Doctor Who - Patient Zero - Review

So, the Doctor is finally confronting Charley about her secrets. There's no way out now! Unless, of course, she suddenly collapses from a mysterious virus. Thus begins the end for Charlotte Pollard, as the Doctor heads to the mysterious Amethyst Station to try and find a cure...

And it's really rather exciting! It definitely has a bit of a 'series finale' grandeur feel to it. It's not a wholly self-contained story, either, but part one of a mini season that looks as if it will all be one long story, in essence. Everything's scaled up, the stakes feel really high. There's a lot of edge of your seat moments.

The appearance of the daleks isn't one of them. Why, oh why, must Big Finish put them on the front cover of every release they're in? It utterly undermines the work the writer puts into their reveal if BF are going to broadcast them in advance. OK, so they sell discs. But the stories WITHOUT daleks sell well enough that surely you could avoid slapping one on the cover just for once?
The other problem with the daleks is simply that... Well... They're daleks. Again. It's only two stories since the last lot. And that one wasn't very good. Big Finish are seriously grindind them into the ground... And there's more next season, too. Dalek fatigue is setting in.
Partially because of that, it was surprising just how good the daleks are here. They're well integrated into the plot, and their story ties into Charley's departure arc. Plus they're not the lacklustre cut-out daleks that populated Enemy the other month. These are real daleks. They're ruthless, terrifying characters. A scene in which the dalek commander blackmails the Doctor is devastatingly effective.
As well as this, we have actual characters among the daleks now. The dalek commander is the epitomal dalek. Utterly relentless, single minded and destructive. The Time Controller on the other hand reinforces the idea that the daleks are actually phenomenally intelligent creatures. A calm, intellectual dalek, he monitors the web of time to maximise the daleks' devastating potential across the continuum. The story is very succesful in portraying the Time Controller as conscientious, intelligent, unwilling to kill the Doctor whilst blind to the consequences, without making him any less of a dalek. He is just as threatening, just as malevolent, but in a more sinister, more thoughtful way that contrasts the Commander.

The other hook is those mysterious Viyrans. We've known about them for a while now, and yet we really don't know anything about them at all. And we still don't! This isn't really a Viyran story, their part is fairly small and late in the game (although their presence is felt throughout). One gets the feeling that Blue Forgotten Planet will be their story. This is just a reminder, to reinforce their existence, hanging over proceedings. To remind us that something is up, and they will be along to fix it one day. And it won't be pleasant.
They're not quite so creepy here as they were in Mission of the Viyrans, but then that story was a horror, whereas this is more action orientated. They're still pretty unusual though, and they definitely come off as being intimidating foes. Quite the enigma, and still rather unsettling - The notion of having them speak only with other characters' voices is a coup. I'll be looking forward to hearing more of them.

Moving down the scale of alien-ness we have Fratalin. A memorable and well realised character from BF, he's made up of 800-odd seperate little selves which can fuse into larger ones. All of them share his voice and personality, but they're not a hive mind, so they can talk amongst themselves.
Fratalin himself(s) is on the surface quite a nice fellow. He's very calm, pleasant in demeanour, and very patient with people. He's also utterly, unshakably dedicated to his cause, which leads him to put the Doctor in some rather unpleasant situations.
Maloney plays him well, there's a real sense of rock-and-a-hard place when he's forced to do some difficult things in service to his conviction. He seems genuinely saddened and apologetic when he is forced to place Charley's wellbeing below the sanctity of his duty. He also inflects the generally calm and reserved character with a strong sense of desperation during the growing tension of part two, as the Doctor desperately tries to force him to abandon his calling. His reaction to losing some of his 'familiars' similarly does well at fleshing out another emotional side of him. It's not a masterpiece performance of great range, by any means, but a solid showing that backs up a good character concept.

The other non-regular character is Mila, and she's an odd one. As a character there's a lot of potential here: She's deranged by two very different ordeals. Sociopathic yet seemingly quite innocent. Possessed of quite phenomenal power to exact vengeance, but apparently not particularly vengeful. And later on, she begins to slide into a different personality altogether.
Jess Robinson is far from bad in the role, but I felt there was potential for more. There could have been some real depth to the character, the suggestion of counterpoint emotions underlying her surface facade. Instead we get what I am sort of inclined to call the 'easy' option. The chipper-psychopath angle isn't new, and its effectiveness is not guaranteed. Here it works alright - moreso early on, when we are less certain who Mila is - but it's not spectacular. Ultimately, Robinson overplays the cheerfulness a little too much for my taste. I thought there was some potential there to have a little bit of acid underneath the sweetness, and a coldness behind the fake warmth.

As to the regulars, they're pretty good. Have Colin and India ever been anything other than pretty good together? No, I don't think so. That said, they're not at their absolute top showing. Colin is a bit more shouty and blunt than usual, and he doesn't get any really resoundingly memorable moments. The first-part cliffhanger is great, but I thought it could have been even better if Colin had been at the very top of his game.

India's a bit of a mixed bag here. Her anxiety regarding her secret seems to have tapered off somewhat since Raincloud Man. Given that we have reached crunch time, she seems to have become a little more relaxed since the last outing, which isn't exactly fitting. She's also not so good at portraying someone suffering terribly from an illness. 'I feel terrible' she says, but she doesn't sound like she does. She groans and mumbles a bit, but it's not the voice of someone who feels like death warmed up. She just sounds like she has a headache, not some monstrous space lurgy.
She's better later, though. Given reign to act a sort of alternate take on Charley she really takes off, much as she did in the Doomwood Curse. She's quite convincing as being New-Charley rather than normal old Charley. On the other hand, when she has to flick back to being normal old Charley, she seems lacking once again. The situation she's in is pretty dire, but there's no great urgency in her performance. Certainly she has sounded more worried in other stories.

As for the plot itself, it's certainly not high minded, conceptual stuff. It's big bangs and daleks and explosions in corridors. It is very fun, though. Probably the best thing Briggs has done since Creatures of Beauty (which was high concept). Everything ties up quite nicely, which is maybe the main thing. With Charley's departure, her secret revealing, daleks and viyrans in the pot it could be quite a mess. Thankfully all the elements are very much related to one another, so there's a great feeling of coherency. And for a story which is actually mostly shouting in corridors, as someone else described it, it feels quite pacy and action packed. It certainly kicks off in the latter half, and the Viyran-Dalek battles are quite exciting.

The sound design is effective, making it easy to picture what's going on without ever throwing up the confusing wall of sound that occaisionally plagues the more action packed stories. It is perhaps a little sparse, though. Sometimes that's inkeeping - it works to set the scene of this enormous, sparse, desolate clinical facility - but it could have maybe used a bit more of an interesting soundscape. Thinking back now I can't recall anything of the incidental music work. Now, I'd rather have something unobtrusive than something jarring, of course, but the really good audios usually have a few strong, memorable cues that reinforce the action.

So, that's Patient Zero. It's a very entertaining beginning to a compelling arc, that leaves me excited to hear what's next, and indeed a little intrepid. Whilst I never found myself hugely invested in her with the Eighth Doctor, she's really grown on me with the Sixth, and her departure will probably pull a few strings.
It's also a refreshingly good dalek romp, thankfully after the so-recent Enemy, and with Plague just around the corner. An 8/10. Onwards to Paper Cuts.