Doctor Who - The Hunting Ground (2018) - Audio Review

Starring: Colin Baker, Amy Beth Hayes, Michael Griffiths & Harriet Collings

Written By: AK Benedict

Directed By: John Ainsworth

The Doctor arrives in present day Iceland and receives a frosty reception from Inspector Yrsa Kristjansdottir when he becomes the chief suspect in a murder enquiry. But the Doctor knows the real killer is of extraterrestrial origin. Joining forces with Yrsa, the Doctor goes in pursuit of a ruthless alien that is hunting humans for sport. Yrsa unearths a dark conspiracy which reaches back into her own past. Determined to expose the truth and prevent further deaths, the Doctor and Yrsa soon find themselves running for thier lives, prey on the hunting ground. 

When it comes to Big Finish's monthly range, as with much of their output, money constraints mean I have to dip in and out depending on when something peaks my interest. A wintry murder mystery set in the Icelandic landscapes, featuring an alien bounty hunter and biomechanical wolves? That's kind of thing that's got my interest. Coincidentally, when this story was first released in December 2018, I was finishing a module on Nordic noir crime drama at university, so it was perfect timing. 'Doctor Who' has a long history of presenting its own spin on different genres - horror, Westerns, historicals etc. but this is the first time I can think of where it's attempted Nordic noir. 

The story itself starts off with all the right elements for a Nordic noir crime drama: it's got the setting, the crunch of snow underfoot, a murder and a no-nonsense female detective taking up the case. Even though Nordic noir is in many ways a very visual sub-genre, often featuring a bleak and muted colour palette, it translates to audio surprisingly well. For Part 1 at least this plays out nicely and even reaches a pretty good cliffhanger as the Doctor and Yrsa are chased down by a pack of snarling augmented wolves. But soon afterwards, 'The Hunting Ground' starts running out of promise and my engagement with it quickly disappeared. 

Somewhere in the writing process, the decision was made to pretty much abandon this Nordic crime angle and instead go full sci-fi. Part 2 sees the Doctor jet off in pursuit of the hunter, as the spaceship cabin takes off (I would've said "Spoiler Warning!" but … well, it's on the cover) for the planet Valen. This decision to abandon Iceland for generic alien planet No. 16227 is such a strange one. There's so much more untapped potential to be explored in Iceland, and this story does nothing with it. In its place, Valen is a bog-standard interchangeable alien snow planet.

The excursion also introduces us to a new character(s) with the Marficks. I think it's reasonable to assume that the double-headed squabbling Left and Right Marficks were intended to inject a bit of comic relief … but my god, they were excruciating to listen to. Their commitment to pens and paperwork, not to mention their constant bickering is not so much funny as it is obnoxious and grating. In fact 'The Hunting Ground' features quite a bit of this misplaced comedy, including a weird bit featuring the Doctor fixing up a printer so it can sing. Meanwhile, the Marficks' employer, the alien bounty hunter, while thankfully nowhere near as annoying, doesn't fare particularly better. A lot of people have pointed out the similarities between the alien in 'The Hunting Ground' and Tim Shaw from the show. Given that there was only a couple of months between 'The Woman Who Fell To Earth' which introduced us to the Stenza, and 'The Hunting Ground's release, I've got to admit it is quite the coincidence. Both hunt humans for sport, and both take trophies from their victims. The difference being that if you thought Tim Shaw was inept, you have not met this guy. The hunter in this story, despite a promising appearance on the cover and a pretty decent modulated voice, does not come across as intimidating at all.

Something else that's notable about 'The Hunting Ground' is the absence of any companions. The 6th Doctor is travelling solo, although he does find a one-off companion in Yrsa. Yrsa is … fine, and Amy Beth Hayes is good in the role, but there's nothing about her that particularly stood out to me whilst listening. Ordinarily a one-off companion being serviceable if not all that memorable isn't something I'd be willing to complain about, but the problem is 'The Hunting Ground' relies a lot on the character and her past. While the Doctor's away spending generic time on Valen, Yrsa gets to do some investigating back in Iceland, into a conspiracy revolving around the hunter and somehow linked to her own dead father. A lot of the runtime is dedicated to this conspiracy, but it really didn't stick with me and I soon grew bored of it. Yrsa is a case of "Rey Syndrome" - just like all the fan theories about Rey's parents from the 'Star Wars' fandom, there's far too much obsessing over Yrsa's father and not enough on the character herself. I can't warm up to Yrsa because she's a product of a wider plot thread. I'm not engaged with said plot thread and I can't even enjoy anything going on involving the Doctor on Valen because it's incredibly generic stuff. No matter where I turn, I just can't get into this one.

I've got to be honest … I put off writing about 'The Hunting Ground' for quite some time, simply because I had no desire to go back and re-listen to it. I seem to be saying this more with any negative review I write, but I honestly don't enjoy being dour and miserable about things, whether it's an audio drama, a film, a TV series or anything. But with 'The Hunting Ground', I just can't find much to praise about it. It has promise at least in the first part, but it soon abandons that in favour of something a lot less riveting. I have no problem with it subverting the Nordic noir angle if it were going for something more interesting, but it doesn't. I wanted to like this, but unfortunately it was a let-down. 

The Hunting Ground

4/10