Blackout.

1 episode.  Approx. 77 minutes. Written by: Oli Smith. Produced by: Alec Reid. Read by: Stuart Milligan.


THE PLOT

A man walks into a psychiatrist's office...

Chet, a New York city taxi driver who dreams of writing the Great American Novel, has been having disturbing dreams. Dreams in which he is abducted by aliens for unspeakable experiments. He has gone to a psychiatrist to try to get a handle on these visions. But the man who waits in the doctor's office tells him that the dreams are real. Chet truly was abducted by aliens, and now this strange Doctor needs his help.

It is New York City, November 9, 1965. The date of the Great Northeast Blackout, the largest blackout in American history. Though history has it that the blackout was caused when a transmission line near Niagara Falls tripped, the Doctor is about to learn that the actual cause was aliens - the very beings who abducted Chet. These aliens have put a drug into the New York water supply, a poison which causes the body to experience extreme heat, eventually resulting in death. 

For the Doctor, it's a particularly desperate situation. He, Amy, and Rory took the train to New York, leaving the TARDIS in another state. If the Doctor can't improvise a solution, then he and his friends will die within the hour - along with the entire population of New York City!


CHARACTERS

The Doctor: As was hinted at in the Fifth Doctor's regeneration story, he can hold back his own death if he puts all his focus into doing so, though it takes all of his considerable will. He feels anger about what the aliens are doing to the people of New York, but is still easily distracted by the fun of using a classic car to generate static for his generator. He has an innate authority which, combined with his psychic paper, makes the crowd of people in Times Square easily accept him as someone to be listened to.

Amy/Rory: Are largely consigned to the "generic companion" roles for this story, being chased by aliens to allow for some activity while the Doctor spends about half the story building a generator. There are a few nice moments, such as Rory reminding Amy to "mirror, signal, manoeuvre," when she finds a vehicle for them to drive and Amy's general protectiveness of Rory... but overall, this is a very weak story for the companions. 


THOUGHTS

Blackout opens superbly. It has a catchy teaser that is both amusing and intriguing, leading us into the theme music with a laugh on our lips and interest piqued. Based on this opening, I perked up and expected to end up writing an enthusiastic review.

This initial impression carried me through the first third or so of the story. Unfortunately, as the tale goes along, it becomes increasingly clear that writer Oli Smith just doesn't have enough story to fill the CD.

The middle is particularly weak, as the narrative basically marks time until the climax. The Doctor reaches Times Square and spends most of the rest of the story constructing a Magic Gizmo. Amy and Rory are chased around New York by an alien whose motive for chasing them is that their defense against an attack caused it to become infected... But given that the story explicitly tells us that the aliens have a cure, it seems bizarre that this individual wouldn't just go back to his ship to get cured. Basically, both strands exist only for the sake of a few tepid set pieces, and that becomes painfully clear all too soon.

It's frustrating how little-used the story's setting is. One of my reasons for picking up this particular audio was the potential I saw in setting a Doctor Who story against the Great Northeast Blackout. It's an inherently atmospheric backdrop, and memorable scenes and interactions could easily be created for this - some drawn from history and/or urban myths about the blackout that are already well-known.

None of this potential is tapped. The historical facts about the blackout aren't even mentioned in the audio, not even an aside by the Doctor about the reported cause, the extent of the power outage, and what it led to. Instead, the outage is just a generic backdrop, hardly painted as something that threw millions of lives into disarray for 13 hours. New York City itself is just a generic city and, but for the names of a few landmarks and the accent of the reader, might as well be London. No guest characters particularly stand out, not even Chet, the Doctor's "substitute companion" for the story. It's all absolutely, depressingly generic.

Though it's odd to hear an American accented reading of a Doctor Who story, I actually think that Stuart Milligan does a solid job. His Doctor is pretty good, capturing quite a lot of Matt Smith's vocal tics - though he seemingly can't do the accent and the performance at the same time, leaving this most enthusiastic of Doctors feeling oddly subdued and detached. His Amy and Rory are much weaker, but since they are so blandly characterized by the story it's hard to feel too letdown. While I would be wary about purchasing another audio written by Oli Smith, I would be perfectly willing to listen to another read by Stuart Milligan.

On the whole, one of the more disappointing Who audio books I've listened to. Not recommended.


Overall Rating: 3/10.

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