Synthespians

In the 101st century, Reef Station exists to receive broadcasts from the 20th century and redistribute them to the audiences of the future. Such is the demand that 80's retro nostalgia is everything, and the society has become dependent on television for not just entertainment, but for its ways of life. The Doctor and Peri find it amusing and astounding at first, until the Doctor discovers that the business empire that controls virtually everything has been infiltrated by the Nestene Consciousness, and the plastic surgery of the rich and famous is taking on a whole new, and deadly, meaning.

Reef Station One comes off as more of a theme park than a broadcast centre; it's vast enough to encompass all sorts of environments such as Los Angeles of the 1980s as well as London of the 1960s to name just two, but the layout is never explained properly. Is this a round space station, almost a planet? Or is this a big sprawling disc? The zones are all sectioned off with massive concrete barriers as a means of keeping the people separated, and passage between zones is limited to a priveledged few - mostly soap stars. Mind you, everyone on Reef Station seems to have been a star at some point; Peri falls in with spoiled rich girl Claudia and her hunky soap star friend Marc and experiences the good life while the Doctor goes about things the usual way being pursued by police, shot at by Autons, confronted by megalomaniac businessmen... that stuff.

Do I buy the whole idea that society could start to function this way? That the 80s lifestyle could re-emerge? As someone who lived through that me-obsessed decade I really hope not. Author Craig Hinton must have enjoyed it, though; he's grabbed every bit of nostalgia he could remember right down to neon colours, big teased hair and reruns of Miami Vice. The parallels between what the people of the 101st century are watching and what the people of the 80s produced are unmistakeable, right down to a certain science fiction show called Professor X. And note there is an interesting comment about an actor who rightly refused to return to a series just so he could be killed off in the firet episode. Trust me, this will mean something soon.

The Autons of Hinton's novel are pretty much on par with the ones who menaced Earth during Jon Pertwee's days, expanding their influence farther and inhabiting all manner of plastic items so when the day comes to slaughter the human population they can attack from all sides. When that day does come, though, the sequences that describe the attacks are somewhat vague and fall a bit flat, almost as if Hinton got a bit too carried away throwing scene after scene after scene onto the page and meaning to come back and work on them, but never finding the time. The Autons do not just manifest as shop window dummies this time; in the TV studios sit the inactive forms of Sythespians - synthetic thespains - who are used in crowd scenes. And then there's the interesting take on plastic surgery; that bit's clever, even calling the process Skin Deep. You can guess the results.

I have maybe one big issue with this book. It comes at the very end. A Time Lord named Vansell (his name will matter more in the future) watches the Doctor's activities on Reef Station One and gives the order for the Doctor to be brought in and put on trial. Utter crap. Yes, there is an episode called Trial of a Time Lord coming - it would be a massive tale taking up all of season 23 - but Craig Hinton has decided that his story will be the last one before that episode by creating a continuity lead in. I really hate it when authors get above themselves and do this sort of thing.; it shows a total lack of respect for anyone else who might be coming along later with a story to tell. Of course it's easy to ignore what is written and plunge ahead and make all sorts of continuity arguments. It's even easier to just tear out pages or use White-Out.

NEXT EPISODE : I, DAVROS - PURITY