BIG FINISH’S THE TOMORROW PEOPLE audio series 16 A PLAGUE OF DREAMS (two cds)

 

BIG FINISH’S THE TOMORROW PEOPLE audio series 16

A PLAGUE OF DREAMS (two cds)

 

Elena is going to the Florence Nightingale Juvenile Remand Center in NY as part of her Forensic Science MA degree. John recommended Elena dream merge with the Kerenyaga gestalt on Malecent 9 but the Open University won’t recognize it for 258 years (how does TIM know?).  Paul wears an Armani suit. John and TIM mention exotic breakfasts. Paul is on a date with French Cherie in Paris. Paul has been in Paris when he was four. Mom and dad met during the Brixton riots. He there now and the special is snails (wonder about the link to last episode and the snail aliens). A large explosion hits south central Paris and Paul can sense her mind that she is still alive.  John and Paul leave Cherie in a hospital in a coma. And another Doctor Who line (“Six impossible things before breakfast” comes right out of THE FIVE DOCTORS and, of course, ALICE IN WONDERLAND). John and Paul go to the crater to try to find out what happened in an area that is now geologically unstable. John snaps orders and Paul acts like a frustrated madman, both arguing. It’s most annoying. I’m not sure why they are in the crater. They begin taking samples. John demands Paul go back to the Lab and wants TIM to jaunt him away. Radiation blocks TIM from doing this. John even tells TIM to shut up when he warns about the US planes coming. At the lab, Paul gets into an argument with John when John and Tim suggest he go home and get some sleep. The constant bickering is annoying.

 

John suspects someone teleported an object into the ground beneath Paris, probably an asteroid…an ourt cloud. John suspects it is a TP who could kill. This ends part one at a very short 16 minutes and 12 second!

 

Ep2:

John says that only a TP can cause this loss of life but TP cannot kill. Huh? He thinks it is a TP who can kill. Theme.

 

NY: Rachel Fox brings Elena Plowright to Warden Neville (“You’re English, that’s cute.”). Elena’s reading Stephen King, Bag of Bones. He tells her not to eat the pie and that she doesn’t want to know what is in the pie and tells Rachel to keep them out of ward D. Connor Doog is the priest’s name. Susan Chaplin or a Chaplin (?) is Rachel’s friend is a trustee. She teaches Rachel Buddhist philosophy and meditation. Rachel was termed an eco-terrorist, along with her friends. They go to Central Boulevard in the remand center. Dr. Martin Gant (Paul) talks to Annie Milsome, who used to hurt herself. Annie and Rachel have had bad dreams. Officer Shay (Elena) orders Annie away from the desk. Gant talks about a suicide attempt from someone named Susan Dykstra. No one in the center, residents or staff, has had more than ten minutes of sleep for the last three months. Susan wrote in blood No Rest Until Brooklyn, which was a song by the Beastie Boys. Susan was in isolation for a week and released three days ago! Elena and TIM wonder if a murderer were to break out. TIM doesn’t believe it is possible from the records of the Trig. It might be a self correcting aberration: trying to stop itself. A mutant TP? Elena wonders if a patient is about to break out.

 

Stun guns work on the sleep centers on the brain, Elena says. She won’t jaunt out during a riot, believing that the shock of that might make the potential TP break out. One of the prisoners tries to hang herself with an electrical cord. Neville shoots the cord. Annie organizes the break out and takes the doctor hostage because he knows where the drugs are. But she doesn’t need Elena, “Lucky me, looks like I get to do you myself. Lights out, girlfriend.” End of ep 2.   

 

EP 3:

The reprises are actual reprises again with repeating material. For a time, the audios were not doing that. And with no new material before the theme. Elena seems to mind suggest the girls do not act and tells them they are suffering from hallucinations and lack of sleep. Annie taunts and threatens Rachel. Paul describes a girl he saw, looking like Faith from BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER, after the blast in Paris. She may have been 25 or 26 or so or younger. She told Paul he might enjoy this kind of thing someday.

 

Malecent 9’s karenya gesault use those minerals from the crater in the dream sharing. They are underpopulated, can’t jaunt and don’t have interstellar capability. Even their dream sharing has to be enhanced. Paul uses the word “ass.” He has another rant and debate with John. He storms out in a jaunt, claiming the TP are not human any more. Paul visits Cherie. Whatever is on Cherie’s TV in hospital is what she calls rubbish but it is SAPPHIRE AND STEEL-THE LIGHTHOUSE, another BF production. She tells Paul to shut it off because it’s rubbish. Cherie has a stroke while he’s there. Cherie died and someone opened her chest and massaged it.

 

Did I hear right and did Paul ask Cherie if he can give her a hug? What? He did. “So…can you manage a hug?”  Paul!

 

KZAKZ FM radio DJ the Love Hound (a Vietnam War vet?) is in a helicopter above the remand center in East NY. Lucy Zoom will take a peek through the window. Love Hound has three remaining limbs. Apparently Sophie Aldred (DW’s Ace) has a small part as a doctor in this ep.

 

Elena seems to believe something in Annie is stopping her from killing Elena with the scalpel as if Elena thinks Annie is a TP. Annie was not put away for murder. Annie must be a minor as Elena says the US still puts minors to death for murder. Annie just wants to stop dreaming and wants her kid back. They said she was a bad mother. Joe left them. There was a fire in the apartment—no one was hurt. She couldn’t get a job and have a stable home life. They took away her kid to be put away for adoption. She did guys to get money and drugs to get through it. Deannie Milson is her son’s name and is 3 now. “How can you help? You’re a Brit.”  Martine and Kelly are two of the other rioters.

 

Elena tries to tell Annie the truth about the TP and that she is becoming one of them. Paul jaunts in and tells Elena that Rachel is the woman who destroyed Paris and she is a TP and has the power to kill them all. And the cliffhanger sounds like that’s exactly what Rachel does!

 

Okay, that was an amazing cliffhanger there! Totally unexpected and well done.   

 

Ep4:

The copter was brought down. Everyone at the center was affected by Rachel’s fear of breaking out and her own dreams and her power made them not sleep, desperately trying to stay awake…all responding to Rachel’s telepathically amplified psychic fear of her dreams. Paul suggests a permanent solution and when Elena reacts badly to that, he snaps at her about his girlfriend in a coma with a brain problem. He tells her Rachel killed more than 2 million people.

 

For some reason as Paul and Elena talk (him yelling) in their minds, the telepathic sound eggs on and on and on and it’s very annoying. It never did this in the series. Rachel’s subconscious put up a barrier.  Paul’s an idiot, he admits he just doesn’t like being told what to do.

 

Paul gets the pilot out of the copter, who goes into the copter to get “Lucy” out. Lucy is a camera. “Only in America,” Paul says, which makes me like him even less.

 

Paul and Elena experience someone else’s dreams. It gets annoying at Elena has to constantly tell Paul to calm down. The DJ (the pilot) has a mobile phone. A news report about Paris is somewhat muffled. 2 million dead and nearly double that in the surrounding suburbs. Nina Barry is the news reader. TIM tells John there aren’t enough TP to help in a crisis. Sigh.

 

The thing that destroyed Paris, John figures was no bigger than a tennis ball. “None of this seems quite right,” John says. I will second that.

 

TIM boosts the signal from Elena’s call. John wants to TIM to lighten up now…he stole a Black Hawk helicopter gun ship and John acts flippant, having fun. Fine time to lighten up. Elena will make a bubble around the burning helicopter outside the center using telekinesis. The bubble will be impervious to oxygen molecules. This will make the fire burn itself out.

 

Paul finds records in the warden’s files. F16s attack John’s helicopter. Paul finds Rachel awake, admitting to multiple personality disorder and asking him if he wants Elena’s bleeding heart. “Oh my God, what have you done? Elena!”

End of ep 4.

 

Ep 5:

The reprise is the same and the theme comes before any new material. The longer theme. Elena just fell asleep. Deborah is vicious, another personality. There is Rachel, Deborah and Ruth. She (the Ruth part) saves John and brings the helicopter to them with John in it. John rigs it so the prisoners relax into a much more natural sleep. Elena wakes up. Rachel was abused by their father as a child. Sister Deborah injured her father and he later died of his injuries in hospital. Rachel’s mother killed herself before she could go to trial. Rachel and her sisters were taken into care: Rachel obsessed with politics fell in with some pressure group and bad company. Deborah waited to strike back at the world. Ruth empowers both of them. Rachel was fearful of power, of the power of being a TP. She could hear what people were thinking. YET AGAIN we have another negative side to becoming a TP, the best thing: the break out becomes a thing of horror.

 

Deborah tried to destroy the remand center and Ruth stopped her and that was when Deborah found out about Ruth. If Rachel broke out, her other personalities could use her powers but not be bound by what evolution bound the TP were. When they were sleeping, Ruth and Deborah chased each other around the world. Ruth then claims she broke out, not Rachel. John thinks Rachel was trying to kill herself but Ruth claims it was she Rachel wanted to kill. John thinks Ruth is lying. Ruth claims she broke out. She stops the TP. She’s stronger than the TP. She wanted to save Paris but found it pretentious. John wonders if the break out caused her insanity or if she was like that before.

 

NY has a sleeping sickness. A third world war is coming. Ruth is 19. Paul wonders if anybody has ever researched the prime barrier: is it just a matter of morality or did breaking out change their brain chemistry? John tells him there are some questions better not to ask.

 

The Tp have to go into Elena’s memories of Rachel’s dreams. Ruth saw her parents having sex (!) and freaked out. She was holding a bread knife. TIM makes glucose drinks which Paul thinks is gross. Ruth is mad, psychotic in a fantasy world. In that world her father abused her and her mom watched: all rubbish. She just saw them having sex and freaked out: Paul mentions she could have been holding a Cindy doll (BRADY BUNCH?) but she was holding a bread knife. Her father died and her mother died later of grief because her daughter was taken away from her. Later, Rachel told everyone that they were abusing her and no one could prove otherwise. Rachel broke out and now Ruth has the TP powers.

 

TIM finds her and jaunts a fully loaded Black Hawk helicopter. She is on the roof park of the Millennium Tower in Tokyo. Rachel’s mom might be named Emily. As Rachel talks to herself, the music overpowers the dialog. John tells her Keranyaga Gesault, three suns, 2 hundred million light years from Earth, two moons, of the suns John says something that’s almost audible, two big, one blue small one. Nick whispers and the music is too loud as he tells her the telepaths there use something to enhance their powers. She calls the TP the saps. Their important conversation is almost inaudible. She will be the mother of a new species: homo superior B: TP that can kill. Paul wants to go against the prime barrier and fire missiles at Rachel/Ruth. Elena tries something about Ruth putting Rachel in Cherrie’s body.

 

“The meek don’t inherit the Earth, Elena---I do…”  Blasts. Rock falling, helicopter crashes. End of Ep 5.

 

Ep6:

The dream sharing ends. The remand center, Paris, and Tokyo are all fine: it was all a dream. Cherie was not real. Elena’s not taking an MA. John never got a kick out of flying a helicopter. They’ve been dream sharing for 8 days. Her fear is manifesting as dreams, infectious, spreading a sleep sickness to the world. Ruth is cruel, immoral and psychotic. They have been trying to find a way to find Rachel to be dominate over Ruth. 4 billion people are asleep across the globe. Airplanes and oil tankers have crashed. Social and political structures are failing. They can’t kill her and can’t allow her to live if they hope to go on living. TIM has limiters around Ruth but she starts to break them and all that they saw in the dream/nightmares could come true in reality. Ruth gets out.

 

Ruth goes to the Telecom Tower (no longer called that today) in central London and uses an asteroid to threaten London. Atmospheric displacement causes storms. If Ruth drops the rock, a firestorm will burn everything down to the mantle, melt the Earth’s crust and every living thing will die. Many are dying in their sleep. Others are trapped. Gravitational stress has caused tidal waves and the English Channel water level rises 50 feet. The sky is like blood. John mentions Dante’s Inferno. Ruth thinks Paris and Tokyo are destroyed but they are not.  Ruth cannot send the asteroid back. Elena puts a matter transporter belt on Ruth but they show her the truth: it was all just dreams to justify her actions as a child. John tells her to live in the real world. John talks to Rachel.

 

Frank might be Ruth’s father’s name. Rachel asks if you can love something but not like them. Elena tells her it is fundamental to human nature to love. When Rachel tells Elena they’re not human anymore, Elena tells her they are in all the ways that count. It’s a nice moment and sentiment.

 

Elena thinks they can start jaunting people up to the satellites with matter transporters as the asteroid falls but John thinks it will not work—without jaunting belts (this seems to be confused on the part of the writer—he seems to think that TIM can jaunt objects and that teleporting non-TPs will work with jaunting belts---this is not true). Saps can be matter transported but not jaunted.

 

I suspected we were still in the dream all along, which we were. It’s rather annoying and this went on far too long.

 

They had never stopped dreaming. They wake up again and TIM says they are really awake. Ruth is on the Trig in an induced coma while the TP try to find the trigger. Robert was on his way. Ruth faced her worst nightmare and came to terms with her childhood. The truth saved her.

 

The last moment we hear more dream sound effects and voices…

 

“Is this real? I mean are we really awake this time?”

 

REVIEW: well, I can’t say this was very good. It was a roller coaster and not a good ride. It definitely has its moments but overall it feels inconsequential and even boring at times. At other times, you cannot believe the gall of the writer. At other times, it’s sort of wonderful. But the overall affect is poor. The sound design is poor as the music overpowers the quiet dialog and sometimes the actors whisper.  I’m not even sure we found what the trigger was as Elena says the Tp found it. I’m guessing mind you, that it was that Ruth loved Rachel and Rachel loved Ruth but they didn’t like each other. There was no change in Ruth but Elena believes she will wake up. Robert is on his way home with them.