulator' or poor writing, I cannot really say. Although I give Barnes credit for trying to do something more interesting with vampires - Project: Twilight did it better in 2001 and I never really found the motivation behind the events of the story that convincing - the plot is quite threadbare and relies on coincidences.

Not an awful release but one I think that needed a further draft before recording to tighten up and clarify. There's also a couple of things:

1. The TARDIS appears to change from the 1980s console room to the Movie set - the reason for this isn't really explained. Plot hole?
2. If this is McCoy later in his incarnation, why is he still dressed in the Season 24 garb?

A rather weak ending to this trilogy. The music is good and there are some interesting ideas, but needs further work.