Doctor Who Review: Eighth Doctor audio ‘Scaredy Cat’

‘Scaredy Cat’ has a few interesting ideas, but how well does this Eighth Doctor story explore them?

Scaredy Cat is rather a hard Eighth Doctor story to review. It isn’t that it’s a bad story. It’s just that it isn’t really a good one, either. Honestly, there’s not much that really leaps out about it.

The story takes place on a beautiful alien world. Apart from a race of primitives, there’s also a team of off-world scientists. They’re on the planet performing experiments on the nature of evil. And they’re using a very dangerous test subject…

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I must admit, one thing I do like about this story is how it asks questions about the nature of evil. Particularly, what causes someone to do evil things? Is it purely down to choice, or could there be a biological component? The problem is that the story doesn’t go into a lot of depth with these questions. They’re very briefly asked before the story moves on. It’s actually a real shame, as I think exploring these questions in more detail would have made me like the story a lot more.

Another element that didn’t have much depth? The villain. To me, they came across as a very one-dimensional character. Perhaps that was the point, considering how the story is about the nature of evil. But it doesn’t help that very little of their history is explored. Sometimes, the unknown is scary, but in this case, I think more detail and depth would have helped.

A great use of time travel

There is one thing that I really enjoyed about Scaredy Cat, at least: its use of time travel. Particularly when it comes to companion C’Rizz. You see, C’Rizz finally learns some of the “do’s and don’ts” of time travel, and he learns it the hard way. Number one rule, of course: you can’t change history. (Well, at this point, it was the number one rule, anyway.)

There are some great scenes where C’Rizz can’t understand why the Doctor wouldn’t want to save lives, and I always enjoy scenes where the Doctor and his companions not only argue over major things, but also that you can clearly see from both points of view, too.

What’s even more interesting about C’Rizz is that he’s not just from another world, but also from another universe. More than that, he’s from a universe without Time! So while the idea of going back in time is at least popular in fiction for the average human companion, for C’Rizz, that’s still a new idea he’s getting used to.

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As much as I liked these scenes though, on the whole, Scaredy Cat isn’t particularly memorable. If just a little more depth had been added in the right areas, I think that wouldn’t be the case. As it stands, the story is far from terrible, but far from truly great.

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