Big Finish Productions Something Inside

Written by	Trevor Baxendale
Format	Compact Disc
Released	2006
Continuity	After The Telemovie.

Starring Paul McGann, India Fisher and Conrad Westmaas

Synopsis: YOU ARE ABOUT TO ENTER THE CUBE. ALL FORMS OF TELEPATHY ARE PROHIBITED. DO NOT ATTEMPT TELEPORTATION UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES. PSYCHIC POWERS WILL BE FORCIBLY REMOVED. (MENTAL SURGERY IS COMPULSORY). YOU HAVE NO RIGHTS. YOU HAVE NO POWERS. YOU HAVE NO DEFENCE. YOU ARE NOW INSIDE THE CUBE.

• A Review by Stephen Maslin

A Review by Stephen Maslin 18/6/10

Something Inside changed my life. No, really. Before I slipped it into my disc player, I was a completist by nature. I hated having gaps, all too prone to that slightly nerdy tendency towards wholeness, keeping books or CDs I knew I would never read or listen to again just so I would not have to admit to any lack of thoroughness. Prior to its release, one could still have seen that trio of horrors, ...ish, The Rapture and The Sandman, side by side on my shelves, defying me to make a dent in the perfect vista of CD case edges. Medicinal Purposes, Creed of the Kromon, Dreamtime, Scaredy Cat and Pier Pressure, every one a lemon, had all tested my faith but my resolve was unshaken. Nature abhorred a vacuum, gaps remained anathema.

Something Inside cured me of all that. For it is so bad, so utterly, irredeemably bad in every way, that no one who values their dignity as a discriminating individual, able to tell the difference between a tulip and a turd, should tolerate it in their house for more than a second.

Where to begin? The script (from the same bloke responsible for The Dark Flame and The Draconian Rage) is one long cliche from start to finish, with dialogue to make a seven year old cringe. The cast don't even begin to start acting. One was used to having C'rizz stinking the place out every few months but in this monstrosity even McGann is dire, sounding desperate to get it all over with. The support cast are even worse. From what amateur dramatics disaster were they plucked? More to the point, why? It would be unfair to single out any one individual as they are all equally rotten. (And Something Inside is well over two hours long. A brain-numbingly torturous two hours.) The sound design lacks any semblance of having been designed at all, each scene sounding for all the world like a succession of cupboards. But the piece de resistance of sheer dreadfulness is the music.

Imagine a rather earnest but not very bright, spotty teenager getting a second-hand synthesiser for his birthday, one that can make noises which sound vaguely orchestral. Imagine that this annoying little herbert has been brought up by parents who consider Andrew Lloyd Webber to be high art and After Eight Mints to be the height of decadence. Imagine also that this wretched, pretentious little squit confuses merely having technology with being able to use it. Now imagine him, tongue poking out of the side of his mouth, playing the white notes with a single finger of his right hand, almost overcome by his own genius, and you might just approximate the unbelievable guff that arises. Oh, but there's more. Now imagine that every occurrence in the story, no matter how insignificant, is backed by the same ghastly, childish theme again and again and again and again. When I had the acute displeasure of hearing Something Inside, my neighbour came to see if I was okay as I was groaning so loudly, he thought I was dying. I was.

Since being cured of my addiction to completeness, many a Big Finish disc has found its way to a charity shop for some other poor sod to discover. Not Something Inside, oh no. That went in the bin.