Pier Pressure

"I'm not as dead as you think!"

Writer: Robert Ross
Format: Audio
Released: January 2006
Series: Main Range 78

Featuring: Sixth Doctor, Evelyn

Synopsis

Brighton, Sussex; 1936.

"Ere, listen listen, I've got one for you. There once was this bloke, you see. Good-looking sort of chap. Lovely, brightly coloured coat. No rubbish. Quality gear. Never bought a drink neither... or so they say. But his name wasn't Miller. Oh no, there'll never be another Cheeky Chappie, lady, there'll never be another. They broke the mould when they made me you know.

No, this bloke called himself the Doctor. Doctor who you ask? And may well you. Don't know me self. No one ever knew. Funny that. He was a real strange one. Odd things happened when he arrived.

Mind you, them were dark days. No one was laughing. And these were my people. My public. It was like playing first house at the Glasgow Empire. Just like the entire town was cursed it was. Cursed by something not of this world..."

Verdict

Pier Pressure was a decent audio adventure that got me back into the Main Range of Big Finish audios. My progress through this range has halted this year which is a shame but now that university has finished for the summer, I do hope I can try and kick on and help my inevitably long task of catching up with current releases. I still have a significant amount of time and money to go if I am to do that but I remain confident that I can get there. How hard could it possibly be? I did enjoy this story and it did have a really good plot and premise but the reason I rated it as low as I have, which actually isn't really that low at all, is because of a lack of excitement. The story did gauge my interest which is obviously important and I thought the performances of the main cast were good but it was just lacking that bit of an oomph factor to really get me excited about the story. The pairing of the Sixth Doctor and Evelyn were great once again and I found myself intrigued by the idea of the Doctor feeling bored travelling the universe. The very idea seems simply preposterous! The story had a number of references to past adventures and I particularly liked the football comment surrounding the mentions of Colony in Space and The Green Death and Planet of the Spiders. That really was terrific. There were also a couple of references to Medicinal Purposes which is quite expected given that it was the last audio story to feature this TARDIS pairing. When the Doctor was attempting to jog Evelyn's memory, the mention of Bloodtide was something I really liked too. I thought the setting of Brighton in 1936 was a pretty good one but I must admit I was a little sceptical about the primary focus being on a pier. The Indo served as a good enemy and I did like the idea of them feeding on suffering and negative emotion. The links made with that and the Great War were really fascinating but I can't help but feel they weren't fully utilised. The relationship between Albert and Emily was a real highlight of the audio and I thought they really were brilliant. The emotional trauma that they each must have gone through was rather sad and it was also unfortunate that both did not survive the adventure's events. Evelyn was really quite taken aback by learning that Albert didn't survive the resolution. The Doctor was less so surprised and even seemed to have expected it which was a little bit of a shock. I thought Max Miller was a very good character too and I enjoyed his relationship with Evelyn. That showed me a real benefit of having her as the companion because we get to know more older characters which is something quite rare to come by in a lot of stories. Professor Talbot served as a very interesting and enigmatic character which was terrific and I really did just like how mysterious he was. The idea of him being dead for the past fifteen years was great and I liked the Doctor's prospect of him simply falling through time. The cliffhangers were pretty decent in this story but again I thought they could have injected the story with a bit more pace and excitement. That was all that was missing really and considering the audio was over two hours long, I'm not sure why we didn't get a lot of it. Not to worry though, it was still an enjoyable listen and overall I still thought it was a good story!

Rating: 7/10