Doctor Who Unbound: Deadline

Doctor Who Unbound

by Robert Shearman, Derek Jacobi (Narrator)

It's been forty years since Martin Bannister encountered the Doctor. They were different men back then. Martin was young and talented and The Times' seventh most promising writer to watch out for. The Doctor was mysterious, crotchety and possibly oriental. It was an encounter that destroyed both their lives.

Pity poor Martin now... His career is in ruins, all forgotten. His estranged wives keep dying in the wrong order, and there's a nasty green stain by the wardrobe that could be an alien footprint or, possibly, just mould.

Martin's life is about to change unexpectedly… Impromptu poetry readings. Elephant expeditions. An obligatory bug-eyed monster. And a last, desperate chance for love, before it's too late.

Sounds like it's time for the Doctor to come into Martin's life again. And sort him out. Permanently.

Genres: Doctor Who, Science Fiction, Audiobook

Audio Play

First published September 24, 2003

About the author

Robert Shearman has worked as a writer for television, radio and the stage. He was appointed resident dramatist at the Northcott Theatre in Exeter and has received several international awards for his theatrical work, including the Sunday Times Playwriting Award, the World Drama Trust Award and the Guinness Award for Ingenuity in association with the Royal National Theatre. His plays have been regularly produced by Alan Ayckbourn, and on BBC Radio by Martin Jarvis. However, he is probably best known as a writer for Doctor Who, reintroducing the Daleks for its BAFTA winning first series, in an episode nominated for a Hugo Award.

His first collection of short stories, Tiny Deaths, was published by Comma Press in 2007. It won the World Fantasy Award for best collection, was shortlisted for the Edge Hill Short Story Prize and nominated for the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Prize. One of the stories from it was selected by the National Library Board of Singapore as part of the annual Read! Singapore campaign. In 2008 his short story project for BBC7, The Chain Gang, won him a Sony Award, and he provided a second series for them in 2009.

He is now at work on his first novel.

Reviews

[Danny Welch · Rating 5 out of 5]

Now this has to be one of the best audios I have ever listened to!

It's set in a world where Doctor Who never made it on television, I know the horror! And what comes is a funny but yet utterly depressing and dark story about an old man (played by the wonderful Derek Jacobi) who is slowly losing his mind, believing he is Doctor Who himself. Robert Shearman has done it again, he has written a magnificent story full of dark humour and a depressing story I loved it! 10/10

[Farnoush Mellark · Rating 4 out of 5]

a world without Doctor Who?!! HORROR! that's horrible, dark and sad!!!

[Seb Hasi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Deadline is an audio like no other. Existential, comedic, nihilistic, and having almost nothing do with Dr Who at all; it balances humour and darkness on a level that keeps you engaged and regardless of your feelings towards the characters, suitably shocked by the end. The theme that struck out to me most was ‘escapism’ that being of course the point of all television including Doctor Who and in this story it’s the thing that drives our protagonist, to good places and the really awful. The meta-textual nature of the story can be off-putting when balanced against other audios actually set in the universe but when the questions are ‘what if Dr Who had never been made?’ and ‘what can obsession do to you?’ are the focus here; there is no greater narrative that could’ve been told. Sir Derek Jacobi needs no praise as the world across knows how incredible an actor he is, but what I definitely appreciated was how engaged he was with the script. He wasn’t just a phenomenal actor doing a job, he was Martin Bannister. It’s that characterisation that makes the story jump into a grim reality and make you care about him, even in conflicting ways given the darker sides of the character. The way characters are woven through the story here, split between the two realities coinciding, allow Rob Shearman to develop the on going narrative, while also poking fun and satirising elements of Classic Who. I couldn’t think of another writer who could pull that off without making the story feel disjointed and abrasive but here it’s just a mere part of the stories excellence.

The ending here is a sort of big question mark but the fact it’s free from the shackles of Dr Who’s continuity and narrative means it’s one of the only true ambiguous endings in all of Dr Who. You start to question reality along with the main character, you start to love and hate in the way that emotions are expressed here, binary; but the story makes clear to delve into what falls between. Every single presumption and prediction that you could make in the first ten minutes or so are throughly annihilated by halfway through. I especially loved the commentary about obsessive fandoms in a few scenes of the story as vivid Dr Who fans will usually get all up in arms and vitriolic about the show but if they realised this actually what they looked like when they do, they’d think again. If anything an ironic interpretation on my part when talking about a story of ‘could’ve been’s’ and ‘if i’d just known’s’. There is a real claustrophobic feeling to the sound design but more so the way the story is told, one room, our only location. It almost feels like as the story progresses the visualisation of his room gets smaller and smaller in your head as the past catches up with him.

The most impressive thing this story does is leaving you neutral towards the fate of the main character in the end. Throughout the story you love and hate him, pity and respect him but in the end he is just human and that is simply the most deflating realisation of them all; it feels as if we haven’t the right to judge him. To surmise, a complete work of genius that has been passed over by the larger fandom due to it’s tangential ties to Dr Who, but is well worth listening to every second of.

[David Layton · Rating 4 out of 5]

For the Doctor Who Unbound what if this time, it's: What if Doctor Who had never been produced? The story is about writer Martin Bannister, played superbly by Derek Jacobi. Bannister lives in assisted living, by himself. He has alienated all the people in his life: his three wives, his adult son, his former co-workers, and the other residents in his facility. He's disillusioned and self-centered, the type that mistakes cruelty for honesty. However, he does have one remaining dream: to finally complete his pilot script for an unproduced BBC serial called Doctor Who. Bannister incorporates those around him into his imaginary script, taking on the role of the irascible time traveler in his own mind. As events go along, Bannister finds it harder and harder to separate fantasy from reality, especially because reality is a bore that requires from him an emotional effort he has no desire to expend. Writer Robert Shearman has some fun rejiggering elements from the original series, thinking of how they might have been different. The story itself fits with Shearman's pattern of plotting: characters get trapped in the imaginary worlds of madmen, such as in the Big Finish Doctor Who stories The Holy Terror and Jubilee. I think some listeners may have trouble with this story because it is not really a full reimagining of Doctor Who and not really Doctor Who at all. As audio drama, though, it is quite good, very well structured, and consistent. What brings it down just a bit for me is that Martin Bannister is too difficult a character to sympathize with.

[Ally · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is definitely unexpected. Well… parts of it are if you know the other stuff this author has written. But still.

I love this. It’s weird, it’s meta, it’s heartbreaking and spooky and fantastic. The What If? question is one I didn’t think about ( I’m checking the Spoilers box for a reason!!) The idea of what if DW never happened. And wow.


You will need tissues by the end

[Steven Shinder · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was very engaging. Some father-son family drama. A writer who worked on the unaired pilot of Doctor Who and cares most about writing, lacking some empathy at times. I thought the Guinea pig bit was a bit much and the main character got kind of annoying. But overall, solid enough.

[K · Rating 5 out of 5]

シナリオライターのマーティンは老いて孤独に施設に入っていた。結婚と離婚を繰り返したおかげで家族仲はズタボロ。マーティンはかつてお蔵入りとなったSFドラマの企画ドクター・フーのことを思い出していた。

ドクター・フーはマーティンの想像の産物でしかなく、その妄想が現実に滲み出してくる感じが痛々しい。
息子や孫、妻とうまくいかなかった現実から逃避したい気持ちとドクター・フーの設定が絶妙に絡み合って痛々しい。思わずそうやって書かれたんじゃないかと思いかけるほど説得力があって最後は辛い。

[Josh · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very meta and very dark.

[Tabitha · Rating 4 out of 5]

A world where Doctor Who never aired, and what happened to a writer losing his mind? Another dark and well done story.

[November · Rating 4 out of 5]

Uuh.. not sure I understood this one.

[Zach · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars more like - brilliant love letter to deep cut fans that know the origins of Doctor Who. It can be a slow paced story but it's very worth it if you get the references.

[Rick · Rating 4 out of 5]

An alternate reality? A variant history? An incarnation of the Doctor and/or a timeline that was erased by effects of the Time War? What if ... Doctor Who never got made? What if ... the Doctor couldn’t decide if he was a spacetime traveler or a hack television writer? What if ... the Doctor didn’t know if his name was Who or Bannister or ... neither? Is the Doctor a retired television writer living in an extended care facility? Or is the Doctor trapped in some kind of psychic trap devised by some evil mastermind and made to think he’s just a retired writer living in an extended care facility? Is the horror that of being attacked by some supreme entity out in space or is it coming to grips with the realization that the Doctor is just a fictional character from a cancelled television show? What’s real? What’s the lie? And where does one begin and the other end?

[Nicholas Whyte]

In "Deadline", Sir Derek Jacobi plays a retired writer who rues the day he failed to get his show, Doctor Who, commissioned back in the early 1960s; there is a very intricate exploration of inner space, families, failure, fandom, and so on, but I found the tone decidedly downbeat. Yet it makes an interesting pairing with "Auld Mortality", as both have the same point of departure, if from different directions, and both feature the Doctor as to a certain extent the narrator of his own story. It is by Robert Shearman who wrote the Ninth Doctor story "Dalek". I must say that if you are thinking of trying out the series, "Auld Mortality" and "Deadline" are the ones to get to see if the concept is to your taste.

[Lucas Johns · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was blown away. I am so glad I listened to this. Imagine if Doctor Who never existed... I know devastating. Especially, for one writer, Martin Bannister. The story follows an old man known as Martin Bannister, a failed writer who was going to write for Doctor Who until it was cancelled. Exploring the mind of someone who is clearly going delusional was really interesting and a good way to keep audiences who were expecting the stereotypical Doctor Who story engaged. Sir Derek Jacobi only adds to the audio, he is an amazing actor and nothing is different about that fact in Deadline.

If your a writer or an aspiring writer, I am sure you'll find some satisfaction in this release. (Plus it is only £2.99 on the Big Finish website)

10/10

[Debra Cook · Rating 2 out of 5]

This Unbound story is hard to follow. A unsuccessful writer in a home and keeps thinking of a story called Doctor Who. People who helped start the series are in and out while Martin's family or friends mingle in and out as well. Was this supposed to be about regret for not writing Doctor Who. This story was hard to follow.

[Gregory Rothbard · Rating 5 out of 5]

This one is funny, in that it portrays what would have happened if an author of Dr. Who Serials never put pen to script. (so to speak)