Sheridan Moorkurk has just been elected president of Earth… but the harsh realities of who really runs the planet are just beginning to dawn on her. And what’s more, she’s starting to hear voices.
Meanwhile, the Doctor and Romana encounter a mass of aliens heading to Earth… Aliens who have already made the mistake of upsetting the infamous Cuthbert, all-powerful CEO of The Conglomerate, by destroying one of his space platforms.
Will the Doctor and Romana be able to avert inter-species war that will destroy all life on Earth?
THE SANDS OF LIFE
After a lighthearted start to the second series of Fourth Doctor Adventures, Big Finish launches it into high gear with Nicholas Briggs’ “The Sands of Life,” the first of four stories forming an arc throughout the series. Of course, when I say “high gear” I really mean “second gear,” as the fast-paced action theme of the story is lost in a continuous stream of clichés and stock characters.
In a nutshell, this story takes place on a future Earth that has just elected a new president – but the real power behind the throne is the massive corporate Conglomerate and Cuthbert (David Warner), its CEO. Apparently the Conglomerate is drawn from the old Audio Visuals fan audios – and do we really need to be looking to those for ideas in 2013? – but the plot is something new. The problem, and I say this understanding that this is part 1 of at least 2, is that there’s nothing unexpected about any of this. Massive corporation that controls everything, naïve new president trying to balance obligations, insane military generals that view everything as a potential invasion, and so forth. All of these characters behave exactly as one would expect, which means the story, while put together well, flows by without any real sense of threat or intrigue.
The alien “threat” – billions of time-faring manatees returning to the Sahara Desert to spawn – actually is interesting, and hopefully Briggs will expand on it in the second part. I like that they communicate telepathically, but only with Romana, and that leads to a bizarre image of Romana being lowered on a winch into a hive of the creatures. I also like that they’re not hostile, merely seeking to reproduce like every other species. It’s a nice departure from the relentless invaders Briggs normally likes to portray in his military/political scripts.
But that being said, the characters are not developed at all. Briggs does a much better job writing Tom Baker than in the first series, but his Doctor is oddly sidelined, spending much of the story in a prison cell or being driven around by the military. Romana gets to take center stage in his place, though, and Mary Tamm runs with the opportunity. Cuthbert, despite being the primary guest character, is thoroughly uninteresting. He’s still a delight to listen to, largely because David Warner is a magnificent actor, but as a character, what is he? A powerful CEO that doesn’t want his authority threatened or his wealth endangered.
And that’s the problem with “The Sands of Life” – it’s superficial. It aims to be an exciting action story, but it bogs the story down with oddly misplaced scenes like the TARDIS opening. It presents an Earth under potential threat from swarming aliens, but doesn’t show anyone or anything that’s actually under threat. A big deal is made about the newly-elected president, and then she appears in about two minutes of the story. Cuthbert is set up as a dangerous man in charge of everything, and then he spends the story stomping around and yelling at people. I haven’t even mentioned the first appearance by K9 with Tom Baker since 1981 – and John Leeson is fantastic, but Briggs makes the problems with the prop part of the script.
It’s not that “The Sands of Life” is bad, it’s just that, like many other Briggs scripts, it’s uninteresting. It’s fun to hear the Doctor and Romana joined by K9. There are action sequences, a new alien race, and David Warner. Briggs directs well, his music easily captures the era, and Martin Montague’s sound design communicates concepts that could easily have become confusing. But there’s no hook here for “War against the Laan” – okay, so humanity is about to start a war, but if I don’t care about anyone involved, what’s compelling me to go on to the next part?
Mediocre.
5/10