10. Winter for the Adept.

4 episodes. Approx. 94 minutes. Written by: Andrew Cartmel. Directed by: Gary Russell. Produced by: Jason Haigh-Ellery, Gary Russell. 


THE PLOT

One of the Doctor's experiments leaves Nyssa teleported to the Swiss Alps in 1963 in the dead of winter. She is rescued by Lieutenant Sandoz (Peter Jurasik), a Swiss police officer who takes her to the nearest shelter: A girls' finishing school run by the fanatically religious Miss Tremayne (Sally Faulkner). 

Most of the girls at the school have gone home to spend Christmas with their families. But a snowstorm has left two teen girls stranded: 15-year-old Alison Spears (Liz Sutherland) and her rebellious friend, 19-year-old Peril Bellamy (India Fisher). The school has problems beyond the storm. A series of incidents has left Miss Tremayne convinced that "the spirits of the dead" are haunting them. Not long after Nyssa arrives, the electric lights go out, a mirror breaks, and the glass shards of the mirror rise up to attack!

When the Doctor finally arrives, he can't help but investigate this apparent genuine haunting. But Lt. Sandoz is suspicious of his unusual arrival, Miss Tremayne is becoming increasingly irrational, and Peril and Alison are hiding secrets of their own. As the poltergeist activity grows ever more violent, the Doctor realizes that something more is at work - and that all of the humans may be pawns in a deadlier game...


CHARACTERS

The Doctor: The Doctor doesn't appear until the very end of Episode One, making him all the more dominant for the wait. Peter Davison is on terrific form, very funny in his understated way while still anchoring the story with his steady presence. I particularly enjoyed his interplay with Lt. Sandoz (Peter Jurasik). The Doctor shows disdain for Sandoz in every scene they share. Most of this is amusing, as when he belittles the other man's stubborn skepticism by noting, "You'll end up cutting your throat with Occam's Razor," or swipes at Sandoz's attempts to take charge by saying, "Yes, I thought it had been a while since you 'demanded' something." But he also bristles with moral outrage when Sandoz shoots another character - unnecessarily, in the Doctor's view, though any country's police would deem it a justified shooting.

Nyssa: When writer Andrew Cartmel got the brief to write a 5th Doctor/Nyssa adventure, did he get Nyssa confused with Tegan? That's the only explanation I can come up with for Nyssa's uncharacteristic bad temper in this story. I have no problem with her irritation in Episode One and even early Episode Two - After all, being abruptly dumped into the middle of the Swiss Alps in your street clothes would take anyone aback. But she remains irritable all the way through the story. Simply put: I don't know who it is Sarah Sutton is playing in this story, but it sure isn't Nyssa of Traken.


THOUGHTS

Winter for the Adept has the ingredients necessary to be a very good Doctor Who story. There's an isolated, near-deserted school for girls, two young girls with secrets, a suspicious and trigger-happy police lieutenant, a fanatically religious headmistress, and an increasingly violent poltergeist haunting. Mix in an excellent, atmospheric music score by Russell Stone, and you have everything needed to create one of Big Finish's best early stories.

Unfortunately, that doesn't end up being the result. The blame for that lands squarely on writer Andrew Cartmel, who fails to make full use of his very promising ingredients.

The squandered potential is evident. Early in the story, Nyssa notes how strong an impression the Doctor has made on Alison. Not long after, strong hints are dropped that Alison is jealous of Nyssa's place with the Doctor, a plot and character element that is... completely dropped, and evidently forgotten as Alison fades ever further into the background. 

Miss Tremayne's religious fixation is similarly underutilized. Much is made of it in the first episode. Then she overhears a conversation indicating that at least one of her young charges has psychic abilities and whispers,"Though shalt not suffer a witch to live." This pronouncement receives only one scene of follow-up, as Tremayne attempts to act in the most cartoonish manner possible when more drama might have been milked had she been more willing to wait for an opportunity to strike.

Instead of properly using characters from whom conflict and jeopardy could obviously have been wrung, Cartmel takes his script on a left turn into an entirely different story. To make matters worse, this happens about halfway through Episode Four, as we shift from a decent enough little ghost story to a rushed alien invasion scenario. With only about ten minutes of story left, that subplot is wrapped up almost as quickly as it's introduced, leaving the story to end on a very weak note. 

Had the alien invasion subplot been dropped entirely and the potential for conflict among the human characters been more fully explored, this might have been a first-rate audio adventure. As it stands, it's not really bad. The first three episodes are mostly enjoyable, with a sprinking of good scenes and good overall performances. It's also notable as India Fisher's first Doctor Who audio, with her performance here surely responsible for her casting as Charley Pollard in the Eighth Doctor audios. 

But the squandered potential of this gathering of guest characters, and the ill-advised decision to shift from ghost story to invasion story far too late in the narrative... I would rate these as missteps that derail the story. For three episodes, I was leaning toward awarding this a "6." The final episode, and particularly the final ten minutes, knocked my score significantly downward.


Overall Rating: 4/10.

Previous Story: The Land of the Dead
Next Story: The Mutant Phase 


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