In their search for the final segment of the Key to Time, the Doctor and Amy become caught in the final battle between the forces of Chaos and Order.
In their search for the final segment of the Key to Time, the Doctor and Amy become caught in the final battle between the forces of Chaos and Order.
So, the final installment of the Key 2 Time…
In short: Wonderful story, wonderful acting, wonderful music, very sad there will be no more Key 2 Time.
Judgement of Isskar was the lighthearted introduction of the Key 2 Time. Destroyer of Delights was the comedy episode and The Chaos Pool is the dark episode with serious topics and a hell of a lot of action!
Big Finish are sneaky things. They credit Lalla Ward as ‘Madam President’, not actually naming the part by name. When we first hear Lalla Ward, she is refered to as Madam President, a name she goes by a lot on Gallifrey. She is on a spaceship with Zara. However as the story progresses, she is revealed as Astra, not Romana! However, if you really wanted Romana, you only have to wait till episode 3, when she turns up! One actor, two characters. When Astra and Romana had scenes together, I did find it hard to tell which character was which. The only criticism I have.
Destroyer of Delights focuses on how Amy is becoming more human. The Chaos Pool focuses on how Zara is becoming more human. Through out the series, Zara is presented as an ‘evil’ character, however The Chaos Pool shows a different side to Zara. She is in love. This softens her. And, of course, its not a simple love story. She starts to realise the concequences of her actions and saves Amy (after pretty much killing her). Through out the story, the Doctor makes comments about how much a like Amy and Zara are which are seemingly throw-away comments, but of course they arn’t! And by the end, Zara and Amy have become very similar people. I’m all for an Amy/Zara spin off now. Please Big Finish?
I found The Chaos Pool very complex. I’ve just listened to it and I’m having trouble recalling it to write this review. Thats not to say I didn’t enjoy it. The complete opposit in fact. I loved every second, I just need another listen of so to fully appriciate it. Director, Lisa Bowerman did a wonderful job in keeping the story from getting out-of-control and keeping the attention of the listener. And of course, writer Peter Anghelides did a marvellous job tieing up all the loose ends, keeping us guessing and delivering a fair few shocks!
I’m just very sad that there are no more Key 2 Time audios to come. I’d love to hear more from Amy and Zara. Ciara Janson and Laura Doddington really made their characters come alive and, frankly, are wonderful actresses. There is so much more potential to Amy and Zara. Amy on Gallifrey and Zara with Pargrave.
KEY 2 TIME: THE CHAOS POOL
It’s dangerous for a reviewer to start ascribing motives: claiming to know why a certain script was written in a certain way is pure supposition, especially without an “Inside Story”-type book to hand. So I won’t do that with the Key 2 Time series — because after listening to “The Chaos Pool,” Peter Anghelides’ final entry in the series, I can’t discern a motive.
To be fair, “The Chaos Pool” is the only play in the trilogy that actually attempts to make a thematic point: there’s a great scene at the end that, while a bit too obvious, shows a disturbing undercurrent to the White Guardian, who doesn’t desire “good” at all, but rather a universe devoid of free will. It’s a sensible counterpoint to the Black Guardian’s desire for unrestrained chaos, and unlike the uninspiring silliness of “The Destroyer of Delights,” actually enhances the characters from the simplistic dualism seen in the television stories. But obviously we didn’t need three plays’ worth of questing for the Key to Time to tell us this, and considering the overly-rapid resolution to everything, I’m not sure there was any point in searching for the Key to begin with. We’re also told repeatedly about the Chaos Pool, about how important and how dangerous it is, and then we learn nothing about it until it’s quickly glossed over in the final few minutes. The structure of this play, like the series as a whole, is shaky at best — it frequently comes across as a first draft, full of decent ideas but in need of editing.
I liked the use of Lalla Ward as Astra: she’s introduced acting like Romana, so it’s something of a surprise when we discover she’s actually the character from “The Armageddon Factor.” The character adds little to the proceedings, but if you’re going to insist on a slew of continuity references to the TV episodes, this is as good an idea as any. But why turn around and bring Romana into the story as well? There’s simply no reason to include her, except to introduce yet another retcon of the “Destiny of the Daleks” regeneration scene. But why do this when you’ve already retconned it in the “Gallifrey” series? Writing a story to explain a plot point from 1979 rarely works, and this script is no exception. Furthermore, having Lalla Ward playing two roles in one play merely serves to illustrate that she’s not a very capable actress: if there was any difference between her Astra and her Romana, it was far too subtle for me to detect.
Then, of course, we have Amy and Zara, the living tracers who grow and develop based on those they associate with. At least, that’s the idea: instead, Amy practically reverts to a blank slate if she’s left alone in a room, and Zara’s development is so inconsistent I can’t even describe it. As for the free will discussed at the play’s conclusion, if you only have free will while under the developmental influence of someone else, do you actually have free will? That might actually be an interesting question to explore, but no such luck. I can’t criticize the acting — Ciara Janson and Laura Doddington are both excellent — but I don’t feel I know anything significant about these characters, and after three plays and twelve episodes I should feel more attachment than that. Credit, however, to Peter Davison, whose performance as the Doctor has been excellent through all three plays, and who has generally held everything together when, by rights, it should have been falling apart.
Another point of contention: did we really need yet another race of comedy aliens? We had the comedy insects in “The Judgement of Isskar,” the comedy Guardians in “Destroyer of Delights,” and now comedy slugs — Teuthoidians — voiced capably by Toby Longworth but robbed of any sense of threat by their tendency to bellow “INSUBORDINATION!” and eat each other. The humor in this series struck me as a poor attempt to ape Douglas Adams, forgetting that Adams was actually serious from time to time. Think of the confrontation between the Doctor and the Captain in the trophy room in “The Pirate Planet” — a scene like that would be horribly out of place in any of the Key 2 Time trilogy, and that’s a serious indictment of the scripts’ inability to take themselves at all seriously.
Overall, “The Chaos Pool” is a marginal improvement over its predecessor. It’s still confusing, though, rife with questionable decisions and bringing an awkward, ill-conceived series to an unfortunately suitable conclusion. Sadly, as the pioneer for the “trilogy” format adopted by Big Finish going forward, this does absolutely nothing to inspire confidence.
5/10