At the end of the preceding play Bernice and Braxiatel are back on the Collection, albeit via some precarious means. They got back to the message; things have changed…
Here, one day later, Bev is out. Nick Wallace starts proceedings with a recorded testimony, explaining who she is and why she is fleeing. As a framing device it gives this political drama just enough focus to remain relevant and interesting at all times. It’s a study of her character that reveals details that she’s been sorely lacking to this point, and a proper examination of the absurdity of an art thief becoming proprietor of the universe’s largest collection.
We go about this with one solitary addition to the cast: Kothar, played by Michael Fenner with icy precision. After making such an impact in their previous appearance the return of the Draconians to the main range is more than welcome, as they are one of the races with plenty of depth to explore. Michael Fenner plays a very light version of the accent, which is both a major plot point and perhaps a blessing because it allows him to concentrate on getting his delivery just right.
Miles Richardson is unusually muted as Braxiatel, the character admittedly here under duress. He walks through the play with his hands in his pockets, dragged in by other character for his expertise, all the while protesting he’d rather be anywhere else.
Also returning are Harry Myers as Adrian, Steven Wickham as Joseph, and Hass and Doggles as their relative alter-egos. Adrian goes through some perfect moments although Harry really shines here when playing a brand new character with the ominous catchphrase ‘Butterfly’.
The Judas Gift wonders briefly into the territory formerly occupied by the Gallifrey audios, in that not a lot happens whilst several characters bicker back and forth about moot plot points. This story however keeps things focused with the attention constantly on Bev Tarrant and Kothar, searching for the unknown connection between them.
It’s fantastically written, clear and precise throughout, and finally the series starts to give payouts for all the subtle stuff going on behind the scenes last year.
The Empire State ended of a very unusual cliffhanger. It threw Bernice and Braxiatel together in a room, stood back to let the fireworks go off and then…
Well, we never get to see what happened because Daniel O’Mahony’s story picks up some time later with Bernice and Maggie on their way back to the Collection, where things are apparently getting out of hand. Brax’s situation is later explained, and he does have some lovely scenes here that both Miles Richardson and Lisa Bowerman extract for all their worth, but we’ve no idea what happened to Saf, which is sad because I really liked him.
However once you get over the leap in the narrative you begin to enjoy something truly original. Chief among the cast is He/She ship captain Chanticleer, who is the only one able to offer them a way home. There’s something slightly strange and frightening about Diane Fletcher’s performance, with presumably some voice modulation just rounding out this very confused character.
Yet Chanticleer isn’t half as strange as Nigel Pegram who fires on all cylinders as ‘Captain Anthony Rogers’. What at first feels like it might wander into the Brian Blessed field of overacting eventually turns into the most surreal psychodrama imaginable. It takes a long time to explain why the story, which builds along nicely, keeps being interrupted by a mad, raving, American spaceman, but the answers are truly shocking when they come. There are some concepts here we’ve never touched on in the Bernice Summerfield before, but its all handled with such a deft lightness of touch that Daniel O’Mahony perfected with his prior flawless release ‘Timeless Passages’.
This story probably won’t be to everyone’s tastes, it’s just a little too weird and too macabre to be considered mainstream. It ticks every box needed though, moving Benny and Brax’s story forwards (back to the collection), giving the character Maggie a terrible send off (terrible as in her fate, not in terms of the story quality) and telling something completely new and unique at the same time.
I’ve listened to this story three times over four months… and really, really, really struggled to get this written.
The Empire State
A sense of elevator music pervades The Empire State. It’s got that strange, slightly weird, slightly ethereal ‘otherness’ to it, a strange and deliberate melody that gets inside your heard but then becomes instantly forgettable when it ends. It goes towards a fantastic series closer but suddenly, abruptly grinds to a halt just when you think it should be kicking off…
Eddie Robson doesn’t waste the story though. It’s full of ideas and characters who fully deserves their time. Bernice finds herself in a city that shouldn’t exist, desperately trying to piece together how she got here and why it’s here in the first place. We’ve been here before but to be credible I’ve never felt the ‘wrongness’ of a situation so keenly. Eddie Robson feeds explanations to us slowly, filtered through some phone calls to home, several trips to a friendly bar and, for Matsumoto and Rand some lovely shoe shopping. And when explanations do come they’re just as unlikely as the bizarre situation has called for.
But it all ends far to abruptly. As some people might have seen coming Irving Braxiatel is back but not in the most expected way. Instead we are fed hints and tips leading to him through the characters Maggie and Saf. And then, without spoiling the main story, Braxiatel appears and the story just stops…
There’s no denying that this story is a much more decisive series ender than Masquerade of Death. It’s not up to the giddying heights of the Crystal of Cantus, leaving us waiting to see exactly what will come next. Good stuff, but just one part of a much larger machine.
After the avant garde Summer of Love, The Oracle of Delphi is an extremely traditional story that’s almost more reminiscent of an old Doctor Who. We haven’t had a proper historical in the range since Just War put Bernice through one of the most traumatic days of her life, so this one has something to live up to. And for what its worth it succeeds, by doing nothing particularly risky but embracing a familiar well tried and trodden route with good dialogue and straightforward plotting.
Not that I’m complaining, time travellers lost and separated in an ancient city, someone interfering with history and looming danger are a staple that Doctor Who has thrived on for forty years. Here the city is Athens, the threat is plague, and the ‘celebrity’ historical figure is Socrates (with an amusing cameo from Plato). Of these tried and tested elements Socrates is the plays gem, and although I know nothing about ancient philosophers and can’t comment on how accurately portrayed he is, the man presented here is an engaging character ably voiced by Paul Shelley.
Stepen Fewell returns again, once again to be separated from Bernice in a separate strand all to familiar for this character. Becoming a male slave/servant in a fully matriarchic cult is a new low for the character though, culminating with him holding a knife to Bernice’s throat and swearing that he’s never loved her. Strangely there’s no fall out from this, both characters admit it’s nothing that hasn’t happened before and they move on.
The historical element and the Plague threat remind me actually of Plague Herds of Excelis, and I’m glad to say this is definitely the superior play of the two. The almost theatrical way the cities democracy governs itself is more engaging than a lone queen’s angst about ruling. Sorcrates is one of the better short term companions the range has presented. And the subplot about the differences and the equality of men and woman is admirable, if a little heavy handed in its treatment of Jason.
All in all I can recommend this play as a thoroughly solid production. It stands on its own as a good story, has some intelligent links to the greater series, and the production as a whole is nearly faultless. In fact I can’t think of any particularly weak elements to pick on aside from perhaps a lack of ambition.
I referred to Simon Guerrier’s previous play ‘The Lost Museum’ as the most adult Bernice Summerfield so far due to the way it tackled some pretty macabre themes head on with a no nonsense attitude. One year later and he’s already gone a step further, although this is ‘adult’ in a very different way.
The Summer of Love pulls no punches in its depiction of ranchy, erotic, no strings attached, straightforward, simply for the hell of it sex. It aims to shock, and it goes about it in a straightforward manner, firing off all the sexual appetites of the recurring characters we’ve come to know and seeing what sticks. It’s a slow build with things slowly developing from feisty innuendo laden dialogue, and despite ending in a massive orgy it somehow it never descends into purile infantality. Somehow…
The cast are really on form and make the most of the change in direction. The strange plotting allows the characters to gently sparkle on their own with the plot emerging from them as opposed to the other way around. Compared to how functional the series started just a few years before its remarkable how mature things have become in just a few short series.
And despite the slow build of the plot, there’s a mountain of different things going on here. Bev Tarrant has taken some unusual measures to secure her authority in the Collection, leaving Adrian in the cold. There’s Bernice’s now permanently on, on-off relationship with Jason going through a lonely patch, with Doggles hanging around the sidelines wanting to ‘take advantage’ of the situation. This in particular gives a wealth of delightful dialogue, and despite the fact I was never fooled that this wasn’t Steven Wickham doubling up, he’s clearly relishing the difference between the two parts. Perhaps to distinguish the voice though Joseph’s voice has been altered slightly for the worse which is a shame.
This is a very unconventional play that goes places no Big Finish story has gone before. It dances between clever innuendo and blatant crudeness, political scheming and teenage dating… An acquired taste perhaps but a very important release all the same to show exactly what the series is capable of.
Upon listening to “Year of the Pig,” the first offering from Matthew Sweet to the Big Finish range, I was blown away by its uniqueness: a Doctor Who story that actively embraced its lack of plot and that wore its influences unashamedly on its sleeve, it was one of the banner releases of its year. Thirty releases later, Sweet contributes his second script to the range — and “The Magic Mousetrap” rises above even its predecessor, cementing itself as the finest Big Finish story in several years, and arguably the greatest Sylvester McCoy audio of them all.
I’ve always loved drama that isn’t ashamed to be intelligent, and “Magic Mousetrap” certainly qualifies: the plot is fairly complicated in itself, but the story never stops to explain everything, leaving the listener to learn at the Doctor’s pace. Yes, the amnesia trope has been done to death in Doctor Who spinoff media, but it’s surprisingly effective here. Most of the first episode is told directly from the Doctor’s perspective, and his lack of memory results in a bizarre atmosphere that becomes increasingly creepy as events progress. We also start in medias res: the Doctor wakes up on a cable car en route to a mountaintop sanatorium in Switzerland. While previous events are mentioned, we never get unnecessary flashback sequences or belabored explanations: again, Sweet respects his audience’s intelligence, and the script is all the better for it.
But the intelligence doesn’t stop at the plot. The story is a treatise on the relationship between memory and the mind, between stagnation and lunacy. Ludovic Comfort (Paul Anthony-Barber) administers electro-shock therapy to his patients, not out of a misguided desire to heal, but rather to keep their minds scrambled and their memories faulty. We learn that a powerful mental construct is being maintained precisely because of this lack of knowledge, and that the Doctor’s faulty memory is perhaps the most significant part of the foundation. The villain of the piece is kept in check because the other characters don’t remember or acknowledge him — and his insanity grows as he is restrained, until he bursts forth in the final episode with a vengeance. No, it isn’t weighty commentary, but it makes you think, a characteristic of many of the greatest Doctor Who stories.
And despite all these successes, the true strength of “Magic Mousetrap” is its atmosphere. I normally reserve comment on the production standards until the end of my reviews, but the music and sound design by Richard Fox and Lauren Yason deserve special mention. A palpable sense of dread builds throughout the play, supported by the exceptional score, one of the most memorable in a long time. Director Ken Bentley mixes the comedic and the tragic to stunning effect — each McCoy pratfall or malapropism is followed quickly by a frightening moment. And the talent show midway through the story is perhaps the best moment of all: an entertaining yet grotesque diversion that never feels out of place or unwelcome despite its length. Big Finish has been supported by excellent production since it started the Doctor Who range, but “Magic Mousetrap” is on the short list of best sound in range history. Yes, it’s that good.
I would be remiss if I did not praise the acting as highly as the other elements. Sylvester McCoy gives one of his best performances in recent memory: at the start, it sounds as though he’s lapsing into his frequent over-the-top line readings, but this is revealed to be a conscious choice for his portrayal of the addled Doctor. As the Doctor’s memory returns, McCoy’s performance stabilizes, leading to a fantastic final confrontation and a wonderful final line. Ace and Hex play a unique role: for once, they’re behind the “master plan,” using the Doctor as a pawn — and yet they can blend with the decidedly unusual cast of characters. Sophie Aldred and Philip Olivier affect surprisingly convincing “posh” accents — so much so that I didn’t even recognize them at the first cliffhanger! The entire supporting cast is exceptional, but special mention to Anthony-Barber and Nadine Lewington for their performances as Ludo and Queenie. And yes, there’s a returning villain, and he’s better here — by far — than in his lone television appearance. Terrifying, sadistic, and desperate, this is a villain whose presence impacts every moment of the script, even before the listener learns he’s there in the first place.
I’ve lamented the lack of truly exceptional Big Finish releases in my more recent reviews. Certainly most plays are above average, and many have been very good, but I haven’t listened to a perfect 10 since “The Kingmaker,” nearly forty releases ago. It gives me great pleasure to write that the streak is over: “The Magic Mousetrap” is a masterpiece.
It’s pretty obvious what happened here. With Big Finish attempting to fill the Doctor Who TV “gap year” of 2009 with the third season of Paul McGann audios, they opted to finish the season with an epic story set on modern-day Earth with an old enemy returning and a deadly threat to the human race. That should sound familiar, for obvious reasons — but where “Worldwide Web” (and its predecessor) falls down in comparison to its TV counterparts is in the characters. In the end, we’re left with a finale that certainly acts epic, and throws a major threat at humanity, but at its heart it’s an empty, soulless runaround and a significant disappointment.
Fortunately, we get to hear much more of Lucie in this story than we did in the first part. While she spent the majority of “The Eight Truths” possessed, here we learn that Lucie’s mind still survives, fighting against its Spider invader. This internal conflict is easily the most entertaining part of the play, and Sheridan Smith does a fantastic job of playing Lucie’s struggle — I was genuinely concerned about her attempt to escape, something I couldn’t say about the other conflicts. Compare to the Doctor, who faces virtually no personal difficulties over the course of the play. This is not to say that resolving the situation is easy, but if this series wants to be a TV replacement, where’s the drama facing the Doctor? Where’s the decision, for example, between letting the Daleks survive or killing everyone on Earth? Without this, the drama seems empty — yes, the Doctor uses TARDIS technology to break the Queen’s links with the stellar manipulator, and uses crystals to break the Spiders’ influences over the possessed, but he never feels threatened. There’s a moment where author Eddie Robson tries to show the extent of the Spiders’ possession, but it’s shockingly awkward for such a reliable writer: the Doctor, while racing to save the day, proposes a stop at a nearby drive-thru to get hamburgers! And yes, that sounds wacky and “Doctorish,” but it’s played perfectly straight, just so the regulars can be recognized as enemies by the girl at the window.
There’s an attempt at the conclusion to insert some emotion: the Headhunter (Katarina Olsson) sacrifices herself in order to stop the Queen Spider. As her mind is slowly broken down by psychic feedback, the Doctor urges her to hold onto something she knows to be true, to retain her identity — but, tragically, she cannot even remember her own name, and is lost. Unfortunately, the “tragedy” is anything but: in the three seasons of McGann audios, all we’ve learned about the Headhunter is that she’s a dangerous adversary who acts exclusively out of self-interest. We haven’t been shown any reason to feel sympathy for this character, and while the moment where we realize we don’t even know her name is well-written and well-scored, it rings hollow.
Which is my complaint about the story. As usual, I’m not saying it’s awful. The performances are generally good — McGann is in control, Sheridan Smith is excellent, and the supporting cast, particularly Sophie Winkleman and Beth Chalmers, is solid. Martin Johnson’s design is effective, with one or two truly memorable compositions — something that has been lacking in BF of late — while Nicholas Briggs’ direction is effective. But there’s something missing here, something absent from the core of the play, something that was definitely there in — for example — Robson’s “Human Resources” two-parter. “Worldwide Web” is a dressed-up Doctor Who runaround, with little actually going on, and its few attempts at depth ring false. And the returning villain isn’t even interesting! The Spiders are exactly the same as they were in 1974, with the same basic plan — a universal hive mind — and behaviors. This time they’re using stolen Time Lord technology, but absolutely nothing interesting is done with the stellar manipulator, which might as well have been called the Floating MacGuffin for all the difference it made.
Easily the most disappointing Eddie Robson release, and yet another in the litany of Big Finish “event” failures. Sigh.
I’ve never tried to hide my admiration for Eddie Robson, one of the most consistently excellent Doctor Who authors ever to come out of the Big Finish stables. It’s also no secret that I’ve been somewhat disappointed with the third McGann/Lucie “season” — certainly no bad offerings, but a few uninteresting-if-competent ones. I was expecting “The Eight Truths,” the first part of the traditional season-ending two-parter, to surprise and delight me like “Human Resources, Part 1” and “Sisters of the Flame” before it — so imagine my dismay when I found it tedious in the extreme.
We’ll start at the end: specifically, the cliffhanger, which is treated as a shocking surprise but in truth couldn’t have been more obviously telegraphed. A cult? Mysterious crystals? Mind control? Spider legs visible on the cover? Repeated uses of the number 8, from the title to the evil cult? At this point, the only surprise would be if it wasn’t the Metebelis spiders — and since of course it is them, I’m wondering what Robson will do in “Worldwide Web” to actually make them interesting. The Pertwee era was hardly known for its subtlety, and apart from the Great One, there was very little of it displayed from his final opponents.
Give Robson credit, though, as he usually tries to make his scripts relevant. “Human Resources” was an entertaining cross between Doctor Who and The Office, and “The Eight Truths” goes back to that well, constructing evil cult The Eightfold Truth as an obvious satire of Scientology. They also exploit the nonsensical belief in the healing power of crystals, elegantly tying the story back to its 1974 prequel. Granted, these are easy targets — it’s hardly a secret that there are dangerous cults in our midst, or that people will believe anything that purports to give them hope — but seeing these ideas dramatized lends a sense of realism to the story that would otherwise be difficult to accomplish.
I’ve also complained about the lack of followup to the dramatic ending of “Orbis” — well, that’s finally picked up in this story, with the Headhunter (Katarina Olsson) reappearing along with the remote stellar manipulator from “Vengeance of Morbius.” We see the sort of epic image usually reserved for TV season finales: the stellar manipulator hovers in the sky, giving the appearance of a second sun. But nothing is done with this; maybe they’re waiting for the conclusion, but it’s barely remarked upon.
This lack of response is symptomatic of the greater problem with “The Eight Truths” — despite a sizable scope, and a significant progression of time, few characters are actually seen to do anything. The Doctor spends the majority of the story trying to find a missing space probe and then spends the rest of it trying to figure out what’s going on. I like the idea of knocking him out for 23 days while the plot advances without him, but in this case it simply underscores the fact that the Doctor has accomplished absolutely nothing of worth. Lucie, meanwhile, is the focal point of the drama: it’s impressive to listen as Robson leads her from a quiet hotel room to the center of a dangerous cult, and the scenes in which she is brainwashed into believing the Doctor is her enemy are convincingly disturbing. The cultists, however, are mostly faceless, and as Lucie spends the entire second part under hypnosis while the Doctor wanders aimlessly, the plot feels as though it’s treading water.
The supporting cast is excellent, but their characters are mostly forgettable. Olsson stands out as always, but actors like Sophie Winkleman and Sanjeev Bhaskar are saddled with “What is it, Doctor?” companion surrogates like Kelly Westwood and Sangakkara. Stephen Moore is underused, while Kerry Godliman replaces Louise Fullerton as Headhunter sidekick Karen — and Godliman, Olsson, and Sheridan Smith recapture the caustic relationship seen in the past. The production is solid, with Martin Johnson’s sound design and music occasionally reminiscent of this story’s “prequel,” and Nicholas Briggs’ direction assured as usual.
Overall, “The Eight Truths” just didn’t grab me like it should have. For a story that took place over an entire month, there was a curious lack of incident, and very little character or depth to fill the void. Yes, it’s the first of two parts, and yes, it’s entirely possible that “Worldwide Web” will blow me away, but my enthusiasm is dampened, and that’s not what you want from the first of two parts. Still better than average, for what it’s worth.
While I don’t think the earlier anthology “Destination Prague” worked, I liked one thing about it: the attempt to bring in established authors new to Doctor Who. Sadly, they produced stories that seemed more appropriate for Star Trek than Doctor Who — and this feeling didn’t inspire confidence in “The Quality of Leadership,” the twenty-fourth Short Trips anthology from Big Finish. Keith R. A. DeCandido edited it, you see, and not only is he well-known for his Star Trek writing, he brought in a number of Trek tie-in writers new to Doctor Who. Fortunately, my expectations were overturned: this is an excellent anthology, with only one story falling below par.
From Little Acorns… / Epilogue — John S. Drew — Primarily a framing story. It’s not especially imaginative, but then it doesn’t have to be: it’s here to present the Doctor as the wise man/Merlin figure guiding a young king to have confidence in his ability as a leader. Furthermore, the epilogue underscores the legendary nature of the Doctor’s adventures. Solid stuff.
One Fateful Knight — Peter David — David finally writes a Doctor Who story, and it’s… a sequel to “Battlefield”?! None of this should work — it manages to retcon both Doctor Who and Arthurian legend — but it’s written in such an easy, elegant fashion that it dances off the page. The frozen Merlin explanation makes sense, and David makes it quite clear how the seventh and eighth Doctors are ultimately built from the same core. Impressive.
The Slave War — Una McCormack — I think McCormack wrote something for DWM a while ago, and she’s got an NSA under her belt now, but you’d think she’d been writing for the series for years based on this story. She absolutely nails Troughton, something nigh-on impossible for most Who authors, and tells a stunning early Hartnell-style historical using the early Troughton crew, managing to lay the groundwork along the way for Ben and Polly’s departure. Fantastic.
Goths and Robbers — Diane Duane — I’m fairly sure this is the first Doctor Who story to involve a search of the TARDIS for a jar of Newman’s Own pasta sauce. It’s also one of a very few to involve a trip to the post-Rome time of the Goths. No, it’s not the most complicated story in the world, but the regulars are perfectly-captured, making for an entertaining read.
Good Queen, Bad Queen, I Queen, You Queen — Terri Osborne — Another historical figure we haven’t seen before, this story of an encounter between Boudicca, the fourth Doctor, and Romana is most notable as a character piece about the Time Lady companion. Romana I is most interesting when learning the true nature of the Doctor’s travels, and this story captures her better than almost any TV story. I’m not sure I like the twist at the end, though — I see what Osborne was going for, but it didn’t seem necessary. Still, this is an excellent read.
The Price of Conviction — Richard C. White — Too simplistic. Hartnell is a caricature, Susan reads like an audience-identification figure, and the interactions between Martin Luther and his various antagonists are too broad and straightforward. Entertaining enough, but somewhat out of place with the rest of the anthology.
God Send Me Well to Keep — Linnea Dodson — Hilarious, above all else. Nyssa becomes embroiled in the court of Henry VIII, Catherine Howard is presented as a particularly impressive example of stupidity, the Doctor drinks an entire kitchen full of guards under the table, etc., etc. As with most of the stories in this anthology, the characterization sings, and it’s generally refreshing to read a Davison-era comedy. Fun and worthwhile.
Peaceable Kingdom — Steven Savile — The star of the show is Savile’s worldbuilding, specifically the Kortani culture, efficiently fleshed out over the story’s brief length. The Doctor’s final moral dilemma carries serious weight due to this accomplishment. The “preacher” is a fascinating character as well, so much so that his true motives, when revealed, are somewhat disappointing. This story is significantly “harder” science fiction than the others, but doesn’t suffer a minute for it.
Rock Star — Robert T. Jeschonek — Odd, in that it’s entertaining when the regulars are “offscreen” and irritating when they’re around. Genus is a fascinating character faced with a significant dilemma, but unfortunately the Doctor and Jo are recognizable as themselves in name only. Also, the last line is eye-rolling at best. The only misstep in the anthology.
On a Pedestal — Kathleen O. David — The historical elements function almost purely in caricature, but the true heart of this story is the Jamie/Victoria relationship, as each character has a preconception destroyed before their eyes. The Doctor is captured well, but he’s almost an incidental character in this one. Worthwhile.
Clean-up on Aisle Two — James Swallow — I’m surprised there aren’t more stories like this in the anthology, as this is exactly the sort of story the Doctor would tell: an ordinary man learning to become a better leader in a stressful time. I like Randall: he’s wrapped up in video games, yes, but he’s not an idiot, he just doesn’t know any better. And who better to drive this than McCoy?
The Spindle of Necessity — Allyn Gibson — We can now add the Socratic dialogue to the list of Doctor Who story styles. And the dialogue is by far the best part, with the arrogant sixth Doctor challenging preconceptions and deflating sacred cows. Not sure about the ending, though, in which the Doctor is actually shown to be wrong — but I showed it to a friend and fellow fan with a PhD in classics, and he liked it, so that works for me.
Overall, “The Quality of Leadership” is an excellent offering from Big Finish. The stories are fewer in number but longer than usual, and the authors bring interesting new perspectives to Doctor Who. This is the sort of thing I’ll miss from this range. Highly recommended.
Big Finish, Main Range #123, Story 2. 1 episode, approx. 30 minutes. Written by: Stephen Cole. Directed by: Nicholas Briggs.
THE PLOT
The Doctor is on television (well, its sci fi equivalent), giving his personal endorsement to Alien Defence Incorporated, a private security outfit designed to battle an Earth-like planet’s frequent extraterrestrial invasions. This endorsement comes as something of a surprise to the Doctor, who has certainly never recorded TV adverts for private security companies.
So the Doctor and his companion, Fitz (Matt Di Angelo) decide to pay a visit to ADI’s offices. The Doctor breaks into the offices at night, determined to find out if the company is what it appears to be, or if it’s hiding some other agenda. Meanwhile, Fitz prepares to enact the Doctor’s backup plan, to insure against anything going wrong.
Naturally, everything ends up going wrong.
CHARACTERS
The Doctor: He is quite happy to make an appointment to talk to Commander Femor… but only after first breaking into her offices in order to determine whether or not her answers will be the truth. He continues to think quickly, and his rapid realization that the situation has changed when he and Femor end up facing a deadly alien helps to save both their lives (and Fitz’s). By his 8th incarnation, he has learned to come up with a “Plan B” before blithely charging in, which is an improvement – even he hasn’t quite learned how to make “Plan B” run entirely smoothly when it’s needed. McGann gives a spirited performance, seeming to enjoy his co-stars and the light-hearted nature of the material.
Fitz Kreiner: Matt Di Angelo makes his debut as Fitz. The 8th Doctor’s longest-running companion, Fitz ran through more than half of the BBC EDA range, gaining a fervent following among readers. To date, this is his only audio adventure, though hopefully the positive reaction to this release will inspire Big Finish to bring the character back. Di Angelo is quite good in the role, playing Fitz’s sarcastic side and his cheeky (and slightly cheesy) bravado to good, humorous effect. Di Angelo has good comic timing, which is a great asset to a primarily comic story. This paper-thin story doesn’t give much chance to go beyond Fitz’s surface, but there is at least the sense that there is more to the character than just what is on the surface.
THOUGHTS
And we’re back to single episode short stories, and also back to full-cast audio, for this light-hearted romp. Fitz’s Story works pretty well as far as it goes, because it does maintain an appealing light touch. Unlike the same release’s Benny’s Story, there’s no sense of anyone trying to overreach. Writer Stephen Cole has crafted a small-scale story that’s perfect for a single episode’s running time. The results are consistently entertaining and energetic. The whole thing is over almost before you know it, and I found it a fine way to make one day’s commute from work go by quickly.
Mind you, like pretty much all the other single-episode stories I have reviewed to date, it’s as insubstantial as a spider’s silk web. There’s nothing here to linger in the memory. There’s no sense of jeopardy, but the fast pace and strong energy keep that from mattering.
Mainly, the story works because Paul McGann and Matt Di Angelo play extremely well opposite each other, as do McGann and guest star Fenella Woolgar. The 8th Doc/Fitz partnership is an engaging one, and it’s not hard to see why Fitz came to dominate the BBC Books range to such an extent. As with the other “Short Trips” on the Company of Friends release, I find I would quite like to see a full-length story featuring Fitz. In the meantime, this teaser doesn’t compel me to go out and order a bunch of BBC books (I read a handful at the time, some of which were good and some of which… ah, weren’t, but the various Who book ranges simply never grabbed me). Still, it’s a fun piece, produced to Big Finish’s usual polished standards.
Big Finish, Main Range #123, Story 3. 1 episode, approx. 30 minutes. Written by: Alan Barnes. Directed by: Nicholas Briggs.
THE PLOT
The Doctor’s companion, Izzy (Jemima Rooper), has asked him to take the TARDIS to her home town, the village of Stockbridge, at a time when she would have been a child. She wants to solve a mystery that’s been bothering her since childhood. No, not a murder. No, not lights in the sky. No, not even a crop circle.
The mystery? The identity of Courtmaster Cruel, the hero of a long-running and rather brutal sci-fi comic strip. His identity was revealed in the final installment of the strip… in a publication that only hit the streets once that Izzy knows of, with all copies having vanished without a trace. But Izzy knows that the magazine was in stock the morning of its release, and is determined that it will belong to her!
The Doctor is a bit exasperated, but indulges Izzy. Until androids come to the comics store and “pulp” the “proscribed manuscript” while it is in Izzy’s hands, then rearrange the memory of the store’s owner. That is when the Doctor finally gets interested, sensing a hidden hand meddling with the laws of time. But reality will be rearranged a few times more before he is able to get to the bottom of this!
CHARACTERS
The Doctor: Paul McGann does very well again in this story. Izzy, his companion for this outing, is a frenetic ball of energy. McGann counters this by increasing his Doctor’s cool, collected calm. The results are highly amusing, with McGann’s Doctor taking on almost a “long-suffering” quality opposite his overly energetic young friend.
Izzy: Jemima Rooper is Izzy, the 8th Doctor’s DWM comic strip companion. I’m not 100% sold on the character, who comes across as a bit too… enthusiastic to be entirely winning. Rooper, however, is terrific, bringing boundless energy to the part. She makes Izzy likable almost in spite of herself. Alan Barnes’ script helps by crafting a terrific pre-credits “intro monologue” for the character which captures Izzy’s whirlwind of (too) fast-paced energy in a way that makes her at the same time somebody we can identify with. If the actress hadn’t been as good, I’d have been quite happy to leave Izzy as a one-shot. Rooper is so purely wonderful, though, that I find myself very much wanting a full-length 8th Doc/Izzy story. Better still, a season of them, to allow the character more variation.
THOUGHTS
That was fun!
This 30-minute short story isn’t any more substantial than the other 30-minute short stories I’ve reviewed in this sequence. It’s a featherweight story, played entirely for comedy, and played out basically in two sets (well, if this had been a visual story). Like the other single-episode McGann stories I’ve reviewed, this is a pleasant diversion that is hardly likely to sear itself into anyone’s memory. But it’s a particularly enjoyable piece, which ends up scoring just a little bit above the other Company of Friends stories, and well above Earth & Beyond: Bounty.
One element that makes this so much fun is just how well it evokes the medium it’s celebrating. This isn’t just a story using a comic strip character, about comic strips… It feels like a comic strip come to life! The reality-warping, the overexaggerated characters (including Izzy), the story resting on a single high concept. Usually, when I listen to these stories, I envision the characters in live action. In this story, it is almost impossible not to visualize it all as a cartoon – and I mean that as a compliment.
Writer Alan Barnes keeps the story moving quickly, but also is very successful in filtering the story through Izzy. In this, Izzy’s Story is more successful in feeling like a story about Izzy than Benny’s Story was for Benny, and far moreso than Fitz’s Story was for Fitz. The Doctor is pulled into this story because of Izzy, and Izzy’s knowledge of the culture of these comics influences the Doctor’s actions and the story’s outcome. And while the Doctor’s judgment of the various characters is a purely moral one, Izzy’s very different reaction is clearly meant to be the one with which listeners will identify.
Anyway, there’s nothing very deep to analyze here. Suffice it say: Fun. Along with the usual final note of how much I’d like to see a full story with this teaming, only moreso in this case because of how adorably infectious Jemima Rooper ended up being.
The Worst Thing in the World is an odd one. Fans/detractors of television will find a lot to comment on, of almost any genre leading from reality television to casual soaps. Dave Stone takes an extremist stance against the ‘drama-mongering’ (word I made up) aspect where directors/writers force unnatural, unrealistic positions forwards to try and heighten the drama and drum up interest in the program. Yes, all fiction does stem from controversy, and if reality TV was devoid of a competitive element there’d be no point watching it, but here he shows a nightmare vision of a world at the other extreme, where the chefs are carrying knives… Sharp deadly knives… And they’re armed to kill…To the max!!! All night long, every Saturday, right across your living room.
Jason seems to have been getting a lot of attention recently, he essentially played the leading role in the Tartarus Gate and here he solidly occupies the first fifteen minutes by discovering the Drome in a misguided attempt to drum up publicity for his books. Dave Stone is not shy of throwing around expletives here, and this may be the most profane Bernice to date, but perhaps it’s just in preparation for what’s coming next (spoilers???). Besides, given a world where everything is TO THE EXTREME and a man who is part A: comedy sidekick and B: Makes a living selling porn, the context is forgivable.
There aren’t many new characters in this story. Dave Stone has created a world, a living breathing world, but its inhabitants are purely functional and are there to show that they exist and this world has quirks. The entire point seems to be that this world is held up like a mirror for Bernice and Jason to stare into and see what comes out. A musical finale with butterflies and cake was not expected.
Oh god, the song. It could, it should, have been awful. It really, really should be absolutely rubbish but my god they somehow got away with it. After an hour long build-up in this mad, hectic rollercoaster of drama how else could it all of ended. Some authors would have Bernice and Jason fleeing, accepting there was nothing they could do to help this poor world or its inhabitants and left it on a ‘sad, downbeat’ ending. Others would have come up with a last minute twist that would allow Bernice to save the day. Only Dave Stone seems to be prepared to admit the whole shebang is completely preposterous and end on that very solid, very unusual note.
I can’t hold this up as the pinnacle of the series, it’s probably not even close, but if you get the references and the sense of humour here then there’s probably something for everyone. The music is completely overdone (the repeating theme tune had me and my brother in stitches, but only because we were stuck in traffic) and the acting, well, everyone’s ‘given it their best’ so to say. When I describe it as hammy this is a rare case when I’m not doing it a disservice.
A very strange sense of humour, but it just about succeeds for sheer ballsiness.
Compared to some of the earlier stories Timeless Passages is actually quite simple on the surface. The threat, as applied early on, is the wanton destruction of a priceless collection of artefacts from a faceless bureaucratic company of penpushers. That, and the very real possibility of being diced by an axe/sword/sabre wielding maniac with a fetish for violence… I have to say this is a real breath of fresh air with a very real, very human runaround with some genuine zingers from Daniel O’Mahony. Best bit of all? Right at the start where Bernice declares she’s leaving her diary for good for another book, a great subversion of her old diary cliché that hasn’t been trotted out in a while.
And although the actual story itself is simple there’s real complexity going on behind the scenes. The labyrinth that is actually a time machine, the villain from the future here to kill the lawyers, the lost baby, the way everything actually revolves around a technicality in intergalactic contract negotiation. Key hints, such as that, which are casually mentioned before being thrown aside. Then there are some magnificent Red Herring’s, such as constant references to the ‘Technocult’ which pays of marvellously with simply outstanding sound design. After a few brief whirrs and clicks early on I thought there was a robot in the bedroom waiting for Bernice, only to discover that the constant throbbing noise in the corner of my ear was actually dripping blood. To put it bluntly this is really good use of the audio medium, the imagery as described is simple but bold and there’s more than enough supplied to bring it to life around the actors, not that they themselves aren’t all on top form today.
Half way through I was guessing what was going on. I was sure the baby was infected by the Technicult and then she had killed her father, then when the truth dawned on me just before the revelations. Miranda, the girl who used to need a walking stick but now doesn’t, who used to be a lot less healthy than she is, and the baby born already dying. The whole script is like a delightful puzzle, masked beneath a wonderfully verbose sequence of chases as Bernice dashes from one impossible scenario to the next, working it out as she goes along.
In fact, just to balance this gush of praise out, the weaker moments of the script are when Bernice occasionally gives into paranoia. Although it makes sense for a woman who’se seen it all to be naturally suspicious of everything, (wouldn’t you be?) these little moments of melodrama detract from an otherwise entirely solid production. Lisa is on best form and there’s not a single bad performance in the play so I can’t actually single one out, they all need praise for bringing to life the dialogue so effortlessly.
Although it lacks the gravitas of a season closer that previous hard hitters have employed, Timeless Passages is something much rarer, a stock ‘standard’ story that knows its bounds and simply excels at what it does best. Contained here is a wonderful self contained, intelligent and eye-catching story, with references to the larger Bernice universe sprinkled on top liberally, but with just enough thought to get you wondering.
Stewart Sheargold impressed with his previous ‘event’ stories for the Big Finish range and the prospect of him throwing Bernice and Jason at the ‘door to hell’ sounds, on paper, like a good idea. Unfortunately this doesn’t make the best season opener, as it starts far too loud and bombastic and ends on a self referential note that struggles to distinguish itself from where the previous series ended.
Having read the ‘Inside Story’ behind the scenes segment I can see how this happened. Stewart Sheargold apparently came up with the concept unaware that Braxiatel was going to be written out. If he’d been featured in the story as a villain and at the end his manipulation of Jason had been outed, the story would have gained a new layer that was badly needed. Bereft of the arch-collector however the story feels strangely slight, quite self involved but struggling to ever gather itself together as a whole.
The sound design is loud and relentless, removing any chance of subtlety in the play. The constant drone of noise threatens to drown out any listener who can’t keep their attention up from start to end. Stewart’s script takes several leaps of ‘hard’ Science Fiction and aside from ‘Jason and Bernice need each other, they actually are very close’ there’s very little ‘human’ going on here. It’s big on concepts but none of the other characters are drawn out as being particularly interesting or three dimensional (except perhaps La’Heyne who manages to reveal a personality by the end) but there’s so much going on that isn’t properly commented on or grounded, in the end it becomes fairly peripheral.
In the end Jason gets his memories back, all of them, and learns he’s killed for Braxiatel before. I was scratching my head a bit as I thought he’d got them back in Cantus. It’s a shame that apart from restating ‘Brax is gone’ to us the conclusion here doesn’t really push Jason any further forwards than we were before. This isn’t particularly Sheargold’s fault, as he wrote this originally with no knowledge of what had come before, and Jason needed some kind of payoff in this story, but it is a fault.
All in all the Tartarus Gate is a bold, unusual, brave idea that struggles for a number of small reasons that combined together hold it back. The idea of the CrosSSScape is fascinating but it doesn’t offer up much emotionally to the rest of the range. Same for the character 137 who appears, gives out information, does very little and then sacrifices himself in a way that doesn’t actually obviously alter the plot for anyone else immediately after.
I’m not going to suggest the range should dumb down, because this is exactly the kind of experience it should offer for listeners prepared to engage and think, but it isn’t capable of giving out the same kind of payoff I’ve come to expect from the range’s greats.
Ben Aaravonitch’s first full novel in how many years?
Genius Loci is something of a departure for the range. We’ve dropped the ‘Professor’ from the title. We’ve dropped the Collection setting, and Jason Kane, and all those adventures with the Doctor, and almost everything else that she’s been carrying around for over twenty years. This is the stripped down version that goes right back down to the core character first introduced in ‘Love and War’ only it’s not even that. There she was experienced and a little tired of archaeology. Here’s she’s young and fresh and eager to stick her oar into things.
The writer previously presented a taste of young Bernice in the short story collection ‘Something’s Changed’ which gave some choice intimate moments of Bernice’s traumatic army training. Genius Loci takes things pretty much from there… Ideal for new readers? It probably is, but in actual fact its perfect for old fans looking for a way to relax after the mind numbing twists in ‘Crystal of Cantus’.
Spiders are scary. Their long gangly limbs present the image of fear that the real life miniscule critters are never able to really present. Up close they’re soft and squishy and horrible. In Genius Loci though spiders aren’t small and soft, they’re armour plated and 150 kg large. So Ben scores marks for his choice of subject matter, initially presenting us with these dangerous monstrosities then pulling back the realms of history to give us a real, breathing, fully functional alien race. It’s refreshing to have a story which really is ‘about’ the archaeology at its most fundamental, with the slow unveiling of a thousand years of history turning the plot in completely natural yet unexpected directions. Yet by the monsters aren’t the true villains of the piece, as it becomes apparent that Bernice’s obsession isn’t simply ‘justice’ but ‘truth’.
There are a few references to the future Bernice we already know. This is the period where she first encounters 20th century Earth and is introduced to the eponymous ‘Goddess’ concept she became so flippant about up until the ‘Goddess Quandry’ last year. By the end of the story she’s a ‘real’ archaeologist as opposed to be a fraud with a chipped ID card. These are all peripheral elements to the story however, and Ben Aaravonitch instead focuses on the formation of that practicality and obsession we know Bernice for. Here, right at the beginning, before she even ‘was’ an archaeologist she just ‘had’ to have the truth, and somehow through the story her natural qualities as a leader start to shine through.
This is a well written book that treads that fine line between Science Fiction and Fantasy exceedingly well, using the imagery and scene setting to let the characters shine and to create new and novel mortal dilemmas. At first glance I thought it had ended on a cliff hanger but actually after rereading the last chapter it ends just where it needs to, with the last thing that this ‘young’ Bernice needed to set her down the path to becoming the woman we now know.
Exciting stuff and refreshingly isolated from the rest of the series.
Joseph Lidster kicks things off with one hell of a bang. In the first thirty seconds you are blasted with Bernice, Jason and Braxiatel introducing the concept of the play, setting out just how important this story is, setting out the theme of survival against the odds, before their narration is slowly drowned out by the haunting Cybermen voice chanting continuously their mantra: “We will survive, you will be like us.”
Usually this kind of group narration would feel odd, given how grounded the range tends to be (Bernice’s diary extracts aside) but the Cyrstal of Cantus actually uses this to good effect, making the use of sources and narrator reliability as a sort of secondary theme throughout. Nothing in the Crystal of Cantus actually happens as you listen to it, it’s all being retold back to the listener by various characters from several different later dates. And as Lidster points out a few times, you can’t exactly trust everything that they say, that goes for both Bernice, Brax and Jason.
Miles Richardson has been absent from the audios or a while, yet Braxiatel’s presence has never been felt more keenly in the books. In some ways this has shown some clever separation between the ranges, meaning that you’re not required to purchase both the spoken and written word to enjoy either material, yet it does mean that audio only listeners won’t realise the true extent of Braxiatel’s betrayal as depicted here. From an audio alone standpoint he’s only ‘really’ been misbehaving in the Mirror Effect, whereas avid fans of the books will remember clearly the incident with the Purpura Pawn and the Reality Bomb. Never the less, the only thing you really need to know for this adventure are the events of the Mirror Effect (and perhaps a passing reference to the Gallifrey audio series… Although this ties in nicely with that range, namedropping Darkel does stand out like a sore thumb in this otherwise 10/10 audio… Ooops, have I just spoiled my conclusions?)
In his time writing for Big Finish Joseph Lidster has always excelled at the personal, human driven dramas. Peel back the dance in his first offering ‘the Rapture’ and you’ll find a deep story about sibling love and rivalry. ‘Master’ is even more obvious in the way it plasters a human façade over its namesake and slowly peels it back to reveal the madness beneath. His previous short story for Clarissa Jones showed her finding love after a year of being an outcast, and slowly coming to accept her role in the Collection again (but if she was important then, why did she die now? Unless Braxiatel ‘wanted’ her to kidnap Peter to make a point to Bernice? I think that may have been an intention but its not been made clear…) This story harks back significantly to that short story, although knowledge of it is not necessary to enjoy this as everything is competently explained and serves a purpose.
Here the topic is friendship, betrayal and the need for survival. The first two you might recall from the end of the previous audio, where Bernice wondered if she could ever forgive her best friend for betraying her? That turns out to have been a magnificent tease for what Braxiatel had in mind.
Use of this theme, the ability of humans to make friendships and trust each other, is directly relevant to the plays ‘monster of the week’. The Cybermen have never been used quite so effectively, and this release covers more ground with them in one story than several television serials did. They’re described as logical, horrible creations and we get to fully explore the extent of their arrival on a new world, with frightening parallels of this planet to the collection bluntly restated by both Parasiel and Bernice with a session of ‘look around you’. Even so, they definitely play second fiddle to Braxiatel’s macabre revelations.
The story subverts expectation several times, casting Braxiatel alternately hero then madman. The way the plot hinges around Jason and not Bernice is also surprising. My one concern is that Braxiatel’s plan hinged around Bernice loving Peter more than Jason, and therefore leaving the latter to die. Admittedly he never planned on having her there at all, but to bet that she’d fly ‘all’ the way back to the collection before wondering what had happened to her errant ex-husband just struck me as a little off. Of course she was going to go back for him, right until the moment she ‘knew’ he was dead.
Despite the epic plotting though this story is full of small human touches, such as the voice activated doorbell that Jason and Bernice stumble into, the tears over the game of football, the pair of exploding Pakhar shoes or the ‘gorgeous hunk of love’ cameo from Stephen Wickham. Oh and an impressive shout out to Paul Bryant for bringing Parasiel to life convincingly.
There’s just so much going on here that is just ‘right’. From Bernice’s rant about ‘exciting adventures with the Cybermen’ (I’m now looking directly at you Silver Lining), Braxiatel’s futile attempts to surrender and finally the final confrontation in the office… A rare combination of both the writing, acting, even music and sound design being on top form (the scene with Bernice, Brax and Jason shouting, with the audio fading in and out to sample each of their dialogue is one of several strokes of brilliance) elevates this to a level the Bernice Audios havent touched since they left the two CD format behind. To be blunt this is the series finale we’ve been waiting for, a significant step forwards in the Collection’s storyline that ties up several loose ends but still leaves enough questions about what happens next.
And here things get complicated. Despite protests from various placing websites, Bernice Summerfield and the Goddess Quandry is actually set after ‘The Lost Museum’, and after the events of ‘The Crystal of Cantus’ which are kept shrouded in mystery, and is actually set concurrent to the story narration of ‘Death and the Daleks’. The conclusion of this story leads directly into ‘Life in Pieces’, which leads directly into ‘Something’s Changed’, which leads into ‘The Lost Museum’ which this story then follows, which is when ‘Death and the Daleks’ plus ‘Crystal of Cantus’ also happen. Keeping up? Good
It doesn’t really matter to the individual stories but keeping track of the overall timelines has become a nightmare. Never the less, despite the awkward framing device, Andy Rusell pens a fabulous isolated piece that harks back to Big Finish’s original plan for the range, with Bernice’s strangely absent ‘best friend’ Ker’a’nol who hasn’t been seen since the short exclusive piece ‘Buried Treasures’. Jane Goddard, one of Big Finish’s regular actresses, gives a slightly different approach to the role compared to Sarah Mowatt but it works, and comes across somewhat more mouse-like than the first.
The Goddess Quandry concerns a television documentary planned around the Etheria system, which may contain the final resting place of the warlord Aldebrath. The story starts with some comic scenes with Abbott Primus and Father Secundo observing one of Bernice Summerfield’s previous documentaries. They decide to invite her to Etheria to see if she can find the tomb and bring more exposure to the diminished brotherhood.
I actually quite like the comedy value here although by the end the joke does start to wear thin. As events spiral towards the climax, persistent chants begin to take over the play and slow things down. There’s some good tension mounting between Bernice and Ker’a’nol, whilst Father Secundo pleasingly plots away in a voice that is so eerily similar to Christopher Lee yet somehow completely different. Things conclude well, with a pun on Bernice’s old catchphrase ‘Goddess’ and a brilliant unveiling of the greatest warlord who ever lived, just not who was expected.
All in all the Goddess Quandry is pleasing experience, something slight and engaging, that never the less whets the appetite for something ‘big’ to follow.
Innapropriate Laughter
So, Wolsey is dead. Who saw that one coming? The thing is, aside from his fantastic turn in ‘Oh No It Isn’t’ the cat hasn’t actually done anything since. He’s just there, a piece of the scenery, and no one but Bernice seems to care about him. That’s quite telling about the rest of the Collection, that as much as we’re slowly growing to know them they aren’t the same as Bernice, they’re their own, independent, characters. Bev in particular seems determined to isolate herself, perhaps Simon Guerrier attempting to distinguish between the characters who, on the surface, could actually be quite similar.
The story makes it immediately clear that Doggles is a character you should be paying attention to, although he hardly dominates being in only a few scenes before the all encompassing, ill defined, ‘History Machine’ is activated. Simon Guerrier takes on Paul Cornell’s usual job though of filling us in on the activities of everyone else on the collection, it almost feels like a postcard from distant relatives, just letting you know what everyone’s up to. As a snippet into other people’s lives it’s well written and interesting, but on its own this short chapter is hardly rewarding.
Until Doggles presses that switch and it all goes to hell….
Siege Mentality
Following the brief James Swallow’s violent and apocalyptic short story carried almost directly on from the predecessor. The actual effects of the history machine are never really defined although the devastation from its passing is clear. Trying to stay resolute and strong the survivors start to rebuild, only to be vicously torn down when Hass’s brother sends an alien drone army to reclaim what’s rightfully his. Although this is finally payback for something that’s been building in the background for a while very little capitol is made of the conflict with Hass’s Martian heritage. Short, violent, end of the world scenario. For those who prefer style over substance definitely.
7 / 10
Dead Mice
At this point in Brax’s history Joseph Lidster appears to know the great man better than anyone else, and so after his strange ‘retreat’ of personality over the last two chapters it’s refreshing to get a good look inside his head for the first time, and our first semi-explanation for what’s going on. Plenty of imagery is made of Brax’s previous exploitations, including a delightful scene where he kills an ‘idiot’ with a ‘purple pawn’, a reference that will only make sense to those who sampled his last offering in the previous anthology. Joseph Lidster also makes use of the disappearance of Wolsey, giving us a pretty spiteful ghost who drives the plot forwards to a pretty horrible end. Not for the faint hearted, but everything here has subtext behind it. Plenty of subtext.
10 / 10
Acts of Senseless Devotion
Considering how important Avril Fenman is to the Bernice series, being the woman who seduced Adrian and conceived Peter, she’s hardly been mentioned since the child was born. Pete Kempshall gives us a clever reference back to the original novel by putting Bernice in a situation where it almost seems realistic she’d try and do what she does. This isn’t a self contained story though, it’s the start of a grand adventure never to be told, as sometimes doing your best just isn’t enough.
8 / 10
Walking Backwards For Christmas
Ben Aaranovitch takes this opportunity to show us something Big Finish hasn’t touched on so far, the early days of Bernice Summerfield. This is an incredibly private, personal piece at the start as it details the very beginning as she goes AWOL from the military. Then there’s another section where she makes two contradictory discoveries about life on another planet, the second revealing something slightly unpleasant about their military history. Then there’s more. Ben Aaranovitch seems to have taken the brief of the history machine at face value and if this ‘was’ the real second chapter it’s the only one that could probably have fitted into a ‘normal’ short story collection. Interesting, just for what it tells us and what you can infer from it, rather than for its specific content.
8 / 10
Match of the Deity
If Doggles was originally created to be a potential Jason replacement, as it certainly appears that he was, Eddie Robson takes this and runs with it, callously disposing of Dave Stone’s frontman and jumping forwards eight years so we can skip all of that tedious grieving and fallout. Bernice is an adult now, grown up, living a normal life, and through a series of incidents and a failed plot that pushes her and Doggles together they end up pairing off. Feels, and plays out, like a cheap soap but it takes advantage of this opportunity to do anything with the collection.
7 / 10
Night of the Living Martian
Another brief glimpse inside Hass’s head but this time we learn and see very little new. It’s a brief, interesting story about possession and history, but the only real twist comes when you learn who died at the end. It would be great but after so many preceding stories where cast members have died, its hardly a shock any more.
6 / 10
The God Gene
Ben Woodhams treads some difficult subjects in this horrifying story of genetic cleansing, disposing of the rest of the collection and running forwards with the similarities/differences between Bernice and Bev. What’s most striking at the end though is not the concept he’s come up with, but the fact Bernice has no comeback or retort to counter it. Excellent use of the two female leads.
9 / 10
Waiting in Green
After so many science fiction action-horror combinations its strange to suddenly be thrown head over heals into a love story. Our first real look at Jason in these new mismatched realities shows us a man horribly disfigures but still madly in love with Bernice. Hass makes an excellent matchmaker between the two, helping the former overcome his looks and prove himself to the latter. And the in the end, some interesting revelations about time… Given what we now know about Jason/Bernice’s relationship, this is another story that could have existed outside of this anthology quite easily.
9 / 10
Showing Initiative
Quick, quirky, comedy twist at the end aside this is actually a fairly unique story, in that it’s the only one in the anthology to actually introduce someone completely new to the readers. There’s nothing unique about Paul Stevens but then again there doesn’t have to be, he’s here to point out peculiarities about the world around him. In fact, this fairly standard story feels almost out of place with the oddballs around it.
8 / 10
A Murderous Desire
Well, this is at least, different. Ian Farrington drops the Science Fiction clichés that have abounded in the previous stories and throws at us something more akin to an Agatha Christie whodunit, albeit a short, sweet and tragic one. It relies on you assuming Bernice’s innocence, because your intimate knowledge of the character means the reader would never suspect her, despite the motive, capability and presence at the crime… This is an excellent turnaround the cast of the collection, with a particularly fine turn from Hass at the end showing Martain honour at its finest, most tragic moment.
9 / 10
Back and There Again
Several people seem to have noticed the reason for Doggles creation, and this is the latest of several stories to pair Doggles and Bernice up in the future, only this time Jason is around to intervene. Told through the eyes of a confused, paranoid, drunken, failed hero trying to make good in a world that he’s fallen out of failure with. Its excellent stuff but we’ve been here before…
7 / 10
One of My Turns
Having previously enjoyed Sin Deniz previous efforts I was a little disappointed with this one which almost lacks its own cohesive story. It follows Bernice around a very confused collection, a state of being which has by this point in the book become fairly standard. Mr Crofton pops up, but doesn’t do anything, swiftly replaced by Hass with no explanation. Then she finds and shoots an elder version of Braxiatel to save the Collection…Surreal but by this point standard.
5 / 10
The Ice Garden
Jonathan Clements story has two sides to it. On the one hand there’s the impressive new ‘suit’ that Hass is now to become, a proper finger biting, tension building, unstoppable force chasing her through the abandoned gardens. Clements uses some beautiful imagery as he plots Bernice’s journey through the frozen world, slowly uncovering Peter’s tombstone. Once again someone has died…
As a piece its fairly good but I think its only lasting effect will be the image of ‘new’ Hass stalking Bernice through the frozen gardens. For what it ties, it succeeds.
8 / 10
Family Man
After Dead Mice introduced the ‘multiple histories’ element of the storylines by putting us in Braxiatel’s eyes, Ian Mond puts us back in there for this final alternate reality. He casts Braxiatel as human, asking what would be different and what would be the same if he was.
Despite that though, we’re not really inside his head, as it’s told from the very bleak viewpoint of Ben, slowly trying to come to terms with why his father left his mother, and why his sister committed suicide. The message is simple; reconciling family with duty can be impossible.
After that things get a little complicated as the ‘real’ Brax bursts into a ‘stable’ moment in history and demands that Doggles head is removed at his own wedding ceremony, predictably with Bernice as the bride. It’s not surprising, considering that there’s been a pretty brutal series of events leading to this point, and its nice to see some culmination of the ‘Reality Bomb’ plot that’s been building behind the scenes until now… But really?
First half: 9 / 10
Overall: 7 / 10
After Life
And that’s it. Chapter three…
Or rather its chapter one again, this time with the benefit of foresight and an alternate history. Wolsey is still dead, Benny and Bev with differences to settle, Doggles still arrives at the collection but doesn’t get to start his great masterpiece…
Something Changed is an oddball of a collection. There are swathes of people who hate alternate universe stories as the perception is ‘they’re not real’, but it’s a fact that when well handled they can be incredibly interesting. Something Changed contains both, flirting between dramatic reinterpretations and ‘ten years later’ scenarios to ensure the reader is constantly surprised.
But somewhere in the mass there’s a lot of repetition. Too many stories revolve around one or more of the main cast members being dead. Most stick pretty rigidly to the past as we knew it, so when the few that change the setup come along they stand out like a sore thumb. It’s got several particularly brutal climaxes and due to the nature of it being a collection rather than a single piece there’s very little payout for all of these miniature disasters. When Adrian, dies then Bev, then Jason, then Peter, then Jason dies again and there’s no fallout you know something’s wrong.
So, although there’s lots to like about it as you go along, and several outstanding individual contributions, this could be the first anthology that doesn’t add up to be more than the sum of its whole.
Rebecca Levene edited several Bernice Summerfield books back when the range was handled by Virgin, and so she knows the character very well. This comes across quite clearly in a somewhat oddball story that almost entirely ignores the ongoing part of this loose trilogy and forges ahead into new, and somewhat dark territory.
The world Rebecca Levene crafts goes beyond sexism as we know it, painting a pretty terrible picture of a world (and society) that started from medieval ideas of chivalry and partnership and ran in completely the opposite direction of our own. For half the novel Bernice pretends to be a man and we get a detached ‘observation’ of the plight of this society. Half way through, inevitably, she casts aside her disguise in a momentary decision to sacrifice herself to aid someone else, and strangely, its from that point on that we actually start to get inside the characters heads.
Rebecca Levene is smart enough not to paint any characters as just ciphers, and the majority of the characters actions, though immoral by most standards, are well reasoned and backed up. In fact if the story has any failings it’s that only one woman in the society is actually exposed at all, and we only get a glimpse at gossip behind closed doors from the other servants. Although it would be nice to think they are, Bernice’s experiences alone with the emperor are probably not typical of most marriages on Atwalla.
There’s also a pleasant tieing together of what we had assumed to be a side plot (the alien Thiss and his crew planning to kidnap the princess) and the main story. Coupled with some very dark imagery (the pit of dead children for one thing) and a mythological tilt to the proceedings this is a very strong opener for the book
8 / 10
Hiding Places
After the initial success pairing Adrian and Bev together had been in short stories, Stewart Sheargold tests them out on something with a little more meat to it. This story seems intent on exposing all their dark parts and getting it out there, Bev with her previous life in crime, and Adrian apparently has some links back to the terrible events in Dr Who story ‘Arrangements for War’. Although plaudits for the shock value it is a surprise.
Hiding Places ties in slightly more neatly into the ongoing storyline, with the passing of Miss Jones and Peter still having a clear effect on the hotels remaining inhabitants. With a cast of just five (including Bev and Adrian) Sheargold finds plenty of time to flesh out his creations, drawing neat parallels between Adrian and Henry, Bev and Henrietta, and then Jacob and the elusive Peter. He tells a story about the characters struggling to repress their dark sides, however unlike the Mirror Effect which made glorious use of illusion, nothing here is abstract at all.
Although it moves a little slower than the previous story, Hiding Places is full of tension and character driven drama, Sheargold taking his time to slowly rack up the tension before rewarding the reader with an excellent, if violent, ending.
8 / 10
Jason and the Pirates
Dave’s Stone’s short story has all the strengths of his prior works (fast, energetic, frantic, amusing, ridiculous narration) although at some points it does start to fall flat for repetition. The reappearance of several characters who’d had a cameo or made an appearance in his last Novella contribution (Zardox Break) gave me a strong sense of déjà vu throughout.
To be blunt there isn’t really a story going on here. Or rather, there’s a story within a story, and the ratio between fiction and fact is left entirely in the hands of the reader. This fantastic fiction lives up to its name, wilfully trying to incorporate as much mayhem, destruction and humongous imagery that it should be. As such, rating it is difficult.
In the nicest possible way, your opinion of this fairytale probably depends on exactly how much crap your beginning to put up with. A high tolerance threshold would give it 10/10, but I’ll settle for:
6 / 10
—
The previous three stories are linked together by the conclusion of Miss Jones storyline. After an amazingly promising revelation in Life During Wartime, only Joseph Lidster seems to have actually been interested in picking her up since, so I suppose it makes sense for her to be dropped from the range.
I was surprised by the way it was suddenly put out there that she’s from the future. This does appear to be blatant foreshadowing, as its not actually relevant to the plot in any way. In fact, it may interfere with her prior romance with the Axis officer Moskoff, which was a fantastic parable about two people trying to forge a life despite the different worlds they live in. If she knew the axis were going to be thrown out, then why did she do it? Or, if she was from the future and realised history had changed, why wasn’t this flagged?
We’ll never know now though. What is important is that Bernice has started to realise where she’s going wrong with Peter. Will we start to see things rectified in future? And who exactly is it who’s died?
Overall?
I’ve seen a number of reviews of Jonathan Morris’s “The Cannibalists,” the sixth story in the third season of Paul McGann/Sheridan Smith stories from Big Finish, praising it for originality and enjoyability. So it was that I went into the story expecting great things, but instead found myself so disinterested that I struggled to pay attention. A second listen proved somewhat more rewarding, but ultimately I don’t see the big deal: yes, it’s a story populated entirely by robots, but does that excuse an utterly formulaic plot and unimaginative characterization? I think not.
I like the concepts on display. There’s a grand city in space, populated entirely by robots, many of whom worship the gods of Protocol as they wait for the arrival of the legendary human race. As a statement on religion, it’s a bit muddled, but effective nonetheless — and has the knock-on effect of casting Lucie as a de facto Christ figure in a robot religion, hilariously undercut by the robots’ confusion over her “unorthodox protrusions.” There’s a great line by McGann near the conclusion of the play, too, in which he reprimands Lucie for calling something that gives people hope “stupid” — while the Doctor has always been a champion of rationality, I’ve never pictured him in the aggressive Richard Dawkins vein. The explanation for the presence of the robots is painfully obvious, but it works in context, fitting thematically with the rest of the script.
Unfortunately, there is very little else to distinguish “The Cannibalists” in my mind. To call the plot predictable would be an understatement: while there’s some amount of depth present, anyone with any experience in science fiction is going to know what to expect right from the start. There’s an awful lot of running up and down corridors for a story checking in under 60 minutes. The Doctor and Lucie are also fairly passive, swept along by events and simply allowed to discover explanations at the conclusion. Morris’s “Hothouse” from earlier in the season struggled to inspire in similar ways, something which bothers me as I consider Morris one of my favorite authors of Doctor Who audio.
Paul McGann doesn’t have too much to do in this story, though he does get a couple of fantastic confrontation scenes which allow him to portray his most intimidating Doctor. Sheridan Smith, meanwhile, puts on another tour de force performance — Lucie has been put through a ridiculous amount of stress in this season, and Smith’s performance is always up to the challenge. As for the supporting cast, both Phil Davies and Phill Jupitus give excellent performances: Davies imbues Cannibalist leader Titus with a true sense of deranged menace, while Jupitus gives the poet robot Servo a bizarre sense of dignity, creating one of the more memorable guest characters of the season in the process. The problem is with the rest of the supporting cast: the roles on both sides played by Nigel Lambert, Teddy Kempner, and Oliver Senton are utterly indistinct and unmemorable to the point that I can’t remember which character was which, and I listened to the play no longer than ten minutes before I started this review. Perhaps their dual roles demonstrate that this was the idea, but I don’t like dramatic decisions along those lines.
Special mention to Andy Hardwick’s sound design: the Doctor and Lucie are the only organic characters in the story, and the mechanical sound effects on display are incredibly effective. I’ve read criticism that the effects are overwhelming — I agree, but this isn’t a bad thing. Lucie feels out of place and overwhelmed throughout the story, so it’s only natural to try to recreate this feeling in the listener. Credit to Jason Haigh-Ellery’s direction as well for capturing this atmosphere.
Overall, “The Cannibalists” is a predictable, uninspired story that is elevated above mediocrity by an excellent soundscape, a good sense of humor, and just enough depth to make it palatable. Much like “Hothouse” before it, it’s a decent enough piece of drama, but I’ve come to expect more from the author.
It’s interesting to take a step back every so often to appreciate the scale of what Big Finish accomplished: what started as an avenue to produce short stories in the vein of the Decalog and BBC Short Trips collections eventually transformed into the only regularly available source of Doctor Who prose aimed at the same audience as the previous novels. “Defining Patterns” was the twenty-third volume in the series, and the first released in 2008 — and it’s another successful entry with a number of worthwhile stories.
Machine Time — George Ivanoff — Very well-written, and intriguingly forboding, but it seems like it’s laying the groundwork for a story that will never be told. It fits in well with the themes of the anthology, of course, but provoked little more than a confused shrug from me.
The Time and Tide — Neil Corry — Not sure I like the choice of narrator here. It’s certainly believable from that perspective, but the narrator’s confusion passes too easily to the reader, giving the story a disjointed feel. However, the almost-mythical presence of the seventh Doctor ties everything together, and that’s my favorite way to portray my favorite Doctor, so I’m biased in the story’s favor.
Losing the Audience — Mat Coward — Great stuff. It’s fun to watch the pre-“Unearthly Child” first Doctor, with little hints of his future “humanity” poking through his intractable exterior, and Susan serving as his energetic arm into society. The ending is a particular delight, especially after the Doctor’s emphatic denial of the significance of coincidence.
One Card for the Curious — Xanna Eve Chown — Fascinating, and well-structured: we see the Tarot reading through Ace’s eyes, fall under its spell, then learn from the Doctor in rapid succession that a) it shouldn’t work and b) it does, because the reader is truly a psychic. The conclusion strikes the anthology’s uneasy balance between fate and free will, and this is the ideal Doctor-companion pairing for this story.
Seance, or Smoking is Highly Addictive, Don’t Start — John Davies — Another seventh Doctor story, but not as successful, this story feels twee and forced. The narrator spells everything out up until the end, and the Doctor having access to a list of everyone’s deaths is too obvious a plot device. Ultimately, it doesn’t work.
The Celestial Harmony Engine — Ian Briggs — Yet another seventh Doctor story, this one written by the author of the sublime “The Curse of Fenric” — and it’s quite good. The relationship between Ramiro and Isabel is tied into the story in expert fashion, with only the ending (the engine was a woman all along!) jarring with the rest.
Mutiny — Robert Dick — Why can’t we have more first-person Harry Sullivan stories? Fantastic work — Dick perfectly captures Harry’s perspective and outlook — and my only complaint is that it’s far too short and I wanted to spend more time in its world.
Numb — Dave Owen — I probably shouldn’t have liked this as much as I did, given the incredibly obvious resolution, but Owen captures the third Doctor/Sarah relationship so well, and so expertly describes the weight hanging from her shoulders, that it succeeds in spite of itself.
Closing the Account — Stephen Hatcher — Another seventh Doctor story, which I suppose shouldn’t be surprising in an anthology about fate. Forgive me if I’m misreading the story, though, but this is absolutely appalling: it reads as an apology for Josef Stalin, a statement that his innumerable crimes will one day be viewed in context as a regrettable but necessary step towards glorious revolution. Please tell me I’m misreading this, and that the Doctor was just lying to comfort a dying old man — if I’m not, Hatcher should be ashamed of himself.
The Great Escapes — Simon Guerrier — I like this: a brief snapshot of the life of Lucie Miller, struggling gamely against her captors to escape despite inevitable recapture. We know, by definition, that she lives, and thus the story isn’t about her survival but rather about her relationship with and faith in the Doctor, and his inevitable last-minute rescues. Its placement in this anthology also implies that these last-minute rescues are themselves functions of fate, something that warrants further exploration.
Loose Change — Steven Savile — Apart from the question of cleanliness, just imagine the journey an average coin must have taken to reach your pocket. Probably not as exciting as this, no, but I enjoy tales like this, which present a sort of chaos theory in practical terms.
Lepidoptery for Beginners — John Dorney — The tone seems to draw inspiration from Douglas Adams, given the cross between the mundane and the fantastic and the absurd names like Predicticon. Not a complaint, of course: the story is an easy, enjoyable read, with more than one laugh-out-loud moment and fantastic characterization of the Troughton-era regulars.
One Step Forward, Two Steps Back — Chris Thomas — I don’t find the story nearly as interesting as the implications: that the Doctor’s future selves can actually change history in such a manner that he experiences the changes as they occur. The story works, but I’m not sure this style could function regularly in Doctor Who — certainly that’s not how it’s approached on television.
Homework — Michael Coen — I love the style here, presenting the story as a child’s school paper on his summer vacation, including corrections and comments from the teacher. It’s also surprisingly heartfelt, despite the early comedic overtones — certainly Big Finish’s new writers competition can be deemed a success for producing a story like this.
The Devil Like a Bear — Brian Willis — Very odd. We see a glimpse into the Doctor’s past, involving him working as a Time Lord diplomat, wrapped around a fairly straightforward story involving an alien trapped by witch hunters. Not bad by any means, but it felt too forced to be truly successful.
Stanley — Lizzie Hopley — Absolutely fantastic. One of those concepts you’ll only see in Doctor Who: an ancient, terrible war criminal that looks like a big purple fish and is living in semi-captivity in an Earth aquarium. I also like the decision to frame fate as a function of genetics and race memory.
Twilight’s End — Cavan Scott and Mark Wright — I never read Project: Valhalla, so I don’t have the full backstory, but this story, essentially a long conversation between the Doctor and Nimrod, is a fine new chapter in the Forge series. After all, what driving forces have been more significant in the Doctor’s life than the villains his faces?
The Book of My Life — Ian Mond — Much like the story that opens the anthology, it ends on an unsure, foreboding note, but I am again forced to question the purpose: we’ve had several stories in this anthology which demonstrate that you can’t script anyone’s life, and there’s no hint of metafiction here to perhaps provide an outside explanation. Still, the image of the sixth Doctor being stripped of his distinctive garb and left with gray overalls matches well with the atmosphere and sense of threat.
Linking material — Ian Farrington — Entertaining material that maintains and reminds of the anthology’s linking theme. There are also a surprising number of references to earlier stories and anthologies, but none are intrusive or bothersome.
Overall, “Defining Patterns” is a successful entry in the Short Trips range. The stories struggle at times with the theme, probably because Doctor Who as a series has always kicked against the concept of predestination, but many address it in expert fashion. The average quality is quite high, and thus this anthology is recommended reading.
I wasn’t a huge fan of “Dead London,” Pat Mills’ previous script for the Paul McGann series — it was too disjointed, too lacking in motivation, more interested in throwing out cliches than learning about its characters. I’m pleased to say that “The Scapegoat,” the fifth story in the third “season” of McGann audios, is a significant improvement on Mills’ previous effort: it’s a bit slight on story, but it does wonderful things with atmosphere.
There’s a wonderful sense of the macabre surrounding this play: it centers around a Parisian theatre, the Theatre des Baroque, which stars Max Paul (Paul Rhys), the “Most Assassinated Man in the World,” in a series of productions with one element in common: they all conclude with his demise, often in spectactular fashion. In the manner of the best Doctor Who, the science behind Paul’s resurrections — the “quantic reanimator” — is handwaved away with a brief explanation, while the background is wonderfully fleshed out: he’s a Scapegoat, the target of violence and ire, the means through which his race siphons off their natural bloodlust. Mills sees the obvious parallel and runs with it: the Doctor is a scapegoat for his own people, the one who does their dirty work and yet gets punished for it. It’s refreshing to have a script that approaches its central character head-on like this, something which has become less common since the advent of the new television series.
As mentioned above, the atmosphere is fantastic. The setting, WWII-era Nazi-occupied Paris, is a fairly common time period for Doctor Who novels and audios, but Mills lends it a delightful air of absurdity: the TARDIS’s chameleon circut is interfered with, leading it to turn into a massive carnival carousel, and Lucie gets stuck riding it before disappearing. The Gestapo, led by Major Treptow (Clifford Rose), pursues the Doctor, thinking the TARDIS is a new, top-secret invisible aircraft, something that must be captured for the Reich — but they’re tricked on stage and duped into embarrassing themselves before the very public they despise. Lucie is utterly horrified by the spectacle of the theater, and terrified of Mother Baroque (Samantha Bond) and the Baroks — and yet she ends up on stage in a surprisingly hilarious bout of improvisation.
The cast turns in a series of excellent, well-directed performances. Sheridan Smith is the star of this story, as she is allowed to demonstrate perhaps her widest range yet, from terror to comedy to confusion. Paul McGann seems to do best in these more lyrical stories — his easygoing performances seem to best suit his Doctor, and this is one of his best. As for the supporting cast, Bond and Rhys are particular standouts, not to mention Christopher Fairbank as Doc. Rose’s performance is perhaps too one-note, but given the satirical nature of the character it’s acceptable. I already mentioned Nicholas Briggs’ direction was quite successful with his actors, but it also shows a keen understanding of the script. Matthew Cochrane’s sound design is sublime; Jamie Robertson’s score less so, but certainly adequate for the proceedings.
Overall, there isn’t a great deal more to say about “The Scapegoat” — the atmosphere is wonderful, but there isn’t a significant amount of depth outside of its brief commentary on the Doctor’s history. It’s remarkably similar to “The Beast of Orlok” in many ways — but while that story wraps itself in the trappings of Hinchcliffe-era Doctor Who, this one blazes its own trail. I’d like to see more of the world this story inhabits, but for a brief glimpse, “The Scapegoat” is remarkably satisfying.
“Greetings. I would purchase one of your fowl birds.”
“Certainly sir. Is the bird to be a meal, a pet or a sexual partner?”
I’ll start by proclaiming this the most adult Bernice Summerfield play yet. Simon Guerrier, already familiar with Bernice Summerfield from editing some of the previous anthologies and some short stories of his own, pens his first full audio and it is fantastic. For a second audio in a row Bernice and Jason are the team, and having consistent new characters for them to meet is something that’s not happened since Series One. This time they’re in a large, expansive and violent city, with only two ‘real’ characters and a cast of literally thousands brought to life by Jason’s translator device.
The Bernice Summerfield Inside Story states Simon Guerrier was surprised that nobody in Big Finish had come up with the idea of a translator to expand the cast but it certainly seems novel here. Stephen Fewell adapts a very posh, monotone voice and successfully gives us insights into the mind of a whole planet. For once literally everyone gets to have their say, ranging from the comic mistiming to some genuine traumatising revelations. This also drives forwards the plot, as by giving disparate warring groups of aliens with no common language means to communicate, gang squabbles quickly escalate into a full blown war. However, the resolution, altering the accent and context, is a clever and original idea you couldn’t have expected but in that retrospect makes perfect sense.
A significant moment here is the loss of Bernice’s arm. It happens around half way through the play and it itself doesn’t actually occupy more than a few minutes, the fact she can get a new one grown is stated almost matter of factly. The move itself is just a small, deft touch that leaves an impression in the listener’s mind. Her response, first disbelief, then tears, is brilliant, with the especially observed line: “I can’t put my arm around you”. Within ten minutes (and presumably an hour of off scene sobbing) she’s back on her feet, twice as angry and determined as before, driven by the adrenaline inducing drugs keeping her mind off the pain. It’s a bold idea of Simon Guerrier’s that he makes just the right amount of capital from, without letting it intrude on the larger story.
There are two new characters in this story. By the end we’ve discovered that both General Markwood and Curator Enil have very interesting and complicated histories, although it takes a while to get around to fleshing them out. For the first half of the play however Enil is reduced to spouting gibberish (albeit giving Bernice some good self imposed dialogue) and Markwood’s reserved, calm, self effacing manor makes an instant enemy of Bernice. Both get excellent scenes exposing themselves more fully later, although Enil’s are hampered by a rather crass ongoing shootout that just doesn’t have the right amount of tension it should. There’s also a strange fascination with the Longbow here, as I just can’t picture a group of four or five people holding back an army with these archaic weapons for any amount of time.
The story rips along at an incredible pace, each scene presenting something new and exciting as the threat plays out. With the exception of blithe comments about ammo it presents a raw and terrible account of violence, but then the audio medium has never been particularly good for presenting the act of violence. The strange juxtaposition of Bernice walking into a warzone and bitching that a mess has been made of the museum archive, it’s true to the character and interesting, showing exactly how badly she can misread a situation when her temper’s roused. There’s even some references back to the books, with Adrian and Bev lined up to become an official couple. That the range is finally able to distinguish between the two different formats and jog you along on all the important revelations in each as they happen is a massive step forwards.
More please. This is the best use of a single disk we’ve had so far. Fantastic acting on all parts, an amazing job for sound design that needs a mention (really, really, really evocative) and a well plotted, well written, zinger of a script.
Silver Lining begins with a new cliché for the BF range which seems to have replaced the diary as the de facto scene setter; she’s attempting to record a message to send back to the Collection to explain her absence. It’s not the only familiar meme Colin Brake troupes out in this half hour advert for the series. To be fair, for something given out for free, expectations don’t necessarily need to be that high, although if you’re going to use this as marketing it should ideally be on top form.
I’m never a particular fan of awkward ‘fan’ characters fawning over the hero, even if it turns out that they do have a specific agenda later. Nicholas Briggs actually does an astoundingly good job at disguising his voice, I almost didn’t realise it was him. He also plays a lone 1980s Cyberman, a particularly flawed example of the species who relies on logic so flawlessly Lisa Bowerman is capable of instantly running rings around him.
Is it because he’s a machine or because he’s a man? We’ll never know.
The plot, as it plays out in a scant half hour, is actually quite neat and tidy with next to no frills. It makes good, if not innovative, use of both Bernice and the Cybermen, showcasing the main qualities of each within half an hour. One is witty, intelligent and career bound whilst the other is large, strong and logical to obsession. Between them they make an interesting team, although inevitably a double cross was coming. Although Bernice’s escape is…. logical, it is particularly heartless on her part.
All in all Silver Lining is exactly what it promises; Bernice meets the Cybermen. It’s a decent play, a competent remix of many previous Bernice and Cybermen stories. It treads out a few old clichés and I am getting tired of the familiar Bernice ‘diary’ framing device, but they are clichés for a reason: they work.
I wasn’t most fond of Jac Raynor’s the Grel Escape, the story flew by with a few too many obvious contrivances for my tastes, and it was all done far too tongue in cheek. That Jac Raynor is capable of putting together a good play though, and that she writes good humorous dialogue, has never been in question. Like the preceding story this series I’m not familiar with the returning monsters, however as the concept of the Monoids is much simpler than that of the Eternals I’m prepared to have a stab at judging this blind (or should that be semi-blind? See I can make jokes as well).
Things kick off with a long conversation between Bernice and an unknown stranger, revealed to be the mute slave 26 or alternatively the familiar Caroline Morris who manages to express convincingly sheer delight at being able to speak at all. The story plays out in two halves, with Bernice walking blindly into the clutches of the Monoids, whilst Jason suffers a traumatic injury courtesy of his wife and wanders into the blind clutches of 44. The writing for both halves is brilliant, although I lean towards the Jason segments as the Monoid sections are played mostly for laughs. The grave, ominous story told by 44 is almost too stark a contrast to the light, wilfully violent, carefree approach of Richard Unwin’s Monoid sections, it is however a sign of the way the story will end.
As I gather this story is a prequel to The Ark, explaining how these aliens lost their planet and their speech. In order to do this Jac Raynor introduces her own creations, the Halavans, which actually (and fortunately) occupy the majority of the play. The running joke of a society obsessed with one upmannship begins to run thin fairly quickly, and scenes with Bernice pretending to be death whilst obviously winding up her captor with a toneless work song grates. Meanwhile a sad tension is building in the background, a dangerous picture of violent discontent in the underclass. Citizen Kane this isn’t, however it is a credible attempt at it within a sixty minute timeframe, and the conclusion is in some ways, shocking.
So, all credit to Jac Raynor who has put together a fantastic story that features Monoids, that veers sharply between crude comedy and violent melodrama, managing to fit neatly into every slot in-between. Well worth a listen, even if (or because of) it is a little light on how it features its unique selling point.
Big Finish Productions, Special Release #2. 6 episodes. Written by: Douglas Adams. Directed by: Nicholas Pegg.
THE PLOT
When the Doctor receives a message from his old friend, Professor Chronotis (James Fox), a retired Time Lord living on Earth as a Cambridge professor, he remembers something long forgotten. Four lifetimes ago, he had visited Cambridge with Romana (Lalla Ward) and K-9 (John Leeson) in response to a summons from the Professor – a summons that went unfulfilled when they were snatched out of time and space. Now it’s time to finish old business, sending all three of them “back to Cambridge, 1979.”
Chronotis has called them to retrieve an artifact he brought back from Gallifrey. A book that isn’t a book, but which has powers that could be devastating in the wrong hands. Trouble is, Chronotis has inadverdantly lent the book out to a student. And the wrong hands are already searching for it, in the form of Skagra (Andrew Sachs), a brilliant but unstable scientist who plots to use the book as a key. The Doctor doesn’t know what Skagra plans to do with it when he has it. But he knows enough to realize that the consequences might spell the end of the universe as he knows it!
“Beware the sphere…”
CHARACTERS
The Doctor: Paul McGann steps into Tom Baker’s shoes in this remake (or should that be second attempt? For purposes of the review, I’ll refer to it as a remake) of the half-finished, strike-aborted 1979 story. I know opinions on this are divided, but mine is that the shoes fit perfectly. McGann has a laid-back, deadpan line delivery that suits Douglas Adams’ dialogue. He has a knack of delivering lines about how taking the universe makes no sense because “it’s useless as a piece of real estate because, by definition, there’s nobody to sell it to,” all while sounding perfectly conversational… which makes such lines much funnier than if he was trying to “sell” them. McGann is particularly good opposite Andrew Sachs’ Skagra, his calm demeanor the perfect foil to his increasingly agitated and excitable foe.
Romana: Lalla Ward returns to the role of Romana, the Doctor’s former companion and now President of Gallifrey. That Ward has no problem settling back into the role is no surprise – she had already reprised it multiple times by the time this was recorded. The main body of the story is almost exactly what Douglas Adams wrote for Season 17 (with some material apparently pilfered from earlier drafts), so the relationship between Romana and the Doctor quickly settles into being the traditional one. This works in the story’s favor to the extent that Ward actually plays quite well opposite McGann, and seems far more relaxed here than in most of her BF outings, where she has to be “stern” and “Presidential.” Within the story’s continuity, though, there is no sense of Romana’s position having changed after the opening prologue. She defers constantly to the Doctor, allows the Doctor to chide her in one scene… which makes it all the more jarring when the story remembers to nod at her being Gallifrey’s President once or twice thereafter.
K-9: The robot dog is quite amusingly utilized by Adams’ scripts. The invisible spaceship is particularly enjoyable, as the Doctor and Romana bump straight into it while K-9 makes no warning because he assumes that they can see it. The story takes the mickey out of K-9 multiple times. Repeated replies of “Insufficient data” are played on to good effect, as is his overly-literal response to a cry of, “Blast it!” John Leeson is terrific, capturing the bits of character that made K-9 work when he probably shouldn’t have.
Villain of the Week: Andrew Sachs is Skagra, a brilliant – and stability-challenged – scientist who has devised a plan for universal domination using a big ball, an invisible spaceship, and a bunch of silicon-and-lava derived thugs. My recollection of the 1979 version is that Christopher Neame’s Skagra came across as rather weak and wooden (a surprise, given how good Neame is generally). This is one area in which this new version definitely works better. Sachs is terrific as Skagra, sneering out his every line delivery. He’s an over-the-top villain and knows it, but he never goes so far over to break my suspension of disbelief. He has just enough fun with the part to be enjoyable, but reigns it in before it crosses the line into camp. He also gets many of the story’s best lines and exchanges, particularly opposite the Doctor and Romana in the story’s latter half. I loved the Doctor’s final punishment of Skagra, which is far more satisfying than simply killing him would have been.
Befuddled Time Lord Guest Star of the Week: Though I think Sachs’ Skagra works far better than Neame’s did, I’m afraid that James Fox’s Chronotis just isn’t as effective as Denis Carey’s was in the 1979 version. This is easier to judge (since most of Carey’s scenes were actually filmed), and rather disappointing, given what a good actor James Fox is. Unfortunately, though almost certainly a better actor than Carey, Fox… just isn’t as good at comedy as Carey was. He doesn’t seem to have the knock of playing Chronotis’ befuddlement in the kind of straight-faced and off-hand manner that Carey had. Fox seems to be trying to sell certain lines a bit too hard, and drains some of the humor out in the process. He also delivers some of the dialogue in the early episodes a touch too rapidly, when certain lines (“It could be green!”) would be funnier if allowed a second or two to sink in. He’s better in the later episodes, when Chronotis is a bit less scattered and more focused, but this is very far from Fox’s best work.
THOUGHTS
Shada is, of course, famous as Season 17’s half-finished season finale, what should have been the epic valedictory bow of the Graham Williams era, and particularly of the Graham Williams/Douglas Adams season. Depending on who you’re listening to, this story would either have been a sparkling epic of wit and high concept that would have redeemed that controversial season, or would have been a lugubrious mess that would have been a nail in the coffin lid of the season’s reputation. It is worth noting that Douglas Adams later professed to have been relieved that the story was cancelled, as he wrote it in a hurry when the story he really wanted to write was rejected as being too silly.
My own opinion falls somewhere between the two poles. I’m rather fond of what was shot of the 1979 Shada, as presented on home video, and I think it would have been the second-best story of a season that I’m admittedly not very fond of. On the other hand, it is not exactly Adams’ best work as writer, and it’s not hard to see why he was dissatisfied with the scripts. There’s much that is funny in Shada, there are a handful of wonderfully clever moments, and the villain’s plot is both ingenious and unlike anything Doctor Who had done prior to that point. It’s lesser Douglas Adams, but it’s still a pretty good story.
Unfortunately, it is very slow and structurally rather messy. It is equally true of both versions that the first episode could be described by the phrase, “Nothing happens,” and that the second episode is only a bit better. The story itself doesn’t seem to start until Part Three, and doesn’t really take off until Part Four. Had it been completed in 1979, I doubt it would have been regarded as any kind of classic.
These problems hamper the 2003 version. A clever prologue by Gary Russell provides a “grabber” that helps ease listeners over Adams’ slow opening, and puts the story in context as having first “happened” (1979), then “un-happened” (The Five Doctors), so that it is reasonable for it to “happen again” for the 8th Doctor. But since there are only very tiny tweaks to Douglas Adams’ actual script (which was quite audio-friendly as it was), there is no real sense of urgency in the 8th Doctor and Romana’s visit, nor a sense of Romana having any greater standing than she would have in the 1979 variant. There is even one point at which Romana refers to this visit as a “social call,” something which is flatly contradicted by the new prologue!
The audio version is very well-produced, and Nicholas Pegg has gathered together a strong cast. Most of the story’s failings lie in the original script. It’s too slow to start (and was in 1979). It’s a bit structurally messy, with too many side trips and it taking far too long to get the Doctor and Skagra into direct conflict (equally true in 1979). About half of the cliffhangers are weak at best (and always were).
However, the story’s best cliffhanger – “Dead men don’t need oxygen” – is destroyed in this version. This is triply disappointing, because: (1) It’s a very audio-friendly cliffhanger; (2) This was one of the scenes never shot for the original version; and (3) Since Nicholas Pegg oversells the cliffhanger by repeating the line over and over again before bringing in the credits, that means that only is a good cliffhanger bungled, but that there is no good version of what should have been an all-time classic cliffhanger.
With that exception, Pegg’s direction is generally well-judged. The soundscape feels convincing for both Cambridge and the outer space settings, and I never had any trouble following the action even in the more visual sequences. The score is effective, the performances are good (even James Fox is generally pretty good, just not up to the level of his predecessor in the part). The story takes too long to get going, but when it does finally kick into gear, there’s plenty of Douglas Adams wit and loopiness to enjoy.
Rating: 7/10. Too many flaws to rate higher, but too enjoyable to rate lower.
Big Finish Productions, Main Range #123, Story 1. 1 episode. Written by: Lance Parkin. Directed by: Nicholas Briggs.
THE PLOT
Many years after the end of her association with the Doctor, archaeologist Bernice Summerfield is participating in a dig inside the coal mines of a dead planet. It’s a freelance job for which she is being very well-paid, in exchange for “not asking any questions.” She is shocked when she quickly finds the object of her employer’s efforts: a TARDIS key. She is even more startled when her employer uses that key to summon the TARDIS in question – the TARDIS belonging to the Doctor!
Soon, Benny finds herself running with the Doctor from deadly security robots, through frozen coal mines and across time zones into a jungle filled with treacherous cliffs and ravenous green lions. With “her” Doctor – the 7th Doctor – she could have at least been secure in the knowledge that the Doctor had some masterplan. But this new Doctor has no more idea than she does what is going on, and no kind of plan at all!
CHARACTERS
The Doctor: Paul McGann seems to be having a terrific time in this story, infusing his performance with a lot of energy and enthusiasm. As in The TV Movie, he can shift from wild enthusiasm to deadly serious very quickly, and handles the Doctor’s genuine anger at the climax quite well (far better, I’d say, than his immediate predecessor could have done). This story sees him travelling alone, and he reacts with delight at running into an old friend, seeming eager at the thought of travelling with her again.
Bernice Summerfield: Lisa Bowerman has played Bernice for a long time now, both in a handful of Who audios and in her own long-running audio range, and she is likely at the point where she could play Benny in her sleep. It’s to her credit that she does not in any way phone in her performance. The story is very much told from her point-of-view, and as such it is up to her to carry the story. She does so with energy and good humor, and she plays so well opposite McGann that I find myself wanting to hear a full-length release with these two.
THOUGHTS
In the past few years, it has become standard for Big Finish to produce one “anthology” release per year, varying these among their Doctors. Last year was the 8th Doctor’s turn for such a release: The Company of Friends, in which the gimmick is to pair 8th Doctor Paul McGann with companions from the various 8th Doctor ranges – Virgin NA’s, BBC EDA’s, and the DWM comic strip. Benny’s Story, the first of the four stories featured, sees the 8th Doctor reunited with the New Adventures’ Professor Bernice “Benny” Summerfield.
When I first listened to it last year, I found this the weakest of the four stories, and I suspect that opinion will hold. That’s not to say Benny’s Story is bad. It’s an amusing trifle, with a great deal of pace and energy and spirited performances by the two leads. But it is very much a trifle, a quick runaround. Writer Lance Parkin does manage to squeeze in hops through multiple time zones and a bit of Time Lord lore, and some of the exchanges between Benny and the Doctor are a joy to listen to.
Unfortunately, the villain is weak, and the scenes in which she tries to take over the TARDIS simply occupy too much of the story’s brief running time. I wanted to hear more of the Doctor and Benny, and a lot less of the supremely uninteresting Countess Venhella (Su Douglas), whose only good scene comes when the Doctor confronts her at the end. Given that the cutaways to the countess don’t tell us anything that we wouldn’t have learned in the confrontation finale anyway, I would have preferred the story not keep cutting back to scenes in which Venhella and her hapless assistant fiddle around with Technobabble. The plot being just a thin clothesline for interaction between McGann and Bowerman is fine – but if that’s the case, then surely we should get as much 8th Doc/Benny as possible?
It’s amusing, and worth a listen. But it’s too lightweight to be fully satisfying as a story, and too overplotted to be fully satisfying as a character comedy. An OK bit of filler, but nothing more than that.
When the third season of Paul McGann/Sheridan Smith audios began with “Orbis,” I was intrigued: the dynamic between the Doctor and Lucie was changed, the Doctor’s personality was subtly different, and the story ended on a surprising, downbeat twist that departed significantly from the two previous seasons. Three stories later, however, and that promise is seemingly unfulfilled: after a Krynoid story and an arrow-straight Hinchcliffe homage, we come to “Wirrn Dawn,” a story from Nicholas Briggs that attempts to resurrect yet another part of the Tom Baker era. Credit Briggs for trying to make his script mean something, especially after the substance-free “The Beast of Orlok” — but unfortunately, the revelations are uneasy and the story is almost completely free of incident.
Don’t get me wrong, the “lack of incident” complaint certainly doesn’t apply to the first ten minutes. The TARDIS lands on a ship in the middle of a bloody space battle, the Wirrn quite literally eating the ship from the outside and tearing it to pieces. In the great Doctor Who tradition, the Doctor and Lucie are thrown into the middle of an impossible situation, separated from their ship, and forced to improvise just to survive — and it’s very entertaining, lots of desperate soldiers, explosions, etc. Finally, as the ship is about to lose atmosphere, our heroes are able to strap themselves into spacesuits just as they are blown into space.
This is where the play stops.
Not literally, of course, but the pace grinds to a complete halt for no apparent reason. We’re treated to an endless scene of Lucie floating in space, trying to communicate with the Doctor, using her jet pack to escape the exploding ship — something which carries little sound design and thus lacks excitement — and then having to search her spacesuit for the button that will activate her helmet communicator! I’m not sure if these scenes are intended to be intense, humorous, or both — but they’re neither.
The second part, fortunately, picks up a bit by introducing an actual theme: we’re presented with Delong (SJA’s Daniel Anthony, very good), an “indig” (-enous — did you figure that out when you saw it? The Doctor didn’t) colonial soldier ostracized from his unit due to accident of birth. We’re also introduced to the Wirrn Queen (Beth Chalmers, and eventually Liz Sutherland), and Briggs explores an element of “The Ark in Space” that was mentioned only in passing: the Wirrn take on the characteristics of their host bodies, meaning that a human-hosted Wirrn will be capable of subtleties of emotion lacking in a horse-hosted Wirrn. Sure enough, the new queen is growing in a helpless soldier, leaving the Doctor with a dilemma: stop the transformative process, or allow the human to be sacrificed such that the newly-grown Wirrn queen will not continue to prosecute the destruction of humanity. The way in which Briggs resolves this is unusual for Doctor Who: the Doctor appeals to the law of nature, of all things, in arguing that the Wirrn should be allowed to take the humans they need to achieve peace. Perhaps this is an example of the Doctor’s changed personality post-”Orbis” — I hope it is, because it’s bizarrely out of character for the Doctor to allow the innocent to perish without at least making an attempt to stop it.
And while all this is reasonably thought-provoking, and explores a side of the Wirrn previously unseen, it’s not insightful enough to stand on its own. Yes, the question of how much sacrifice is too much is a good one, but the characters quite literally spend most of part 2 sitting in a room and talking about it. This makes the space-action motif of the first part unfortunate, because the script hasn’t earned enough trust in its characters to justify an extended scene like this. Nonetheless, Briggs should be applauded for trying — this story may not, on balance, be as good as the empty “Orlok,” but ambition in Doctor Who should never be faulted.
Briggs directs his own script with his usual ease, but gives way to Jamie Robertson for the music and sound design. The result is a reasonably effective, if unmemorable, soundscape. I don’t often mention cover art, but Simon Holub’s design is absolutely gorgeous.
Overall, “Wirrn Dawn” is a solid midseason entry. It struggles to find its dramatic and thematic feet, but succeeds enough to justify its existence. If this season of McGann stories is Big Finish’s attempt to take the place of the absent TV series, then this is “The Lazarus Experiment.” Not great, but not bad; rather, 60 minutes of entertaining drama.
The Hinchcliffe/Holmes era of Doctor Who fascinates me, mostly because it’s so good: there’s an unquestionable house “style” to their stories, but most reach classic status because of unexpected depth. Survival, lust, passion, fear — they’re all there in season 14 and beyond, and it amazes me that stories based entirely on horror clichés can have so much else going on. Which brings me to “The Beast of Orlok,” an obvious effort by Barnaby Edwards to ape one of Doctor Who’s “golden ages” — but despite an evocative story in the grand Gothic tradition of the Hinchcliffe era, it forgets in its eagerness to actually be about anything.
Don’t get me wrong: there’s a lot to like here, and it’s a fine way to pass a couple of hours, especially on a gloomy day. The early nineteenth-century German setting is intensely claustrophobic: the town of Orlok feels cut off from the world, surrounded by forest and unknowable dangers. All the classic elements are there: terrified townsfolk, gruesome, motiveless murders, and the Doctor and companion thrown into the mix and instantly suspected of the crimes. And yes, after spending most of the story telling a traditional horror tale, Edwards introduces the science fiction twist, bringing the villain’s plan into sharp focus. I usually mention the production at the end of the review, but I’ll mention it here instead: Andy Hardwick’s sound, coupled with Edwards’s direction of his own script, are beyond reproach, lending a creepy vibe to the story that doesn’t relent until the credits roll.
But despite the great reviews that this story has received, I’m struggling to find much to say about it. There are hints of interesting details: the eternal war of the Ratzera system, based upon constant betrayal, or the relationship between Hans, Greta, and the Golem, all spun from the same cloth but raised much differently. I’d be digging well past the script if I tried to say too much more, and so I find myself struggling to continue, and indeed struggling to give an appropriate final score. Instead, I’ll praise the cast, even more so than usual: aside from Paul McGann and Sheridan Smith, whose greatness is almost unquestionable at this point, there’s also Miriam Margolyes, known to me from Blackadder and The Age of Innocence, and giving a fantastic performance as Frau Tod. Peter Guinness makes a great villain, while Samuel Barnett adds humor and strength as Hans.
Ultimately, “Orlok” has me stumped. I enjoyed listening — never felt bored, never looked for a distraction — and felt gripped throughout. Yet after the play was completed, I felt totally uninspired: not a single scene stuck in my mind, not a single moment inspired me to write. How, then, to conclude? How do I rate something that was, in many ways, the ultimate display of style over substance — a loving, well-made tribute to an earlier era without an original thought in its head?
Doctor Who: Dreamtime
Written by Simon A Forward
Starring Sylvester McCoy, Sophie Aldred and Philip Olivier
The TARDIS, carrying the Doctor, Ace, and new recruit Hex, materialises in a settlement around Ayers Rock that turns out to be part of a piloted asteroid floating in space. If that isn’t enough to wet the appetite of a Doctor Who fan I don’t know what is!
The story opens as the new boy get to grips with his surroundings. Hex was created to breathe new life into a Doctor/Companion team that had been exploited like no other. The New Adventures ‘era’ took Ace on a journey no one could have predicted. The teenage misfit had become, over 40 novels, several comic strips, and even a couple of audios, a Time Protecting Soldier!
Big Finish, under the reigns of Gary Russell, made the decision to ‘ignore’ this timeline and give the Ace we were familiar with on television another chance to mature. After a horrifying experience in Nazi Germany Ace decides to ‘grow up,’ and starts calling herself McShane. As ideas go it probably ranks as Big Finishes all time worst. How many women like to be known by their surname? Thankfully the idea burnt itself out after a handful of stories and came in at the time of a much better one. Hex!
Thomas Hector Schofield is the young nurse who first encountered the Doctor and McShane at St Gart’s Hospital, during a particularly gruesome tale involving body parts. This is his second adventure and we get his reactions to alien races and seeing a familiar landmark under the darkness of space. As images go it’s a compelling one. Philip Olivier was an inspired choice to play Hex. He was the first ‘star name’ to play a Big Finish companion, and it’s nice to see him playing against type as a charming, nice natured, kind young man, as opposed to the scallies and heartbreakers he is more well known for.
The story concerns refugees from a doomed Earth. They have chosen a rather unique form of travel by being able to harness the spirit of the earth around Ayers Rock and piloting it into space. They have been able to do this thanks to the power of a mysterious guru known as Baiame. The plan is to find an inhabitable planet and begin again, the replanted Ayers Rock providing the terraforming template for the new world.
When the Doctor and his friends arrive Ayers Rock is a dead place, with its people and buildings turning to stone and being dragged back into the earth. The terraforming has gone wrong. With only a handful of survivors and a couple of passing Galyari, an alien race of traders, to help it’s a race against time to save the ‘Uluru’ colony from extinction.
Dreamtime is a densely written story, typical of its Big Finish era – Gary liked them dark and foreboding! There are twists and turns, returning Big Finish aliens, a bleak set up, more angst from Ace (again!), and a premise that requires attention. The imagery of the set up is impressive, especially when witnessed through Hex’s eyes. Visions of an asteroid containing Ayer’s Rock travelling beneath a sea of stars are stirring, as is the imagery created by the detachment scenes throughout the play – on television with the right budget they would have looked spectacular.
The situation is interesting, taking the well used scenario of refugees abandoning a doomed Earth for pastures new. As with The Ark In Space or The Mysterious Planet you get the sense of bravery and fear in the undertaking. It’s the choice between certain death and taking an impossible risk that will almost certainly lead to certain death.
Exploring the area the TARDIS crew encounter embittered, humourless, frightened survivors. The Doctor is sucked into the Dreamtime and finds his way back to the past and the moment of embarkation. There he meets the enigmatic Baiame and uncovers the secrets of the rock. His companions meanwhile attempt to discover survivors in the present by journeying down into the tunnels beneath the rock. There, horrors of their own await them.
Overall the play demands a lot of attention from the listener. The story isn’t easy to follow in just one sitting. The performances are somewhat detached, especially Sylvester McCoy, who gives a somewhat ‘lazy’ interpretation of the Doctor – he’s seen and done it all before. Philip Oliver is on good form, and I enjoyed Jef Higgins as Commander Whitten, a man determined to carry out his duty despite the consequences to himself and his colleagues.
Equally spaced out are the soundtrack and sound effects. They really add to the atmosphere of a dying city out in the depths of space. It’s not a play to be listened too whilst relaxing though, as it will send you off to sleep! I found the scenes in Baiame’s layer to be particularly ‘trippy.’
Overall a very satisfying release. It’s not for everyone though.
I remember being really disappointed with Nigel Planer in this. Known in the UK for playing Neil in The Young Ones, he sounds like an older and more bored version of Neil in this. This strikes me as a complete waste of him as he is still associated with a character he played in the 80s. Whether he was asked to do this or whether he just played up to it, the result is the same. Unimaginative.
What makes it especially galling for me is that I have Planer reading the first 20 or so fully unabridged Terry Pratchett Discworld novels and he shows in those how versatile he is on audio. Capable of a number of different and very convincing voices and accents he is extremely articulate and I could listen to him read them again and again. But no, instead we get the hook for UK listeners of “Hey, we got Neil from the Young Ones, remember him?”
The longer Doctor Who runs, and as more stories are created in an increasing variety of media, the more we’re going to see “homages” to earlier, popular stories. We’ve seen it in the new television series, and another example is found in Big Finish in Jonathan Morris’s “Hothouse,” a tribute to “The Seeds of Doom” in everything but name. Unfortunately, while “Hothouse” isn’t a poor audio, it fails to reach the impressive heights of its predecessor: rather, it is a curiously flat and uninvolving attempt to tell a modern-day Krynoid story.
It’s obvious from the start that this story aims to evoke the feeling of “Seeds:” there’s no TARDIS, the Doctor and Lucie (much like the fourth Doctor and Sarah) find themselves working for the World Ecology Bureau, and the story presents itself in the action-thriller vein. Morris apparently said he desired to give the story a “Spooks”-like feeling — not dissimilar from “Seeds,” which came from “The Avengers” and “Callan” writer Robert Banks Stewart. When “Hothouse” starts, it sounds like it could be something special: the pre-credits sequence is brilliant, asking a number of intriguing questions and compelling the listener to pay attention. Morris also attempts to make the story politically relevant: Alex Marlowe (Nigel Planer), the lead villain, isn’t a Harrison Chase-like psychopath, he’s just an over-enthusiastic environmentalist with crazy ideas about overpopulation. The script also changes the focus from the monster-in-the-shadows of Seeds to a body-horror approach, an idea which seems like it should keep the Krynoids fresh.
Sadly, the story doesn’t live up to the setup. Planer’s performance doesn’t give Marlowe nearly enough menace or charisma, leaving him an uninteresting villain. Harrison Chase may have been utterly one-dimensional, but Tony Beckley’s performance was so compelling that it outshined the script. And without a compelling central villain, one would naturally turn to the Krynoids themselves for threat, but Morris keeps them sidelined until the play’s final minutes. The result, as mentioned in the introduction, is an uninvolving production that never seems as dramatic as it should. Meanwhile, the politics on display could charitably be described as immature: Morris is clearly attempting to show us a near-future world where the environment has suffered more severe damage than what we see today, but the Doctor’s constant declarations that the human race has an amazing tendency toward self-destruction come across as patronizing rather than inspiring, while Marlowe is too crazy to be taken seriously in any way. Perhaps “Hothouse” was meant to satirize former rock stars who ignorantly take up causes beyond their brain capacities, but the script seems to take itself too seriously for that.
The body horror elements also don’t work as well as they should. While Lysette Anthony gives an exceptional, heartbreaking performance as the slowly-converted Hazel Bright, there’s nothing on display beyond the acting. It’s the sort of thing you’ll see in a million science fiction films and TV shows: the struggle to maintain one’s humanity as the conversion process continues, the painful loss of the memories of family members, etc. Again, it’s performed well, but it shares the uninspiring feeling of the rest of the script.
Fortunately, the production is first-rate. Paul McGann’s performance is surprisingly detached: it seems as though he’s working to regain his trust in humanity, and Lucie in particular, after centuries on Orbis. Sheridan Smith continues to appeal — the “enviro-mentalist” line really shouldn’t be as funny as she makes it. The only weak link in an otherwise-excellent cast is Adna Sablyich, whose performance as Ondrak is forced and flat. Martin Johnson’s sound design, meanwhile, is excellent: the sounds of the Krynoid are disturbingly effective. And Barnaby Edwards’s direction is effective, though the pace drags somewhat in the second part.
Despite the negative tone of this review, I didn’t dislike “Hothouse:” it’s solid, competently-made Doctor Who. It falls down in comparison to “The Seeds of Doom,” but so do most other Doctor Who stories. It also takes itself seriously, something which seems to be missing from other BF stories from the same period. Overall, then, “Hothouse” is worth hearing once — it’s just not the sort of story I plan to revisit.
2009 was the “gap year” for Doctor Who on television: a transition year between production teams in which a full series of weekly episodes was replaced with four hour-long “special” episodes broadcast throughout the year. With the monthly series continuing as usual, Big Finish decided to offer the third season of Paul McGann stories as a replacement of sorts: breaking each story into multiple episodes and offering them as weekly downloads. “Orbis,” the first story in the third season, came from co-authors Alan Barnes and Nicholas Briggs, and while not without flaws, appears to stand as the best Doctor Who story Barnes has written.
After the terrible “Vengeance of Morbius” ended with the Doctor plunging to his apparent death and Lucie being shot on her front porch by the Headhunter (Katarina Olsson), “Orbis” could have started in almost any situation — and the scenario it presents is surprisingly interesting. The Doctor is living on the aquatic planet Orbis, working with the native jellyfish-like population, and defending them from the evil clam-like Mollusci, who aim to wipe them out. The twist comes when the Doctor reveals he has been living on Orbis for six hundred years, such a long time that he has totally forgotten his travels with Lucie. Yes, this revelation throws the Doctor’s age into question yet again, but the story offers enough possible explanations (the Orbisian year might be rather short, for example) that it’s only a big deal to those who obsess over such things. More important is the way that this plot device gives the tired “amnesiac eighth Doctor” cliché a fresh look: he doesn’t really have amnesia, he simply just forgot!
This, of course, allows the story to put Lucie in the central role: after she is abducted by the Headhunter, she is taken to Orbis to recover the Doctor, and is confronted with the harsh fact that he no longer remembers who she is. Sheridan Smith portrays Lucie’s frustration exceptionally well, ranging from anger to depression to determination. Perhaps the ultimate cure — repeatedly slapping the Doctor — will strike some the wrong way (ha), but I thought it entertainingly appropriate. Credit Paul McGann as well: while he has no memory of Lucie for much of the play, his compassion still comes to the fore. We’ve also seen something of an edge to this character since his travels with Lucie began, and that continues here, as he prepares to abandon her to the Headhunter when he suspects the two are in league.
The ending is also surprisingly effective: the story appears structured toward a traditional ending, in which the Doctor will find a way to fight off his friends’ oppressors and bring about a satisfactory conclusion. Instead, however, events spiral out of his control in a manner that is shockingly bleak for a season opener. It’s been a while since I’ve heard a Big Finish play end like this, and I’m curious about the potential repercussions as the season progresses.
Some complaints: first of all, we’re presented with another race of comedy alien villains. Their actions may not be comedic, but this sub-Adams humor has pervaded multiple Big Finish productions of late and it’s detracting from the drama. The ending makes up for it, but I’m finding myself rolling my eyes more often than not. Secondly, the story relies a bit too much on technobabble: while I enjoyed the relationship between the Doctor and Selta (Laura Solon), their conversations revolve too often upon local technology or points of difference between human and jellyfish physiology. This isn’t inherently bad, but as an intended replacement for the television series, which pointedly avoids that sort of thing, it doesn’t work.
On the production front, “Orbis” is another success for Big Finish. Andy Hardwick’s sound design and music are believable without being intrusive, and Nicholas Briggs directs his own material with pace and flair. There’s a lot to recommend “Orbis,” in sum: it’s a confident start to a new season that contains actual surprises mixed in with the traditional elements. Of course, Big Finish is notorious in my book for failing to follow through on strong starts, but I’m definitely looking forward to this season.
Doctor Who: The Company of Friends
Written by Lance Parkin, Stephen Cole, Alan Barnes and Jonathan Morris
Starring Paul McGann, Lisa Bowerman, Matt Di Angelo, Jemima Rooper, and Julie Cox
Once again Big Finish try, and fail, to recapture the quality of Circular Time with a CD composed for four episodes linked by a theme, as opposed to a linear story. This time round the theme is friendship and the aim is to give characters first seen in other mediums a voice. Big Finish has tried this before with plays like Shadow of the Scourge and The Holy Terror. Sadly, despite having some great stories, the plays themselves have been unsuccessful. Despite this a small number of fans still clamour for ‘live action’ stories set within the timelines of the New Adventures, the eighth Doctor adventures and the comic strips. This release attempts to cater for them all!
Benny’s Story features the return of Lisa Bowerman’s Bernice Summerfield to the main range. It’s a light tale of anomalies and alternative dimensions and is largely played for laughs. As someone who has been anticipating the return of Benny to the main range, the big surprise with this play is it highlights how little Benny actually needs the Doctor these days! She’s mature, resourceful, witty and intelligent and can handle situations on her own now. Her friendship with the Doctor has truly become a meeting of equals – he’s lightened up and she’s aware of all the little tricks he can play. Both Bowerman and McGann play well off each other and whilst it would be nice to hear them together again it’s refreshing to realise it’s not such a big issue anymore.
Fitz’s Story by comparison is first time exposure for me. I stalled on reading the eighth Doctor novels around the Placebo Effect mark (I keep meaning to start again!), so have never been exposed to Mr Kreiner before. I have to admit to liking what I’ve heard so far though. He seems a likable, lovable rouge type character – a bit like Del Boy from Only Fools and Horses; a jack of all trades but master of none. Matt Di Angelo brings just the right level of cockney charm to the role – the character could easily have become a caricature. His banter with the Doctor is pretty good and it’s nice to have a male companion in the TARDIS for a change – something that needs to be exploited more by Big Finish.
The story is centred around dodgy dealings on an alien world where images of the Doctor are being used to sell an alien detection service. Like the previous story it’s a light tale played largely for laughs, and is little more than a pleasant distraction. This is the main limitation of this audio. It’s nice to see these characters get some extra exposure but it’s a shame that there isn’t enough time to give them the demanding audio adventure that they deserve.
This is no more apparent than in the third tale, Izzy’s Story. It would be no exaggeration to say that the Doctor’s adventures with Isabelle Sinclair are the absolute highlight of the Doctor Who comic strip era. Grandiose story arcs, real character development, and twists that no one saw coming. Who can forget The Glorious Dead, Children of the Revolution, Wormwood or Oblivion? Once again, due to the limitations of the format what we have here is more akin to the filler strips that appeared in between the epics such as Happy Deathday or TV Action. Izzy is after the final issue of her favourite comic – an issue that disappeared off the shelves almost as quickly as it was released, and now she can finally find out why. Cue a few odd twists, a visit to Stockbridge and a little pre-empting of Izzy’s own future revelations.
It’s really sobering to think of a story set in the 90’s as a period piece with references to The Next Generation, Menswear, and Train Spotting aplenty. The story itself is manic, it’s over the top and Jemima Rooper plays Izzy with real gusto as the geeky teenager with issues. She bonds with Paul McGann instantly and whilst the combination won’t be to everyone’s taste I think they make a fantastic team – a 4CD set paying tribute to the epics of that comic strip era would be most welcome!
The set closes with its strongest tale. The Doctor has made several passing mentions of an encounter with author Mary Shelley, and it’s fitting their first encounter should be portrayed here. Mary, along with her contemporaries are enjoying a retreat in Geneva when a dishevelled, battle worn Doctor arrives at their holiday home during a stormy night. They tend to him, but he appears to die. Instead of doing the decent thing and informing the authorities these charming people decide to spear the body with lightening bolts from the aforementioned storm. This animates the body and he storms off in a monstrous rage. Mary, feeling guilty follows him to a burnt out TARDIS and they use the telepathic circuits to call for help. And help arrives, in the form of the Doctor!
Mary takes this Doctor on a stroll to fill him in on the situation. He realises the other Doctor is from his future and realises he can only be healed by repairing his TARDIS. Thus with a little green crystal from his TARDIS, he regenerates the future TARDIS. Returning to the Villa Diodati they find the future Doctor renewing himself and, in the style of all good multi Doctor stories, follows a row about crossing timelines and creating paradoxes. The future Doctor leaves and the present Doctor is left with only one option; to take Mary with him as his companion. Simple!
Julie Cox gives a lovely performance as the quietly frustrated Mary; a young woman craving for adventure but finding only decadence in her life. McGann’s two Doctors are opposites, the present Doctor is a dreamer, loving his adventures, whilst the future Doctor, even when recovered, seems bitter and tired. Quite where this future Doctor emanates from is not specified leading to speculation that he’s fighting the infamous Time War that preceded the 2005 TV series revival. As with the other stories in this collection a second outing would be more than welcome for this team.
To sum up this makes for pleasant listening. It’s well acted, it sounds good and it provides some interesting imagery. Mary’s Story is the most substantial of the four, especially giving McGann quite a lot to get his teeth into, but given a choice I’d want more Izzy. Unfortunately the other stories don’t really have much more going for them. Despite that I really hope the CD is a success and we get to hear more of Paul with any of the above. The potential is clearly there for all to hear!
Big Finish Productions, Main Range #46. 4 episodes. Written by: Jonathan Morris. Directed by: Gary Russell.
THE PLOT
The Doctor and Mel are in the middle of an unseen adventure, in which they are facing rampaging Quarks on a space liner. Quarks have a weakness: a type of crystal, found only on the planet Puxatornee. The plan is simple. Materialize on Puxatornee in the year 3090, grab some crystals, and head straight back to the space liner ot “quash the Quarks,” as Mel puts it.
Things prove to be anything but simple. From the moment they arrive, the Doctor and Mel experience a bizarre feeling of deja vu. Local officials seem to already know them as enemies, and are determined to capture them for interrogation. At first, they assume they are suffering the consequences of what their actions will be on a later visit. But when they start encountering two versions of the same people, they come to realize that something far more confusing has happened, and that for Puxatornee history has jumped the tracks in more ways than one.
CHARACTERS
The Doctor: Still in Season 24 mode, but more in command of himself than has been the case in any (chronologically) earlier 7th Doctor story. In this story, the Doctor does very little clowning, particularly when he realizes things are wrong with time. He clearly takes time very seriously, and refuses to simply allow changes in the timeline even when he sees how bleak the future is for Puxatornee.
It’s ironic that both the Doctor and McCoy’s performance are so “in-control,” when the Doctor himself is as ineffectual as we’ve ever seen him. By the story’s very nature, the Doctor can’t actually do much of anything. From the moment he arrives on Puxatornee to the moment he leaves, he is simply reacting to events. His token attempts to stop Puxatornee natives Stewart and Reed from altering history don’t come across as much more than a token, and he seems uncharacteristically disinterested in helping the populace to do anything to change their horrible situation in the present. Put it down to his mind being on the Quarks, I suppose.
Mel: In previous reviews, I’ve raved about how well Bonnie Langford’s Mel works in her Big Finish stories. Langford is still very good here, and the 7th Doctor/Mel pairing works much better on audio than it did on television. One benefit of this story is that the Doctor and Mel are together for almost all of it, with no “splitting up” subplots to help pad the running time. Unfortunately, that leaves Mel in pure “tag-a-long” mode. She’s there for the Doctor to bounce dialogue off of, and gets a few good lines of her own… but as little as the Doctor does in this story, Mel does less. Our intrepid time travellers are basically observers for the length of this story, rather than full participants.
Villains of the Week: Daniel Hogarth voices the Slithergee, a race of alien refugees who, 30 years prior to the main action of this story, came to Puxatornee humbly requesting permission to set up a colony on the planet’s moon… or else. The Slithergee are the story’s best creation. They mewl and whine and wheedle pathetically, intoning “I am a poor, blind Slithergee” as a catch phrase to play up their apparent helplessness, even as they take over more and more and more of Puxatornee. When the human population has been reduced to squalor, occupying only about 10% of the planet’s surface and having no real future of their own save as “sight guides,” the Slithergee continue to cling to being a minority. “Being a minority has nothing to do with how many of you there are,” they insist. And yet they can also be quite sinister, as in the Slithergee leader’s final (chronological) scene. “For I am a poor, blind Slithergee,” is a bizarre line to hear when it’s said sadistically, but the context of the scene, the delivery, and the way in which it ends make for one of the story’s most memorable moments.
THOUGHTS
OK, so “The Planet of the Slithergees” is basically an extreme, hysterical right-wing vision of what will happen if you let the asylum seekers in/grant minorities rights/fill-in-the-blank as appropriate to your country. “They’ll take over, and then we’ll be the minority!” That element of the story probably is best taken as a satire of those views, rather than being meant to support them. Certainly, the Slithergee future comes across as an absurdist vision of hell, rather than a genuine pertinent warning.
Absurd enough that it’s actually quite funny, even as it’s disturbing. The two Slithergee episodes are definitely the strongest material of the story. In the order in which I tend to choose for the play (White/Black), these two episodes form the centerpiece of the play, which I think works quite well, with the two episodes set in the “Apocalyptic” future acting as bookends.
Though quite funny, this may be the bleakest Doctor Who story I’ve ever encountered. What we are given in this story is a planet whose human population has no future. In the Slithergee future, humans are practically a slave race, subject to increasingly strict regulation and summary execution for “Hate Crimes” (read: saying anything bad about a Slithergee). In the Apocalyptic future, the planet is a radioactive wasteland whose dwindling populace is slowly dying. Every human we meet is equally doomed in either future. And thanks to the time loop the story presents, the planet itself never progresses beyond 3090, going back and repeating first one variant of the 30 years of hell, then the other, with no escape possible.
Saward-like mercenary figures Stewart and Reed find each alternative worse than the other. The Stewart and Reed from the Apocalyptic future, once they see the Slithergee-dominated one, insist that at least in their version of reality they got to keep their dignity. The Stewart and Reed from the Slithergee future, once they see the Apocalyptic wasteland, insist that in their version of reality “at least there was a chance.” In a nice touch, both pairs of Stewart and Reeds, when they see the handiwork of their counterparts, are appalled at the senseless violence their other selves have perpetrated.
One thing that really struck me, listening to the story this time around, is that neither future was the “true” one for Puxatornee. Both futures are the result of time travel. President Bailey never gets the chance to give her answer to the Slithergee request. The Apocalyptic future results from the unprovoked attack launched on the Slithergee by Bailey’s unstable deputy… which happens after Bailey is assassinated by people from the Slithergee future. With no interference from the future, it is entirely possible that Bailey could have refused the request, or proposed an alternative to the request, without a war.
Meanwhile, the Slithergee future results from Bailey having the Fear of God put into her by the Stewart and Reed from the Apocalyptic future. “Give the Slithergee what they want… or we have no future!” With no interference from the future, it is entirely possible that Bailey could have acceded to the Slithergee’s initial requests without lurching into terror-led appeasement, doing whatever she sees as necessary to avoid war, no matter what.
The two futures we see are two extremes – an extreme war begun by a madman’s unprovoked attack vs. a slide toward slavery caused by extreme appeasement with no limit. In an interference-free reality, a center path may have been found that would have led to an acceptable future for Puxatornee. Which may bring home the Doctor’s warnings to Stewart and Reed about the consequences of interfering with the past. Puxatornee’s not only a planet with no future beyond 3090… They don’t even have a true future beyond 3060, because those final 30 years of either path simply are not the future they should have had.
So there’s no question that this story provides a lot of interesting meat for the viewer (well, listener) to digest. Clearly a lot of thought went into this script, and it’s extremely well-constructed. Particularly when we see background bits of Parts One and Two brought to the foreground in Parts Three and Four. It’s a very interesting story, and certainly worthy of good marks.
So why isn’t it a great story?
Part of it is something I’ve already mentioned. The Doctor and Mel don’t do much of anything. They literally provide a vehicle for Stewart and Reed to change the past, and then go back to see the future they’ve created. But they are pure passengers. They tour the two Puxatornees, taking in the two equally-horrible alternative realities, but they don’t even attempt to do anything. The Doctor is the Doctor. In any of his incarnations, he should be trying to help the oppressed humans regain their equality, and he should be trying to help the dying humans survive the dwindling supplies and radiation. But he doesn’t seem to be interested in doing anything, even to the point of dismissing Mel’s suggestion of leaving some kind of warning for the alternative Doctor and Mel. Are the Quarks really as distracting as all that?
Also, by nature of the story, the story you’re listening to climaxes at the end of Part Three. By either path, Part Four is simply a “reset” to the future you started with, existing to set up “the beginning” of your story. This leads to a limp final part, as the listener is returned to their original future variant, with the remainder of the running time simply setting up what has already been heard. A certain degree of tedium is inevitable, particularly in the much-less-interesting “Apocalyptic” future.
Still, it’s a very thoughtful script, carefully constructed and with plenty of interesting elements worthy of discussion. The “loop” structure may blunt the serial’s own dramatic potential to an extent, but it’s a brave attempt and a mostly successful one. Well worth a listen or two, in any case.
Big Finish Productions, Main Range #39. 4 episodes. Written by: Gareth Roberts & Clayton Hickman. Directed by: Nicholas Pegg.
THE PLOT
Space Station Dark Space 8 is facing a time of abrupt transition. Its former commander has died, and its replacement commander – a captain of high repute – is on his way. But when the new commander’s ship is destroyed on its way in, Dark Space 8 beams the only life signs aboard just in time… and retrieves the Doctor and Mel!
Mistaken for the late captain, the Doctor assumes the role of station commander to investigate the ship’s destruction. When he discovers that Dark Space 8 is hosting the Intergalactic Song Contest, he finds that he has stepped into a diplomatic minefield. Two of the competitors represent species who are at war with each other, and the Doctor tries to keep them away from each other’s throats to avoid an incident that might disrupt peace talks on another station, far away.
A tricky situation is about to become a dangerous one, however. One of the contestants is murdered in her quarters – and she is not fated to be the final victim…
CHARACTERS
The Doctor: Sylvester McCoy seems completely at home in this story, and I do mean that in a good way. McCoy gives a performance that’s much more relaxed and confident than his televised performances that I’ve reviewed – likely an advantage of this being recorded decades later, long after he fully found his footing. The Doctor gets to balance being the clownish early 7th Doctor, mangling proverbs and doding amorous female suitors and even playing the spoons (on audio!), while at the same time being genuinely shrewd and observant.
Mel: Slotting their story in directly after Paradise Towers, writers Hickman and Roberts actually use the potential pitfalls of Mel’s characterization to good effect. Instead of giving us a subdued, perfectly competent Mel (the approach of David McIntee in Unregenerate!), we get a Mel who is genuinely overenthusiastic and prone to leaping to conclusions. She inadvertantly commits assault at one point, and equally accidentally propositions a pop star at another. She even gets to indulge her obsession with swimming! The only real difference between this Mel and Paradise Towers Mel is that this version works. All the “Mel traits” are here, but presented in such a way that she remains likable and compassionate.
THOUGHTS
I’m aware that Bang-Bang-a-Boom! is a divisive audio within Big Finish fandom. Some love it, others hate it. I fall, if not quite into the “love it” category, at least into the “like it very much” category.
It’s a comedy Who story, but it’s not an overplayed farce. The humor is constantly there, but it’s kept at a level where you’re left chuckling as the story weaves its way along, rather than aiming for direct belly laughs. This keeps the comedy from becoming too wearying, while at the same time giving just the right touch of lightness to a fairly traditional “Agatha Christie in Space” Who plot.
The setting and guest characters are clearly signposted to send up American science fiction series, notably Star Trek (particularly Next Generation and Deep Space 9, though I caught references to the other series too) and Babylon 5. As someone who loved Babylon 5 at its best, loves the 1960’s Star Trek, and has a certain residual fondness for some of the Trek spinoffs, I recognized the references and enjoyed the way the story played with the trappings.
I also appreciated how extremely well this story fits into Season 24. This is very much an “early McCoy” story. While more than one Season 24-set Big Finish McCoy story tries very hard to work against what that season was on television, this story actively embraces Season 24 for what it was – It just does it well, instead of doing it badly. At well over 2 hours, the result is a sort of epic of foolishness and whimsy. It may turn off those who like their Who to be dark and scary; alternatively, those who only like comedy Who when it completely “goes for it” may be turned off by this story’s being satisfied with merely striking a whimsical tone instead of going for all-out farce.
In the end, I can only speak for myself. I absolutely enjoyed Bang-Bang-a-Boom, from its opening moments through to its post-credits tag. Paradise Towers was a good script badly produced. This, by contrast, is a good script whose production is entirely in step with it, and the result was one that I found a joy to listen to.
I have a small problem with the Hearts Desire. The concept of the story is fine, and the unusual opening should lead into an interesting setup. Unfortunately it suffers from a key flaw that severely impeded my listening; it doesn’t contain a single likeable character. During the play it’s impossible to empathise with anyone during the play, and in fact even Bernice herself comes across as particularly brass and unlikeable at times, although given the stressful situation it’s understandable.
Conrad Westmass and Steven Bugdale pair off as a pair of mysterious onlookers, each toying with Bernice and plotting her journey through Marlowe’s world. Personally I found it a little hard to distinguish their characters at times, as they both similar roles albeit with very different motives. Particularly distinguishable though is Lucy Beresford as Ms Topsy Turvé, who despite having a dark secret uncovered later in the play, never seems anything more than loud and annoying.
Rather than slowly reveal the truth as the story goes on, the writers tease us with a pair of ominous figures debating Bernice’s progress and referring to their ‘secret’ without actually saying anything. The story struggles to move at all, instead forcing Bernice through a series of awful situations until she snaps and calls the writers bluff. How does she do that? Because the situation isn’t even remotely realistic. Duh!
Then three quarters through the play, something actually interesting happens as Bernice gets her ‘hearts desire’. She becomes ‘normal’, and starts to live a ‘normal’ life which involves baking iced buns and caring for her son. Apparently she has a secret desire to move straight into twentieth century suburbia. Unfortunately this ruse lasts no more than five minutes before we’re back to the previous status quo and the story rushes out explanations as if its only just realised it’s out of time.
I’m not familiar with the Eternals from previous Doctor Who, but I hope they were treated more intelligently than they were here. Sadly one of the most interesting ideas in the Hearts Desire are throwaway backstory (pulsar set to destroy collection) gets sum of two minutes audio time. It’s not bad, the actors are trying and the sound design is good (love the new theme tune, although I always think I’m listening to something set underwater, when will Big Finish get a license to do Stringray???) it’s just uninvolving, probably I think because I just didn’t care who got what they wanted. In a story like this, that is unforgivable.
There seems to be a trend emerging in the Bernice text range. The short stories and novellas seem to be taking advantage of the shared world of the Collection. With their limited word count it’s a useful way of slotting the story into a larger whole, and using the opportunity to draw out some of the back characters in the series.
The full length novels though, with room to explore completely new themes and worlds, take full advantage of the chance to drag Bernice away from home and build something completely new around her. Previously ‘The Big Hunt’ delighted in showing off a bold new world, a story where the cast struggled to assign human thoughts and logic to a natural (yet synthetic) process. The Tree of Life heads in the opposite direction, boasting fewer bold visual treats but much stronger characters. In fact, conversely, it applies human directions onto other people. Here the will of the characters controls nature, and other people. Hugo Tollip has control over most of the cast because he owns them. Bleize has control over some because she’s a natural leader, albeit one who learns very quickly to adapt as that control is wrestled out of her grasp. The villain, Assapartemya takes control directly of his victims, copying his thoughts into their heads. This story represents an ongoing power struggle, of not just character versus character, but one where different ideals and emotions taking prominence over others.
Mark Michalowski doesn’t have as much epic vistas to offer as the previous novel. Whereas Lance Parkin surprised the readers with the appearance of a new, surprising type of robot, Mark goes for a more subtle character revelation or plot twist. His action is blunt and to the point, in fact until the end the level of violence is maintained relatively low. This helps keeps the few deaths the novel has genuinely tragic.
Joseph returns to prominence as Bernice’s do-all assistant, although his main role seems to be a communicative version of the Sonic Screwdriver in new Doctor Who. He is there to ensure that locked doors don’t impede the plot moving forwards, and that secrets that need to be revealed can be given out at appropriate moments. Mark turns this on its head towards the end though when Bernice casually reveals that she already knew everything he had to say, and gives him a few new pieces of information to mull over as well.
Back on the collection only Clarissa Jones really makes an impact, in fact her slight (but well intended) snub towards Bernice drives the whole plot forwards. Although Adrian, Peter, Jason and Brax are mentioned, its nice to see that Ms Jones hasn’t been forgotten, her developments in Life During Wartime were excellent and it looks like we’ll be seeing more of her soon.
All in all The Tree of Life is a refreshingly relaxed adventure that breaks away from most of the ongoing storylines and takes its chance to tell something new. It boasts strong characters and some good surprises throughout, and a much slower more contemplative pace than most of Bernice’s other books.
Big Finish Productions Limited., it must be noted, has no connection with MegaStel Enterprise whatsoever.
We therefore have a slightly different arrangement, with Professor Bernice Summerfield, as regards the whole subject of rolling around in bed and doing it and stuff.
There’s something special about Dave Stone’s writing, in that it pacts incredibly dense complicated ideas in short, amusing, inventive ways, glorifying in simple absurdities to try and make you overlook that larger ones. Despite everything though he has a natural grasp on his characters who fly through what has to be his most accessible written text for the range yet.
As told mostly from Bernice’s perspective, she arrives on Zardox for a holiday with her husband to find there are things he has neglected to tell her. Quite a lot of things as it happens, and with every chapter Dave Stone throws a new curveball that completely alters the story. The real plot isn’t apparent until half way through, but that hardly matters because the journey is key. Dave Stone’s self referential narration is a continual delight, and the plot is paced just right to keep it moving forwards.
Not everything is perfect though. The weakest part of the story may involve a brutal stabbing, which is never seen and the attacker only vaguely referenced offhand. Perhaps noticing that for this key moment an attacker comes out of the blue, does something, and then is never mentioned again, he gives us a clever prologue to explain the backstory of one ‘Humphrey Pumpkin’. This is endemic of many of Dave’s Stones creations though, initially amusing, existent to serve a specific purpose, and then tossed aside once the joke has worn thin.
In just 72 pages Dave Stone throws at us a tourism planet, alien shapeshifting lechers, a murderous girl band, a celebrity lifestyle program, a reference back to his own ‘Demon Dimension Jason Backstory’, a case of celebrity stalking, an evil genius with a suitably nefarious plot, plenty of legal wrangling and a fashion hairstylist who actually lives up to expectations. Throughout all of this none of it really matters, Bernice and Jason, and their relationship, is key.
9 / 10
The Purpura Pawn
After the off the wall magical fairytale adventure of Zardox Break, Paul Sutton shows us something much more down to earth. It’s a fairly straightforward detective story, with a hard-bitten gumshoe copper unravelling a crime scene where everyone has something to hide and something to gain. Braxiatel is there, called to help a troubled politician eager to keep his gambling habits at bay. Also present are Bev and Adrian Wall, the unlikely pairing from an earlier short story that suggested they might actually make a good pairing. This is probably the best characterisation we’ve seen so far of Adrian is text, he’s interesting and constantly surprising, this novella lifting him from recurring character series central mainstay. He’s seen usually from Bev’s perspective though, which is apt considering she fits much more snugly into the story about a world of underworld crime.
The plot plays out as a rather pedestrian, yet very emotional, tragedy in which one honourable criminal is betrayed by another one who goes on the run. This revenge plot is mirrored by the machinations of Braxiatel who never really explains what he wants.
At the end the marvellous twist is that the Purpura Pawn never really was on earth. That Oleson’s profession wasn’t what you expected was implicit from the start but that he turned out to be a master forger… Excellent.
And any lingering doubts as to whether Brax really is evil or not, are probably lost at the word sluice.
8 / 10
On Trial
After two fairly independent stories it falls upon Joseph Lister to tie everything together. Jason has been arrested for murder and the killer was not out on the run on earth. He comes up trumps with a brand new but very real character in Kristoffa Tailor, a political obsessive searching for truth forty years after the fact, absolutely certain that Jason Kane murdered the man he idolised.
Joseph Lidster fills the story with a lot of political anger, and slowly filling out the truth but struggling to accept anything that disagrees with the facts as Kris sees them. The facts are told twice, once from his research and once from Bernice’s diary which he somehow comes across.
Everything in Jason’s defence hinges on the events of the Mirror Effect, and without that play working out what might have happened in Mark Morton’s room could be confusing. That’s a small complaint for an excellent mystery that Joseph Lidster delightfully refuses to satisfactorily answer.
9 / 10
—–
A Life in Pieces is an excellent collection which pushes together three excellent adventures within an extremely well crafted mystery. It brings out the best characters of the range (Jason, Adrian, Bev, Brax) and gives them all a chance to shine in a new, intelligent way. It’s futuristic, realistic, mad yet completely rational. Recommended for anyone.
Lucie Miller has been kidnapped – twice! First of all she is taken out of her own time stream to be placed with the Doctor for ‘safekeeping.’ Then she is taken away from the Doctor and put back where she was initially meant to me; working as a data imputer in a corporation office block, that just happens to be a temporal black spot. The Doctor, with the help of a devious Time Lord called Straxus, is able to get into the aforementioned office block and rescue his companion. However he soon discovers that all is not as it seems.
Part One of the story has all the trade marks of an Eddie Robson story – we’re dropped straight into the mundane. Lucie finds herself with Karen, a colleague who tries to be charming but can’t really disguise the fact that she’s pretty false and a potential bitch to work with. Her boss Jerry Cooper is David Brent knocked down a notch or two, but still pretty obnoxious. He clearly has trouble putting across the corporate spin of ‘we’re all a happy hard working team,’ because it just isn’t in his nature. Does it remind anyone of a place they’ve worked in yet?
The Doctor unintentionally manages to fit in with the hierarchy, and finds himself with a plush office, a mobile phone, some swanky business cards and access to anywhere in the building. He’s able to track down Lucie, but quickly loses her again, before tracking down the Managing Director, Todd Hulbert, in an office, a dimensional walkway away via Human Resources. He discovers the dark secret at the heart of the businessman’s paradise – the company is clearing planets to make way for new owners be they previously habited or not. The office blocks in question are actually super sophisticated battle computers and the staff unaware that their calculations are actually battle strategies.
The Doctor, being the sneaky so and so that he is, alters the odds so that the life form currently being oppressed has a chance to penetrate the offices. Unfortunately for the Doctor the life form in question turns out to be the Cybermen! Cue a second episode that is full of hostage situations, revelations about regular characters, an obligatory ‘emotions vs. logic’ speech or two, and the explosive conclusion to the first series of McGann/Smith audios.
What can be said about Paul McGann that hasn’t been said before? The George Lazenby of the Time Lords; an incarnation that couldn’t even get past ground zero on screen finally getting his chance to shine on audio. Well shine McGann undoubtedly has, but by this stage he had had several ‘seasons’ of Big Finish audios under his belt and seemed to have reached a stage where the novelty had worn off. Unlike Colin Baker who regularly turns in enthusiastic portrayal after enthusiastic portrayal, Paul McGann sometimes comes across as a man who is just going through the motions. The audios with Sheridan Smith are supposed to showcase a wearier and antisocial version of the eighth Doctor, but McGann regularly sounds bored during these stories – Season Two in particular was a drag to get through.
However, Eddie Robson’s script plays right into his hands. This is played in the style of ‘another day at the office,’ and is full of weak jokes that people make to get themselves through the workday, before they can get back home to their loved ones. McGann’s performance is a triumph because of it, in comparison to lack lustre showings for the likes of Phobos, Dead London, Max Warp, and Immortal Beloved.
The other performances are all top notch. Sheridan Smith’s timing is absolutely spot on. I remember watching Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps a few years back and thinking she’d have been a natural for Rose, so it felt almost inevitable to me that she would become a companion in some form. On the flip side I also recall grimacing when this series was announced as a New Series inspired set of plays thinking they’d gone for a clone of Rose. But the similarities are superficial. Lucie is independent, feisty and isn’t going to be a victim to the Doctor, or anyone.
Roy Marsden is suitably charismatic, and quietly menacing as the head of the corporation, Todd Hulbert; Nikolas Grace plays the stuffy Time Lord Straxus like he was born to it, and Owen Brenman’s Jerry just channels Nick Swainey, his earnest well meaning character from One Foot in the Grave. Katarina Olsson delivers a no nonsense Head Hunter and Louise Fullerton shines as the shallow Karen. We know all these characters in one form or another from our daily lives and if we see ourselves in any of these characters then God help us!
All in all a good solid conclusion to a hit and miss series of plays.
2009 wasn’t a good year for Big Finish in my opinion; an over reliance on returning characters and writers isn’t good for any ongoing franchise and Doctor Who is no exception. By The Eternal Summer we had had two Dalek stories and the returns of the Key to Time, the Black and White Guardians, Romana, the Celestial Toymaker, the Draconians, Stockbridge and the Rutans. And there was still a third Dalek story to come!
This story falls into the middle of the Stockbridge Trilogy and features the return of Maxwell Edison. Both Stockbridge and Max have been featured in the DWM Comic strip several times over the past thirty years and the village made its debut on audio in the quite exceptional audio Circular Time, during the Autumn episode.
To give Big Finish their due, they really pushed the boundaries of the village, literally in some ways! I was expecting a gentle series of plays set in the sleepy little village featuring tea on the lawn, games of cricket and a little bit of mystery, but they weren’t like that. The first featured the Rutans and was a Time Travelling comedy in the style of Black Adder / Monty Python. The third promised to be a dark tale of zombies and evil birds but turned into a generic Dalek runaround.
This story is the closet the trilogy comes to presenting the Stockbridge we are most familiar with. After a nasty explosion from the previous adventure the Doctor and Nyssa find themselves transported to an idyllic Stockbridge where summer never ends. They find the locals, including the aforementioned Max trapped in a never ending cycle of births, marriages and deaths, and embracing the fact. They have been granted life eternal by the Lord and Lady – a mysterious couple with a macabre connection to the Doctor and Nyssa, who in turn have been granted their powers by an even more ancient force.
Morris sets the scene nicely with its warm imagery of summer in Stockbridge. The Doctor is enjoying his stay in the local guest house, Nyssa finds herself working as a post mistress and the locals are all friendly sorts. The plot unfolds quickly as time anomalies begin to appear – one moment the couple who own the guest house are getting married, the next they are dying for instance. There is a phone call sequence which demonstrates the distortion very effectively.
The Doctor is separated from Nyssa early on, teaming up with Max as he tries to break some of the patterns of the local’s history, to no effect. Eventually he is brought before the Lord and Lady and learns the truth behind the town’s longevity. They are trapped within a time bubble, due to a combination of events from the previous story and the presence of an ancient awakening powerful being.
Nyssa meanwhile is transported to the real world via a flaw in the time bubble and a psychic investigative group investing the disappearance of Stockbridge. With their help she is able to rescue the Doctor and Max, but they find that their interference has increased the rate of decay of the time bubble. The play then becomes a race against time to prevent the potential devastation caused by its demise.
Listening to the play for the purpose of reviewing it has brought out more in it for me. The performances are all solid. Davison and Sutton are great, and genuinely chilling in their alternative roles. There’s a wonderful moment where the Doctors propensity to ‘explain things later’ comes back to haunt him! I’m not a massive fan of Pam Ferris as a rule. She always comes across as a ‘look at me!’ kind of performer but here she plays Lizzie totally straight, whereas a lesser actor may have been tempted to overplay her eccentricities. Ferris just plays along, concentrating on making the character real and opts to let the script do the rest.
The only downside for me was Mark Williams as Max. The problem with bringing characters from the books and comic strips to life is they inevitably interfere with the preconceptions you may have about them. It was the same with Robert Jezek as Frobisher, and Jemima Rooper as Izzy – it takes time to get used to another voice in the role other than the one in your head. Williams gives a brilliant performance, and has fine comic timing, but for me Max should be a lot more breathless and wheezier, and possibly be more monotone and downbeat. It’s a minor quibble though. And the ‘flashbacks’ from the comic strips themselves were a lovely touch.
The theme of immortality being a curse crops up many times during this era of Doctor Who, e.g. Mawdryn Undead, Enlightenment, and The Five Doctors. This story reflects that and also that immortality leads to stagnation and the lack of new ideas and evolution. The inhabitants of Stockbridge are trapped within their own hell of untimely deaths, accidents, humiliations and regrets for the paths never taken. But alternatively they get to spend eternity enjoying long, lazy summer days in a quiet, peaceful, beautiful village with their loved ones around them. In the end is the good side worth the price of the bad? It’s a fascinating dilemma and one I’m certain, that will continue to crop up in Doctor Who for decades to come.
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.
Doctor Who: The Companion Chronicles – The Darkening Eye
Written by Stewart Sheargold
Starring Sarah Sutton as Nyssa
Thank the Lord for Big Finish! Since 1999 they have done a great job in recapturing and expanding on 80’s and 90’s Doctor Who. Peter Davison, Colin Baker, Sylvester McCoy and Paul McGann have all had their era’s opened up and made epic. This is in no small part due to the contributions of many of the actors who played their television companions willing to reprise their roles as well.
In 2007 Big Finish launched The Companion Chronicles, a short series of single disc, two handed talking books, which proved to be an effective bridge in providing ‘live action’ adventures for the first four Doctors, three of whom are no longer with us, and the other unwilling (as of the present date) to reprise the role for Big Finish. In 2008, due to popularity, the range was expanded to one release a month and with 12 slots a year Big Finish have had the luxury of expanding the range of the series to incorporate other elements that may not be feasible within the main range such as stories set within the New Adventures timeline, and stories like this one that feature regular actors who are also unavailable or unwilling to reprise their respective roles.
Season Nineteen is a personal favourite of mine. Alongside Season Eighteen (another personal favourite!) it remains considerably under exploited when it comes to the Doctor Who expanded universe. There were only ever two full length novels written from this season, so despite the abundance of fifth Doctor/Nyssa audios in the main range it makes for a refreshing change to have a story set within the season that precedes them.
The story opens with a post – Terminus Nyssa recounting an old adventure with one of her patients. The story sees the Doctor, Adric, Nyssa and Tegan arriving on a disintegrating spaceship during a space war. The three companions are quickly separated from the Doctor but are ‘rescued’ by the Dar Traders, an alien race fascinated by death, and who are in some way able to capture this moment for their own ends. They take Nyssa to the moment of death to analyse her experience, and find that, as a Trakenite she has certain ‘immunities.’
As a consequence she is asked to investigate a recovered artefact that is so far eluding the Traders ability to analyse it. It is a black metal container from an alternative dimension containing an assassin. This is the ruthless Damasin Hyde, who is searching for the power source to fuel his craft, namely the life energy of a Time Lord. There follows a couple of stabbings, and a couple of trips to the ‘threshold,’ culminating in a rather dark conclusion.
Stewart Sheargold stories tend to be dark, creepy affairs and this one is no exception. The Dar Traders are a fascinating alien race, not necessarily evil in themselves, but whose obsession with death is genuinely unnerving. I have to confess that I don’t fully understand the trading process that they describe, but they are compelling enough for me to listen to the play several times and hopefully find out.
The imagery conjured up by Nyssa’s journey is very evocative – the disintegrating space ship with it’s ripped walls opening up directly to space, the premonition and scenes where she finds herself on the alien planet, lying in Tegan’s arms with autumn leaves blowing around her and the scenes in the ‘grove,’ where Nyssa is at peace, are all quite stirring and beautiful to listen too.
Sarah Sutton gives a lovely reading. She has a distinctive voice – clear, charming, yet detached and you can believe she is a scientist from another world. Her versions of the other characters are all pretty good too – pauses in just the right places for instance with the Doctor, or a nice Australian tint for Tegan, as opposed to the Les Patterson impressions she sometimes gets with other readers. The writing for the regulars is spot on, Tegan is abrupt but fiercely loyal, Adric is condescending, and the Doctor is vulnerable, yet brave.
All in all this is a good, strong addition to the range. It’s a little bit complex, but that’s no bad thing as it’s interesting enough to deserve repeated listens. More please!
Misplaced Spring
Paul Cornell takes a moment here just to reset the status quo. His extremely natural, intimate approach to Bernice gives us a very frank, very honest and very raw view of the collection rebuilding. As a prologue it gives you a very clear idea of what this collection is all about and what they’ll set out to do. Parasiel at least initially looks like an interesting character and Jason as always is fun when handled correctly.
7 / 10
Welcome To the Machine
Sin Deniz puts together an intriguing story with some delicious twists. Bernice only briefly appears but that doesn’t really matter because this story takes the cues laid down by Paul Cornell and explores the new arriving students on the collection further. Jess Carter is a fascinating creation with an intriguing secret. Short, sweet and thoughtful.
9 / 10
Final Draft
Cameron Mason’s short story returns to the world of academia that Bernice seems unable to quite pull away from. In just one short story Hass already appears more interesting than Mr Crofton ever did.
6 / 10
Against Gardens
Eddie Robson always writes interesting short stories, and after the previous story introduced us to Hass here we get a chance to see inside his head. As Mr Crofton only really shone just before he died this is probably as fitting a thing as ever to commemorate him.
9 / 10
A Summer Affair
Ms Jones went through something terrible in Life During Wartime so the character deserves some payoff. As initially interesting as Ronan McGinley is, there’s very little here besides a few more questions about Brax…. Who exactly are the ‘Important ones’? and what is he planning?
7 / 10
Denial
The comparisons to holocaust denial are obvious. Ian Mond apparently is a bit of an optimist though as he can’t help but push a noble cause beneath some dark propaganda. What’s more striking though, almost, is the way people are getting worked up about things they neither know or understand. Bernice learns something, a small fact she neither knew or card about until that moment, and suddenly flies into a rage until something is done immediately about the situation. As Ian Mond suggests this reaction, repeated a million times across a society, can have profound changes on the world around them. But are they all for the good? And more personally here, should we be proud we live in such a fickle society?
7 / 10
Sex Secrets of the Robot Replicants
Jason Kane is Dave Stone’s character through and through, and the highest honour I can give Philip Purser-Hallard for this story is that it more than measures up to the high standard Stone’s set recently. This is brilliant, insightful, honest and completely mad. The writing gets inside Bernice’s head and gives an account of all the characters involved so well that I almost wish it had continued for another 200 pages.
10 / 10
The Blame of the Nose
A slightly more traditional story than most, this seems an attempt to remind us that not everything is ‘lovely’ on the collection. There’s an unusual murder plot hiding beneath a lot of layers of sentimentality, with a twist that comes slightly left field involving telekinesis.
6 / 10
Reparation
Bev and Adrian have been almost ignored in this anthology so far. But this story uses their different perspectives to return to the theme shown in ‘Denial’ with extra element of crowd control. By in inadvertently, or perhaps Brax did it deliberately, causing offence to others history once again suddenly becomes a relevant issue that had previously been ignored.
7 / 10
Nothing Up My Sleeve
A very, very odd magician story. Lightly amusing but inconsequential.
5 / 10
Buried Alive
Kate Orman always excels at writing about mental and physical exertion. She mixes that in here with an interesting, albeit doomed society of insects. The incident at the end in particular is striking, and usually events on that scale just become somewhat meaningless, but she narrowly avoids that. To be honest the insects had it coming, and the jokes about whether they do or don’t eat their servants would send chills down anyone’s neck. It’s not just about whether you find insects repulsive or not, anyone would struggle not to be freaked out during that conversation.
10 / 10
There Never Need be Longing In Your Eyes
Ian Farrington pushes Bernice back into the world of motherhood and we get some promising signs of Peter’s presence again. That said I’m struggling to see how nursery attendants could get away with it, presumably they hadn’t been around long before Bernice found out… Quite a few stories so far have taken the opportunity to show Bernice alone, doing what she does, and to quietly reflect on what’s happening, and al though its well written it does slightly rob this story of a sense of purpose. Or perhaps that’s what motherhood is, worrying needlessly, only to be proved right.
6 / 10
Mentioning the War
And concluding my little imposed trilogy of stories about interpretations of history causing offending, Bernice herself becomes the ‘victim’ as a team of historians arrive on the collection to put context to the occupation. Ovmakh is quite a striking character and the subject matter… delicate at least.
9 / 10
Fragments
Although this anthology has told interesting stories and unusual twists it hasn’t advanced the series forwards in the way that ‘Life During Wartime’ did. Aside from the formal arrival of students (there were a few before, but now their ‘properly’ here) its pretty much ignored most of the ongoing events of the collection, preferring to take a deep breath after the events of the previous series. Here though Stewart Sheargold pushes forwards some tantalising hints about Brax’s dark side, reminding us that they haven’t forgotten about the dark glimpses we’ve seen up to now.
It’s a definite suggestion that something dark is coming.
8 / 10
——
After Life During Wartime redefined Bernice Summerfield short stories, reaching an incredible quality of interlinked stories all based around one common event, it was always going to be difficult to follow up. Doing something just as momentous would have felt like copying, so instead Simon Guerrier takes the learning from LDW and gives us a much more generic ‘life on the collection’ overview.
However, what differentiates this from the first two short story collections, which both had their highs and lows, there genuinely ‘is’ interlinking material here and a much more coherent, exploratory attempt to build a world up. The redefined Braxiatel Collection feels real, it feels alive and organic and functional and, most importantly, exciting.
A debate on Gallifrey Base forum has given me a few more thoughts I’d like to go over on this story
I think my love for it may be due to my personal ambitions as a writer. I’ve written everything from short stories to full length 200,000 word novels and I am familiar with the process of creating something. Plotting, rewriting, redrafting, adding in characters after the fact and removing them completely – fully formed creations that never existed because you realised too late that they just don’t work…
Also, I broke my rule for of this runthrough. Usually I listen to them once. For the earlier plays, Series 1-4, that didn’t matter because I can remember listening to them years ago when first released. For series 5 I haven’t had that luxury, but this one needed a second listen so I could get it right in my head. The first time round I hadn’t got the situation twigged, the second time round I loved the beginning all the more knowing what was going on.
It’s not perfect, but compared to most other ‘it’s all a dream in your head’ stories, I loved it. And personally I’d consider it only as much of a dream as ‘Oh No It Isn’t’ wasn’t real. The threat imposed by the Player is real, her possible death is real, just the frills and spills (which are nothing more than cosmetic additions to core fundamental plotting when you consider it) are make believe, and most have at least some level of metaphor for real things. To be honest this came as close to mimicking that original play as I’d ever dare tread, replacing the outright comic wordplay with something a little more subtle and overdramatic, but otherwise exactly the same.
(Incidentally, have you read Dave Stone’s Slow Empire EDA book? I picked it up about a month ago and made my way through it… Weird, but, having read some reviews online… Although they both go about it in VERY different methods both Stewart Sheargold and Dave Stone have attempted similar things – deconstructing the very format in which the story is told. Here Stewart Sheargold muses as a writer about possible situations to throw his heroine in, looking for new and innovative ways to excite readers and pose potential dangers, forever battling with his temptation to actually kill her but failing to in the end because the brand is stronger than the single writer.
Dave Stone on the other hand tells a digital book, where the beginning and the end are fixed but at no point in between does anything actually happen. The adventure is forced, the journey from A to B passing through C, D and E only happens to fill out the extra few pages to make it a novel. In neither story are there any real characters besides the main protagonists, and does anything happen which will change the way you see the world in the end. Both are, however, bold and interesting experiments in storytelling.
I really do feel that Masquerade of Death comes out slightly better in the fact it’s actually enjoyable. The Slow Empire is intellectually interesting ‘after’ the fact, but at times can feel a real slog to read through).
SPOILERS FOR 2008 DOCTOR WHO: SILENCE IN THE LIBRARY
A question?
Do you count Donna’s experience in the Library to be a dream or real? Same as Oh No It Isn’t, dream world but inhabited by many people… That doesn’t mean that anything that happened inside it was remotely real though.
It’s an interesting question though… Do ‘dream sequences’ that happen to multiple characters mean more? And just because you say its not real, although that doesn’t necessarily mean danger isn’t real, do you really loose all tangible sense of menace in your story?
In fact for me, the turning point in masquerade was when I realised that Adrian wasn’t sharing the dream with her, he was a character created by her. Up to that point I’d been sitting there sulking, because Harry Myers is usually brilliant and I’d thought he was really sub par at the start. Then, once I’d twigged, things started turning around.
That doesn’t apply to everyone of course, but as this is a very intellectually stimulating story, its worth giving out some thoughts on the matter.
(Incidentally this is one week after the finale of Ashes to Ashes. I loved that series, and Life on Mars before it. Does that mean anything?)
In a long running series that kicked off with living pantomime worlds, prostitutes in ancient Babylon, sentient sailing boats and green eyed monsters, it is surprising that I can safely call the Masquerade of Death the strangest play yet. It throws almost all conventional storytelling methods out of the window and constantly ‘resets’ the story at critical moments to start telling something new. It’s not an adventure, it’s not even a fairytale, its half a dozen misremembered ones mashed together as a giant allegory to something else.
The final scene puts everything into perspective, giving the rational (and only possible) explanation that the entire story up to that point has been a dream. This isn’t like most ‘dream’ stories though where death is meaningless, it becomes quite apparent early on that there is danger here, just one pertinent danger, and Bernice’s soul (and franchise) is at stake.
Stewart Sheargold seems to have decided to write a story pitting himself, as the author, against the whole concept of Bernice Summerfield. He takes time out to highlight her inconsistencies from writer to writer, glorifying her clichés and the constant wittisisms that have now become so commonplace they’re expected. To do this he pairs her up with Adrian Wall, who has been woefully underused on audio since the Green Eyed Monster. In a way it makes sense, Jason had his fun in the Grel Escape, and despite everything else there are still some unresolved feelings between Adrian and Bernice that need settling. However, for a play as allegorical as this the absence of both Jason and Brax completely does seem odd (although it is possible Brax’s influence makes a brief appearance).
In a way it’s a shame that Jason and Brax don’t appear in this fairytale land, although references to their possible ‘characters’ in the play are mentioned. Giving Adrian time with Bernice is important, and perhaps repeating the same set-piece two more times would have made the joke wear thin, but if this was meant to represent Bernice’s psyche then we’re only seeing one side of her.
The Player clearly represents one half of Sheargold, constructing scenes and imposing dialog to create an adventure, whereas the Spinster represents the other half of his mind. She keeps track of the story, drives the heroine forwards and, at the end, provides a deux ex machina for Bernice to escape by. In terms of a writing perspective there’s a goldmine of jokes and references here, carefully deconstructing the process of writing itself and turning it into a massive joke. The Player may have been overacting slightly (read a lot) but here it fits. There are no people here, just ‘characters’ and ‘roles that need to be fulfilled.
That said, aside from being utterly bewildered for the first twenty minutes where I attempted to force ‘conventional’ storytelling methods to this drama, once the penny dropped I absolutely adored the creation. The verbal swordfight at the end is Bernice Summerfield gold, the dialogue sparkles throughout and there’s a brilliant sense of invention and comedy to the whole thing. It’s also refreshing to have a story with no ‘old’ monster, so we get something brand new and exciting.
From a distance this play looks like the worst choice of possible candidates in the ‘Bernice vs. monster of the week’ saga. The eponymous Robot is certainly the oddest. All of the other creations have been species you can imagine, and their reappearance in her range has been an opportunity to see them from another perspective or in a different situation.
The Robot on the other hand was a very singular creation, made for one singular purpose which was done and dusted. That doesn’t seem to have bothered Stephen Cole, as he brings it back as an antiquated service robot, deliberately playing up to its historical value. He plays to its strengths; it always had a pretty appalling visual design but vocally Michael Kilgarriff was and remains brilliant. Getting him back was essential otherwise there’d be no reason to do it at all.
There’s a pretty slow start, with Bernice shot down by accident and stranded with two castaways who are more than a little odd. This is all presented as flashbacks, as Bernice recalls the story to the Robot which seems to be interrogating her for some yet as unknown crime. It’s big on mystery, intrigue and despite initially being a little put off by Elise Kalwell they actually play the strangeness just right. Very, very appropriate and believable for characters who have been stranded for a year and the gloating scene in particular is brilliant.
As Bernice gets to know the Kalwells better more of the story unfolds, the Robot slowly gets more and more menacing and a bit of history is given out along the way. This is exactly the kind of storytelling I like, where secrets are fed out piece by piece tantalisingly building the whole picture for the listeners. And, as much as I was dreading the reappearance of the ‘giant’ robots at the end, you just knew it had to happen, Stephen rewrites the scene with an epic change of viewpoint that turns the whole thing around.
The idea that the Robots themselves are the treasures she’s searching for, and that as they do they’re king kong act and get brutally slaughtered by the orbiting fighter ships, its Bernice’s entire profession that’s at stake. The original tried rather vaguely to try and make you feel sorry for the floundering beast, but that isn’t the case here, it’s Bernice trying to call the attack off who’s distraught. Although it’s less personal this is just, if not more, profound than the original Robots desire to protect Sarah Jane Smith.
What Stephen Cole does bring to the story though is an extension of the original Robots mission. It is there to do work too dangerous for humans. The moral arguments between him and Bernice do occupy a large proportion of the play, but they are well spaced out by other scenes. The eventual realisation that it’s planning to replace their most dangerous occupation, living itself, is well handled and pretty chilling.
All in all, I was surprised by how much I enjoyed this play. It’s completely unexpected, almost completely uncalled for, but never the less strong, well defined and constant. Considering I’ve heard that it was inspired by something as simple as a 1970s jigsaw puzzle this is amazing stuff.
Simon Forward seems justly proud of the Galyari, which despite protests from some listeners that they were difficult to listen to (not a view I shared, the audio quality seemed fine to me) were widely acclaimed as a successful take on the ‘society’ of aliens whilst still sticking to a format closer to Doctor Who than Star Trek. The Clutch is a very visual concept, as is the concept of chameleonic creatures, but somehow Forward created a brilliant drama that used these elements and made them important to the plot. As Series Five of Bernice Summerfield continues the trend of ‘returning monsters of the week’ it makes sense to bring one of their more successful original creations back.
The Bone of Contention is set prior to the Sandman, although it isn’t necessarily a prequel. Mordecan returns, bereft of his irish accent (it is explained in the plot but not in a way I found convincing, and actually the loss of it made him slightly… bland to be honest). Also treated differently are the Galyari voices, slightly clearer and less fuzzy but still recognisably similar. In this timeline the Galyari are still living in fear of the Sandman, searching for ways to defend themselves. They are known for a fondness of avian species, have bought an ancient artefact in a previous deal, and Bernice has been sent to collect it back. So far, the concept seems sound.
The execution however, sadly, leaves something to be desired. Bernice storms around at the start of the play, bursting into a sealed laboratory then acting surprised when she’s set upon by its startled occupant. For every moment of genius she shows (advertising Mordecans’s services in a personal ad rather than searching for him across the clutch is particularly good) she counters it with an angry remark or careless blunder. I’ve commented before that Bernice’s character is fairly malleable but she’s particularly roughly treated here.
The two Galrayi lead actors do their best but the script does not particularly well treat them. The plot concerns the violent activity of non speaking role Griko. Relentless sounds of a harsh breathing, whining, clearly agitated but otherwise mute character smash things, fight things and throw all sorts of tantrums is not pleasant.
At the end of the play Bernice looses all perspective and goes completely insane in her attempts to mother the wildly dangerous infant. This treads similar territory to the Mirror Effect, with something insanely dangerous looking for a mother to help it grow and using Bernice’s experiences with Peter as a template, but unlike the former play the histrionics just seem out of place.
I can’t actually fault a single actor not doing their part, and although I preferred the ‘old’ Mordecan I did eventually warm to Robin Bowerman’s new performance by the end. Unfortunately the single disc structure doesn’t give enough time to properly see the Galyari society, and most of the Galyari dialogue directly concerns Griko, who for most of the play I just found annoying. I’m getting tired of hearing Bernice described as a ‘mothering’ figure yet never really seeing her spend quality time with Peter (the previous play excluded of course).
All in all it’s a worthy effort but it’s not as tight as it should be. There are clever ideas and strong themes but I was offput by the way Griko’s non-character completely absorbed the entire story.
I’ve always been slightly perplexed by the picture of Bernice on the cover of this story, she looks completely out of it… But then actually that fits the nature of this story; its patently absurd from the get go.
Firstly let’s recap. Oh No It Isn’t! showed a group of Grel, armed and dangerous, trying to make sense of a pantomime world. That was ridiculous as well but most of the humour didn’t actually come from the Grel, they came from everything else. Jac Raynor then brought one back, a solitary Grel called Sophia, allowing us to get to know her intimately in a way that would have been completely impossible otherwise.
So this is the difficult third outing for Jac Raynor and the Grel, who evidently turned to Doctor Who’s most famous monster for inspiration. The Daleks got a story at home, a story away, and then one that went…. Everywhere. So if it’s good enough for them then its good enough for everyone.
Although I found the Grel amusing in Oh No It Isn’t! and found myself warming to Sophia in the Glass Prison, this might be an outing too far for me. The Grel Escape offers nothing new to the aliens, but it does have bloody good fun repeating the same joke. Facts! Warnings! Exposition! The bulbous squid faced aliens steal the show with an ongoing running gag and some really, really, really, really crap technology.
“I am the real Bernice Summerfield. I drink lots. I have no breasts. Give me the child Peter, husband Jason!”
Yes, considering this is a direct copy of ‘The Chase’, there’s a good reason for that. Unfortunately it’s a joke that I just don’t find… that funny. Its all right, definitely but not amazing.
So, ignoring the repetition of the Grel running gag, and the fact 70% of the plot is a piece for piece subposition of the Chase, what new does this story have to offer?
It starts with Jason trying to ‘normalise’ Peter by showing him days out in standard twentieth century earth. Bernice arrives with Sophia, character last seen in the Glass Prison, and simultaneously falls out with Jason and discovers that Peter is in terrible danger.
Sophia’s character worked in the Glass Prison because she had that sense of unnerving danger that the story needed. Although she was outwardly kind and friendly, the strangeness and claustrophobia of the setting had you imagining she was dangerous. Learning about her became an important part of the story. Here though she gets very little to do aside from be a gooseberry for Jason and Bernice, a role already partially occupied by Steven Wickham, as well as to give a little insight into the Grel pursuing them. She gets something to do at the end with a wonderful, highlight of the play, completely unexpected plot twist at the end, but by then the story is practically over.
Jason suffers similarly, although he gets much more to do. He’s a character whose very easy to get wrong, and although Jac Raynor doesn’t exactly struggle to write for him he does come across just the wrong side of annoying. On the other hand, it is nice to see the character from another perspective. Up until now writers who didn’t enjoy the Jason and Bernice coupling have tended to sideline him, here however the tension between him and Bernice becomes paramount and drives the story forwards.
It’s nice to finally have a voice for Peter, and the snippets of dialogue from Dacey Warriner work well. I’m not sure by his voice at the climax at the end, with a frenzied fight between a monstrous Peter and half a dozen Grel. Additionally I’m not sure about the scene leading up to it where Bernice dreams that the Egyptian gods are judging Peter unworthy.
I suppose there’s a lot to enjoy in the Grel Escape. The writing is humorous, the story simple if a little absurd. If you enjoyed the Grel’s first appearance and want to see more of them then this is for you. If you enjoyed The Chase, a 1960s Doctor Who story which featured the Daleks zipping from timeline to timeline whilst being absolutely crap at catching the Doctor, this is for you. Otherwise, it’s just an amusing diversion, but nothing special.
I’ll admit the concept of revisiting the Key to Time season seemed totally unnecessary to me: by necessity, the plot is going to be exactly the same — searching time and space for the segments of the Key — and what more can be done with a concept like that? Still, there’s potential there: there’s a lot of mileage left in the Guardians, for example, and the introduction of Amy and Zara sets up an intriguing new Doctor/companion dynamic. I didn’t particularly enjoy the first play in this series, “The Judgement of Isskar,” but I had heard good things about the second, Jonathan Clements’ “The Destroyer of Delights.” Unfortunately, describing my reaction to this play as “disappointed” would be an understatement.
I’ll start with a positive: the setting of “Destroyer” is brilliant. Clements has clearly done a great deal of research, both into history and mythology, and has crafted a 9th century Arabian society almost worth the price of admission on its own. Particularly good is his use of language: this is one of the few stories to foreground the TARDIS translation circuits, which allows us to see, through Amy’s “unusual” use of nouns, the Arabic forebears of common English terms.
And yet, despite this fantastic setting, there isn’t anything even remotely believable about the story. I’m certainly not the type of person who rejects humor in Doctor Who; season 17 is one of my favorites, after all, and I’ve never read anything by Douglas Adams that I’ve disliked. “Destroyer of Delights,” though, doesn’t make an attempt to take anything seriously: the vast majority of the characters are flippant and disinterested, the relationships are completely incongruous with the setting, and Amy’s characterization is laughably inconsistent with the previous play. I mentioned the Guardians in the opening paragraph, and, following on from the cliffhanger in “Isskar,” they reappear in this story — and are totally reimagined as comedy characters. I’m entirely unsure why this decision was made: what is the point of taking well-known characters from the TV series and distorting them to the point of unrecognizability? You’ve talked about the “Grace” in this series already — so use them if you want to have two comedy agents of order and chaos arguing with each other. I like how Clements portrays their actions, providing a lesson in the relative merits of their desires, but it’s drowned in this unfunny nonsense. I’m not questioning the casting, either — David Troughton (Black) and Jason Watkins (White) play their roles excellently — but at no point was I even remotely convinced that these were the Guardians. A common argument against this is that they wore stuffed birds on their heads in “Enlightenment” — but I’m judging their characters by their actions, not by whatever the costuming department stuck them in.
Then there’s Amy, whose portrayal in this is confusing and somewhat insulting. It was established in “Isskar” that these living tracers derived their personalities from those around them — but it was certainly not established that Amy would immediately revert to an ignorant blank slate the instant she was separated from the Doctor. So there she is, roaming through the scenes as a totally wide-eyed innocent, completely bereft of any social graces, but still possessing whatever knowledge is useful to drive the plot along. Sure, Ciara Janson plays the part well, so it’s not her fault that Amy is deeply irritating, but that doesn’t reverse the effect. It would literally be impossible to craft a more helpless, “what-is-it-Doctor?” companion than this — some would call this a step back.
Let’s also not forget about the relationship between slave Nisrin (Jess Robinson) and Prince Omar (Bryan Pilkington). We learn from Nisrin that slaves are the lowest of the low in this society: while the Caliphate is reknowned for being welcoming and friendly to all visiting strangers, slaves are often known to go missing or turn up dead for the smallest of infractions. Nisrin, despite her better judgment, has fallen in love with Omar. This could easily set up something interesting or — heaven forfend — dramatic, but instead devolves rapidly into beyond-cliched scenes in which Omar must choose between his love of gold and his love for Nisrin.
On the production front, Lisa Bowerman’s direction is reasonably effective: despite the often-tedious subject matter, the play never seems overlong or bloated. Simon Robinson’s contributions are something of a mixed bag — his sound design is impressive, but his score is often jarring. Overall, “The Destroyer of Delights” is a major step down from its predecessor, and yet again has me asking of a Big Finish release: what on earth was the point?
From Tom Swift on 8.2 – The Judas Gift
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From Tom Swift on 8.1 – The Tub Full of Cats
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From Tom Swift on 7.6 – The Empire State
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From Tom Swift on 7.5 – The Oracle of Delphi
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From Tom Swift on 7.4 – Summer of Love
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From Styre on 120 – The Magic Mousetrap
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From Styre on 3.8 – The Worldwide Web
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From Styre on 3.7 – The Eight Truths
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From Styre on The Quality of Leadership
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From Jphalt on 123 – The Company of Friends
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From Jphalt on 123 – The Company of Friends
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From Tom Swift on 7.3 – The Worst Thing in the World
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From Tom Swift on 7.2 – Timeless Passages
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From Tom Swift on 7.1 – The Tartarus Gate
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From Tom Swift on 15 – Genius Loci
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From Tom Swift on 6.5 – The Crystal of Cantus
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From Tom Swift on 6.4 – The Goddess Quandary
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From Tom Swift on 14 – Something Changed
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From Tom Swift on 13 – Parallel Lives
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From Styre on 3.6 – The Cannibalists
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From Styre on Defining Patterns
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From Styre on 3.5 – The Scapegoat
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From Tom Swift on 6.3 – The Lost Museum
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From Tom Swift on Silver Lining
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From Tom Swift on 6.2 – The Kingdom of the Blind
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From Jphalt on II – Shada
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From Jphalt on 123 – The Company of Friends
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From Styre on 3.4 – Wirrn Dawn
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From Styre on 3.3 – The Beast of Orlok
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From Mr BHT on 067 – Dreamtime
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From Phill on 3.2 – Hothouse
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From Styre on 3.2 – Hothouse
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From Styre on 3.1 – Orbis
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From Mr BHT on 123 – The Company of Friends
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From Jphalt on 046 – Flip-Flop
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From Jphalt on 039 – Bang-Bang-A-Boom!
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From Tom Swift on 6.1 – The Heart’s Desire
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From Tom Swift on 12 – The Tree of Life
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From Tom Swift on 11 – A Life in Pieces
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From Mr BHT on 1.8 – Human Resources Part 2
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From Mr BHT on 128 – The Eternal Summer
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From Styre on 119 – The Key 2 Time – The Chaos Pool
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From Mr BHT on 3.06 – The Darkening Eye
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From Tom Swift on 10 – A Life Worth Living
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From Tom Swift on 5.4 – The Masquerade of Death
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From Tom Swift on 5.4 – The Masquerade of Death
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From Tom Swift on 5.3 – The Relics of Jegg-Sau
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From Tom Swift on 5.2 – The Bone of Contention
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From Tom Swift on 5.1 – The Grel Escape
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From Styre on 118 – The Key 2 Time – The Destroyer of Delights
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