83. Something Inside

Some descent concepts but the music is a bit cringe and there’s few surprises. Still a easy listen 6/10

A serviceable story, but not much more than that. It's got a fairly strong central idea which is reasonably well developed, but gets a bit tedious and repetitive as it goes on. I think it might have worked a lot better as a three-part story.

I like the basic premise, though. I like the idea of characters who are given psi-powers to fight a war, only for their own government to turn on them after the war is over. It's not the most original idea I've ever heard (it sound like something "Star Trek: The Next Generation" would have done), but it's a strong, compelling idea all the same. Unfortunately, the actual characters involved are bland and mostly forgettable.

Having the Doctor lose his memory is also kind of annoying, and like the non-linear approach to the story, doesn't seem to serve much of a narrative purpose. Unless I'm overlooking something, which wouldn't surprise me. I found this a very difficult story to concentrate on. It just doesn't seem to hold my attention, so it's very possible that I missed some details or even a few major plot points.

It has been noted elsewhere that the story is a bit a grim. Although there aren't a whole lot of characters, there are a lot of corpses by the time it's all over. It's one of those stories where the Doctor succeeds by containing the threat, preventing it from getting out and killing countless numbers of people who aren't actually in this story, which unfortunately failing to save anyone who is in the story other than himself and his companions. The script handles this nicely, giving the Doctor a beat to reflect on everyone he couldn't save, but it's still makes for a pretty grim experience as a listener.

This is a pretty solid and frightening adventure. The Doctor, Charley, and C'Rizz are trapped in the Cube, a prison for psychics. The Doctor has lost his memory (again) and is being tortured by the Rawden who created psychic warriors to win a war but now fears them.

The idea of creating these warriors and then locking up due to fear is a powerful one and very thought provoking. The Mind Worm is a perfect monster for audio and very creepy. Rawdem and Twyst (terrific name for a torturer by the way) are a terrifying pair of torturers trying to extract information from the Doctor. Overall, this is pretty chilling with some very suspenseful moments in Part IV. I also really like Charley in this episode. Separated from the Doctor and eventually C'Rizz, she shows drive and determination to find her friends, and a lot more spark than she's shown since C'Rizz joined the TARDIS crew.

Of course, it does seem the Eighth Doctor and amnesia and temporary memory loss has become a theme (The TV Movie, Minuet in Hell, Terror Firma, and there would be more more) , but thankfully they came up with a better reason for it here. C'Rizz's plot seems to kind of spin in place in this episode. It doesn't detract much, but his main thing he does is get beaten up by Twyst.

Still, this is a well-produced tale, although it's probably has one of the more grim stories for the Eighth Doctor during this era.

McGann is the 8th Doctor and finally we are fully underway and moving along with no more Divergence, LSD manipulated dream scape drama. I for one prefer this type of story, the sort you could actually listen to and think, wasn't this an actual audio adaptation of a broadcast episode, the frame of reference is everything. Well you certainly get that here, with McGann once again with an effortless performance of the Doctor, guiding his companions along a rather lurid tale of escape from a psychic prison. The reminisce of a experimental weapon of choice as left the "authorities" with a problem, the psychic soldiers need to be nullified, and what better way than to reverse engineer there cerebral killing machines that to send them back to the mad scientist who invented the technique, unfortunately, the description of mad bolds only too true, as intent and desire get in the way of resolving the problem, and also reducing the desire. The Doctor and C'rizz soon find themselves being manipulated due to the natural telepathic abilities, a healthy dose of memory loss for the Doctor, and quite painful amount of suffering for C'rizz are endured.

This is a simple story, and as I stated to earlier I could actually as I listened think to myself, this could and should have been a episode from TV, however the BBC loss is Big Finish's gain. It is a interesting tale, and quite stripped bare, so the material has to be strong to hold up, it is, but only just, and alas is not a storming release, but a good solid main release title, that actually stands up better to several listens as opposed to just the one.

I enjoyed this not least for the fact we no longer have Divergence to navigate around in my head.