Trap for Fools

"It's always the class clown."

Writer: Stephen Fewell

Format: Audio

Released: May 2018

Series: Short Trips 8.05

Featuring: Fifth Doctor, Turlough

Synopsis 

'...St. Neot's Refuge was founded in 3016 for the education of young men to the service of empire and state. In the quiet shade of Diaz' world, each boy can develop that true sense of self-worth which will enable him to stand up for himself, and for a purpose greater than himself and, in doing so, to be of value to society; to be a man...' School Prospectus

'Want to change the future, Turlough? Use a school,' The Doctor

Verdict

Trap for Fools was a bit of a mixed bag of an audio adventure! This was a Short Trip that didn’t quite deliver on all fronts and a frequent irk of mine is the length of the format of this range but I don’t think that really played any part here. I must admit that I’m not the biggest Turlough fan and whilst Mark Strickson was absolutely fine with the narration, his character very much ranks lowly on my favourite companions list. It was good to establish that Turlough was still new on board the TARDIS but without any other companions featuring, I’m not entirely sure how accurate that was given when Tegan departed in Resurrection of the Daleks compared to Turlough’s arrival in Mawdryn Undead. He was immediately in danger which was fine but shifting things into a school setting didn’t fit too well with the stakes established at the start. Turlough was not fussed on being a pupil again which didn’t surprise me given the use of a school in his introduction to the TARDIS, but it was quite fun for him to be giving out snobby nicknames to his fellow students. I’m not entirely in agreement with the fact he was a red head being used against him and I thought that was a bit of a stereotypical school inclusion. I did like that students from across the Galaxy were at the St Neots Refuge and that as a whole had potential for a strong setting, but Turlough didn’t really inject much excitement. I think that’s my main brunt of disappointment with this story is that it was just pretty boring. It didn’t exactly do anything majorly wrong, but it just didn’t pull my interest for the duration. The mystery of Williams going missing didn’t have much attached to it and the fact that eery music accompanied the finding of a ruler with his initials in it was almost laughable. The scale was just off. The Refuge being hidden away in shadow and feeling futuristic was great and I really enjoyed the Doctor being there as the groundsman. He relished that role and was keen to iterate that you need to attack weeds and so on at the root! That was fun characterisation of the Fifth Doctor. The teacher calling Turlough as Tur-Log was magnificent and honestly might have saved the entire audio for me. For whatever reason, it tickled me every single time and made me smile like an idiot on a packed train. The Doctor’s speech on changing the future was a nice moment even if I’m not sure that a school would be more beneficial than a literal time machine when it came to impacting the future. That was just a little bizarre. The importance of the Refuge was sold well and I liked that a number of top figures in the galaxy had studied there in the last. Williams having left without his possessions was slightly interesting but one thing I really enjoyed was Turlough’s anger at the Doctor’s absence and his obsession with maintenance on the sports pitch! He was honestly outraged and that was tremendous. That’s where Turlough can shine. The police box being the groundsman hut rather than the TARDIS was also a tremendous moment with Turlough very much outraged! The TARDIS had vanished and returned without being bigger on the inside and I felt the audio was itching for that to be the focus. That was so exciting but it seemed over in a flash. The Entitlement as gestalt and sentient dimension was intriguing and as a concept it was brilliant, but it was just utilised rather boringly. The idea of them snatching at any chance to claim and consume was fantastic and I loved the explanation that it was a place where nothing existed so it had a natural need to annex. I thought that was tremendous and so much more should have been focused on that. Williams being part of the Entitlement was good stuff and other schoolboys being apart was pretty eery as the episode kicked into gear for the finale. The resolution being the Doctor repurposing the sky window and linking with the HADS to get rid of the Entitlement was pretty good and certainly a sudden way to see things off. Concluding with the Doctor reiterating that you needed to attack the root was delightful. Overall, an audio with some strong ideas but in need of excitement.  

Rating: 6/10