The second story of the latest Fifth Doctor boxset sees the return of the “Dream Crabs” from the Twelfth Doctor Christmas Special “Last Christmas” as well as a couple of audios a year or two ago, and its safe to say that there really isn’t anything new you can do with them beyond repeating the same story beats from their first appearance. Most returning monsters you can put some sort of spin on but here its more dreams within dreams sequences and fake-outs, with only a little wrinkle in why they are where they are. Still, unoriginal as it may be, what was it like to listen to? Let’s find out!
The story starts with a sequence in the TARDIS where The Doctor (Peter Davison), Adric (Matthew Waterhouse), Tegan (Janet Fielding) and Nyssa (Sarah Sutton) are bombarded with adverts from some adware that has installed itself on the ship somehow and even though The Doctor removes it the fact it was advertising corporate getaways to a protected wonder of the galaxy leads them to head there anyway. As they arrive they find nobody about until Nyssa walks down to a beach is an verbally assaulted by copies of Adric and Tegan, only for The Doctor to arrive and tell her that she’s in a dream and he knows the culprit. From here most of the story is the previously mentioned “we’ve escaped the dream… wait, this is a dream as well!” storytelling that is a prerequisite for a story featuring the Kantrofarri.
I will say around the middle of the story The Doctor realises that the Dream Crabs used didn’t have the stingers needed to drain the life out of its victims and soon starts to wonder if this is some sort of resort that used them to give visitors lucid dreams they could control without fear of being killed. I liked that idea, it gave the story a Jurassic Park vibe of a tourist attraction gone wrong, but they soon go in a different direction, though one that’s equally interesting so now it feels they’ve blown two of the only unique ways to frame the enemies in one go! Ah well, it was a fun story to listen to for an hour, even if the majority of the story is rather predictable.
The Continuity:
Not only is so much of the cover dedicated to this story, the overall boxset title is the same as this story but with a “The” at the start of it! Poor Merfolk Murders…
As mentioned, the Kantrofarri first appeared in Twelfth Doctor TV story “Last Christmas” before making two appearances on audio for the “Classic Doctors, New Monsters” stories “Together in Eclectic Dreams” and “If I Should Die Before I Wake”, which were Sixth and Eighth audio stories respectively. There’s also a direct connection to another Big Finish audio but I’ll have to mention that in the Spoiler section…
I’ll also mention the Fourth Doctor story “Worlds Beyond” for a month or two ago, which features The Doctor and his companions turning up at a holiday resort and entering dream-like places only to be faced with nightmares rather than paradise thanks to a nefarious force behind the scenes before getting pulled back to reality. Very similar story beats for being released so close together, but to be fair that story was actually written and recorded years ago, so these two releasing so close together is actually an unfortunate coincidence.
Overall Thoughts:
“Dream Team” doesn’t break any new ground with the Kantrofarri, as there isn’t really any other plot you can do than the “stuck in dreams” stuff we’ve seen/heard before, but this is at least a really fun one hour story. It may not hold any surprises but it does have good performances and is tightly written, so I can’t complain too much!
The twist I mentioned is that the Kantrofarri aren’t being used as tourist traps as Nyssa soon finds a group of people under actual crabs with life-draining bits still intact, instead they’re being used as soldier recruiting tools, putting harmless ones on people as they enter and giving them a “fight or flight” situation and seeing how they react and if they show compassion or fear then they’re rejected and are used to feed actual Dream Crabs that can then breed allowing the recruitment process to continue. Weirdly for a story with some heavy moments (Tegan thinking her family’s dying, children having their life drained away by Head Crabs) the enemy behind the plot turn out to be the Porcians, the pig-like race in silver leotards and capes that are among the most dangerous in the galaxy because they’re so inept. They appeared in the more intentionally funny Sixth Doctor story “The Fourth Wall” but feel completely out of place here. It is good to see Big Finish use one of their own created races though!
As for the actual ending, The Doctor manages to break himself and his companions out of the dreams and even direct the crabs at the Porcians before leaving the deadly creatures to die out on the planet, as it has no sentient life for them to feed on.
Hogan Reviews 