No Place

"Our heads trick us into believing we're under attack from the supernatural."

Writer: James Goss
Format: Audio
Released: May 2019
Series: Tenth Doctor Adventures 3.01

Featuring: Tenth Doctor, Donna

Synopsis

It's 'Haunted Makeover!' The home improvement show with a spooky twist.

The Noble family are hoping to cast out a few spirits along with the old bathroom suite. Presenter Justin joins Donna, Wilf, Sylvia and the Doctor for the latest edition of his reality TV series.

Of course, Justin knows that any supernatural phenomena can be faked. Ghosts can't possibly be real. Can they...?

Verdict

No Place was a decent start to the third volume of the Tenth Doctor Adventures! I was delighted to receive the entire volume for my birthday and couldn't wait to get this started. The prospect of the Tenth Doctor and Donna together again for a new story was great, and they certainly didn't disappoint, but throwing in Sylvia and Wilf was just delightful. The idea of the Haunted Makeover show was intriguing but I do think it could have been utilised a little better. I liked the premise of the story very much but for me the one thing that would have made it even better was an injection of pace. It really was certainly lacking some excitement in parts which was a shame and I think if this was reduced to around 45 minutes then it would have been better. That's not to say it was bad by any means though. The Doctor and Donna pretending to be a married couple was hilarious in parts with David Tennant and Catherine Tate just wonderful together. It was brilliant that they both felt as awkward as each other with the situation, but they were just doing what they had to in investigating Justin and the reality TV show. This story definitely felt like it fitted in nicely with its era of both Series 4 and 2008 and I particularly enjoyed Sylvia's continued distain of the Doctor being in Donna's life. Wilf though was much happier with his granddaughter getting to know the Doctor and I liked the pride he had in pretending that he was his grandson. The whole family dynamic was really good to play on and I liked how they made up pretty much 80% of the cast along with Justin. His refusal to actually believe in the supernatural was good to play on as that's usually the role for the Doctor. He was never insistent on believing but he also wouldn't refuse its existence. I guess that would be because we knew his true role by the story's conclusion and that was to find out exactly why Justin was causing supernatural occurrences. The story of the two alien creatures and how one of them died trying to escape after being buried alive was decent, but I felt there could have been some more connections to how it linked with Justin's head and how that was the purpose of the Doctor's family mission all along. This adventure seemed to have all of the elements for a brilliant story, but they weren't quite threaded out to reach a higher rating. I still enjoyed it, but there also needed to be a tad more clarity as to how the Doctor and co were able to rid Justin of the menace inside his head. My favourite part of the story was possibly the moment where Justin heard that it was his voice on the fm wavelength and that he was now home. One thing I disagree with was that the Doctor seemed confused as to why he hadn't come to Morely Manse for an episode. That seemed a bit farfetched considering the series could span a large location and it being in its third series didn't seem like too much longevity. As a whole though, this was a really fascinating tale and it was nice to get some more of the Noble family. Wilf was just glorious and the humour between Tennant and Tate going along with the mysterious and enigmatic feel still made this a good audio adventure.

Rating: 7/10