Bath, 1756 – and a very dashing gentleman known only as the Doctor is newly arrived in town, accompanied by his lady friends Mrs Clarke and Mrs Ramon. He’s created a stir among the gentlefolk of Georgian high society – and a stir in the heart of merry widow Mrs Theodosia Middlemint, rumour has it.
They are not the only strangers from abroad causing tongues to wag, however. The mysterious Lady Clara, come from Amsterdam in the company of the noble Captain Van Der Meer, has the whole of Bath agog. Who is she, really? What is she, really?
But there’s something terrible beneath the veneer of Georgian gentility. As awful a horror as the Doctor has ever exposed, hidden inside Balsam’s Brassworks. Something that needs to be brought to light, for the sake of all humanity.
THE BEHEMOTH
Marc Platt’s “The Behemoth” gives us something we haven’t had in a while: a pure historical featuring Colin Baker. As you’d expect from this author, it’s a smart story that spends a great deal of time developing its environment. Unfortunately, it’s incredibly slow and features a surprisingly low amount of incident and character development.
“The Behemoth” is evidently based on a true story of a Dutch captain, Van Der Meer (Giles New), and his captive rhinoceros, Lady Clara. But it’s actually about different possessive relationships in 18th century England. Central among these relationships is Sir Geoffrey Balsam (Glynn Sweet), who owns a massive brassworks operated by slave labor. His sister, Mrs. Middlemint (Georgina Moon), has one of his slaves, Sarah (Diveen Henry), as a servant. While slavery provides “The Behemoth” with its most obvious social commentary, as well as the moral imperative for the Doctor and his companions to intervene, the script doesn’t examine it beyond the superficial level. It’s a very traditional tale of an oppressed people finally rising up and overthrowing their oppressors, but it shies away from showing any of the truly horrifying elements of the slave trade. I understand that there are probably content guidelines restricting Big Finish from showing things like that – and Platt isn’t a visceral writer in any case – but without that, the message is a fairly anodyne “slavery is bad.” Okay, cool.
The script’s exploration of the treatment of women is much subtler. Mrs. Middlemint is, on the surface, a clichéd portrayal of a vapid lady of means, but Platt includes interactions that demonstrate her capability and intelligence. Yet these qualities are being suppressed, largely by her brother, in the interest of protecting her from herself. This sort of paternalistic thinking is one of many ways that women were denied equal place in society, and Platt’s script illuminates this in a subtle, intelligent fashion. Mrs. Middlemint’s final victory is easily the most cathartic in the story as a result. Of course, there’s also Titus Craven (Liam McKenna) physically abducting Flip and dragging her off to become his wife – this is, shall we say, much less subtle. But while Craven viewing women as property isn’t that surprising, the way that most people automatically take his side is much more shocking.
This is the first full story to feature Constance and Flip together in the TARDIS. I made this comment in my review of “Quicksilver:” “If the next story with this TARDIS crew shows Constance and Flip laughing and carrying on like old friends, it will be a crushing disappointment.” Well, here we are in that next story, and sure enough, Constance and Flip are laughing and carrying on like old friends. “Quicksilver” was appealing in large part because of the differences between the two women, and how they had to learn to tolerate one another. To see that entirely abandoned in their first full story together is disappointing, but entirely expected from Big Finish. And it’s a shame, because they’ve been giving Lisa Greenwood much better writing since her return to the monthly range, a trend that continues in this story.
As far as the plot goes, there’s virtually nothing to discuss. The story’s pace is positively glacial, with very little happening episode-to-episode. Platt fleshes out a very believable setting and populates it with detailed characters, which helps a great deal, but the story isn’t deep enough and the regular characters aren’t served well. Jamie Anderson really captures the feel of the era from the director’s chair, and the sound design from Joe Kraemer and Josh Arakelian is quite believable. Overall, “The Behemoth” is a solid story, worth a listen – but is too flawed to become any more than that.
7/10