Doctor Who: No Man's Land

Big Finish: Monthly Range #89

by Martin Day, Sylvester McCoy (Narrator), Sophie Aldred (Narrator)

It is 1917 and the Doctor, Hex and Ace find themselves in a military hospital in northern France. But the terrifying, relentless brutality of the Great War that wages only a few miles away is the least of their concerns.

The travellers become metaphysical detectives when the Doctor receives orders to investigate a murder. A murder that has yet to be committed...

Who will be the victim? Who will be the murderer? What is the real purpose of the Hate Room? Can the Doctor solve the mystery before the simmering hate and anger at Charnage hospital erupts in to a frenzy of violence?

Genres: Doctor Who, Science Fiction, Audiobook

Audio CD

First published November 1, 2006

About the author

Martin Day is a screenwriter and novelist best known for his work on various spin-offs related to the BBC Television series Doctor Who, and many episodes of the daytime soaps Doctors and Family Affairs.

Day's first published fiction was the novel The Menagerie in 1995, published by Virgin Publishing as part of their Doctor Who Missing Adventures series. Following the withdrawal of Virgin's licence to produce Doctor Who novels, Day moved to BBC Books, who published the novel The Devil Goblins from Neptune in 1997. The novel (co-written with Keith Topping) was the first of BBC Books' Past Doctor Adventures series, and was quickly followed by The Hollow Men in 1998 - again written with Topping. 1998 also saw the publication of Another Girl, Another Planet by Virgin Publishing. Co-written with Steve Bowkett (under the pseudonym Len Beech), this was one of the first books in Virgin's line of Bernice Summerfield novels.

Following these novels, Day returned to solo writing, and to the Past Doctor Adventures range in 2001 with the novel Bunker Soldiers. This was followed in 2004 by the novel The Sleep of Reason, one of the final Eighth Doctor Adventures to be published and perhaps his most popular novel. Between 2000 and 2001 Day wrote nine episodes for Five's Family Affairs, and in 2005 he started writing for BBC One's Doctors. In 2008 he was lead writer on Crisis Control, a new series for CBBC; Day storylined all thirteen episodes.

As well as writing fiction, Day has also written several unofficial guide books to television series such as The X Files, Star Trek: The Next Generation and The Avengers. These were published by Virgin, and co-written with Keith Topping and (with the exception of Shut It!, a guide to The Sweeney and The Professionals) Paul Cornell. Cornell, Day and Topping also wrote the extremely popular Doctor Who Discontinuity Guide, published by Virgin in 1995 as a light-hearted guide to the mistakes and incongruities of the television series. The first book written by Cornell, Day and Topping was Classic British TV, which was released by Guinness Publishing in 1993 and 1996.

In recent years Day has continued his work on Doctor Who, with the play No Man's Land for Big Finish Productions' audio adventures range, the bestselling novel Wooden Heart for the BBC's range of New Series Adventures, and comic strips for Doctor Who Adventures. The Jade Pyramid, an original Doctor Who audiobook for the eleventh Doctor,and a novelisation of an episode of Merlin,are both due for release in 2010.

Reviews

[April Mccaffrey · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5*

A very good, psychological thriller. Pure historical once again and I love the development between Hex/Ace in this one with Ace acting like a big sister towards him.

Poor Hex Schofield. His first four-five adventures with the 7th Doctor and Ace, he’s been either kidnapped, tortured or traumatised.

Hex is just trying to have a good time through time and space and all he got was trauma

[Jamie Revell · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fresh from Cromwell's Ireland, we're now on the Western Front in WWI. Despite which, this does manage to be quite a lot less grim than it's immediate predecessor, despite the ruminations of demonising the Other, and so on. Still, there are some disturbing moments - notably what happens to Hex - and the story as a whole works quite well. Not all the plot threads are wrapped up at the end, and hopefully that's going to be going somewhere. [Later edit: it didn't.] Another fairly enjoyable play, if not as doom-laden as you might expect a WWI story to be, and not one that's destined to be a true classic, either.

[Evie · Rating 4 out of 5]

this is such a marked increase in quality compared to the last seventh doctor story - particularly as a direct example of a much better historical.

it’s not perfect, there are a couple of clunky moments, and it is occasionally on the nose, but the setting, time period, and characters are well fleshed out and feel well researched and well written. again this is such a difference from the previous historical. the performances from all the cast are good too, and the murder mystery narrative is compelling. I like how much ace has grown up, compared to the early years of stories (and of course the original tv ones) and how she acts like a guide and older sister to hex. plus I love the mentions of hex’s mum - so exciting! I can’t wait for that plot point to be more developed going forward. I think things will go crazyyy.

[Gabriel Mero · Rating 4 out of 5]

I always enjoy the audio adventures with Sylvester McCoy and Sophie Aldred; they were a great pair back in the 80s and are still great 20+ years later. I've only heard a few adventures with Hex, so I'm rather indifferent on him atm, but Philip Olivier does a good job, regardless. WW1 and WW2 seem to be popular settings for DW stories, so that kind of turned me off a little, but the story was an interesting psychological thriller that made cleaning bathrooms and the refrigerator a lot more fun.

[Shaun Collins · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fairly standard Big Finish outing offers very little NEW insight into Hex and Ace, serving up (yet another) war time historical, which seems to be Hex's lot in life. It's not that it's bad, in fact, the lack of any alien/supernatural twist is a bit refreshing. It unspools and then it's over and you think, oh, okay.

[Twainy · Rating 4 out of 5]

A WWI historical drama featuring Ace, Hex & the 2nd doctor (Sylvester McCoy).

I met Sophie Aldred (Ace), she’s very short & very nice.

I love these Big Finish stories!

Hex is the new Fitz. LOL He is once again the one in pain. Ace feels like his protective big sister.

We know how the Doctor feels about war & he preaches it here. I love these three characters. Interesting story.

[Steven Shinder · Rating 4 out of 5]

Once again, the gang gets involved in a historical war. I’m actually feeling more and more for Hex as a character. They’ve figured out how to remind us that he’s a fully formed character. And McCoy gets really intense during the talk about taking a life to save many.

[Molly · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this World War II story with psychological murder mystery element. I am taking a star off because Hex didn’t feel necessary in this story. His time in the hate room didn’t feel important to the story except for a personal connection for the companions.

[Tabitha · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really don't care for the historical style dramas, and this was nothing special. It wasn't bad, it just wasn't anything great.

[Nicholas Whyte]

Hex and Ace can equally complain about war zones, having jumped from 1649 in Ireland to 1917 on the Western Front, in a British field hospital near the eponymous No Man's Land where mysterious things are happening and a murder has been announced. The story turns out not to involve any alien or time-travelling presence other than our regular cast, but does invoke some scientific knowledge which is probably more advanced than what the British really had at the time. There are some potentially interesting thoughts on the horrors of war, but these are weakened by the plot being a bit too clever by half, and by the implausibility of some of the behaviour the characters display. Also The Settling did the horrors of war rather better.

[Anne Barwell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hex and Ace together play off each other and The Doctor well. This story brings up some interesting ideas about how bravery and cowardice are defined and about war itself. Hoping that Hex's experience in the Hate Room has consequences in a later story, rather than just forgotten. An interesting seed/mention of something that features later on.

[Debra Cook · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Doctor, Ace and Hex land in WWI Britian where a man is supposed to be training his troops to fight when actually he is driving them insane and bullying them. The Doctor has to stop a murder before it happens. Can he?

[Ritchie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Still reeling from their experiences in 1642 with Cromwell, Seven, Ace and Hex find themselves in 1917; World War I. Something's not right at the hospital. Orders arrive for the Doctor to investigate a murder that hasn't yet happened.

[Charles Mitchell · Rating 4 out of 5]

The 7th Doctor (Sylvester McCoy), Ace (Sophie Aldred), and Hex (Philip Olivier) find themselves in the trenches of World War I.