Second doctor today. Both of them off their strudel.
Ernst Bratfisch
Synopsis
Roll up! Roll up! To the great Viennese Exposition, where showman Stahlbaum will show you his most wonderful creation, the Silver Turk – a mechanical marvel that will not only play for you the fortepiano, the spinet and the flute, it will play you at the gaming table too!
But when the Doctor brings his new travelling companion Mary Shelley to nineteenth-century Vienna, he soon identifies the incredible Turk as one of his deadliest enemies – a part-machine Cyberman.
And that’s not even the worst of the horrors at large in the city…
Review
Having taken Mary Shelley away from the Villa Diodati, her husband and her friends, the Doctor tries to ease her in to travelling in the TARDIS by just travelling in space. Of course, his efforts go wrong, and Marc Platt throws in a pair of Cybermen and some creepy puppets for a really effective audio story. The story also kicks off with a new version of the theme, which sounds like a collision the TV Movie theme and the first Eighth Doctor Big Finish themes. I really liked it, even it is perhaps a bit too bombastic.
The Silver Turk is a really effective companion introduction story for Mary Shelley and a little mini-era for the Eighth Doctor before he leaves the Main Range for good. It has a really sinister tone, complete with Cybermen and creepy marionettes. Whilst one of the Cybermen is employed by Stahlbaum as the titular automaton, the other is employed to go around murdering people and gouging out their eyes. Platt has a lot of great ideas to play around with here, which is darkly gothic and with spooky images. The marionettes give this story a really nightmarish tone, especially when picturing the ones without eyes.
The guest cast are bolstered by Gareth Armstrong as Drossel, David Schneider as Bratfisch and Claire Wyatt as Mitzi. Armstrong is suitably sinister as the mysterious Drossel, who really steals the show as the Doctor running the puppet show, who wants to create a new world order complete with his sinister and unnervingly accurate puppers. David Schneider is delightful as the cab driver Bratfisch, and the story does lose something when he is killed. Wyatt is really good too, in a role that could be annoying in lesser hands.
The Cyberman comes from another world, Mary. A lost world which was once like your Earth but the unhappy people there were facing extinction. In a desperate attempt to survive the people of that world, Mondas, began replacing their own body parts with machines. More and more until their humanity was lost forever.
The Eighth Doctor
The Cybermen we get in The Silver Turk are two damaged models, and are treated by Platt as having characters of their own, complete with their own motivations. Platt, of course, wrote Spare Parts, a Fifth Doctor story for Big Finish which depicted the origins of the Cybermen, and he certainly has an affinity for the villains. Whilst they are distinctly villainous in this story, each of the Cybermen have a name and distinct personalities, and they aren’t entirely unsympathetic. The damage to them and the way that Gramm has repurposed Bremm’s arm to enable him to move around Vienna is both horrendous and slightly tragic.
In inadvertently landing the TARDIS in 1873, the Doctor doesn’t just miss meeting up with his companions Gemma and Samson, but he also takes Mary out of the same year as her friends, and even beyond her own death. Whilst the Doctor is suspicious of both Cybermen, Mary is sympathetic to them and their plight following their discovery by both Drossel and Stahlbaum. It is a story that is written with clear parallels to Shelley’s story Frankenstein, with the titular character being sympathetically portrayed there. I do like Julie Cox’s portrayal of Mary Shelley, who is rather more reserved compared to some of this incarnation’s companions, perhaps in keeping with the expectations of women in her time, but she is strong in her own way. She is capable of great compassion, intelligence and determination. The story sees her go through a full gamut of emotions, not really knowing what to make of travelling with the Doctor to wanting to leave.
It’s really nice to hear Paul McGann return to the younger Eighth Doctor – he is doing so in more recent stories, which see him travelling with Charley and Audacity, which serve as a nice contrast to his adventures in the Time War and with Liv and Helen. McGann recaptures that energy really easily and the Doctor himself is surprised that this is not brushing off more on Mary, who is more reserved about the reality of their situation. The Eighth Doctor doesn’t have much of an active role in this story, and doesn’t really have a direct impact on the conclusion, but McGann puts in a good performance nonetheless.
Verdict: The Silver Turk is a solid Cyberman story and a good first full adventure for Mary Shelley. 8/10
Cast: Paul McGann (The Doctor), Julie Cox (Mary Shelley/Barker), Gareth Armstrong (Dr Johan Drossel/Policeman/Barker/Punter), Christian Brassington (Alfred Stahlbaum/Barker), David Schneider (Ernst Bratfisch), Gwilym Lee (Count Rolf Wittenmeier/Barker), Claire Wyatt (Countess Mitzi Wittenmeier/Hannalore/Empress/Punter), Barnaby Edwards (Krauss/Waiter) & Nicholas Briggs (Cybermen/Heinz/Barker).
Writer: Marc Platt
Director: Barnaby Edwards
Music and Sound: Jamie Robertson
Main Range Release Number: 153
Release Date: 15 October 2011
Behind the Scenes
- The first appearance of the Eighth Doctor in the Main Range since The Company of Friends. It was the first full-length audio adventure starring Paul McGann in the Main Range since The Girl Who Never Was.
- The Turk existed in real life, and also served as inspiration for the Clockwork Droids in The Girl in the Fireplace.
Cast Notes
- Gareth Armstrong played Giuliano in The Masque of Mandragora. He also appeared in The Renaissance Man, The Evil One and Previously, Next Time.
- Christian Brassington also appeared in the story Relative Time, part of The Legacy of Time.
- Gwilym Lee has also appeared in The Emerald Tiger, Spaceport Fear and Phantoms of the Deep.
- Claire Wyatt also appeared in the Big Finish audio plays Exotron, The Boy That Time Forgot and The Stuntman.
- Barnaby Edwards is a Dalek operator on televised Doctor Who, as well as being an actor and director for Big Finish.
Best Quote
This is Mary Shelley you’re talking to! Author of the darkest, spookiest stories you could ever read!
Am I?
The Eighth Doctor and Mary Shelley
Previous Eighth Doctor Reviews: The Company of Friends!
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