...ish

Somewhere out there is a planet full of lexicographers, all brought together by their shared love of language to assemble the ultimate dictionary, an entity simply known as Book. When the Doctor and Peri arrive, they find the leading expert on language dead, apparantly having taken her own life. The Doctor investigates, and Peri falls in with a young man named Warren, whose own love of language goes beyond mere appreciation, but touches the search for the omniverbum, or one word that expresses everything. Such a word would be thousands of syllables long, enough to drive even the most sophistocated computer mad... ish.

The sheer magic of ...ish is the story only just takes itself seriously enough to not become a joke. Here we have an entire planet of academics all expounding their love of language, of words, of expression, so such an extent that it sounds as if Douglas Adams had a hand in the writing himself. Even the Doctor does go on a great deal, evoking Robin Williams from Dead Poets Society and the need to express and speak and to sculpt meaning out of speech. Peri doesn't get it; her field is botany, after all, but on a planet where language and words are valued above all else there's the odd botanical phrase that will come in handy for paying a bar tab. Pity she's having lunch with their own version of the unibomber. Yes, Warren is not all he seems to be and delights in introducing chaos - something that can be disasterous in a finely balanced system such as Book's. Book is pretty much a slave to the lexicographers as far as Warren can see, although Book was created specifically to be the lexicon and does not appear to be in any way abused or oppressed.

I found myself laughing a lot at this one. And it's not a comdey per se, but it's damn funny when it wants to be, especially in instances where the Doctor is pressed into guest speaking before an assembly and finishes his presentation with a joke, the final line of which means nothing to us, the listeners, but to the people in the crowd it is the funniest thing they have ever heard. Colin Baker's delivery is such that you can almost see this one happening as if it were on TV.

So, two audios done, how's about a book next.

NEXT EPISODE : BLUE BOX