The Code of Flesh

"I live in darkness now."

Writer: Andrew Lane

Format: Audio

Released: October 2022

Series: BBC Audio 14

Featuring: Eighth Doctor

Synopsis

In 1890s Cardiff, reporter James MacFarlane is intrigued by rumours of 'anaesthesia frolics', at which gatherings the latest frontiers in pain relief is demonstrated to influential guests.

After he speaks to someone who attended several such 'frolics' – and left with a hand and two fingers missing – James realises that the events have a dark side. Contriving an invitation, he is astounded to find another guest also investigating – it's his old friend the Doctor!

Reunited in mystery, the Doctor and James enter the murky underbelly of polite Cardiff society, where they uncover a shattering secret – and a monster lurking at its heart.

Verdict

The Code of Flesh was an outstanding BBC Audio adventure! This must go down as one of my all time favourite stories from the range and I honestly can’t remember if I’ve ever given any adventure from the range the perfect score. I can’t think of one off the top of my head so this is some achievement. I remember really enjoying the character of James MacFarlane in The Scent of Blood so to have him back here was a real treat. A sense of continuity is something that has been lacking from this range for the most part but since it moved to mostly featuring just past Doctors, that has certainly improved. We’ve had the War trilogy and now we’ve got this episode in the middle of an Eighth Doctor trilogy with James. Having this incarnation of the Doctor in the Victorian era just feels right and he’s certainly well suited. However we started the first ten minutes or so with James and him getting involved in some very mysterious goings on regarding missing body parts and even limbs in some instances. The discussion and scientific debate regarding the ether was terrific and I liked how it was going to be a medical innovation. Take it and you could essentially time travel which was fun stuff considering it just knocked you out and it meant some painful operations and surgery could be carried out without being in serious turmoil. I thought that was good and the whole frolics element was really well done. It all felt very Victorian, so when the Doctor arrived for once he didn’t seem out of place! That’s not a normal occurrence. I was a huge fan of Cardiff being the setting for this episode and I enjoyed the insinuation of the Rift being active and causing the city to be highly active in the mysterious. I thought the Welsh accents on display from Dan Starkey were actually really impressive and didn’t get close to being stereotypical or offensive which isn’t always the case. I thought the mentions of Welsh rarebit, bara brith and the town of Caerphilly were lovely touches and really did feel like this story was set at home, albeit in the past. It was really nice to hear being a patriotic Welshman! Dan Starkey’s narration throughout was actually tremendous and I was so impressed with his impression of the Eighth Doctor. It was so authentic and really helped with the listening of the story. The characters in this one were strong with Trescothick and Wolfcastle the obvious standouts, although my spelling of those could be completely off! TARDIS Wiki doesn’t have any characters listed so I’m trying by best. I’m confident on the spelling of the Shrave though as the aliens responsible for the body part shenanigans here. Their nature being to look for things left over from the war between the Time Lords and Vampires was fantastic and I also loved how they foreshadowed to James of a bigger war to come for the Doctor. Of course that meant the Time War. The turmoil within the almost companion of whether he should tell the Doctor about that was very good. I loved the concept of the Shrave hunting the weaponry that the Time Lords had literally left in the DNA code of beings in case they were wiped out or lost. That’s a phenomenal concept! And here they were on Earth searching for some weaponry. The way the Doctor sent them packing with multiple TARDIS arrivals within seconds of each other was sensational with the noise of all those materialisations and the Doctor breaking so many Time Lord rules. I also liked how the Doctor set up the next meeting with James in not thinking this would be their final meeting. Overall, a tremendous listen!

Rating: 10/10