Night Thoughts [AUDIO/2006.2.?]

★★★☆☆

  The adult themes and allusions to brutal imagery are fitting for a story that was considered for Season 27. Equally fittingly, there's an air of dread as Sylvester McCoy delivers a marvellous performance as a Doctor who feels pain whenever there's danger and evil around, confronts and comforts children with a kind of warmth that leaves a twang of coldness in them, and haunts the proceedings like a spectre of death. You can tell this was written exclusively for the post-Survival Seventh Doctor in mind, in such moments as when he travels back in time to intervene in an already intervened event in order to put time back on its right tracks... by ensuring the death of an innocent girl. It's a wonderful character moment that shows just how far this incarnation's willing to go for the greater good; it's also a nice touch that he admits later on that he couldn't go through with what would ostensibly have been committing murder. As cold Seven may be, he's still the Doctor.

  Night Thoughts, despite its relatively small scale, is a pretty ambitious tale that challenges what we know about the Doctor's morality. Because the focus is on him for the majority of the time (not necessarily in terms of pure screentime, but in terms of how much they contribute to the overall narrative), companions Ace and Hex feel a bit sidelined; it's not too much of a problem for me, but I can understand why some people might be miffed about this point. I very much enjoy Doctor Who tackling adult issues, but the thing with Night Thoughts is that I simply don't find the so-called "adult issues" as intriguing as the story presents them to be. In other words, there's something about its presentation (something I fail to properly grasp to this day) that almst lets down the entire drama. It's either the structure of the story itself or the direction; I find nothing to fault in the performances.

*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ  

  Still, Night Thoughts is thought-provoking and enjoyable enough to listen on a chilly early winter night (bonus points if it's foggy outside). There's a beating heart of a concept about killing for the sake of scientific advancement, about undoing one's crimes through the manipulation of time, and it manages to get through and help create this tense, thrilling experience.