Pier Pressure

It's Brighton in 1936 and the Doctor brings Evelyn to the seaside holiday town for a break from their adventures. Too late for chicken in a basket at the local pub, the Doctor is in time to meet local performer Max Miller and learn about the strange goings-on of the pier and a supposed curse that sours the town. Knowing that all is never as it seems, the Doctor discovers a supposed long dead performer named Professor Talbot is in tune with a presence that seethes beneath the pier - an alien presence of pure evil that wants to kill. And kill. And kill.

Or something like that.

Maybe I listen to too many of these things in too close proximity these days but I find that as with Medicinal Purposes this one isn't quite as good as others. I didn't really get the funny musical cues, and some of the dialogue seemed like it was going on far too long. As if it were just filling up time. And the threat... well it wasn't really threatening. Talbot as an agent of evil is hard to swallow, especially when he feels he can switch sides as he pleases and not suffer any fallout. And so he talks to himself in two voices. Big deal. Tegan doing it in Snakedance was scarier.

Cute references to The Nightmare Fair, though, with the Doctor declining a trip to Blackpool based on his last visit there. And entirely coincidental, right when I was listening to this, the spin-off series The Sarah Jane Adventures was featuring a storyline about a tragic fall from a seaside pier.

Please let the next one be better.

NEXT EPISODE : THE NOWHERE PLACE