The Death-Match is under new management. The Hunt Master’s Champion has been installed. All regular players are welcomed back to the Pursuit Lounge to observe the contest in luxurious surroundings. Privacy is assured. For this reason we ask our elite guests to abide by the strict security protocols. Please note, the house has no limits.
In the Gallery, your combatants can be observed on the orbiting Quarry Station. A purpose-built environment filled with deadly traps and hidden dangers. Prizes are offered for every kill, with bonuses for rogue elements. Only an elite hunter can survive the End-Game. Do you have a worthy champion? Kill or be killed: the only rule of the Death-Match…
DEATH MATCH
After the surprising quality of “Requiem for the Rocket Men” comes the quasi-sequel, Matt Fitton’s “Death Match,” the next in the fourth series of Fourth Doctor Adventures. While still of a better quality than the majority of the range, “Death Match” is a step down from its predecessor – it returns to the traditional feeling that has been to the detriment of the range for so long and suffers as a result.
Perhaps nothing sums up the difference between “Requiem” and “Death Match” better than the Master. In the first story, Geoffrey Beevers is largely tangential to the plot: while he is a crucial part of the Doctor’s plan, he has no scheme, doesn’t act as the villain, and has no involvement other than mockery with the Rocket Men of the title. In “Death Match,” he’s the main villain, and he shambles around cackling and doing evil things and generally being the Master we’re all familiar with. There’s nothing wrong with this – and indeed Fitton gives him some fun dialogue and good scenes with Tom Baker – but there’s also nothing particularly interesting about it. Fitton does make overtures toward psychoanalyzing the Master, but they’re essentially the same obvious thoughts he presented in “Dark Eyes 3.” So there’s nothing new going on here, which makes “Death Match” another in a long line rather than a distinctive piece of drama.
A group of people is brought together and forced to fight to the death for the amusement and profit of their wealthy employers? We’ve seen all this before, and while Doctor Who of this period made a living out of pastiching pop culture, there’s not much of a Doctor Who twist on this material. I do like how Fitton incorporates the use of television, especially how the Master has the feeds go down every time his champion is in trouble – it’s a sly commentary on the programmed nature of reality television – but ultimately this is “Battle Royale” and all of its followers translated directly into Doctor Who audio. Again, it’s done with consummate skill, but I was waiting for some sort of surprise or revelation and none was forthcoming.
A bigger problem with “Death Match” is its use of Leela. Her romance with Marshall came completely out of nowhere in “Requiem for the Rocket Men,” and here it’s pushed to the fore, with Marshall calling the Doctor to help him find his lost love. They pine for each other throughout, Leela calls them “pair-bonded,” and they even reflect on the possibility of children. This is fine in theory, but there are two major problems: first, since this arose from nothing, there’s no believable chemistry between the two characters; second, since we know how Leela’s story ends, we know that something’s going to write Marshall out of the plot, so his heroic sacrifice comes across more as an exercise in box-ticking than anything else. It does lead to a wonderful little scene at the very end where we get to hear Tom Baker’s Doctor comforting his companion, something we’ve rarely (if ever) heard before, but I’ll also wager a considerable amount that Leela’s character will not act differently in the next story and it’ll be like this never happened.
Nicholas Briggs directs, just as he has done for this entire series so far, and the convincing sound design comes from Jamie Robertson. Overall, “Death Match” is a good, solid story – and that makes three in a row, which has to be some kind of record for this range! As with a lot of Fitton’s work, I think the seeds of a great story are in here somewhere, but I’ll definitely take “solid” over “The Exxilons” any day of the week.
Recommended.
6/10