4.5 - Suburban Hell

In a nutshell, the fourth Doctor and Leela attend Abigail's Party in the late 70s, with a sci-fi twist. This is lots of fun, well acted and with spot-on details. The plot goes timey-wimey and gets a little confusing but the resolution is neat and overall this is an engaging winner.

'Suburban Hell' written by Alan Barnes is a tale about monsters in suburbia. As The Doctor and Leela investigate a temporal ruckage they start a chain of events that doesn't reach beyond a residential house but does span four decades. It's genuinely nice to hear a 'Doctor Who' adventure that features time travel as a plot device and not merely a get out clause. Alan Barnes also tries to blend drama, horror and comedy. While he undoubtedly succeeds with the first two I found the comedy to be missing a note, not that it particularly bothered me. The story was still well-plotted and entertaining.

'Suburban Hell' reminds me of Blink. Both are very creative and original affairs that share a similar use of time as a plot device, but where they differ is the number of characters. Blink didn't even feature The Doctor and his companion in anything other than a cameo capacity. Here we have seven including the Doctor and Leela plus the priest and acolytes make it closer to ten, but when the characters are this engaging, who cares?

Regardless of what you think of this audio, Big Finish should be lauded for finally moving away from by the numbers storytelling and taking the plunge into trying something wholly new with the fourth Doctor range, but more than that they have actually pulled it off very well. The only real fault (for want of a better word) is that in the second episode the narrative jumps back and forth between the past and the present for purposes of exposition, and it's this toing and froing, that makes it a little hard to keep up with what is quite a pacey story anyway. Also, I thought the plot was a bit mechanical at times. So, because of the dull humour and at times unclear narrative, this misses out on top marks from me, but it would be churlish to deny that that the writing is first class and that this is a very memorable and enjoyable story, possibly, the best of this series. The Fourth Doctor range is probably the most inconsistent in terms of quality (for me, at least), but when it fails it doesn't do so that badly and when it succeeds - like this - it makes it all worthwhile.

This is Abigail’s Party meets Who, however what Alan Barnes has failed in my opinion to do here is make a cohesive, and in some ways coherent drama that is easy to follow. Although I would listen to Tom Baker read the ingredients of a packet of crisps, he is simply that good, it is just a shame that this is not really up to par in regards to the other adventures that Big Finish have put out in this season of Tom Baker stories. The story is a “timewimey” one where by Tom is in one time frame and Leela is in another. Battling the forces of snarling Acolyte who want to get back their proverbial daughter. Add to this one of the neighbours in the street who is also a time battling alien entity, then you can start to form the mental picture that when we add this into an audio drama, even with the skilled cast that we have, it just sort of doesn’t hit the mark.

I am not going to waffle on about how good or bad this is, or how it could be altered to be better, lets just say that this so far is the most disappointing release of this current run

Suburban Hell begins with some very solid character introductions and a very well set scene. As a result, when the Doctor and Leela stumble into it, things feel genuine and the way everyone assumes they belong is produced by a night balancing act of character moving in and out of the scene, while quite naturally saying just enough to not give the game away.
Much like the Doctor and Leela, we learn moment by moment where this story is set.

Then, when everything is in place, the true threat of the story appears, but it is not the expected threat and so the Doctor finds himself in another time being careful with the breadcrumbs he leaves for his future self.

Solid characters, great imagery, timey-wimey plot lines with Tom and Louise: Everything you could want.