Invaders From Mars by Mark Gatiss

How many different Doctor Who stories have you observed, enjoyed, endured or absorbed in your life time? In all mediums, TV, audio, novel, comic and viewfinder, it must amount to thousands. And quite a few thousands at that. Even taking into account the diverse hands of so many writers, with every new adventure the pattern must level out; an average must solidify. The more we read, watch or hear, the more the traditional becomes boring and the innovative becomes traditional. Where once the Typical Doctor Who Story was welcome, then reassuring, then disappointing, one day it may become unattainable.

Already the mould is sprouting on what once we loved. Imagine someone telling you that the new CD you had just bought involved the Doctor (for added requirement of staying power, say it's McGann) arriving on Earth, discovering an alien menace and defeating it. You desperately want something more; a twist, a time paradox (steady!) or a surprise cameo by Liz Shaw. But it's okay - it's always been this way. Doctor Who has always been traditionally surprising. The original ideas themselves, from a journey across the Gobi Dessert to an alien who is cataloguing evolution, are the tradition. But what happens when the surprises stop being so surprising? We expect a twist, and, worse, the selling point isn't all that interesting anyway.

Nothing about "Invaders from Mars" interested me. We knew the new McGann season was coming (and we knew what the story titles were to be about a year in advance if memory serves) and we knew it had been recorded quickly. This story was to be set in 1938, in America, and be a comedy. Big Finish doesn’t do comedy well. Or American accents (remember "Minuet in Hell" children?). And, frankly, I can't think of a historical period I like less than the theatrical fiction of 1930's America, all gangsters, Al Capone and "liquor". In my mind, I knew exactly what it was going to be like. In reality, I was right. I listened to Episode 1 and then, two years later, managed the rest.

That I saw off the bugger trapped in the confines of my car perhaps misses the point. For two years I didn't want to hear this. It's not hideously written for what it is, but it’s what it is that I dislike. This sort of whimsical, terribly clever period piece excuses awful accents and characters with names as dreadful as Glory Bee. But that still makes them dreadfully named characters with awful accents. The trouble with Doctor Who being "something else" in disguise is that if you were really going to enjoy that something else, you'd have gone to see Dick Tracy in 1990. I dare say it's just me - I'm sure everyone else loved it, found it funny, and that I'm outrageous to diss such bold experimentation. I didn't even loathe it when I eventually heard it through to the end. It was just... blah.

Or maybe "utterly predictable". We knew how this was going to sound, we even knew the twist - Martians invading during Orson Wells’ broadcast of "War of the Worlds". What point was there in actually hearing it when the trappings themselves, the only thing left to discover, were so outwardly repellent?

An ocean of Doctor Who. An unbearably traditional story buried beneath overly smug cod-musical, clichéd comedy. You can keep it.