On the dying world of Bortresoye, the Doctor, Charley and C’rizz come face-to-face with those responsible for the war to end all wars.
On the dying world of Bortresoye, the Doctor, Charley and C’rizz come face-to-face with those responsible for the war to end all wars.
THE LAST
With the run up to the conclusion of the Divergent universe arc near its end, Big Finish was running out of opportunities to push the boundaries of Doctor Who within this new setting. With The Last, Gary Hopkins made his first offering for the range incredibly bleak, setting it after a nuclear holocaust and drawing up horrible fates for the Doctor’s companions. While he certainly accomplished his aim of generating a bleak story, there are, unfortunately, one or two severe flaws in the script and in the production which prevent the play from achieving any heights of greatness.
Hopkins desired to create a bleak atmosphere, and he has certainly done so with this play. The constant sounds of hollow wind echo through the play, while the characters’ footsteps crunch over broken, lifeless ground. An entire population has been wiped out by nuclear war, and Hopkins presents us with the only survivors, locked away deep underground in a shelter. As a tale about the consequences of nuclear war, this is unflinching: there is no hope of survival for these people, whose own actions have doomed them to extinction. Something this unforgiving is rarely seen in Doctor Who, and in this respect Hopkins makes the most of his opportunity.
The main point of controversy in The Last is its use of the reset button: a plot device which erases all dramatic events that have occurred over the course of the play and which restores the status quo in time for the conclusion. Is this misused here? Fundamentally speaking, no, it is not — one theme repeated throughout the play is that of rebirth, and this becomes an explicit part of the plot at the conclusion. Indeed, as the planet on display is revealed to be an intricate part of the Interzone experiments, this revelation will certainly have an impact on the remaining plays of the season. However, the author’s notes make it quite clear that Hopkins wanted to write a play in which the Doctor honestly faced the prospect of his own death, a fact which leads to two possible conclusions: either Hopkins presented the idea and the Big Finish team came up with the theme of rebirth, or the BF team informed Hopkins of the theme and Hopkins used this an excuse to write the play. The third possibility — that Hopkins and BF came up with identical themes without consultation — seems unlikely, especially since the reset button seems crammed into the script. This script is clearly designed to make the deaths of Charley and C’rizz as dramatic and shocking as possible, something which is obviously undermined by the conclusion. In a play with a reset button, the events which necessitate its being pushed cannot be the focus, otherwise the entire thing just seems disingenuous — and that’s exactly what happens here.
Of course, it doesn’t help that two of the regulars seem to have no idea how to play their parts. Paul McGann just isn’t very good in this play — when prompted to give a reaction to the deaths of his companions, he adopts an unsure, muted tone, something which jars entirely with the content of his lines. Then again, many of these lines are confusing: the Doctor’s unflinching, desperate optimism in the face of Charley’s paralysis seems wildly out of character, especially given this new post-Zagreus Doctor. Perhaps better direction was in order?
This may also be India Fisher’s worst-ever performance for the range. Divorced from Fisher’s acting, Charley’s lines seem desperate: someone struggling with the reality of her paralysis, bravely putting on a positive front for her friends but falling apart beneath the surface. Fisher, however, decides to play the character as blithely unconcerned with her situation: her voice never wavers, she just merrily cracks jokes about never being able to walk again. So poor is her performance that her discussion with C’rizz about suicide comes completely out of left field: there’s nothing in her readings that shows that she’s been contemplating death. Fisher isn’t a particularly good actor, but she’s usually better than this.
C’rizz, on the other hand, is a revelation in this play. Rather than dealing with his murky past, Hopkins shows the character at his limit: C’rizz is fiercely protective of his friends, willing to die to protect them — and dangerous to those that would threaten them. Conrad Westmaas’ performance is exceptional, a convincing portrait of a desperate man that runs the full range of emotion. Indeed, his nature gets him “killed” in this play: it’ll be interesting to see if it gets him into real danger as the series continues.
As for the supporting cast, Carolyn Jones is outstanding as the crazed leader Excelsior. True, the material she’s given is over the top — despite some tantalizing hints that she knows more than she lets on — but Jones plays it to the hilt, showing us a type of maniac not normally seen in Doctor Who: insane and dangerous. Ian Brooker and Robert Hines provide a nice double-act as the Ministers Voss and Tralfinial, while Richard Derrington is suitably enigmatic as Landscar. Jane Hills, sadly, isn’t particularly good as the Nurse, overplaying her final lines.
As mentioned above, Hopkins’ script is dependent upon excellent sound design, and David Darlington comes through here, presenting a terrifyingly realistic-sounding nuclear wasteland. Some of the effects sequences take too long — the rocket launch, for example — but all sound convincing. His score is an unusual offering that accompanies the setting quite well. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem as though Gary Russell put much effort into the direction this time around. McGann and Fisher sound as though they have no idea where their characters should go, and this is entirely down to the director. I get the impression that on many Big Finish plays the actors aren’t held to a particularly high standard by the director — witness some of Sylvester McCoy’s hurried performances — but this seems to be a particularly egregious example.
Many of my above comments have been negative, but, other than India Fisher’s performance, there is nothing bad about The Last. It’s a solid offering whose plot twists are suitably interesting to prevent total irritation with the reset button, but ultimately it only manages to be slightly above average. Hopefully things will pick up with Caerdroia — this season is supposedly the centerpiece of the Big Finish range, and after sixty-two releases one would expect better.
6/10