For a lot of people “Destination: Nerva” was a big exciting release as it was the first Tom Baker Big Finish audio they listened to, but as mentioned in its review I also brought the Lost Stories set released at the same time and was delighted by “The Foe from the Future” and therefore missed out on the disappointment that many had listening to this story first. So this is less “does Destination: Nerva still hold up?” and more “is it really as boring as I remember it being?” Not super inspiring, but oh well, let’s take a look!
The story starts just as The Doctor (Tom Baker) and Leela (Lousie Jameson) are departing from Victorian London after “The Talons of Weng-Chiang”, where they pick up a distress call (of course!) and upon investigating it they find an equally Victorian crime scene but one where aliens called Drellerans were killed by humans. The Doctor takes their stardrive so it doesn’t fall into 1800s human hands and the two head into the TARDIS, where the drive pulls them towards its original ship: the Aeolus, which is on approach to Nerva Dock, the same Nerva that would one day become Nerva Beacon. As The Doctor and Leela meet several of the crew, including dock head Jim Hooley (Kim Wall), Chief Technician Laura Craske (Tilly Gaunt) and station head Commodore Giles Moreau (Tim Bentinck), the issues soon begin when a pod from the Aeolus unloads a human called Henry McMullan (Sam Graham), who starts shaking people’s hands and causing them to immediately become slave to some sort of mental power before succumbing to a weird disease where they transform into odd… blob things (there is at the very least an odd squelch sound…)
The Doctor puts it all together when he recognises the uniform McMullan is wearing as the same as the few dead humans who were at the Drelleran crime scene: humans had stolen their ship and McMullan was an advance party who was spreading a disease by contact thanks to an alien layer of skin (and so The Doctor dubs it an “Epiderm”, like Epidermis, you see!) Another human, Lord Jack Corrigan (Tim Treloar, long before he became the Third Doctor recast!) contacts them from the soon-docking Aeolus and tells McMullan to prepare for the “final unification” of humanity. As The Doctor, Leela, Commodore Moreau and others begin running around the ship trying to avoid touching anyone (and failing in a lot of the crews case) a second, much more advanced Drelleran ship appears in orbit and beams The Doctor and Leela on board…
So basically it’s a little bit “base under siege”, little bit “deadly infection”, little bit “body horror transformations”… so in other words feels like a lesser Ark in Space, especially given the Nerva setting! Not bad, but far from stand-out or memorable, it was indeed a misstep for a big “first ever” Fourth Doctor audio drama, but that’s Nick Briggs making sure he’s the first writer on a major new series for you! (Although apparently “Energy of the Daleks” was originally going to be the opener, but that’s also written by Briggs, so that sentence still stands…)
The Continuity:
Setting it right after Talons gave the Big Finish artists an excuse to use their costumes from that story on the cover. Saves burning through the promo pictures too quickly, anyway!
As mentioned it starts off right after TV classic “The Talons of Weng-Chiang” and features the Nerva Beacon, which appeared in both “The Ark in Space” and “Revenge of the Cybermen” TV stories, as well as reappear (sort of) in the Sixth Doctor audio “Wirrn Isle”.
Overall Thoughts:
“Destination: Nerva” isn’t bad by any means, but just isn’t all that exciting either. It plays out like a lesser Ark in Space with much less interesting characters, villains and a shorter runtime, so… yeah. Not the best way to kick off Tom Baker’s run with Big Finish, for those who didn’t also put down the money for the Lost Stories set anyway…
The Doctor and Leela meet some present-day Drellerans who tell them that after capturing the ship Jack Corrigan and his men conquered Drelleran and enslaved their people until they revolted, and as punishment they intentionally infected Jack and his men with the Epiderm virus and sent them to Earth as revenge but Jack reached Nerva first. The Doctor pleads the case that the humans of this time period are better than the colonising Victorian Brits and even if they weren’t they shouldn’t be punished for their long-dead ancestors’ follies. The Drellerans don’t seem to agree, infect them both and send them back to Nerva where despite their best efforts they get touched by an Epiderm… which then turns back into a normal person. Turns out the Drellerans listened after all and “infected” The Doctor and Leela with a cure to the virus instead. Everyone returns to their normal human body apart from the Victorian humans who die due to having used Drelleran tech to extend their lives (or something).
With that done and dusted The Doctor and Leela head back to the TARDIS, where Leela expresses interest in being educated about the universe, as The Doctor once promised…
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