The Silent Scream; A nice play on words, The Silent Screen, as well as a description of what this quality fourth Doctor Season Six Big Finish story is all about. The stakes are not as world threatening as most of these tales usually are and it is all the better for that. I had feared when I first heard what this story was going to be about and particularly with regard to the location and time period that it might be a goofball adventure with terrible gangster accents( As pastiches set in this time zone invariably involve gangsters and their molls.) I know of a couple of occasions the Doctor has visited this time zone and location and both times those cliches awaited him. At one point even involving a gangster/Dalek hybrid. Instead Big Finish have surprised me with a strangely poignant tale where the once famous are exploited by the not yet born.
It is a nice story about the folly of pursuing fame for fame's sake and the loss of dignity that comes with hubris denied. The Doctor and Romana are truly two odd fish out of water in this artificial Hollywood enviroment., the Hollywood of yesteryear. A place still driven by the same foolish and soulless ambitions.Our two enlightened beings could mock and belittle these deluded ape descendants as they strive for empty immortality. yet they do not, they try instead to help, one of the reasons I continue to love these two wayward children of Gallifrey. They never grew up as their world grew old. Silent Scream is a delightful mix of Sunset Boulevard and old school Doctor Who.
