1.1 Fallen Angels by Phil Mulryne
2015: When sightseers Joel and Gabby Finch encounter a strange man in Edwardian cricketing garb in the Sistine Chapel, their honeymoon suddenly takes a terrifying turn.
1511: Michelangelo is commissioned to create some very special sculptures by a mysterious sect. But as he carves, angels seem to emerge fully-formed from the rock. Almost as if they are alive…
From Michelangelo’s workshop to the catacombs of Rome, the Fifth Doctor must keep his wits about him and his eyes wide open as he confronts the Weeping Angels.
1.2 Judoon in Chains by Simon Barnard and Paul Morris
The Sixth Doctor is no stranger to courtroom drama, but faces a very different challenge when he prepares to defend a most unusual Judoon.
After an environmental clearance mission goes wrong, Captain Kybo of the Nineteenth Judoon Interplantary Force is stranded in Victorian England, bound in chains, an exhibit in a circus show. But he has allies: Eliza Jenkins – known to audiences as ‘Thomasina Thumb’ – and the larger-than-life ‘clown’ in the colourful coat.
Uncovering a trail of injustice and corruption, the Doctor and Kybo soon find themselves on trial for their lives…
1.3 Harvest of the Sycorax by James Goss
In the far future, humanity has a remedy for everything. Whatever the problem, Pharma Corps has the answer and a designer disease tailored to every human’s blood-type. Zanzibar Hashtag has no need to be sad, scared, stressed, or depressed ever again.
That is, until vicious aliens arrive on her space station intent on opening its Vault. What will it mean for the human race if the Sycorax take control of what’s inside?
And when the Seventh Doctor arrives on the scene, can he convince Zanzibar to care about her life long enough to help him?
1.4 The Sontaran Ordeal by Andrew Smith
An instant of the Time War brings centuries of conflict to the planet Drakkis, and the Eighth Doctor is there to witness the terrible results.
A Sontaran fleet, desperate to join the epic conflict, follows in its wake to take advantage of the fallout. But when Commander Jask is beamed down to the ravaged surface, there is more to his arrival than first appears.
Soon, an unlikely champion joins forces with the Time Lord to fight for the future of her world, and together they must face the Sontaran Ordeal…
CLASSIC DOCTORS, NEW MONSTERS: FALLEN ANGELS
It’s no secret that Big Finish relies heavily on nostalgia: many of their releases attempt to recreate a certain era, or bring together two recurring characters that have never met, or address obscure points of continuity. But the new Classic Doctors, New Monsters set turns this nostalgia on its head by bringing new monsters back into the classic era. The first of these, “Fallen Angels” by Phil Mulryne, brings the Weeping Angels together with the fifth Doctor.
Wait a minute, the Weeping Angels? The almost purely visual creations first seen in “Blink?” How on earth are they going to translate that to audio, you ask? By having characters awkwardly describe what’s happening in front of them, of course! Mulryne does the best he can to make these dialogue sequences sound natural, but it’s impossible not to look out for the technique and it’s incredibly distracting as a result. Evidently people in Renaissance Italy like to express verbose incredulity, which helps. Much like in the TV series, there’s a musical sting whenever one of the Weeping Angels moves – unfortunately this leads to some rather comical overuse of the sting whenever the Angels move multiple times in one scene. I’ve seen a lot of praise for how the Angels were converted to audio, but I cannot agree: I think their representation in “Fallen Angels” is clunky, obvious, and forced.
Mulryne also makes a conscious effort to make this story more like one from the new series, so to that end we’ve got a celebrity historical figure in Michelangelo (Matthew Kelly), his servant Piero (Joe Jameson), and two pseudo-companions in Joel (Sacha Dhawan) and Gabby (Diane Morgan). They’re all entertaining enough but they’re all remarkably generic: Michelangelo is little more than a cantankerous artist and Joel and Gabby never really distinguish themselves. Piero, at least, gets some development, but the Doctor’s throwaway line about not seeing the age, only the person, is more interesting than any of it. I also enjoyed the scene where the newlyweds kiss in front of the Doctor, who stands around awkwardly commenting that people don’t normally do this when he’s around.
The plot turns around fairly complicated time travel mechanics involving the Angels changing history by “eating” historical figures like Michelangelo and the Doctor, Joel, and Gabby being the only ones to recognize it. The cult that follows the Angels, attempting to free them, is an interesting idea that is wasted on one-dimensional cackling. The revelation at the end that Joel and Gabby cannot return to their own time also feels mishandled: the Doctor’s explanation is barely coherent and the cute reference to “timey-wimey” doesn’t work as effectively as the original. No wonder Gabby thinks it’s all nonsense. And it’s a good thing neither one of them freaks out at all when they learn they have to spend the rest of their lives in the 16th century.
It’s not that I think “Fallen Angels” is bad, I just think it’s perfunctory. It feels like it was written purely to fulfill a brief, not because it has anything new to say. Not only do we not learn anything new about the Angels, the story defeats them in exactly the same way as “Blink.” It would work better on television because it could incorporate the visual element, but it would still be a decidedly mediocre episode.
An inauspicious start.
5/10
CLASSIC DOCTORS, NEW MONSTERS: JUDOON IN CHAINS
The second entry in the Classic Doctors, New Monsters set, “Judoon in Chains” by Simon Barnard and Paul Morris, pairs up the sixth Doctor with the Judoon. And while this sounds like the recipe for another rote, uninteresting story, Barnard and Morris provide us with a smart, character-based story that only trips up at the end.
A fair portion of this story is devoted to a series of scenes where the Doctor and Judoon captain Kybo (Nicholas Briggs), held captive in separate cages, educate Kybo on an appreciation of English language and literature. That sums up the story in general, honestly: it’s not really about the trial or the action sequences, it’s about a Judoon learning to step outside of its limited perspective and gain an appreciation of the universe at large. And this is fantastic material, especially when Kybo starts to compose his own poetry. Scenes like that are tricky because they compel the authors to write good poetry for their characters to recite, and Barnard and Morris are definitely up to the challenge. The Doctor’s mild critiques lend realism as well.
I like what this story does with the Judoon in general. Barnard and Morris show that their hidebound, rule-oriented ways from TV are an essential part of their culture because their small brains are unable to deal with nuance. This leads to a great idea: sometimes they appropriate judicial systems from other worlds to try their cases. So we have the unusual setting of a Victorian English court trying a Judoon soldier for desertion. Justice Burrows (Tony Millan) is a fun, smart character: he has no idea what’s going on, but he knows the law and he applies it to the facts as he sees them. And of course the Doctor serves as Kybo’s attorney, drawing on his own recent trial for reference.
The problem with “Judoon in Chains” comes at the end. The story is about Kybo and how a villainous, profiteering intergalactic corporation uses the unquestioning Judoon to engage in illegal terraforming. Through this conflict, we watch as Kybo develops a true intelligence and evolves as a three-dimensional character – and once we’ve seen a logical end to that story, his fellow Judoon acquit him of his crimes. Story over, job well done? Not really – now it’s time to spend an additional fifteen minutes pursuing and prosecuting the evil corporate overlord! While this does a good job of tying up all the loose ends, it doesn’t fit thematically with the rest of the story and feels like it’s there just to pad out the running time. It also lacks the nuance of the main story: the evil CEO is a one-note cackling villain who values money above all other things. And Kybo doesn’t have much to do with his conviction, either – he indicts himself over an unsecured communications channel.
Overall, though, “Judoon in Chains” is a strong success, one that works because it breaks the mold of its predecessors and tries something new. Doctor Who works best when it pushes at its own boundaries, and this is a great example of why that strategy works.
Highly recommended.
8/10
CLASSIC DOCTORS, NEW MONSTERS: HARVEST OF THE SYCORAX
The third entry in the Classic Doctors, New Monsters set is “Harvest of the Sycorax” from James Goss, which takes the alien race from “The Christmas Invasion” and pits them against the seventh Doctor. Unusually for a Goss script, absolutely nothing interesting is done with the Sycorax, and the story around them is rote and boring.
More than any other story in this set, “Harvest of the Sycorax” is a deliberate pastiche of the Russell T. Davies era. It’s set in the future but uses familiar technology to exaggerate a particular element of modern society, in this case an overreliance upon medication. It uses character names that further satirize our society, in this case Zanzibar Hashtag (Nisha Nayar). It features an unremarked-upon same-sex relationship. And it has a Doctor that takes a dim view of the lesser elements of human society even while maintaining an abiding love of humanity in general. There’s nothing inherently wrong with doing this, but Davies is one of the best and most influential television writers of the past few decades, and unfortunately this pastiche comes across as overwrought and clichéd, failing to properly straddle the line between subtlety and outright comedy like the best Davies scripts. The wrist-mounted medical computers are supposed to be parodies of Fitbits and similar devices, but the constant intrusive suggestions of medications rapidly go from humorous to irritation.
The other major problem is the Sycorax. They weren’t the focal point of “The Christmas Invasion” – they were there as a foil to the new Doctor, to illustrate how important his presence can be. Here, they take center stage as the villains, and yet we hit all the familiar beats: the language changing mid-sentence when the Doctor shows up, the blood control, the hidden cowardice, and so forth. Goss does very little to develop them as characters, instead leaving them as cackling, megalomaniacal villains. The blood control technique is a central element of the plot – they’re trying to steal human blood samples so they can use blood control on individuals, not just on everyone with a certain blood type – but again, nothing new is done with the concept.
Even the characterization seems off. Zanzibar is fine, if generic, but I’m not sure what Goss is doing with the Doctor. I like how he uses McCoy as a semi-mythical figure who appears when needed and disappears when his work is done, but his commentary on humanity and his general attitude is straight out of the Eccleston era. The cynicism sounds wrong from this – or indeed any classic series – Doctor’s mouth. There’s also some clumsy expository dialogue scattered throughout. Overall, “Harvest of the Sycorax” doesn’t have a lot going for it. There’s nothing particularly terrible about it but it has no ambition. If you really liked the Sycorax and want another hour of exactly the same thing, give this a listen. Otherwise, don’t bother.
4/10
CLASSIC DOCTORS, NEW MONSTERS: THE SONTARAN ORDEAL
For the final entry in the Classic Doctors, New Monsters set, Big Finish turned to old hand Andrew Smith to bring another foe from the new series into the classic era. And for this, the final story, they chose a totally unique monster to face off with Paul McGann’s eighth Doctor, a monster so unique to the new series that it’s hard to even think of it facing off with a classic-era Doctor. That monster, of course… wait, it’s the Sontarans?
Despite my sarcasm, I actually enjoyed this story quite a lot. Smith’s script is set firmly in the Time War, showing us a Doctor coming to the end of his rope as he tries to prevent the atrocities of the war from reaching any more innocent planets. But in the blink of an eye, a war lasting millennia is fought on the planet Drakkis, and that planet’s history – past and future – is irrevocably changed. I like how Smith doesn’t show us any of the actual war – there are no other Time Lords or Daleks running around – but simply shows the collateral damage, specifically on a planet now doomed to perpetual conflict. And the Doctor is trapped by all of it, trying to do the things he always does but weighed down by his own identity: people hate him because he’s a Time Lord, and why not?
The Sontarans are introduced into this situation with an interesting if predictable motive: as the most warlike race in the universe, they are desperate to join in the Time War, seeing it as the ultimate battle and therefore the most honorable war that can be fought. Smith spends a lot of time exploring Sontaran culture: he shows how disgraced Sontarans are put to an Ordeal, in which they are allowed to regain their honor in death by fighting their enemies alone and unharmed. He also shows the strict moral code of the Sontarans: Jask (Dan Starkey) is quick to point out that while he would gladly sacrifice thousands of troops to achieve a meaningful victory, their deaths must bring glory to the Sontaran Empire. General Stenk’s (Christopher Ryan) pursuit of his own glory is contrary to their purpose. Furthermore, Sontarans are not supposed to kill other Sontarans, so Stenk’s dispatch of an assassin (Sean Connolly) is an even greater crime. This is how one should write recurring monsters: flesh them out and let us learn more about them, don’t just rehash the same beats we’ve seen already on television.
McGann is great in this – his performance is pitched similarly to “The Night of the Doctor” and it works incredibly well. I haven’t mentioned Josette Simon, who plays dressmaker-turned-paladin Sarana Teel, and that’s a mistake on my part because she brings real emotion to a believable character. Starkey and Ryan could read the phone book in Sontaran voices and I’d buy it, so it’s no surprise that they’re great here. So why are the Sontarans in a “new monsters” box set? Because there’s a great Sontaran story to be told, and that should be the raison d’être for any Doctor Who story.
For the box set, Barnaby Edwards directs all four stories while the sound design comes from Howard Carter, Iain Meadows, and Martin Montague, and the score on all four stories is from Carter as well. As a whole, the set has a 50% success rate, but I think the two good stories are good enough that it’s worth a purchase.
“The Sontaran Ordeal” is highly recommended.
8/10