Shellshock is a bit of a mixed bag as it does a good job of showing how horrible and pointless World War I was on BOTH sides of the trenches but its also full of cliché German accents and a pretty plain alien plotline. Well, let’s delve deeper… which is funny because a key part of the plot is soldiers being pulled underground, you see… *ahem* Anyway…
Shellshock sees The Doctor (Tom Baker) get brought into a German hospital during the Trench Warfare in France sometime in 1916. Due to his weird babbling he is taken to the same wing as other people suffering from PTSD, or “shellshock” and there (once he stopped making amusing references) The Doctor meets both soldier Hans Hoffman (Finlay Robertson) and friendly nurse Hanna Schumann (Alicia Ambrose-Bayly), who act as his sort-of companions for the four-parter. The Doctor finds out soldiers are sharing the same nightmare about being dragged under the mud and that the mysterious Doctor Sturm (Nicholas Asbury) has a method of completely healing shellshock to the point where previously frightened and broken soldiers literally can’t wait to get back out in the trenches.
The Doctor and Hanna look at what can only be a hole in a nearby wall rather than anything leading underground… should’ve thought about that when they made the cover really…
The Doctor soon confirms that Sturm’s machine is alien tech and to make matters worse he finds a “new kind of tank” the Germans are soon unveiling that is WAY ahead of its time as well. He and Hanna dash across No Man’s Land to the British side to warn them only to find an identical tank being unveiled as Britain’s next big invention to help the war effort.
So a nice little twist at the half-way mark, but honestly that’s about as interesting as it gets. The story kind of plods along and the false German accents really grate after a while, especially one point where three “Germans” are all talking to each other… sounded so comical after a while, which presumably wasn’t the point! The ending is very flat as well, so overall it has its moments and certainly isn’t bad, but just isn’t all that interesting either…
The Continuity:
Yes, that’s right. This story is part of “The Nine” even though the character has nothing to do with it…
Not much to say here. There have been a few Doctor Who stories set in WWI but the Seventh Doctor Audio “No Man’s Land” starts off with a very similar idea of The Doctor being captured by Germans who use mind control. Not to mention the Second Doctor TV story “War Games” which also features WWI era German soldiers, one of who has the ability to hypnotise thanks to alien technology, even if that ends up not actually being WWI…
I also have to mention that Hanna on the cover is, from the neck down, the promo pictures for Molly O’Sullivan from the original “Dark Eyes” boxset. I don’t blame Big Finish for reusing high quality shots of a female WWI era nurse, but it still really stood out to me…
Overall Thoughts:
Shellshock has its moments but they’re often buried in reused ideas and annoying fake German accents. Not a terrible release by any means, just not a very fun one and certainly not one I’ll ever feel like revisiting…
Well, if you were wondering, both sides having the same advanced tech is due to an alien parasite that lives deep beneath the ground that feeds on the suffering and death of others, and has been doing so since the 100 years war. It’s also the reason several officers have had nightmares about being dragged underground. Eventually The Doctor, Hanna and Hans go down and confront it, eventually destroy and bury it for good.
Hogan Reviews 