The Nowhere Place

"I am here. I am always here."

Writer: Nicholas Briggs
Format: Audio
Released: July 2006
Series: Main Range 84

Featuring: Sixth Doctor, Evelyn

Synopsis

2197 AD. The fighter-carrier Valiant has just crossed Pluto's orbital path.Its captain is expecting trouble from alien raiders. She is not expecting the Doctor and Evelyn.

She does not believe members of her crew when they say they can hear an ancient bell ringing. A bell that strikes terror into their hearts.

1952. The Turret Class locomotive Ivy Lee is hurtling through the night. On board, there should only be two passengers: both of them carrying documents from the War Office.

But now, there are also two unexpected visitors on the train. One is the guard with ill-fitting trousers, the other is an excessively dotty old lady.

The Doctor and Evelyn have arrived and "Time's End" is approaching.

Verdict

The Nowhere Place was a great audio adventure and a very good continuation of the Main Range of Big Finish audios! I very much enjoyed this story and it was wonderful to be back listening to a full-length audio. I thought the pairing of the Sixth Doctor and Evelyn were terrific from start to finish and as I have mentioned in my recent blog entries containing the elderly companion, she really has grown on me recently after a shaky start. I thought she was terrific in this adventure and I really loved how she actually used her age in her favour. When first joined the TARDIS way back in The Marian Conspiracy a lot was made of how she was an old woman but recently that is just taken as a given and it isn't really a point of interest anymore. I like her and I quite liked how stunned she was by the idea of the Doctor being scared. The dragging out of finding out just what he was scared of was good and I thought the reveal was pretty decent. I must say, I loved the cliffhanger to part one and I was very intrigued to see how a spaceship in 2197, a train in 1952 and a 50-billion year-old door that led to nowhere were all going to be linked but I thought it was done in a very good and logical way. Tanya made a great captain of the Valiant and I really enjoyed her first meeting with the Doctor. He was inadvertently rubbing her up the wrong way as this incarnation so often could but the development of their relationship during the first two parts was marvellous. She eventually put her trust in him to go back to 1952 and solve the mystery of this strange and ancient door but he actually rather struggled. The concept of nowhere is something that I always struggle to comprehend because the fact that we're referring to it must mean that it is something so how can it be nothing? It's a bit of a paradox or a loop but I love it when those kind of things get explored in Doctor Who. It was done brilliantly here. Now I must admit that I definitely preferred the first half of this audio and I thought things slacked off ever so slightly once things headed to 1952 but that's not to say I didn't enjoy it. Evelyn using her elderly charm on Trevor was terrific and I rather enjoyed the humour that came with the Doctor and Palmer's interactions. The idea of Time's End was very good and the prospect of other species, billions of them, developing on Earth before the time of Pangaea was very intriguing to me. The Doctor was quite stunned by the revelation that these species had been taken out of Time but he saw that it was all down to a simple coordinate error. He fixed that but with a twist, ensuring that it was actually Tanya's nuclear power that wiped out all of the potential timelines and once again saved the human race. His insistence in how he wanted to help humanity and had a soft spot for Earth was great to hear and I'm already looking forward to the next Sixth Doctor story. But for now, an excellent adventure! 

Rating: 8/10