Storm Warning review [Alan Barnes]

There's a storm coming. The R101 flies high over France with two strangers aboard. One is a young boy by the name of Murchford with a lot more hair tucked under his hat than one might expect. The other is a man in a green frockcoat going by the name of Dr Johann Schmidt.

When and Where?: This story takes place on the 4th and 5th October 1930, in the R101 over France. For the Doctor, it takes place after Mary's Story and the Terror Firma flashbacks and before Sword of Orion.

The Doctor's Case:

• A Good Quotation:
• "Breathe in deep, lieutenant. You too, Charley. You feel that pounding in your heart? That tightness in the pit of your stomach? The blood rushing to your head, do you know what that is? That's adventure. The thrill and the fear and the joy of stepping into the unknown. That's why we're all here, and that's why we're alive."
• "Trust me. I haven't a clue what I'm doing."
• "You're heavier than you look." / "I carry a lot of things in my pockets."
• At the point that this audio drama was released, we didn't know very much about Paul McGann's Doctor. He had been in books and comics and such, but this was McGann's first performance as the Doctor since the film, in which the character was amnesiac and not his self for most of it. Not only does Storm Warning have the job of introducing Charley but also of reintroducing the Eighth Doctor, and it does both effortlessly. Both are introduced through books - the Doctor is having a passing look at a few on his shelf as he looks for his misplaced TARDIS instruction manual (showing us that he's easily distracted from mundane things by more fun prospects and that he still doesn't keep the manual at the ready) and Charley is beginning writing her book on her Edwardian adventures before she gets into her disguise as a boy. One is a seasoned adventurer who could have filled a library but instead reads the works of others, and the other is a prospective adventurer who's not even started writing her first chapter. The Doctor is a breathless romantic and a far cry from the dark man in The Great War and beyond.
• It might not be the most original method of exposition but the radio announcement on the inaugural flight of the R101 is functional without being obviously so - getting those unaware of the airship up to speed - and gives us a feel of the time we're in. News reports were used a lot by Russell T. Davies to great effect.
  
• Lord Tamworth could have been a predecessor to the flat and one-dimensional English soldiers of Empress of Mars but he's played to perfection by Gareth Thomas. 

The Valeyard's Case:

• A Bad Quotation:
• "Oh, no! An energy weapon!"
• The Doctor is without a companion at the beginning of this story which makes it somewhat necessary, but his talking to himself gets a bit unbelievable around the line "oh, no. Vortisaurs!" The Doctor lamp-shading it with a line about talking to himself being the first sign of madness doesn't excuse it.
• Part 3 is made up mostly of exposition about the Triskele, who aren't the most interesting aliens we've ever encountered. To go from the relatively quick pace of the new Doctor and his new companion dashing about to the long crawl that is Part 3 is quite jarring.

His Constant Companion: Rathbone shoots the Lawgiver and later the Uncreator Prime. Everyone about the R101 dies in its crash.

I'll Explain Later:

• Why does the Doctor feel that Charley isn't supposed to be aboard the ship given that it's the place she's destined to die?

This Reminds Me...:

• The last page of The Murder of Roger Ackroyd is missing from the Doctor's copy of the book, and he regrets that he'll never know who did it. The Eleventh Doctor, however, will later deliberately tear out the last page.
• The Doctor corrects Mary Shelley's book like Susan did the book on the French Revolution in An Unearthly Child.

The Inquisitor's Judgement: The story of this audio drama isn't particularly ground-breaking and the Triskele are something of a bore, dragging the story down in Part 3. But then perhaps an average story was what the Eighth Doctor needed - we've only watched McGann in the, erm... flawed film and listening to him tackle a story like those his predecessors have week in and week out since 1963 proves that McGann isn't the George Lazenby of Doctor Who. McGann and India Fisher have instant chemistry as the Doctor and Charley and it's simply musical whenever the two talk to one another. This is the start of a delightful TARDIS team. Storm Warning is okay, and that earns it a C.

The Main Range - The Eighth Doctor

Storm Warning  |  Sword of Orion