The TARDIS is penetrated by the jettisoned flight recorder of a recently destroyed starship. Cuthbert, President of Conglomerate, intends that the recorder’s message will never be heard – and he has an army of Temperons to do his bidding.
The TARDIS is penetrated by the jettisoned flight recorder of a recently destroyed starship. Cuthbert, President of Conglomerate, intends that the recorder’s message will never be heard – and he has an army of Temperons to do his bidding.
Onward and upward we go with THE DESTRUCTOR CONTRACT!
Blurb The TARDIS is penetrated by the jettisoned flight recorder of a recently destroyed starship. Cuthbert, President of Conglomerate, intends that the recorder’s message will never be heard – and he has an army of Temperons to do his bidding.
PART 1
We start with Cuthbert, the head of Conglomerate, chatting with a temperon. Ooooh, a sequal!
The next few minutes are a couple of computers talking to each other. This continues the annoying habit of AVs spending several minutes showing mysterious things transpiring before actually getting to the Doctor. Establishing the mood is one thing, but waiting 6 minutes before bringing the Doctor into the story creates a big disconnect between him and the rest of the plot. Anyway, the Doctor is mumbling to himself about how annoying intergalactic junk mail can be (see Greatest Show in the Galaxy). A box materializes inside the Tardis (see Greatest Show in the Galaxy). The Doctor and Ria (minus Greg – who became a disembodied whatsit last episode) try to discover its origins.
Cuthbert is fussing with a Temperon. Apparently the box is a flight recorder that escaped the crash of an ambassadorial ship. The ship carried a diplomat or something or other who was the last hope to stop a war between the Kergons (see Sirens of Time) and the Aquadons.
The Doctor and Ria land and try to open the box. Ria decides she’s going to wander off (sigh) and is quickly picked up on camera by Cuthbert. She returns to the Doctor to tell him that the box is a flight recorder – all of which annoys Cuthbert considerably. Ria contacts the authorities to let them know that the flight recorder has been recovered. As she is talking, there is a weird temporal freakout, and a temperon comes on and begs for help, saying that it must destroy to survive. Meanwhile, Cuthbert captures the Doctor, posing as a police officer. Seeing that they have the flight recorder, Cuthbert knocks them out.
CUE MUSIC
PART 2
The Doctor and Ria wake up in a cell. A drudger robot comes in to lead them out. They are taken to Cuthbert, and they explain that they need to get the flight recorder back. Cuthbert says no. Oh well. A stray missile hits the ship, giving Ria a chance to pull a gun on Cuthbert. The Doctor and Ria escape in an escape pod, and the Doctor prompty falls asleep.
While unconscious, the Doctor gets a distress call from the Temperons, who tell him that they must destroy to survive. Is it just me, or do these galactic super-being Temperons seem to get theselves into a lot of trouble? You get the feeling that if you had one of your own, it would constantly be getting its head stuck between railings and its hands stuck in peanut butter jars. “DOOOOOCTOOOOOORRRRRR…… HEEEEEEELP USSSSSSSSS…… PEEEEEEEANUT BUTTERRRRRRRR……… HAAAAAAAAND TRAAAAAAAAAAPPED INNNNNNNNNN JARRRRRRRRRRRR……….” Low maintenance they are not.
The Doctor and Ria try to escape to the Tardis, but are intercepted by drudger robots. The Doctor remembers that his last encounter with them was during his ordeal with Conglomerate, and realises that Cuthbert must be part of that organization.
Before the drudgers can get them, a Temperon appears and the Doctor communes with it. Afterwards, the Doctor and Cuthbert have one of those hero/villain conversations. Cuthbert offers the Doctor another management position with Conglomerate but the Doctor refuses. It turns out that Conglomerate has a contract with the Tempersons to attack ships. I’m not sure why, but who cares. Something about something or other. Cuthbert tells the Temperons to destroy the Tardis, but the Doctor has changed their minds, and they end up going after Cuthbert instead. Oh what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to hire trans-temporal entities to carry out attacks which lead to interstellar conflicts in which you sell arms to both sides.
Evaluation
I really seem to like these 2 parters a lot more. I don’t mean this rudely, but when it is a fan-made production, you can’t count on the sound design or other intangible qualities to make up for overlong stories. Destructor Contract moves along at a fair pace. It has plenty of action and character interaction throughout. It may not be technically be a sequel to Conglomerate, but it is a great callback. Cuthbert, voiced by Bary Killerby, is menacing and engaging, and fun as a villain. It is a little strange that the head of Conglomerate is going out and doing his own dirty work, but I admire the hands-on type. I’m not a big fan of the Temperons as a rule. They’re so simple. Listening to them is more confusing than listening to a mechanoid give directions to a party. “Enter-Enter-Zero-Stop-Turn Left-Zero” Even their move to full blown Big Finish production in The Sirens of Time didn’t smarten them up very much. I can’t remember if they feature in any more stories, but I hope not. Still, they didn’t really detract from my enjoyment.
Overall 8 out of 10
The whole flight recorder thing seemed a little thin to me, but it was a vast improvement on The Mutant Phase!
NEXT TIME
We take a quick side step in linear continuity with the mini-adventure VILGRETH!