Big Finish Doctor Who/Recap/029 The Chimes of Midnight
One of the classics of the Big Finish Doctor Who audios, and a strong contender for best Doctor Who story in any medium.
It's an Edwardian Christmas Eve, and the servants at an English manor prepare for the holiday. Amid all the cooking and cleaning and preparing, scullery maid Edith is getting picked on by the other servants: cook Mrs Baddeley, lady's maid Mary, and chauffeur Frederick. Even the butler, Mr Shaughnessy, is getting his licks in.
Meanwhile, the Doctor and Charley turn up in a dark and deserted English manor house on Christmas Eve. Deserted? The washing-up water is still hot, the plum pudding's still in the oven, and the table's all laid out--but there's no one around.
Oh, and time appears to be frozen.
When time unfreezes enough to let Charley and the Doctor enter the same continuity the servants inhabit, things get even weirder. Now there are bizarre and grotesque murders being performed on the hour, except the victims won't stay dead... and, come to think of it, have oddly flexible ideas about what roles they (and the Doctor and Charley) have to play in the murder mystery. Charley, herself a native of upper-class Edwardian England, is particularly suited to the designs of whatever entity is running this dumbshow. It wants something from her... but what?
Tropes
- Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: The Extra-Strength Masquerade that Edward Grove enforces on the servants causes them to overfocus on details.
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Doctor (about the unseen heads of the house): If you've seen them, you know what they look like! If they're human, describe your masters! Old, young, short, tall, with glasses, without, bearded, clean shaven? Or else you're servants with no one to serve! |
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- A Bloody Mess: A rare audio-only example: The Doctor and Charley mistake spilled jelly for blood.
- Butt Monkey: Edith is this to the other servants.
- Catch Phrase: Several, but especially "Christmas wouldn't be Christmas without Mrs Baddeley's plum pudding!", "You're nothing, you're nobody." and "X is the murderer - s/he's got shifty eyes."
- Christmas Episode
- Deadpan Snarker: Played for both dark humour and drama - as the Doctor begins to realise that the house isn't quite normal, he treats any occurrence with a sort of dark acceptance.
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Doctor: Yes, of course, Mrs Baddeley. It’s quite clear that Frederick brought the car into the house, ran himself over with it, and put it back outside before he finally expired. |
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- Driven to Suicide: Charley is nearly convinced to kill herself by Edith. Edith herself was driven to suicide by the news of Charley's death.
- Genius Loci: "Edward Grove LIVES".
- Ironic Nursery Tune: "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing"
- Kill'Em All: Again, and again, and again...
- Literary Allusion Title: II Henry IV, III.ii
- Mood Whiplash: A good chunk of this audio manages to be utterly hilarious while simultaneously scaring the crap out of you.
- The Edwardian Era
- Wham! Line: [As Charley and the Doctor sit in the TARDIS] ...I was wrong to think we could escape the house, instead we’ve taken the house with us...
- When the Clock Strikes Twelve: ...bad things happen.