1-1. The Nightmare Fair.

2 episodes. Approx. 97 minutes. Written by: Graham Williams, John Ainsworth. Directed by: John Ainsworth. Produced by: David Richardson. 


THE PLOT

The Doctor and Peri find themselves at the Blackpool fun fair, much to the Doctor's delight. But this is no chance arrival. Something isn't quite right in this amusement park. Kevin (Matthew Noble) is a young man who's been hanging about the park, but not for entertainment. He is searching for his younger brother, who disappeared on a visit to Blackpool.

Soon, all three have become pawns in a game they don't even know they are playing. The Celestial Toymaker (David Bailie) has made a home for himself deep within the heart of Blackpool, luring players into his deadly games. He is preparing his grandest game yet, one which unleash havoc throughout the world - and with the arrival of the Doctor, one of the few beings to ever defeat him at his games, he has found the perfect player on whom to test this great project. The Doctor will play... And the Toymaker will have his revenge!


CHARACTERS

The Doctor: Though much has been made about the Sixth Doctor's egocentric nature, and a few early scenes nod to this, his characterization in this story focuses mainly on his morality. The Toymaker manipulates this trait, drawing righteous indignation from the Doctor through his treatment of the (very) long suffering servant Shardlow (William Whymper). The Doctor makes a show of confidence in his first meeting with the Toymaker, rubbing the celestial entity's face in the fact that he has beaten him before - but he privately admits to Peri and Kevin that his main hope is to escape and that he'll count himself very lucky if he manages that. When he realizes something of the Toymaker's nature, he feels pity at the other being's endless isolation, and his regret at the action he must take to stop him is tangible. Colin Baker is excellent throughout, giving a considerable boost to a script that could be charitably called problematic.

Peri: Peri's best moment is a throwaway one: Reunited with the Doctor in his cell, she quickly falls into her familiar bickering with him. Their clear fondness as they trade barbs prompts Kevin to observe that they've been together for a while. It's a fun character beat in a serial that otherwise reduces Peri to generic companion status, with her most useful contribution to the narrative being to scream at the right moment.

Celestial Toymaker: With there being no possibility of Michael Gough returning as the Toymaker, Big Finish were left with no choice but to recast. David Bailie proves an excellent replacement; in fact, I think I prefer his performance to Gough's. He doesn't emphasize the sinsiter qualities of the character as strongly as Gough did, trusting to the context to do that. Instead, he focuses his performance on the Toymaker's weariness. He is bored, depressed at how predictable every player in every one of his games has become. When the Doctor agrees to play his game, he reacts with childlike glee, and his cackle as he says, "You will play!" is more joyous than evil - which actually makes it more disturbing. 


THOUGHTS

The Nightmare Fair was planned as the first story of the original Season 23, before the hiatus led to a change in plans. The story was cancelled within a couple weeks of its scheduled production, which leads me to wonder if it mightn't have been more cost effective to have at least produced this one story as a "special" than to pay off all the people contracted.

The script is by Graham Williams, who produced Seasons 15 - 17. Though the script has had some light audio adaptation, changes are very minor. Williams' writing is dialogue-heavy in any case, and it's clear he gets more pleasure from having characters indulge in witty repartee than in crafting action scenes. This makes for an easy transition to audio, leaving the Big Finish version very close to what would have gone in front of cameras in 1985.

As a story, The Nightmare Fair is... okay. There are severe pacing issues. The first episode was very obviously written to show off Blackpool locations, with irrelevant bits with the Doctor and Peri to riding roller coasters and poking around the funfair taking up quite a bit of the first half of the episode. The roller coaster becomes a source of unintentional hilarity, as Peri's sounds of delight on the ride rise and fall in pitch in such a way... Well, I'll restrict myself to observing that this bit could be lifted wholesale into a very different type of production.

The second episode runs close to a full hour, and its length points to just how bad the pacing issues become. We end Part One with the promise that the Doctor is about to play the Toymaker... but that can't happen until the end of the story, meaning that it is now time for padding. A lot of padding. The Doctor is taken to a cell, where he and a mismatched group of alien and android cellmates spend an interminable amount of time building a Thingy while the Toymaker prepares his "Great Work." The scenes fall into two categories: The Toymaker scenes are amusing, thanks in no small part to David Bailie's wonderful performance, while the Doctor's very quickly become very boring. 

Things do pick up when the Toymaker finally decides it's time to have his game with the Doctor. The verbal jousts between Doctor and Toymaker are genuinely terrific, with the Toymaker enthusing over the various blood sports in human history. The Doctor's compassion for the Toymaker, when he finally realizes something of the other being's nature, is also a wonderful moment, as is his regret over the solution he has to employ. And it should be said that Big Finish's production is up to the company's usual high standards, with the scenes of the game working surprisingly well.

In the end, The Nightmare Fair is passably entertaining, and it would have been a perfectly acceptable television story - but it's hard to find it a tragedy that it wasn't. The Doctor/Toymaker scenes are excellent, but there aren't enough of them to make up for the thin plot and awkward pacing. 

The story's main value is as a curiosity piece, a look at what might have been had the hiatus never happened. It isn't bad... but had it been produced, it would likely be regarded as yet another middling story from one of the series' weaker periods.


Overall Rating: 5/10.

Next Story: Mission to Magnus


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