The latest Doctor Who release from Big Finish productions brings an adventure featuring the Sixth Doctor played by Colin Baker and two non-TV companions Flip Ramon (Lisa Greenwood) and Mrs Constance Clark (Miranda Raison). The Doctor is chasing a weaponised mind parasite through time with a little help from bounty hunter Calypso Jones (Robyn Holdway).
The Somnifax has headed back through history to a small green planet (a favourite of the Doctors) to find a host that will enable it to find a host and use their nightmares to wreak destruction. What better place than the mind of HP Lovecraft.
Most people will have heard of the author and many will have read his books or seen the films made of his stories. Much modern horror is influenced by his ideas of the old gods and Cthulu in particular. Hellboy is riddled with HP Lovecraft imagery.
Most of us will not be familiar with the man himself and the Doctor in one sequence references Lovecraft as a racist so many times one feels like saying Ok we get the message. Lovecraft was born and lived in New England from 1890 until 1937 dying at the age of just 46. Like many of his time he held strong racial attitudes towards non-Anglo-Saxons though accepted Jewish and Hispanics who in his view "assimilated". His wife was Jewish.
His views on race were typical of the period seeing blacks as inferior and in today's world we would clearly see him as a racist. It is his work in horror fiction that he will be remembered for.
Most of the story takes place inside HP Lovecrafts mind which is not a pretty place as the Doctor and Flip pursue the Somnifax to prevent Cthulu and his minions destroying the world. Outside the less savoury side of Lovecraft is seen as he objects to being pushed around by women and inferiors. It turns out that our bounty hunter is not just mixed race but a "Trans non binary" mixed with some alien DNA. "wokeness" has entered the world of Big Finish something that did grate many viewers and fans on the main TV show.
There has always been a historical angle in a lot of Doctor Who adventures and sometimes it's necessary especially these days to see that people in history held very different outlooks to those found acceptable today but there are times I wish that Doctor Who script writers leave their political agendas at the door.
All that said this was an interesting adventure worth picking up.
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