The Nightmare Realm

"Nothing ever happens here."

Writer: Jonathan Morris

Format: Audio

Released: June 2021

Series: BBC Audio 11

Featuring: Twelfth Doctor, Nardole

Synopsis

Time: the present. Place: Smalltown, USA. A town like any other. A sleepy world of white picket fences, front porch gliders and freshly-mown lawns, a Pontiac or Chevrolet in every driveway. 

But the streets are empty, with not a sound to be heard, and no-one to hear it if there was. Because this town is merely an empty stage, waiting for its players to take their parts. They're due to make their entrance any moment now, strangers in a strange land, somewhere in that timeless space known only as The Nightmare Realm. 

It's into this strange world of shifting sands that the TARDIS propels the Doctor and Nardole, who think they're in 1950s suburbia until an apparent nuclear attack takes them into far darker territory, with a series of terrifying consequences...

Verdict

The Nightmare Realm was was a really great BBC Audio adventure! The prospect of a story featuring just the Twelfth Doctor and Nardole was really exciting and after a recent reward of an Amazon voucher from work, I purchased a number of the BBC Audios and I’m actually quite surprised that this was the last one I listened to out of the bulk buy! We only really saw a full outing for this TARDIS pairing in The Return of Doctor Mysterio which somehow feels a little odd of an episode as we didn’t really have Nardole established as a companion at that point following his apparent demise in The Husbands of River Song. But alas, this was a lovely insight into the gap between Series 9 and 10. The setting right from the off was very exciting and the story didn’t waste time in establishing it. We were firmly introduced to the Nightmare Realm which was intriguing and the effects used were really strong for this range. Credit must go to Dan Starkey for his narration of this as he really was spectacular. It made the episode an absolutely breeze to listen to and the way he was able to differentiate between the Doctor, Nardole and the other characters was very impressive. His impression of the companion in particular was quite stellar! I wouldn’t be against him taking on the role in any future Twelfth Doctor Chronicles for Big Finish. It was honestly that good. The imagery created in the adventure was terrific and whilst the concept of the nightmare realm wasn’t exactly unique, a dream invasion attempt is usually pretty decent. We’ve seen something similar concerning the dream theme with this incarnation of the Doctor before in Last Christmas, so it did unfortunately have something of a minor sense of repetitiveness. I liked how things were rapidly changing in the environment for the Doctor and Nardole, and the way they deduced how light and darkness happened instantly was very clever. Being a dream scape, Greg as a child was the avatar for his older self and he was in a coma meaning the change of light was the actual light switch in his hospital room! That was brilliant stuff and really fun to explore. The Americanisation of the story was a guilty pleasure of mine as I’m not sure why but I love hearing that accent in the form of a public announcement. It just feels right. I thought the pace of the story was good and I did like how the Doctor claimed to always know what was going on. Nardole had his doubts which was humorous. The way things ended as the nightmare realm came to implode was predictable and always going to be the way things headed, and the ambiguity regarding the threat and whether they were inside the realm as it collapsed was nicely done. I liked how once Greg woke up he was set to typing almost immediately for more shows of his hit television series, the mysterious and enigmatic Nightmare Realm. Overall, a really good listen!

Rating: 8/10