The Never Realised TV Pilot

Big Finish Productions

Doctor Who: Storm Warning

Written by: Alan Barnes

Directed by: Gary Russell

Released: 22 January 2001

Characters: Paul McGann as the Doctor, introducing India Fisher as Charley Pollard, with Gareth Thomas as Lord Tamworth

Timeline: This story takes place after the TV Movie

Summary: After a dangerous encounter in the space/time vortex, the Doctor finds himself on Earth, October 1930. Or rather above it, aboard the British airship R101 on it's maiden voyage over France. Also on board is a young stowaway, Charlotte 'Charley' Pollard, seeking adventure and excitement away from her stifling family atmosphere. What Charley doesn't know but the Doctor does is that the flight is destined to end in tragedy, although no-one really knows why. Not even the Doctor, although maybe the passenger in Cabin 43 can help...

Introduction: So as the summer draws to a close and our TV channels are swamped with reruns of reruns, I’ve decided that eighth Doctor audio adventures deserved another listen to and I must say it’s completelly true that you find out things you didn’t know before on the second or third time. This was a great story with a lot of interesting characters and introducing the new companion which was a stroke of genius on Mr Barnes side.

Charley Pollard is such an interesting and lively character and is so thoughtfully written that you just can’t help but care about what happens to her and cheer when the Doctor disregards one of the primary temporal laws and invites her aboard the good time-ship TARDIS, despite the Vortisors (reminescent to the new series’ Reapers in appearance and concept) and a huge paradox glooming in the background.

Storywise, Barnes traditionally uses a historical event as the background of a much greater scale of events, because if you listen more closely this is not about the alien invasion, or about morality, humanity or war, or even the disaster featured – those are just plot devices – no,

this is really about a certain Edwardian adventuress, or Charley to her friends, a soon-to-be companion and best friend to a certain Time Lord. She is the key and she is the beginning of a story arc almost on an epic scale.

Like I said Barnes’ cleverly used a historical event as a background plot device and set it on the British airship R101 and described one of the lesser known disasters, that happened before the Hindenburg one.

It crashed in the early morning hours on October 5, 1930 in France during its maiden voyage, killing 48 people. The horrific event hindered the international public opinion of lighter-than-air craft and effectively ended British employment of rigid airships.

According to historical files the R101 departed on October 4 at 6:24 p.m. for its intended destination to Karachi (then part of British India) via a refuelling stop at Ismaïlia in Egypt under the command of Flight Lieutenant Carmichael Irwin. Passengers included Lord Christopher Thomson, Secretary of State for Air, and Sir Sefton Brancker, Director of Civil Aviation. The airship had to drop 5 tons of water ballast to lift off.

Over France, the R101 encountered gusting winds that tore back the outer covering, exposing and rupturing the first gas bag. The R101 crashed into a hillside near Beauvais, north of Paris, at only 13 mph (20 km/h). The crash ignited the leaking hydrogen and fire quickly engulfed the entire airship.

46 of the 54 passengers and crew were killed. Two men who survived the crash died later in a hospital bringing the total to 48 dead. According to survivors, the top layers of the outer cover and some of the forward gas bags had been torn in the wind, causing a loss of the flammable hydrogen lifting gas. On impact, an engine had struck the gas bags, igniting the gas.
Of course like any historically-based story this one also had the names of real people changed and a couple of things were also changed to fit the plot but other than that everything was as it happened.

I wonder what would have happened if the producer of the TV Movie commissioned Alan Barnes to write the script for the pilot – how different would the fans take it and McGann as the Doctor, who unfortunatelly still stays underrated in the role. But then again if that happened would we have this new series to look forward to every Saturday?

We can’t be sure but if things were different back then we would probably have McGann as the eight Doctor for a while, before some other actor, perhaps Eccleston took over. Maybe we’d even get a chance to see how the Doctor regenerated and how he fought in the Time War.

Besides Barnes’ there were so many other great scripts for these plays, Justin Richards’, Robert Shearman’s, Nev Fountain’s, Joseph Lidster’s – just to name a few. But let’s not dwell on the past and let’s look at his audio series as a huge success because it’s just that.

Without a doubt Paul McGann is brilliant as the romantic Darcy-like, angst-ridden with an almost child-like sense of wonder and curiosity but witty Doctor and India Fisher shows us a few great glimpses of her vocal acting skills and what to expect from an intriguing character Charley Pollard. From the supporting cast, the most memorable is Gareth Thomas (formerly Roj Blake from another cult sci-fi series Blakes 7) as the duty-bound ex-military man Lord Tamworth who drops his original intent and after a heroic end decides to stay to help instead of fight the aliens.

The only little nitpick I have is the annoying character Rathbone – whose accent borders on German and at times it was hard to understand what he was saying and that didn’t do him any favours - infact it made him even more irritating.

Other than that this was a great reinvention of McGann’s Doctor and introduction to the new series of Big Finish plays. Also worth a mention is the new variation on Ron Grainer’s original theme made specifically for the eight Doctor range. It’s a mix of something old- the classic series' and the TV Movie’s theme with a touch of something new.

Overall I give it 9/10 for the story but mostly for the excellent performances from the main cast and supporting crew.

You can get it here.

Next time I’ll tackle The Sword of Orion, featuring the eight Doctor’s first encounter with the original Cybermen.