Starring Paul McGann, Hattie Morahan, Nicola Walker & James Jordan.Written by Marc Platt & Directed by Ken Bentley.
The TARDIS deposits its crew on Earth in San Francisco, 1906. There they find an actor-manager desperate to stage his definitive production of King Lear.
But a real storm is headed their way when he becomes the possessor of a mysterious psychic ‘Gift’ which is hungry for power and intent on wreaking havoc and destruction. But exposure to so much psychic activity has the Doctor becoming increasingly erratic.
Can he battle his demons and save the world?
It's strange to think that, in 20 years of adventures, the eighth Doctor has hardly ever been back to San Francisco, the setting of his first (and only full length) televised story, The Enemy Within (aka The Movie). But, with The Gift, Marc Platt has rectified that fact, giving the eighth Doctor another story in the city, this time on the eve of the 1906 earthquake. And, while The Gift has plenty of positives, it's probably the weakest story in the set so far, playing out along mostly traditional lines. There are certainly some impressive set pieces, but the guest characterisation and the so-so nature of the plot prevent this from becoming the classic I think this could have been.
After the rather character-heavy Scenes From Her Life, The Gift shifts the empathises more towards the plot, with the main focus of the story being centred around a psychic power being passed from person to person. Of course, at first, this psychic gift is a great thing, bringing wealth and prosperity, but turns out to be a terrible, terrible curse. It's rare to accuse Marc Platt of playing it safe: most of his scripts play around with some pretty 'out there' concepts (a creature cataloguing all life in the universe, the genesis of the Cybermen, angry Crocodile-men attacking a space monastery), but The Gift feels like it's re-treading ground from many an old fable or myth. Now, there's nothing overtly wrong with re-appropriating morality tales for Doctor Who, and giving them a modern spin, but I just didn't feel like The Gift did nearly enough to make itself stand out. Sure, it's in a updated setting (I'm hesitant to use the word 'modern'), but it still feels like an old-fashioned morality fable, with most of the storytelling sensibilities lifted straight from that. While I didn't find it uninteresting, I can't say that I was overjoyed by the subject matter. If Platt had tried to subvert some of these formulas in some way, then I might have been more interested. That's not to say that these ideas don't have some merit, and Platt certainly executes what there well enough, it's just I would have liked to have seen them pushed a bit more, especially coming from a writer like Marc Platt. While some would argue that this story is very similar to Beachhead in it's approach, Beachhead wins out over this story due to the fact that one: it's subject matter is much more 'suited', as it were, to Doctor Who, and second: because Beachhead at least tries to push things in some interesting and different directions (the subplot with the mother and the Doctor, for example). However, here there isn't anything really like that, just a lot of stuff we've seen before, and some of it in other McGann stories (the mobster subplot feels like it belongs in Invaders From Mars, and the Doctor going a bit mental and wandering off is ripped straight out of Master Of The Daleks) too. However, there were some positives: the ideas themselves were well executed, and Platt's world-building remains as fantastic as ever. This most definitely feels like a complete world, in and of itself, and the atmosphere practically drips through the speakers to the listener. Platt's metaphoric language is also fantastic, and really skilfully employed. While other writers do sometimes try this trick, they mostly fall down because they do not really have the skill to back it up, and make it feel like a justified choice, or their ideas just don't have enough merit behind them to warrant such special treatment. On audio, this can be really notable, as it's a medium that is reliant on words. And, like Dorney in Scenes From Her Life, Platt's use of language is fantastic. The way the Gift is described, especially by the Doctor, gives it this power and wonder that is fascinating. I also love the Doctor's speeches about the Music of the Spheres, which just flow so easily and have a power and weight behind them. However, one issue that I did have with the story was the end. I just felt like everything was wrapped up far, far too quickly, which was a shame, considering that, up to that point, the story had a wonderful sense of escalating tension. However, in the final ten or so minutes, the Gift is easily put to bed, the earthquake is resolved and the Doctor and his companions set off for the next part of the box set. To be honest, I think this storyline could easily have been spread out into the last part, because, by the end, the tension was so high that the ending feels like a massive anti-climax. It's just a little nit-pick, because I felt that, once the earthquake started, the story really started to pick up, and it was a shame the ending was so abrupt.
Because it was clear that Platt was focusing more upon the plot of this story, his character work is rather limited. The guest characters in this story are, for the most part, stereotypes that have been seen before. To be honest, I wasn't really that bothered about the characters in this: they fulfilled the function they had to play in the story well enough, but I didn't think any of them were that memorable. There was the down-and-out theatre manager, the mobster who wants the Gift for his own benefit, the actress who's worried about the Gift, the charismatic figure who possesses it, the madman who has previously touched it, these aren't exactly the deepest or most interesting of characters tropes. Sure, the characters don't really matter in a story like this, but I still felt like Platt could have at least tried to flesh them out a big better. The most interesting character was Sam, played by Cory English, who had a really nice chemistry with the eighth Doctor. However, I felt that most of the guest characters just blended into the background, a feeling not really helped by the average performances. Sure, Cory English is fairly good, really bringing some depth to Sam in a role that could have just been total cliché, but the rest of the cast really didn't do much to help their characters standout. James Jordan was possibly, at points, overplaying the theatre manager at points, and I thought that his accent was a little outrageous too. Paul Marc Davis and Laura Harding were totally un-notable in their roles: not at all bad, but not bringing anything to the part in order to make them stand out either. As for Enzo Squillino Jnr and Derek Ezenagu, well they sounded so similar that it was almost impossible to tell them apart. I certainly like that Big Finish seem to want to cast new actors, and it's nice to see names that Big Finish hasn't used before. However, here at least, this relatively new cast don't really grasp the roles they've been given. Emma Cunniffe returns as Caleera, and I have issues with the fact that Caleera seems to have been turned into a bog-standard 'destroying everything' character, rather than the complex, tortured and vengeful character she was in Scenes From Her Life. That seems to be my worries with the villains of this series: the Eleven started as this insane and deviously mad character, yet in The Satanic Mill, he's become a boring, one-note villain, and Caleera seems to be heading in the same direction, if the evidence of this episode is anything to go on. Sure, Caleera only really has a cameo in this episode, but it's certainly highlighting a growing trend amongst the villains of this series. The regulars fare a bit better, but not by much. The Doctor is given the bulk of the episode, but he spends most of the first half of the episode out of his mind and confused. I have to be honest, it's not really Paul McGann's strongest acting area, and I don't think it comes across that well. Paul McGann's much better focused when his character is completely in the zone. But when he's a little bit more manic, that's where the problems start to set in. And in this, he's completely manic. While Master Of The Daleks keeps the eighth Doctor in the background, The Gift pushes him centre-focused, meaning McGann has to carry bits of the story himself. While McGann is as good as he can be, the story just simply loses focus because manic is not McGann's strong point. As for Liv and Helen... well they're in this, and they have a dynamic, but they barely have anything to do. Sure, Nicola Walker and Hattie Morahan are great, but they just have nothing to do.
The production on this story is fantastic, however, and possibly it's saving grace. Despite the slightly duff performances, Ken Bentley's direction holds everything together magnificently, and you can tell that he's really invested in making this material work. There are some lovely directorial flourishes, and you can tell that, not just in this story, but in the other parts of Doom Coalition as well, that he is completely in charge of the material, and is pushing for the best possible result. At times, Ken can seem less than bothered about weaker scripts (something highlighted by some of his main range work), but here, he's totally committed to what he's doing, and I love that. The music and sound design of this release is also excellent, with Benji Clifford really coming into his own in this story. The soundscape leading up to the Earthquake is utterly spectacular, and I loved the quake when it hit. It was never overemphasising the quake, but making it seem perfectly natural, which is to be commended to him. Added to that another excellent score from Jamie Robertson, who continually mixes the intimate with the epic, and is a perfect fit for this series, and another standout cover from Tom Webster, and you have an excellent production for a story that perhaps doesn't deserve it, but I can't wait until this team get a real great script to produce.
Overall, The Gift is a fairly middling Doctor Who episode. It's certainly not terrible, and I think Marc Platt himself has written a lot weaker stuff than this. However, The Gift didn't really make much of an impression on me, which is a shame since there is some good stuff in there. The regulars are firing on all cylinders, the atmosphere is suitably dramatic, the poetry in the script is lovely, and the post-production is amazing. The Gift isn't as strong as it perhaps could be, but I think it's a decent set-up for the final story, and I'm quite excited to see where this goes next. It's just a shame that Platt fails, twice in Doom Coalition, to show off how good a writer he really can be.
Rating - 6/10
Other Reviews of Big Finish Products:
The Boundless Sea - http://fandoctorwhoproductions.blogspot.co.uk/2017/02/the-diary-of-river-song-boundless-sea.html
I Went To A Marvellous Party - http://fandoctorwhoproductions.blogspot.co.uk/2017/02/the-diary-of-river-song-i-went-to.html
Signs - http://fandoctorwhoproductions.blogspot.co.uk/2017/03/the-diary-of-river-song-signs.html
The Rulers Of The Universe - http://fandoctorwhoproductions.blogspot.co.uk/2017/03/the-diary-of-river-song-rulers-of.html
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