19. Minuet in Hell

A bloated 2 and half hours of bad acting from everyone save the main cast and Nick Briggs (though its hard to blame the guest cast since they're forced into these horrid American accents that probably held back their acting ability) and a senseless plot that despite the running time feels like it never goes anywhere. Charley's subplot is admittedly a bit fun at the start but even that goes off the rails. Even the official plot synopsis feels ridiculously amateur as if they were scraping the bottom of the barrel to try and make this sound interesting.

If you're a completionist like I am, you'll have to suffer through it. Otherwise just skip on to to the second batch of 8/Charley audios, you'll have a better time.

Oh dear! This was thoroughly disappointing. Not quite as awful I think as the 8th Doctor audio Izzy's Story from The Company of Friends as there are more positives here but a overall a really bad audio adventure. How anyone could enjoy this or Izzy's Story and then criticise an episode of the TV series (other than the very worst 3 or 4 episodes of 6th & 7th Doctor) is beyond me as the guest star acting and writing here are weak amateur dramatics level at best. The American characters are really badly acted with awful accents, particularly Senator Waldo Pickering who must rate as the worst acted and written character I have yet come across in Doctor Who history. Truly awful!

You may notice that even with the very poor review I give this story I still rate it 3/10 not 1/10 because I am not a ridiculous, over-reacting type that is sadly so common on the internet. I look for any positives and give a measured response. Seeing fans rate stories from one of their favourite TV shows/radio series as 1/10 when there are clearly plenty of positives makes me scratch my head and wonder why people have to exaggerate negative views so often.

The plus points are the Brigadier (the brilliant Nicholas Courtney) who performs as well as he can with the material and Paul McGann who is fine as always. It makes me sad and a bit angry that Nicholas Courtney contributed to a story which they have written and put together so badly. The script at times is fine but a lot of the time, especially with the Senator and the associated 'demon' whose dialogue is as dreadful as the acting that delivers it. In addition Charley is badly acted in this adventure. Charley had never struck me as particularly good or convincing but reaches a new low here. She does not convince at all as being from 1930 and she speaks poor dialogue in a very childish, unimpressive way I am sad to say.

There are some less bad plot segments but the overall plot is nonsense and unbelievable. It is only a number of decent scenes involving the Doctor and/or the Brigadier with their acting talents which lift this even to a 3/10. Part 3 was easily the best section and even that was filled with quite a lot of bad stuff. At least there was a spark of something better in a few scenes.

Part 1 - 3/10, Part 2 - 3/10, Part 3 - 5/10, Part 4 - 2.5/10

Overall: 3.38/10

Eighth Doctor meeting the Brigadier for the first time is probably the most interesting aspect in this story. The rest is sadly a bizarre, poorly written and badly acted hodge podge of a mess.

After deciding to work my way through the Eighth Doctor back catalogue – I got to Minuet in Hell today, and wondered if other people thought it was as dire as I did. I hate accents done badly (at this point I’m still reeling from Rathbone in Storm Warning), and the clichéd and overblown ones on view here simply make me want to tear my headphones off, followed by my ears. The whole Hellfire Club – Dashwood idea transplanted to America was stupid and unconvincing. The idea that a southern evangelist state would be named ‘Malebolgia’ really destroyed the credibility for me from the outset. Did the authors just think this was a really cool name that – hint, hint – secretly indicated Dashwood’s sympathies? So, no-one in the US is supposed to realise that their new state is named after Dante’s Eighth Circle of Hell, and is therefore Satan’s dominion? Absolutely ridiculous and patronising (but then the entire cast of US characters are as well). And the Brigadier is suddenly an expert on devolution, having helped set up the Scottish parliament? Really? About as much sense as him becoming a Maths teacher. Add to that everything mentioned above – the rubbish amnesia plot (clichéd even when this was released), the frustration of having the Brig and the Doctor not sharing the adventure, and the hamfistedness with which the ‘hard science’ and devil worship plots were shoehorned together