The Ghosts of N-Space [Doctor Who, Diversion 26]

The Ghosts of N-Space by Barry Letts

20 January - 24 February 1996​

Having listened to The Paradise of Death already, I came into The Ghosts of N-Space thinking I knew what to expect. Little did I know! Even the title misled me, as the N-Space mentioned is nothing to do with the N-Space previously coined in Tom Baker's last season, but instead is short for Null-Space. Rather like The Time Monster, also penned in part by Letts, this story seems to fall victim to a sort of idea soup, where a number of interesting concepts are at play, but few of them are given the time they need to breathe.

This also, unfortunately, has a number of the same flaws which dragged down The Paradise of Death - namely some iffy voice acting choices, confusing sound design during action scenes, Jeremy Fitzoliver, etc. - but without quite the same coherence of plotting to save it. It also suffers from being about 25 minutes longer than the preceding serial, at a full six parts, very typical of a Pertwee story.

This story has an even greater preoccupation with alchemy than any of David Whitaker's scripts, which is really saying something. The villain is an alchemist-slash-sorcerer-slash-Satanist from the 16th century, who is moonlighting in the 20th century as a mafioso after discovering an elixir of life. Since the fiends of Null-Space are shaped by perception, he turns it into a Bosch painting sort of landscape full of shrieking devils when he briefly takes it over. The religious overtones come across a bit oddly, compared with the more delicate touch seen in Planet of the Spiders, and this time are nevertheless more Christian than Buddhist.

Once more, I'm pleased that excuses are found to draw the Brig into the adventure even though it's not a UNIT story. Seeing the golden trio performing together one last time is quite heartwarming, even if the story itself isn't really good. So for all that I struggled to listen through the whole thing, Pertwee, Sladen, and Courtney kept me going on. That makes it just about worthwhile.

The timeline seems to be normalizing again, and next we're back to Season Eleven and The Monster of Peladon. See you then.

(Modified from the original posted at Gallifrey Base on 12 April 2021.)