Big Finish Productions The Boy That Time Forgot

Written by	Paul Magrs
Format	Compact Disc
Released	2008

Starring Peter Davison and Sarah Sutton

Synopsis: In a weird jungle valley, the Victorian explorer Rupert Von Thal saves Bloomsbury novelist Beatrice Mapp from a ghastly death in the grip of a monstrous mantis. But this is no Lost World of the dinosaurs. According to their travelling companions, the Fifth Doctor and Nyssa, all four have been transported back to a primitive Earth that should never have existed!Further down the valley is the vast city where the scorpions live. Walking, talking, intelligent scorpions, ruled over by their cruel and sinister master. The Doctor and Nyssa are being drawn ever tighter into the clutches of... the boy that time forgot.

• Simply Unpleasant by Thomas Tiley

Simply Unpleasant by Thomas Tiley 21/12/25

Forming the middle part of a trilogy involving the Doctor, Nyssa and a street scam called Thomas Brewster, The Boy that Time Forgot follows what is commonly said about the middle part of trilogys: they tend to be primarily filler that can be easily skipped. Apart from the opening involving the TARDIS gang trying to summon back the missing TARDIS via a seance mixed up with Block Transfer Computation and the ending where the missing TARDIS is found, it has little to do with the trilogy, and the bulk of the story is well just unpleasant.

Written by Paul Magrs, who in his introduction seems to take a certain sense of glee in what he has written. Well, he is the only one, as this is a thoroughly nasty story.

Basically, the story sees the TARDIS crew and a novelist and so-called explorer sent back in time to an alternative earth ruled over by scorpion people lead by the Scorpion King, played very well by Andrew Sach. In reality, he is former companion Adric; it isn't much of a spoiler to reveal who he is after all these years and the cover with a glowing star and all the talk of Block Tramsfer Computations does give it away. In bits, he does sort of sound like Matthew Waterhouse, and while I dislike his characterization, he does do a good job in his own way.

Harriet Walter and Adrian Scarborough do well as their characters, even if they are a bit old stock, stereotypical and I could predict both that he would be exposed as a fraudulent adventurer and they would fall in love. The only surprise was the nasty twist/turn that resulted in it coming to nothing. Apparently, the characters are from Magrs's novels, so that might explain why they are a cut ahead of the rest of the story.

The rest of the cast do all right: parlor maids and scorpion people, sane and insane, the usual Doctor Who stuff. It was rather funny when a character (unable to understand their language) mistook one scorpion person negotiating on their behalf only for the scene to flip around and reveal that they were betraying them. The setting of a jungle planet with buildings made of math powered by the number-chanting, Logopolis style, and powered by the remains of the Cybermen's computer from the Earthshock freighter was interesting, as was the idea that the whole setting was created by the seance from the beginning interacting with the crashing freighter.

My main problem is how unpleasant it all is. Magrs hasn't got Adric's character right (it's an alternative-future version, but still), and he even misses the significance of Adric's belt (yes it was from the outsiders, but it was also from his brother). The play is rather nasty to poor old Adric who has every right to feel aggrieved, yet the plot, his actions and other characters always override/overrule him, often in an unpleasant manner. Not only that but it is tantamount to a character assassination, having him as a crazy old bitter man, setting a giant spider on the Doctor for fun, trying to force himself on Nyssa (whom he has always loved, apparently), enslaving the scorpion people and generally behaving like a second-rate Doctor Who villain. With a script like this, I can understand why Matthew Waterhouse took so long to reprise his role, and it just seems like sour grapes on behalf of Big Finish. Imagine if they had written something so nasty about other less-liked Doctor Who characters. Would Bonnie Langford or Colin Baker, or another less-well-received Doctor Who actor/character reprised their TV role if they had stories like this, or if they hadn't returned would they have been rewritten to be this unpleasant? It's less character assassination than being defecated upon from a great height, the people behind this production really owe Adric an apology.

The bonus interviews at the end are just as unlikeable. Both Peter Davison and Sarah Sutton being unpleasant and making jokes about Waterhouse (how anyone whose idea of acting is to look ahead slack jawed and dumb struck and another who shows the emotion of someone witnessing the death of her home planet with bored detachment of someone waiting in line for a bus can have the nerve to bad mouth someone else's acting is beyond me).

I would give this one a miss, other than the three actors mentioned and some nice ideas, it really isn't that good and just leaves a bad taste in one's mouth.

Only ecommended to these who are completionist or just hate Adric, I suppose. 3/10