Doctor Who review: Chase the Night is a fantastic slice of hard sci-fi
By James Aggas
Chase the Night, the second story from this year’s series of The Fourth Doctor Adventures, is a solid hard sci-fi story with a lot of grey morality for Doctor Who.
The second Fourth Doctor story released this month, Chase the Night is a story that compliments Doctor Who‘s eighteenth season extremely well. The original TV season had more of a hard sci-fi quality than usual thanks to the script editing of Christopher H. Bidmead, and Chase the Night captures that style by exploring some extremely hard sci-fi ideas.
The key concept of the story concerns the crew of a crashed spaceship. They’ve been stuck on a planet for over a century. Even worse, they have to make sure that they’re never caught in the daylight. While darkness is safe, the daylight is so hot that it turns everything to ash. To survive, the crew have outrun the daylight on a train that never stops. But there’s one problem: the train’s engine is failing…
This is a fantastically simple idea. While there are many other interesting concepts featured in this story, Jonathan Morris makes sure to keep the idea of a train trying to outrun daylight itself as the key focus. It’s not the concept itself that drives the story, but how people react to it. People have to make some extremely tough choices in such a situation, casting some characters in a very morally grey light.
Jane Asher stars as the rather strained and dangerous Pilot Dena.
Image Courtesy Tony Whitmore/Big Finish Production
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A different kind of villain
The best example of the story’s moral complexity is the character of Pilot Dena. The main antagonist of Chase the Night, Dena is ruthless and willing to do whatever it takes to keep her crew alive – even at the cost of executing those who get in her way.
In some ways, she’s the villain of the story, but she’s not the usual kind of villain that you’d find in Doctor Who. She’s not trying to rule the universe or even the world she’s currently living on. She’s just trying to survive an almost impossible situation. More than that, she’s trying to keep her crew alive as much as possible.
She’s clearly highly strained, especially after so many years of crushing responsibility, and as a result, she’s extremely dangerous. But you can see where she’s coming from, making her an incredibly fascinating antagonist.
Along with morally complex characters and a great concept, Jonathan Morris is also keen to explore the regular characters, too. While Purgatory 12 focused more on both Adric and K9, Chase the Night focuses more on Romana. She’s been travelling with the Doctor for a long time, but in this story, she begins to learn about greater responsibilities. Honestly, it feels like great buildup towards her exit in Warriors’ Gate, and even beyond.
With rich characters and great ideas, Chase the Night is a fantastic sci-fi story. A highly recommended story for Doctor Who fans to check out.
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Do you enjoy it when Doctor Who features more hard sci-fi? Are you a fan of Season 18? What stories do you enjoy that feature more morally grey situations? Let us know in the comments below.