Brightly Shone The Moon that Night

If this is heaven, then someone’s made a real screw-up with the paperwork.

Shreela

Synopsis

The TARDIS crew encounters a shameful secret of the Time Lords. History has been rewritten, and this time, it’s all the Doctor’s fault.

Review

After some plot threads were pulled together in the previous story, we are finally at the culmination of this anthology. With the Doctor unwittingly releasing the Were Lords, we finally get answers to the mystery behind why the TARDIS has been landing in the 59th Century in these adventures, as well as filling in some of the backstory surrounding Peri’s partner, Joe, including how they met, and brings back characters from the first two parts of the story.

I wrote about the consequences of the Doctor’s actions in the previous review and here it is revealed how his actions in the previous stories have led to this point. His interference on Naxios led to weapons not being produced using the planet’s living silver to fight the Were Lords, and the destruction of the Ishtar Institute meant that the rejected embryos, who were sold to the military, were not developed into soldiers designed to fight them. Combined with the events onboard the Tate Galactic in the previous story, the Doctor is manipulated into the role, but I think it makes the character of the Doctor stronger. It is important that the Doctor does not become an infallible hero, always making the right decisions for the greater good, as it makes him (or her) more relatable. It is particularly effective when the incarnation in question is Colin Baker’s Sixth Doctor, who is at times more confident and arrogant that some of the other incarnations that came both before and after him and this story and anthology in general does seem to take some wind out of his sails.

I quite like the concept of the Were Lords and the fact that they are the origins of the myths and legends of werewolves on Earth. They are Gallifreyan soldiers used to fight in the Vampire Wars and who fled. With the ability to regenerate, they certainly feel like a worthy foe and as in this last story, Steven Elder does a great job with Lycaon. The Were Lords plan to use the belief system to ensure that they subjugate the Earth by creating a climate of fear, which is a clever call back to the belief system in the first part, and I quite liked the way that the Doctor eventually defeats the Were Lords, using the ability to regenerate between forms against them.

I’ve spoken about how Peri is at the fore of these stories and, with this story focusing in on the Doctor making mistakes, it is important to note that Peri has also made an error by allowing Joe onto the TARDIS. Here, we find out that he is also a Were Lord, who has posed as Peri’s partner in order to allow his race to break free of their captivity. This reveal helps to answer some unsolved questions, such as why Joe wasn’t more involved in these stories. I must admit I felt a bit slow when it was revealed that he was a Were Lord, having missed the fact that he was unable to go down into the caves on Naxios due to the silver, although my suspicions were aroused when he was unable to go through a mistletoe-garlanded arch in the previous part. There are some particularly powerful scenes between Peri and Joe here and both Nicola Bryant and Luke Allen-Gale do a good job here. Allen-Gale shifts his performance slightly following the reveal and is less fawning and more unpleasant, which worked really well, and the scene between the two in the airlock is particularly memorable, and Bryant is also superb when she meets the incubator robots representing her children, aged to 25 years old, which is a lovely way of rounding off the unanswered question of what her children would be like as grown-ups left dangling in The Baby Awakes.

Verdict: Brightly Shone The Moon That Night provides a satisfying conclusion to this collection of stories. Nicola Bryant particularly shines here. 8/10

Cast: Colin Baker (The Doctor), Nicola Bryant (Peri Brown), Luke Allen-Gale (Joe Carnaby), Steven Elder (Lord Lycaon), Louise Kempton (Selene), Dawn Murphy (Ratty/Cordeline), Becky Wright (Mole/Shreela/Janey), Roger Parrott (Toad) & Cliff Chapman (Robot Attendant/Paul).

Writer: Nev Fountain

Director: John Ainsworth

Behind the Scenes

• All four stories in Blood on Santa’s Claw and Other Stories were written by Nev Fountain. The pseudonyms were employed to throw people off the scent of an audio anthology.

Best Quote

Doctor, are you okay?

Of course I’m not okay! Arent’ you paying attention? If what they say is true, this is too horrible to contemplate.

It’s not your fault. They manipulated you.

Well, they didn’t need to. They just wound me up like a clockwork solider and marched me into battle!

Peri Brown and the Sixth Doctor

Other Stories in this anthology:

Blood on Santa’s Claw

The Baby Awakes

I Wish It Could Be Christmas Every Day