Released: March 2011
Range: The Companion Chronicles
Range Number: 5.09
Starring Anneke Wills & Frazer Hines
Written by David Lock
Directed by Lisa Bowerman
Time Walkers have descended upon the Earth. This alien race, known as The Vist, has claimed an area of time for itself - any species entering into the immediate future will pay the most terrible forfeit.
The human race is in a state of panic, but one woman knows the truth. Her name is Polly Wright, and she visited that future many years ago, with the Doctor, Jamie and Ben.
She has stepped into the Forbidden Time - and this is her story...
Unlike a lot of the Companion Chronicles range, The Forbidden Time is a little more high concept then the general fare that came out month after month. These releases can go either one of two ways: they can really give an insight into their character, while also allowing the author to play around with some interesting ideas, like The Jigsaw War or Solitaire, or they can fall flat on there face, not giving there characters any real depth, and messing up the dynamic factor that's meant to be the story's selling point, like Starborn or The Memory Cheats. And while The Forbidden Time isn't up to the heights of either of those two earlier stories, it's still not as bad as those two latter stories. Forbidden Time sits very distinctly in the middle of that spectrum, which is prehaps it's greatest strength.
The plot certainly has some interesting ideas behind it, particularly the idea of the Vist. They are so very interesting, because one of the things that Lock does with them is that he builds them up as a credible scientific threat. While there not as ambitious as the Daleks or the Cybermen, their desires and modus operandi are still interesting. They wish to excert control over time, and take people's life energy as a toll, allowing access. That's such an interesting concept, and one that's quite novel too. The imagery that's conjured up helps too, because Lock's imagery is so very potent. That's wonderfully aided by the cover, which really turns the Vist from a spine-tingling aural menace to a physical nightmare. They are still a bit unique, in a day and age when Doctor Who seems to be going back to monsters it has created before a lot more frequently, and because of this, it feels a bit of shame that Lock underuses them hidiously. They are left in the shadows for the first fifteen minutes, their ominous warning to humanity sounding out, like some kind of doomsday bell. However, as time goes on, the Vist merely become caught up in the confused mess of episode 2. It feels like it needed one more draft to get into shape, because the tone of episode 1 immediately disappears, to be replaced with a lot of technical jargon, and what feels like a poor characterisation of the second Doctor. The problem is resolved by some magic solution which comes out of nowhere, and just feels out of place when compared with the tension built up in episode 1. It's so palpable that when it's gone in episode 2, it just feels wrong. And the cliffhanger doesn't help, because that also feels wrong. It's clearly an attempt to do an off-the-wall Vengeance On Varos-style cliffhanger, but it's not one that works. It just comes across as pulling the listener out of the story. The ending also feels a little off, mostly because the threat could be seen with different levels of panic, and we, unfortunately never really get to see that. The story that Polly tells is interesting, but not as interesting as exploring the consquences of the message upon the human race. It's an obvious point that Lock has overlooked.
Lock does however have a handle on Polly, who, while not given anything spell-binding to do, is still given an interesting role, justifying her need to narrate the story. Jamie is, rather unusually for a single disc, double companion Chronicle, also given plenty to do, narrating whole chunks of the action, which Polly then plays, in story, to cover some of the material that Polly can't. However, apart from one action in the second episode (which Polly witnesses), Jamie doesn't really contribute to the plot at all. Instead, he merely runs around, gets captured, and then is disposed of pretty quickly. It does make me wonder why they didn't just do this story like The Stealers From Saiph, as a one voice Companion Chronicle. That's not to say Frazer Hines is bad, because he really invests the material with some energy. It's just a shame that the material isn't that interesting to start with, and quite limiting for Frazer. As for the Doctor and Ben, well Ben is shuttled off pretty quickly, unable to leave much of a trace, while the Doctor is, well frankly, out of character. Particularly during the confrontation scene with the lead Vist, the Doctor makes pretty much frank reference to the Time Lords, despite the fact that, at this time, he wouldn't have mentioned them. It just feels like a cheap attempt to shoehorn a bit of the show's later continuity into the story, without it seeming relevant. The Stoyn trilogy did it sucessfully, but this feels a little heavy handed. One thing that isn't heavy handed is Wills' narration, which takes the weaker material on the page, and manages to inject a little energy into it. She skillfully recreates the TV series Polly, while differentiating enough with the older Polly telling this story. And while her Doctor and Ben are passible, her Vist voice is increadible. That chilling performance is pitched perfectly, no doubt aided by Richard Fox and Lauren Yason's sound design, which is right on the mark this time round. The music is also great, with some nice haunting melodies that stick in the mind. Added and enhanced by Lisa Bowerman's stunning direction (which she must be able to do in her sleep by now), and you have an excellent production and performance team.
However, it's, as it is often with Doctor Who, the writing that let's it down. There's too many problems wrong with the story, despite the fact that there are some amazing ideas, and some great performances, but it's the bulk of the story, in particular it's resolution, that lets it down. The Forbidden Time certainly isn't an abject failure, but it's not one of the stronger Companion Chronicles either. It's a bit of a waster oppurtunity, but one that is worth at least a once over.
Rating - 6/10
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