The TARDIS materialises on Serenity, the last surviving world of the Traken Union. Peri expects a good place for a holiday – not tomb raiders, a labyrinth filled with terrifying monsters and a trap-laden necropolis.
For Serenity’s gentle name belies its history as the home planet of the Melkur, soldiers created to serve a long dead dark force, the embodiment of evil itself. Whilst they sleep, vicious thieves are after this force’s secrets, and will stop at nothing to find them.
But will they find more than they bargained for?
THE LOST STORIES: THE GUARDIANS OF PROPHECY
With three Peter Davison stories and a Tom Baker box set under their belts, the Big Finish Lost Stories series returned to the Colin Baker era for three installments. The first of these, “The Guardians of Prophecy,” came from “The Keeper of Traken” scribe Johnny Byrne, adapted by Jonathan Morris. It features a return to the “Traken” environment, if not the planet itself, but mostly serves as a very traditional example of 1980s Doctor Who storytelling.
What set “Traken” apart was its fairy-tale esthetic: an ancient Keeper who maintains the serenity of a perfect empire, an encompassing shield of goodness that calcifies evil itself into immobile statues, and so on. “Guardians” tries to recapture that feeling, but doesn’t really succeed: Prophecy itself is a computer program, not an individual, the Melkur are portrayed as actual creatures, and Malador (Stephen Thorne) is presented largely as a ranting megalomaniac. Admittedly, Serenity is deliberately portrayed as an inferior copy of Traken itself, but the parallel isn’t explored enough to legitimize it. The setting also limits itself to the usual “rebels overthrow the government” theme, with little time spent exploring the society itself or even the effectiveness of the current government.
Once Malador is introduced, things change but don’t really improve. I love that they cast Thorne in this role, and he brings the same bombastic performance that made Omega and Eldrad such memorable characters. I don’t even object to the concept of a villain of pure evil, even though it kicks against Doctor Who’s largely rationalist ethos. The script, unfortunately, doesn’t do anything interesting with him: there’s one creepy scene where he amplifies Auga’s (Nigel Lambert) negative feelings until the helpless man begs for death, but after that Malador does nothing apart from stomp around cackling about his impending takeover of Serenity. I don’t even mind two-dimensional villains if they’re frightening or dangerous, but the Doctor outsmarts him with relatively little effort.
Colin Baker’s great, of course, easily recapturing his louder, angrier television persona. It’s the friendlier relationship with Peri seen in the Trial season, and Nicola Bryant is appealingly sarcastic in her dealings with the Doctor. She doesn’t get a great deal to do after she’s reunited with the Doctor, but the entire play remains surprisingly static after that point. The script goes to some pains to introduce Mura (James George) as a major antagonist, then casually kills him off as soon as Malador wakes up. This grinds the political part of the script to a halt – the Consuls are locked in jail, but we don’t see a great deal of fallout from the collapse of the government.
This is not to say that “The Guardians of Prophecy” is a bad production. Ken Bentley directs with verve, keeping things exciting throughout. Steve Foxon’s score is a perfect replica of the era, sounding like a Peter Howell composition. The performances are generally excellent as well. But there’s just not a lot going on: it’s a simple, straightforward script that fails to recapture the atmosphere that made “The Keeper of Traken” such a success. As a recapturing of 1980s Doctor Who, it’s successful. As a modern piece of audio drama, it’s fairly average.
Recommended only if you like this sort of thing.
6/10