153. The Silver Turk.

4 episodes. Approx. 126 minutes. Written by: Marc Platt. Directed by: Barnaby Edwards. Produced by: David Richardson.


THE PLOT

Having convinced Mary Shelley (Julie Cox) to accompany him in the TARDIS, the Doctor decided to take her for a quick hop to Vienna. He hopes to reunite with friends, but the TARDIS slips forward in time, bringing him and Mary to 1873. This is the year of the Vienna World Exposition, and the Doctor is all too happy to show it off to Mary. 

It becomes quickly apparent, though, that all is not well in this city. There has been a series of mysterious deaths, men whose bodies were found eyeless after savage attacks. All the victims had invested in Alfred Stahlbaum (Christian Brassington)'s creation, The Silver Turk. When the Doctor investigates, he discovers that the Turk is no man-made automaton. It is a Cyberman - crippled, but still dangerous. And it is not alone!


CHARACTERS

The Doctor: The instant he realizes that the Turk is a damaged Cyberman, he becomes intently focused on one goal: destroying it. He knows that even a crippled Cyberman is a killer-in-waiting, and recognizes the threat that the Cyber technology poses in this time and place where it simply doesn't belong.  The Doctor's most formidable trait remains his intelligence.  It's armed with nothing more than his wits that he defeats the surviving Cyberman at the end, confusing it with a peculiar blend of flippancy and philosophy.

Mary: It's worth remembering that The Company of Friends: Mary's Story had been released years before this title. This means that The Silver Turk doubles both as a first trip in the TARDIS for her and as a re-introduction to her for the audience. In this, the story is highly successful. It evokes Mary's Story at many points, with Mary's protectiveness of the deteriorated Cybermen recalling her empathy for the "monster" Doctor in that story - only this time, of course, she ultimately finds that the monsters actually are monsters.

Mary doesn't fully trust the Doctor yet, and her realization that she has just run off with a man she barely knows recalls a similar scene for 9th Doctor companion Rose Tyler in The End of the World. She also reacts to the walking monstrosities of the villainous Drossel (Gareth Armstrong) with genuine terror, actually abandoning the Doctor at one point and fleeing for her life. Moments like this make her believably human, and Julie Cox's acting ability is up to the task of keeping her sympathetic even when showing weakness.

Cybermen: Though a Tenth Planet Cyberman is prominently pictured on the CD cover, this really isn't a Cyber story. The Cybermen are as much victims as villains, one reduced to slavery by Drossel and the other shown off as a curio by Stahlbaum. Even when the surviving Cyberman reveals his agenda at the end, he doesn't come across a strong threat due to his poor condition. They are effective at evoking the Frankenstein story, however, and supplement the tale here very effectively.


THOUGHTS

The Silver Turk is one of those releases where everything comes together to create a splendid entertainment. Marc Platt's script manages to be literate while at the same time remaining accessible and fast-paced. Barnaby Edwards' direction is atmsopheric, but not so heavy-handed as to smother the sense of spontaneity, of events happening as we listen to them. 

Almost all of Platt's audios are very visual. His use of dialogue, theme, and setting tends to make it easy to summon pictures in your mind. The Silver Turk features some wonderfully creepy images. The badly-damaged Cybermen are memorable enough, one with one arm and dressed up as a Turk, the other with no legs but three arms it uses to propel itself (referred to by Drossel as "Dog"). Even more chilling is Drossel's army of walking, talking, murdering marionettes. The addition of human eyes, some of them plucked from the sockets of living victims, is a ghoulishly inspired detail.

The tone is set right from the start. A young mother (Claire Wyatt) sings a lullaby to her baby, the soundscape making sure to linger on the disturbing nature of the lyrics even as we dissolve to a man running for his life. The man believes himself safe when finds a taxi, but then has an eerie and odd interaction with the driver - eventually revealed to be Drossel. As Drossel's "dog" claims the hapless victim, we return to the lullaby, allowing the moment to sink in before the Doctor arrives and begins the story proper.

The production lends plenty of atmosphere, from use of echoes to the way one scene sometimes will dissolve over the start of the next, to the sounds of a storm. There's a chase between two horse-drawn taxis, a tricky thing to pull off on audio, which is edited with precision into a genuinely exciting sequence. 

The performances of the leads are splendid, the actors making the most of Platt's dialogue. Paul McGann is at his most energetic, moving easily from whimsical to grimly focused and back again. He and Julie Cox get a lot more time to play off each other here than in Mary's Story, and their partnership is off to an engaging start. Finally, Gareth Armstrong's Drossel manages to be imposing even as he indulges in just the right amount of ham to show that this villain is also a performer, one who loves an audience. Supporting performances are more variable, but there are no obvious "weak links" to disrupt the flow.

Well-acted, and scripted and produced with an eye toward unsettling atmosphere, The Silver Turk is a delight. Highly recommended. 


Rating: 9/10.

Previous Story: The Company of Friends: Mary's Story
Next Story: The Witch from the Well


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