Doctor Who: Scherzo (2003)
Robert Shearman
Big Finish #52
Starring: Paul McGann, India Fisher
At the end of Zagreus, Charley Pollard has concealed herself aboard the TARDIS as The Doctor piloted into the alternate universe. Scherzo opens with Charley having revealed herself, and the TARDIS is trying to land for the first time in this new world. For this, their opening to Paul McGann’s third season as The Eighth Doctor, Robert Shearman has crafted something challenging and unique: just The Doctor and Charley, walking around in a world they cannot see, and stalked by a monster that cannot talk, but communicates by mimicry. In this new universe the laws of time, of reality, of perception, and even of identity have been broken done, altered, or do not exist. And they have lost the TARDIS, or it has lost them…
For the first time Big Finish seem to be utilising the audio medium to tell stories that could never exist on screen, and the series is all the stronger for it. There is an awful lot to admire in this story, for again Robert Shearman proves himself the strongest writer working in audio-Who (just as he proves himself one of the best TV writers with Dalek). There are nightmare things here: suggestions of cannibalism, of the loss of identity, and some truly grotesque moments. Sherman plays off familiar tropes, twisting them into new things, disturbing things. He finds a macabre poetry in the Doctors adventuring.
Once again Paul McGann and India Fisher rise the challenge, and play against one another brilliantly: their interaction is what makes this unusual story so successful. The Eighth Doctor is challenging and provocative, yet kind and warm; he is also a man willing to take risks, and the moment in this story in which he cuts his own throat echoes back to the dark heart in Zagreus: here we have a man unafraid of death, and perhaps willing to accept it.
As we have come to expect from the Eighth Doctor’s adventures, Scherzo introduces the beginning of what is clearly going to become a season long arc, as The Doctor and Charley search for the missing TARDIS, and walk through this alien unknown land, ready to face dangers unseen… I cannot wait!
