Among the many wonderful and varied styles Big Finish has adopted in its Doctor Who audio plays, horror has never featured heavily. Sure, many releases have been suspenseful, with a few scary scenes or intense confrontations, but Big Finish has rarely set out to terrify the listener. Night Thoughts, an updated proposed Doctor Who television script from writer Edward Young, feels no such limitation: it’s scary as hell. Of course, it isn’t all about the horror — it’s a rather intelligent script to boot, and the production features some wonderful performances. It’s rare for Big Finish to release two quality Sylvester McCoy audios in a row, but Night Thoughts — coming off the back of the fine LIVE 34 — isn’t just quality, it’s one of the best McCoy releases of all time.
Much ado has been made about the play’s portrayal of time travel, and the effects of changing history on the future. Night Thoughts does indeed present a unique take on this — changes wrought by a certain machine leave only ghostlike effects upon the future with no permanent impact — but there is absolutely nothing wrong with Young’s concept. Doctor Who has never presented a consistent philosophy of time travel: it has always been a simple conceit, able to be manipulated at the will of the author. Despite this, though, the effects of TARDIS-based time travel remain consistent: Major Dickens’ (Bernard Kay) efforts are driven at least in part by the results of the Doctor’s journey into the past, and Young’s script ties that change to the changes brought about by the machine. It’s difficult to say whether a rock-solid chain of logic binds the plot together, but that hardly matters, as Young’s play is about its characters and its atmosphere, not the intricacies of time travel mechanics.
And what an atmosphere it is. From the very beginning of the play, where Hex (Philip Olivier) speaks of odd dreams and Ace (Sophie Aldred) falls into the lake, this is established as a dark, cold environment, and the oppressive atmosphere hardly lightens. It’s easy to see how this was proposed for the Cartmel period: Dickens is a fabulous grotesque villain, echoing Light of “Ghost Light” or Millington of “The Curse of Fenric,” while primal forces are on display in an oppressive environment. The Bursar’s (Joanna McCallum) chair lift is used to impressive dramatic effect, and even McCoy’s voice is sampled and used to terrify. The characters, too, are effective: the Bursar and the Deacon (Ann Beach) are convincingly presented as victims of their own guilt, while Andrew Forbes gives Dr. O’Neill a vaguely tragic sense of nobility. The two stars of the guest cast, though, portray the two best characters: first, the aforementioned Dickens, whom Kay brilliantly realizes as a character whose motivations are never quite clear, and second, Sue (Lizzie Hopley). Sue is a wonderful character — when we first meet her, she seems like an odd girl who prefers to talk through her stuffed rabbit, Happy, but we soon find out she’s an orphan whose mother and sister died under mysterious circumstances and that her psychology has been understandably affected. It isn’t spelled out in the play, but it’s obvious that she has been talking to her dead sister — something which makes the final “I’m Happy” scene all the more effective.
Sylvester McCoy is on brilliant form here. It’s obvious when he’s going to struggle — he speeds through the lines, uses odd inflections, and trips over some language — but absolutely none of that happens in Night Thoughts, one of his most effective performances in the role. He has always conveyed quiet and contemplative well, but he’s genuinely scary in this one, especially in his conversation with the Deacon — “jig, jig, jig.” Philip Olivier is equally brilliant: Hex, by this time, is accustomed to his travels and is free of his “oh my God”s, but nonetheless he is taken aback by events in the house. Olivier gives the character nervous energy, and even manages to make the dreaded scenes of narrative monologue sound convincing. I like what the addition of Hex has done for the TARDIS crew, and I like his chemistry with Ace — and Aldred is delightful in her scenes with Olivier, finally allowed to be free of the angst that has plagued her character for decades. Unfortunately, Aldred tends to overplay some of the dramatic stuff, and Ace as written is a bit too blithe in her acceptance of, say, being caught in a bear trap, but these are minor complaints.
None of the great atmosphere would be possible without exceptional sound design, and Gareth Jenkins comes through in spades. The house feels empty and cold, and the sound effects are suitably terrifying in places. Andy Hardwick’s music is of high quality as well, contributing to the oppressive sense. And Gary Russell does an exceptional job in the director’s chair: the script changes locations and times unexpectedly and often, and the listener never loses track of the environment or the pace.
Overall, this is a stunningly good release. It’s rare enough to hear a great McCoy — and make no mistake, this is the best one since The Fires of Vulcan — but it’s even rarer to be genuinely scared by a Big Finish release. A couple of minor flaws keep it from reaching the heights of perfection, but Night Thoughts is still the sort of release that proves that Big Finish not only “still has it,” they deserve to keep “it” for some time yet.
The last Big Finish play from Robert Ross, “Medicinal Purposes,” earned a 7/10 rating largely on the strength of its production, acting, and characterization — the plot was awful, but the other parts of the release made up for it. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for Ross’ second attempt, “Pier Pressure,” which has precious little to offer aside from some exceptional sound design.
I’m very reluctant to throw the word “lazy” around when it comes to writing, because effort clearly goes into even the most offensively poor script. Perhaps a lazy imagination would be the best criticism to level at Ross for this script, because it’s almost completely devoid of innovation. I’ve never had a problem with run-of-the-mill Doctor Who stories, but this one seems determined to be as boring as possible: the threat — aliens, of course, desire to take over the Earth — is vague, unexplained, and wholly unthreatening, as the alien force is never seen to do anything even vaguely intimidating. Okay, they possess people, but honestly — “walk, attack, kill?!”
The historical setting is remarkably wrong-footed as well. I’ll admit from the start that, going in, I had no idea who Max Miller (ably portrayed by Roy Hudd) was, but the script does absolutely nothing to flesh him out, apart from informing me that he was a “national treasure” of a comedian known for risqué material. But there’s no reason for Max Miller to be in this play in the first place — he adds nothing to the plot and serves as little more than a sarcastic distraction — and the themes, such as they are, do not reflect the setting or the historical characters.
Not that the characterization itself is anything to speak of. The Doctor (Colin Baker) is reduced to empty pronouncements about how dangerous and horrific the situation is; dramatic events fail to support his claims and make him look silly. Evelyn was sidelined enough in “Medicinal Purposes,” but here it’s just insulting — when she’s not reduced to “What is it, Doctor?!” exclamations she’s stuck in the TARDIS with Miller playing I Spy! Baker and Maggie Stables give it their all, but you can’t squeeze blood from the proverbial stone. If you were writing a book on clichés, you’d open it with Albert (Chris Simmons) and Emily (Sally Ann Curran), two monumentally uninteresting characters good for little but pining for each other and dying. And lastly there’s the bad guy, Professor Talbot (Doug Bradley of “Hellraiser” fame) — we know he’s evil because every so often he talks to himself in funny voices. Bradley does his best, and it’s really an admirable job, but it’s a shame that Pinhead was wasted on this role.
Where’s the script editor? Why was this play 125 minutes long? I’m fairly confident that every single scene is longer than it should be, and many are totally unnecessary. I criticized “Medicinal Purposes” for being overlong and repetitive, and “Pier Pressure” is even worse — 95% of the action takes place along one stretch of beach, and an exercise in minimalist expression this is not.
As above, the one saving grace of “Pier Pressure” is the production. Gareth Jenkins’ sound design is suitably eerie for the setting and subject matter, and Andy Hardwick’s score is astonishing — I’ve often thought that string scores work remarkably well in Doctor Who, and this is a fine example. Sometimes actors in these plays are audibly bored with the script, but this doesn’t happen here — there’s little director Gary Russell can do to improve the pacing, but he’s trying his best.
There’s so little to say about Pier Pressure — it’s stunningly boring, almost as if it was constructed that way, it doesn’t appear to have anything to say about anything, and its characters are little more than mere ciphers. I suppose it doesn’t actually offend the listener, but is that to be praised? It used to be that Colin Baker releases were the most reliable of all — well, we’ve only had one good one since “Medicinal Purposes” came out, and judging by “Pier Pressure” we shouldn’t be holding our breath.
Quite possibly the worst Colin Baker release in BF history — I’d certainly say so.
Part of the appeal of Doctor Who has always been its ability to go anywhere and do anything, and the concept of the historical has witnessed quite a renaissance under the direction of Big Finish — not even the new series has ventured down the path of the pure historical as of yet. But the Paul McGann range of plays has been notably short on historical stories — fortunately, this gap is filled admirably by Other Lives, a delightful Dickensian romp by Gary Hopkins, the author of… the horribly grim The Last? Funny how these things work out.
Other Lives is indeed a Dickens pastiche — perhaps closer to homage — featuring not only Dickens’ knack for oddly-named grotesques but also his social awareness: the play deals heavily with the various social strata of Victorian England. The central conceit — the Doctor, C’rizz, and Charley each have doubles living “other lives” in the time of the Great Exhibition — is used to great effect in a manner reminiscent of the Hartnell era: the characters are split up, each trying to return to the TARDIS. But the various situations encountered by the characters are often diametrically opposed, allowing the listener a view not just into Victorian society but also into the mental states of the TARDIS crew.
Paul McGann’s eighth Doctor is sidelined for much of the first half of the play, reduced to performing magic tricks to barter his way into the Exhibition and being imprisoned when he fails. He takes center stage in the second half, however, as he is mistaken for the husband of Georgina Marlow (a very sympathetic Francesca Hunt) and attempts to extricate himself from her affections. The central conflict here — the Doctor as traveler vs. the Doctor as domestic man — is one of the important conflicts of the Doctor’s character, and is something we have seen explored time and again in the first two seasons of the new series. McGann has often been described as the most “human” of Doctors, and his sensitive, quiet performance in these scenes provides quite a revelation: this Doctor finds the concept of family life quite appealing, and indeed it seems that the only thing stopping him from taking Georgina’s offer is the fact that he’d be living a lie as a different man. We don’t see this side of the Doctor’s character too often, and it’s fortunate that an actor of McGann’s caliber is there to bring it out.
Charley, meanwhile, falls into what could best be described as a comedy of manners involving the Duke of Wellington (Ron Moody) and his associate Mr. Fazackerley (Michael Hobbs). Though Charley is arguably the lead character of the play, these scenes are also the shallowest — Charley’s briefest conflict is the night she spends alone on the streets, and this incident is used merely for smell jokes the next morning with the Duke. This segment is quite charming, however: Moody and India Fisher have wonderful rapport, with Moody’s fatherly affection coming across as incredibly sweet, and Hobbs’ indignation at virtually everything is hilarious. Fisher, too, is a revelation: for the first time in countless releases, her cheeriness is genuinely endearing, perfectly fitting the tone of the play.
Lastly is the journey of C’rizz, who conceals himself in the TARDIS for the first episode before emerging, only to fall into the clutches of Jacob Crackles, Esq. (Mike Holoway), manager of the local freak show. C’rizz is imprisoned and put on display for the amusement of passersby — a dark, radical opposition to his acceptance and camaraderie with the TARDIS crew — and, while not on display, attempts to persuade Maxi the Midget (Peter Howe) to help him escape. C’rizz is violently opposed to his imprisonment, and this once again brings his inner demons to the fore: upon finally having Crackles at his mercy, C’rizz does something violently nonspecific to him at the behest of the voices in his head. A resolution to this ongoing thread is probably going to be necessary within the next release or two, but for now the buildup of suspense is intriguing. Aside from C’rizz himself, though, this segment also provides a tragic look at the character of Maxi. Howe gives the character a certain heroism, but also a sadness in realizing that he depends on Crackles for his survival just as Crackles depends upon him for income.
The play is not without its flaws, primarily concerning the variable tone. The freak show scenes feel particularly awkward in comparison with the rest of the play — Hopkins doesn’t seem sure how dark to make them, and so C’rizz’s realistic suffering is juxtaposed against Holoway’s very broad take on Crackles. The edges between the Doctor’s scenes and Charley’s scenes could be smoother as well. However, these are relatively minor complaints — Hopkins, on the whole, shows a real talent for this sort of writing.
The production is magnificent: David Darlington is asked to capture a wide range of environments with almost unimaginably varied background noise and yet manages to make everything sound perfectly realistic. I’ve often wondered what it would have been like to attend one of these exhibitions, and I’d like to think that I now have a better idea. The music is excellent as well, with a subtle appeal. Gary Russell turns in high-caliber direction: though the play takes place across a wide range of locations at a variety of tones, the pace never slackens nor does the progression of events become confusing. The cover is fine, too — but they really need a new shot of Conrad Westmaas.
Other Lives might not be a perfect release, but it’s close. An intelligent, literate script, fine performances, excellent sound design, and even an appealing Charley all work in its favor, and only some tonal inconsistencies keep it from reaching the top of the charts. A fantastic return to form after the decidedly average Scaredy Cat, and perhaps, finally, an indicator of an eighth Doctor renaissance.
It’s certainly better than Scaredy Cat; that much was apparent from the start. But I can’t decide precisely how I feel about James Swallow’s Singularity, a story that marks both the return of Mark Strickson to the range as well as a return to the more “epic” running times that distinguished many of BF’s earlier releases. For every good point, it seeems as though there’s a bad one; perhaps the process of writing this review will help to collect my thoughts.
Singularity’s most immediate feature is its creativity: this is a play that deals with giant ideas. The central conflict is more epic than Doctor Who normally gets: the last remnants of humanity, abandonded by the Time Lords and clinging to their lives as the universe reaches heat death, travel back in time to transform the population of Earth into a massive hive mind. On the one hand, the Sleepers’ hatred for the Time Lords helps to drive the plot, justifying their knowledge and use of the TARDIS, but on the other hand, it sits uneasily with the themes of the play. Thematically, this is similar to the new series episode The End of the World, and I think the television story illustrates that hubris is a sufficient failing — the Time Lords don’t need to be there for the humans to rail against.
The plot builds slowly, but effectively, letting us see the Somnus Foundation through Lena’s eyes in the early going. It gives the senes that events are building to an epic climax, but this is undercut in the final episode, which takes way too long and features about ten too many scenes of bad guys yelling melodramatically and Strickson being forced to belt out “GET OUT OF MY MIND!!!,” all of which cause me to roll my eyes and check my watch. I’m also not sure how I feel about the final scene. It’s brilliantly acted, but does it fit the tone of the rest of the play? It seems like the perfect coda to an epic tragedy — but as this play seemed more a celebration of what humanity is rather than a condemnation of what it will become, the ending struck me as somewhat superfluous.
I’m also in two minds about the dialogue. Swallow absolutely nails the regulars, especially Turlough, and his present-day human characters are believable and sympathetic. But it appears that billions of years of evolution will transform humans into near-pantomime villains — “primitive savages” and “loathesome meddlers” abound. Fortunately, nobody tipped completely over the edge into “Thou craggy knob!” but it was touch and go for a while there. This is not to say that comic villainry has no place in Doctor Who, of course, but those sorts of exclamations just don’t fit the rest of the play at all.
On the acting front, Peter Davison seems to be underplaying the role of the Doctor this time around. It’s a very effective performance, but from time to time he sounds like he’s about to fall asleep — perhaps he read “Somnus” one too many times? His outrage at the abuse of the TARDIS is quite effective and his performance in the final scene is shockingly good. That’s the sort of thing reserved almost exclusively for McCoy, and yet Davison sounds right at home. Mark Strickson, meanwhile, makes his first appearance as Turlough since all the way back in Loups-Garoux, and he’s on fine form throughout. Swallow understands that Turlough is not a typical companion, and Strickson really gets into his character’s mix of cynicism, self-reliance, and paranoia. It’s a shame we can’t see more of Strickson in these audios — he and Davison make a unique, refreshing pair.
I’m not sure what to say about the supporting cast. Those playing the Sleepers, especially Eve Polycarpou as Qel, attack their lines like wild animals, wrenching every bit of OTT melodrama they can from the material. And yet Natasha Radiski and Oleg Mirochnikov provide much subtler, believable turns as Lena and Alexi, as does the rest of the “present-day” Russian cast. I’m not sure if I prefer the casting of actual Russians to simply ignoring the idea of accented English — on the one hand you’ve got an authentic Russian feel, but on the other you’ve got actors naturally struggling a bit with pacing and emphasis.
There are no complaints about the production, however. Steve Foxon’s sound design is exceptional — I’d never been to Russia until I listened to this play. His portrayal of the desolate future world Ember is similarly effective. Foxon’s music is the best of his work, though — it sounds just like a 1980s Doctor Who score, and I mean that as a compliment! I enjoyed Garr Russell’s direction — the pace flags a bit towards the end, but the rest of the play is suitably intriguing, and though the decisions made by some of the actors might not have been the best, there isn’t a weak performance to be found. The cover is beautiful as well.
Overall, I’m going to say that I liked Singularity, and that it’s an above-average release. It’s not a masterpiece, but its sheer volume of ideas, its solid characterization, and its exceptional production keep it afloat in the face of inconsistent theme and tone. I also get the feeling that this play will appeal greatly to the general fan population — I really don’t know why I’m unsure about it.
With the 2005 renaissance fully underway, the next production to emerge from the BF production house was Will Shindler’s Scaredy Cat. Shindler’s previous script, The Twilight Kingdom, was a solid but unspectactular runaround, and Scaredy Cat goes down precisely this same path, proving an unimpressive Doctor Who story that presents a number of interesting concepts but fails to explore any of them in any depth.
I’ve never been big on Gaia mythology, and so I wasn’t particularly stimulated by this play. Right from the beginning, the Doctor is on about “morphogenic fields” of planets, which apparently cause ideas to magically transport themselves between different animals. Planets evolve personalities, too, and so it is dangerous to journey to new planets, lest they become corrupted — apparently all Time Lords are forbidden from doing so. But if we just accept this as the nature of the play, there are still problems which become evident. I accept that the planet manifested itself through the avatar of the little girl Galayna, and how Flood became the “opposition,” but they end up being archetypes thrown at each other without any sort of thematic support, leading to an ultimately uninteresting confrontation.
Indeed, “uninteresting” is the word of the day, as nothing is developed. The back cover says “C’rizz learns that some tragedies can’t be averted,” and that one-sentence summary contains all the relevant depth of the scene in question. Essentially, the Doctor says “Nope, can’t interfere!” and leaves, and with only the barest minimum of agonizing, C’rizz decides to betray him and interfere anyway. Fortunately, the Doctor saw this coming from the beginning — but the listener didn’t, as none of the characters are given motiviations beyond the barest minimums. The “conflict” seems like it was thrown in at the last minute — entire stories are regularly written around the importance of preserving the timeline, and a marked philosophical difference between the Doctor and C’rizz should not be dismissed in five minutes.
Furthermore, what’s going on with the title? To whom does it refer? I suspect the answer is “nobody,” and that it’s the title simply because it matches the girl’s catchphrase — a catchphrase, incidentally, which has nothing to do with the content of the play, and proves annoying rather than creepy.
A further complaint of mine rests with the running time. I have no problem with shorter Doctor Who stories, and I think it’s refreshing to hear a story check in at 75 minutes. However, that much material can fit on one CD, and as such there are no excuses for releasing it on two and ratcheting up the price. If the play was released with all the content on disc one, and disc two blank — which it could have been — there would have been riots. There still should be.
The regulars are, for the most part, uninteresting. McGann gives a very subdued portrayal of the Doctor, verging on sounding bored at times, and didn’t hold my attention as he normally would. Charley has absolutely nothing to do, and her role in the script is every inch the 1960s Doctor Who companion — “What is it, Doctor?” and being locked up with the bad guy. India Fisher does okay with this, but even she sounds bored, and as I’ve said before, once Charley was established as a complex character, it’s impossible to take her seriously when she’s reduced to this state. I liked C’rizz, however — we continue to see sides of his personality emerge depending on who he’s with, and his association with Flood in this play brings us ever closer to the revelation that we know is coming. Conrad Westmaas continues his tradition of solid performances.
As for the supporting characters, we’ve got the traditional trio of scientists: the harried leader, the unsure female support, and the male support who enjoys being the “muscle” a bit too much. Rosalind Blessed, Arthur Bostrom, and Spencer McLaren are adequate in these roles, but none rises above the material. Shindler’s introduction of Flood is brilliant, using him as a type of narrator throughout the play, but eventually he’s revealed as a standard madman. His contention that he’s a protestor isn’t believable for a single second. Michael Chance has fun in the role, and I believe he made the right decision in not playing it way over the top, but there still isn’t much here. Lastly, Linda Bartram is woefully miscast as Galayna, as she doesn’t sound at all like a child.
The production, as always, is top-notch, starting with Gareth Jenkins and Andy Hardwick’s sound design. The crowds of natives are represented well, and their assault on the compound is nicely loud and frightening. Hardwick’s music is quite good as well, giving a surprising degree of atmosphere to such a fast script. Nigel Fairs’ direction obviously keeps the play moving, though I do wonder if it wouldn’t have been better to add more down time and let the play breathe. The cover is vaguely interesting, but having the figures standing astride Earth is more than a little disconcerting.
This review has been overwhelmingly negative, but I should state that I didn’t find the play to be irredeemable. I’m upset because Scaredy Cat could have been so much more, but instead it ended up so lightweight as to be almost completely forgettable. It’s not a bad diversion for 75 minutes, but after 75 releases, it’s unusual to release a play whose closest counterpart is Red Dawn.
After the poor start to 2005, I would have thought this impossible, but BF did it anyway: consecutive releases of classic Davison, McGann, and Baker audios. To complete the set they’d need a McCoy, and next on the pile was an experimental script from James Parsons & Andrew Stirling-Brown (hereafter “the authors”): Live 34. And wouldn’t you know, it’s another strong release — not the best thing BF has ever done, but a welcome experiment coupled with some strong performances nonetheless.
Live 34 is unique among Doctor Who stories in that it is presented as a series of live news and public affairs broadcasts over an Earth colony radio station. There are no opening or closing credits, nor is there any incidental music — all sound is diagetic. The authors remain incredibly faithful to this concept, and it is to the benefit of the script; speaking as someone with some radio experience, I was surprised at the realism of the sound design. Complaints have been made that the play is “boring,” or that the sound effects of faulty microphones take listeners out of the story — well, if you’ve ever done an on-site live report for a low-budget radio station, you’ll know that sound glitches are infinitely preferable to complete malfunctions. Of course, if Live 34 was intended as a major media outlet akin to WGN, then this portrayal is faulty, but such an intent appears nowhere in the script. The authors could easily have made concessions to drama, but instead they leave the audience wanting in places, exactly as happens during real broadcasts.
Unfortunately, the subject matter isn’t particularly interesting. The first episode’s use of audio clips and interviews, followed by the dramatic episode two visit to the Red Queen, keeps the listener intrigued by building natural suspense. But with half of episode three’s report wasted on tea with a harmless old lady, and all of episode four being taken up with a revelatory argument in the town square, it quickly becomes apparent that the authors could have put more work into their plot. The corrupt-regime-stealing-our-liberties plot is as old as the hills, and is certainly executed competently, but there is no sense of inevitability or grand drama present to counterbalance the predictability of events. The dual twists at the conclusion do not help — it would have been easier to leave Jaeger as one man, corrupted by power, while the revelation about the bodies is so ludicrous it defies belief.
The play also carries a modern relevance, as Jaeger’s regime sounds like the logical extension of the paranoiac’s vision of the future of the Bush administration. I guess the burning of the bodies is a reference to oil, but that’s poorly-communicated in a play that is otherwise as subtle as The Green Death. In any case, these flaws are ameliorated by the format. Had this been one in a series of plays told as radio news reports, it wouldn’t rate very highly, but as Live 34 also represents a new way of telling Doctor Who stories, it must be judged a success. It’s just a shame there isn’t much to discuss.
Sylvester McCoy had not done well in his last few performances, but he is back on form in Live 34, with barely a misstep. He even manages to do anger — during the final confrontation, it is easy to accept McCoy in total control of the situation, such is the command in his voice. It’s also nice to see the “manipulator” Doctor back in action — this isn’t quite the Cartmel Doctor, as he still presents himself as the face of the FDP, but he’s quite clearly in control. Sophie Aldred, meanwhile, is finally allowed to play a fully-matured Ace, absent even the McShane nonsense, and she’s all the better for it — this is a confident, assured portrayal of a character with a surprising amount of world-weariness and fatigue. Philip Olivier doesn’t get much to do as Hex, but one can tell this is still early in the character’s travels, as he frantically improvises to keep his stories straight.
Andrew Collins headlines the supporting cast, and though I gather his role approximates his current career, he turns in a fine performance nonetheless. Note the change in his intonation during episode four: broken and sullen rather than pleasant and upbeat. Zehra Naqvi can be so enthusiastic and forthright as Charlotte that the character grows annoying from time to time, but there are so many reporters like that out there that this performance cannot be called anything but realistic. Duncan Wisbey portrays the overblown self-important drama of a man with his own weekend feature show — and also the shock at discovering actual drama during his report. Lastly, the character of Jaeger is an almost complete cliché, and William Hoyland plays this to the hilt.
I constantly laud Big Finish’s production, but the design work on Live 34 is truly exceptional. The clicks and buzzes, the microphone distortion, the music, the cheesy jingle — it’s exactly like listening to the radio, and massive credit must go to David Darlington for his work. Gary Russell’s direction deserves merit simply for getting that performance out of McCoy, but he also keeps the confidence of the authors’ script. The cover, too, is beautiful — and the shadowed picture of the Doctor on the back cover of the liner notes is haunting.
An overly simplistic plot coupled with some frankly bizarre twists keep Live 34 from reaching the top rank of Big Finish releases. However, this is still a well above-average release, and it certainly qualifies as a worthwhile experiment with Doctor Who’s format. Parsons and Stirling-Brown have clearly listened to a lot of radio in their time and seen a lot of Doctor Who. Many of us can say that, though — it took these two authors to put them together.
I’ll admit off the top that I had started to lose faith in Big Finish after the remarkably lackluster start to 2005. But after a strong Davison release in The Council of Nicaea, and an astonishingly good McGann release in Terror Firma, my faith was restored. Imagine my delight, then, when the next play featured author Paul Sutton sequelizing his 2004 Arrangements for War, a script which pushed the boundaries of performed Doctor Who into the realm of the romance. This sequel, Thicker than Water, isn’t without its flaws, but marks the third strong release in a row from BF and stands as a very worthy sequel to its predecessor.
My complaints with Thicker than Water lie primarily with the plot, which simply required more detail. The initial conflict drawn up between Evelyn and Sofia — Evelyn’s desire to analyze the Killoran technology vs. Sofia’s desire to use the money on more immediate humanitarian projects — isn’t drawn out nearly enough to demonstrate why it is representative of the deep gulf between them. Their appearance on a political talk show sounds like two people trying to score cheap political points — one could accept this, if Sofia had thrown herself into the project purely to oppose Evelyn, but Sofia clearly feels strongly not just about Evelyn but also about the technology, and we never quite find out why. Furthermore, the second half of the story, featuring the Doctor and Rossiter uncovering secret genetic experiments at Szabó’s hospital, is almost painfully straightforward, resolved as it is by the Doctor reading some files in a room and Mel watching a monitor over Szabó’s shoulder. I’m also not sure if I like the revelation of what’s been done to Evelyn — with her heart condition already existing as a severely debilitating ailment, was it really necessary to replace it with something else entirely?
And yet despite the length of that list, all of the preceding complaints are relatively minor. Why? Sutton’s characterization: every single character in the play is solidly and believably motivated. Sofia and Evelyn are principled characters who would naturally clash over philosophical differences even without their family problems. Lawrence can be a tough guy in almost all circumstances, even to the point of assembling a commando team to capture Evelyn — but he melts into his boots when confronted by Sofia. Szabó is emotionally hurt from the war — much more than he lets on — and so he exacts his revenge, but calmly accepts his fate when discovered. Rossiter is a born leader, driven both by virtue and by his love for Evelyn. And, of course, the Doctor is there, mercurial and heroic as ever. Every character is believable; no character is ever compromised for the sake of drama.
This is also one of the most significant releases to the range as a whole, for it features the first departure scene of a BF-created companion. Evelyn’s actual departure is presented in flashback, which will cause some to complain that we are now deprived of a full departure story, but to make that argument would be to miss the forest for the trees: this is the departure story. Many complain that Big Finish Doctor Who has become stale and outdated in the light of the new series, but in Thicker than Water we have precisely the sort of story that might one day appear on television. Indeed, here we see the Doctor, in petulant fashion, part ways with a companion, leaving emotional loose ends untied — only to return, years later, with a new companion in tow. It is in the story’s “present,” then, that we see the final closure of the Doctor’s relationship with Evelyn, as they patch up old wounds and, in one of the range’s most touching scenes, express the depth of their friendship in simple terms.
During some of his scenes in the hospital basement with Rossiter, Colin Baker seems to venture over the top from time to time. That’s my only complaint about an otherwise brilliant performance, however, as Baker returns to the heartbreaking form seen in Arrangements for War. Maggie Stables gives one of her best performances, as she is asked to play every emotion from anger to sadness to frustration to joy and never once fails to convince. The “final” scene between the pair is beautiful, deserving to stand with any of Doctor Who’s greatest departure scenes. Bonnie Langford is strong as well, as Mel and Evelyn feel each other out over the course of the play before finally becoming friends. Special mention must go to Sylvester McCoy, whose turn in an uncredited cameo as the seventh Doctor is, quite simply, wonderful. The revelation in McCoy’s scene is shocking — it’ll be interesting to see if it ever factors into future audios.
Gabriel Woolf steps back into the shoes of Rossiter and sounds as though he recorded Arrangements for War only yesterday. His easy chemistry with Stables is still there, and he shows a surprising vulnerability in his outrage at Szabó’s experiments. Rachel Pickup capably handles the evolution of her character from unlikeable to heroic, while Simon Watts’ infatuation with her is surprisingly touching. Mat Dineen could have scaled back the intensity as Jenner, but Patrick Romer’s subdued performance as Szabó is perfectly pitched.
On the production front, Gareth Jenkins and Andy Hardwick provide an epic soundscape, full of long-distance background noises that easily convince. Hardwick’s score is emotional, but never becomes intrusive, perfectly matching the tone of the script. Edward Salt takes the director’s chair, doing a commendable job: his actors are almost all pitch-perfect, and he knows exactly how to pace Sutton’s script, expertly working in flashback and future-cameo alike. The feel of the story is subtly different from that of regular director Gary Russell’s efforts — not to condemn Russell, who has proven himself a fine director, but it would be interesting to hear other directors’ takes on the range as it progresses.
As mentioned above, the plot of Thicker than Water seems to meander in places — especially in the early episodes. Had the story continued along those lines, it may not have held up, but Sutton’s script builds to a masterful final episode, one of the greatest Big Finish have ever produced. By the time that it concludes, you’ll be thinking that Dr. Evelyn Smythe couldn’t have asked for a better sendoff. You’d be right.
With the advent of the new series on television, Big Finish’s ongoing eighth Doctor “seasons” were forced to draw to a close. However, this did not end their relationship with Paul McGann, whose plays were subsequently combined with the other past Doctors and released separately. We knew from the (silly) cliffhanger ending to The Next Life that the first “standalone” McGann audio would feature Davros and the Daleks, but how? Enter controversial Who author Joseph Lidster, writer of the uneven “The Rapture,” the sublime “Master,” and several exceptional short stories. The result was exactly what we’ve come to expect from Lidster: a divisive story with brilliant ideas, skillful characterization, and questionable plotting — but above all, a production of very high quality.
The audio releases of late have been marked by a number of flaws, but even with the recent high-quality release “The Council of Nicaea,” I’d been awaiting the next successful story with ambition. Terror Firma comes through here in spades, as Lidster takes the Doctor/Davros relationship through to its terrifying conclusion: a Davros so consumed by his hatred and insanity that he makes it his final mission to destroy and humiliate the Doctor. And unlike the Master, Davros is clearly resourceful enough to pull this off: we’ve already seen in Lance Parkin’s “Davros” how the character can work his way into a position of power within days of his introduction; here, Davros, starting from a position of almost complete helplessness, gains control of the Doctor’s companions and eventually uses them to turn the Earth’s population into an army of Daleks. When this happens, or even if the takeover is as complete as Davros thinks, isn’t the point — the point is how well Davros knows the Doctor, and the way in which his scheme cuts to the very core of his nemesis is truly horrifying.
But then Davros has lost his sanity, and so he is conflicted over several desires: he wants to bring down the Doctor, he wants to be reborn in a new body, and he also wants to die — and underneath it all is the absence of his humanity, the Dalek Emperor at his core waiting to emerge. Knowing his character is unable to make a final decision, Lidster has Davros put the choice in the hands of the Doctor: after stripping away everything the Doctor holds dear, Davros presents him with the virus discussed in “Genesis of the Daleks” and offers him the chance to break the glass. And it is here that Lidster shows us the ultimate difference between the Doctor and Davros, the foundation of the conflict that started in Genesis and has continued throughout the series to this moment: the Doctor is capable of redemption. As such, even at the deepest depths of despair, the Doctor will never release the virus, proving that Davros’ efforts to bring the Doctor down to his level can never succeed. Barred the release of death, it is thus no surprise that Davros is consumed by the Dalek Emperor personality when his clone is destroyed — he cannot regain his humanity and whatever aspects of it remain are too far gone to maintain their hold. Of course, Davros’ transformation benefits another group: the Daleks themselves, who have once again rebelled against their creator but who have allowed his insanity to progress so that he will eventually transform into a true Dalek Emperor.
Lidster also turns his attention to companion C’rizz, exploring the guilt he carries with him from the death of L’da, as well as his chameleonic personality. We still don’t know C’rizz’s background, though we know he has killed before, and he’s remarkably quick to do it again here. But he’s also susceptible to confusion — Lidster skillfully weaves in elements from previous plays, seeding hints that C’rizz can be pushed to murder with a frighteningly small amount of encouragement. Indeed, we learn at the end that C’rizz does kill Gemma, and that he believes that, in doing so, he has saved her — and that he feels he may need to “save” his current companions in the future. This is a brilliant setup for future adventures — perhaps we can finally see Turlough done right? — but unfortunately I doubt whether we’ll see an exploration like this again in the range.
Lidster also makes use of some surprisingly effective stylistic techniques. As seen before in The Rapture, words that close scenes are often used as bridges into subsequent scenes, giving the play an inherently exciting pace and level of interest. Lidster also uses the age-old Doctor Who trick of infusing moments of high drama with comedy to excellent effect: even as the Doctor is horrified to learn that his memories of Gemma and Samson have been hidden, he recalls a trip to Studio 54 and an attack by living guitars. The inherent absurdity of the Hokey-Pokey being sung as a cliffhanger has put off many listeners; I found it a rather disturbing effect.
I was given the impression that much of this play had been written purely to retcon the “Sam” reference in “Minuet in Hell” out of existence — there is no evidence in the text to support this position, as the character of Samson is a substantial part of Davros’ plan and is deeply tied to the play’s themes. Furthermore, even if this claim was true, the character would still not function as a retcon: there is nothing in “Minuet in Hell” to indicate just who is being referenced when “Sam” is mentioned. Complaints such as this baffle me, as they have little to nothing to do with the quality of Terror Firma.
After some questionable performances throughout the Divergent Universe arc, and being inexcusably sidelined in The Next Life, Paul McGann retakes center stage in Terror Firma with a powerhouse performance that reminds the listener of just why he was selected for the role in the first place. This Doctor, perhaps more than any of his fellows, is an inherently hopeful man, and though his frequent, self-aware “I am the Doctor!” exclamations grate, he refuses to be broken by Davros. McGann is asked to run the full gauntlet of emotions, and never fails to convince — from his delight at his return to his universe, to his anger and subsequent sadness as Davros’ full plan is unveiled, to his redemption at the conclusion, McGann is brilliant in the role.
But the central figure of this play is, arguably, Davros, and in what in continuity terms must be the last appearance of the character, Terry Molloy cements his status as the greatest of the Davroses. Davros spends the play clinging to the edge of his sanity, and Molloy performs this brilliantly, shifting his tones and inflections while making use of a truly frightening, deranged cackle. He almost manages to evoke sympathy when the depths of Davros’ insanity are revealed, but by now the damage is too great, and with the inevitable transformation into the Dalek Emperor, Molloy’s accompanying yell strikes just the right note.
Conrad Westmaas gives a very good performance as C’rizz, a character of whom we are right to be suspicious, and one who sounds more and more dangerous as we learn more about him. His calm acceptance of his apparent insanity at the play’s conclusion is chilling, but yet Westmaas still gives his character an inherent nobility — the conclusion of this character arc will be fascinating to see. Unfortunately, India Fisher does less well as Charley — Lidster doesn’t seem to know what to do with the character and resorts to using her as a foil for her companions’ emotions, and Fisher never breaks from her two interpretations of the character: chirpy and annoying or maudlin and whiny. At this point, Charley is approaching Sarah, K9, and Jamie for companion longevity, and it’s obvious the writers have nothing more to say about her — can we please have a new character? Among the supporting cast, meanwhile, Julia Deakin gives a frankly odd performance as Harriet — easily the strangest rebel leader of all time — while Lizzie Hopley and Lee Ingleby show a remarkable chemistry with McGann and completely convince as companions. Nicholas Briggs’ Dalek voices are great, but don’t we expect that by now?
Special praise must also be held out for the sound design, as Steve Foxon’s work rates as some of the best Big Finish has ever done. The crowd scenes sound convincing, characters react to realistic background effects, and the voice work done on Molloy enhances his performance all the more. The score is excellent as well. I’ve said before that Gary Russell’s direction often seems to match the quality of the script, and that’s certainly true here, as the transitions are effective and pacy while the performances are almost universally excellent. Heck, even the cover is great.
I’m not going to lie and say that Terror Firma is without its flaws. However, the sheer scope of Lidster’s imagination, the superior characterization on display, and the thematically-rich, thought-provoking script leave concerns like “a slightly jumbled plot” in their wake. Plays like this are why Big Finish is important: they show that we can indeed gleefully use continuity elements from Doctor Who’s past and still write brilliant scripts, they show (unlike so much of the Divergent Universe arc) just how lucky we are to have Paul McGann and an ongoing eighth Doctor series, and they introduce us to authors like Lidster who are not only talented but also important. Some people hate this play; I can but pity them.
I admit, I was starting to lose heart. A lackluster start to 2005 just kept getting worse, with a triple shot of Catch-1782, Three’s A Crowd, and Unregenerate! enough to weaken the resistance of even the most staunch Big Finish listener. Next on the horizon was The Council of Nicaea, a historical from Caroline Symcox, half of the writing partnership that had brought us Seasons of Fear and something of an expert on the historical period in question. I was cautiously optimistic going in, but I steeled myself for the inevitable disappointment. But by the end of the first episode, there was an unusual feeling in the pit of my stomach. It seemed vaguely familiar, but I couldn’t place it — until, suddenly, it hit me: it was interest! I actually cared about what was going on! Sarcasm aside, though, this is the sort of thing we should have seen more of from BF over the past year of releases.
At first glance, this looks like a return to one of Doctor Who’s oldest and most famous tropes: the desire of the Doctor not to change history, and the naive insistence of a companion that a change would be for the better. But there’s an important reversion here from The Aztecs: while in the 1960s episode, Barbara knew Aztec history and had a reasonable idea of the consequences of changing history, here Erimem is in her own future, and a change of history will not affect her in any particular respect. As such, she’s not trying to right a great historical wrong, she’s merely taking events as she sees them: someone’s voice needs to be heard and she sees no reason why he should be supressed. This, of course, picks at the edges of one of the troubling questions inherent in the Doctor Who mythology: why is the Doctor so eager to change history on other planets but so reluctant to do so on Earth? The question is asked here, to Symcox’s credit, but unfortunately there is nothing in the way of a response — then again, how could such a question ever be answered?
The Council of Nicaea is largely a character piece, as historical events do not deviate radically from their original course and most of the focus is devoted to the TARDIS crew and their internal conflict. The plot is tied very well to its characters, especially Constantine, who is seen from every perspective but is revealed at the conclusion to be different from all of them: though he wields tyrannical power, he uses it only to ensure that the Council proceeds, refusing to involve himself in the process. My major problem with the script lies with its seeming desire to drum up unnecessary conflict: Clement kills two guards, for example, but no serious consequences are suffered as the Doctor separately talks Constantine off the edge. At the end of the play, Constantine goes out to meet Arius’s followers — but wait, he’s betrayed them, and has brought his legionaries! Wait, no he hasn’t, it’s all a misunderstanding on Gaius’s part. This doesn’t detract from the play, but it seems like unnecessary padding. There’s also some very obvious restatement of the moral of the story at the conclusion, and the “what happened to the characters after this” speech by the Doctor in the TARDIS goes on too long. However, these are relatively minor complaints.
Peter Davison, who sounded rather disinterested in his last outing, is back on form here, bringing his frustrated yet restrained television persona to the fore. I’m fairly sure Hartnell would have beaten Erimem to death with his cane in this situation, but it’s perfectly easy to understand Davison’s helplessness — he just isn’t the type to abandon a companion in a situation like this. Caroline Morris takes center stage, as this is Erimem’s story, and she continues to impress: this is a stubborn, determined character, and Morris’s voice is very commanding when necessary. Peri does less well; she’s just a little too chirpy and even childish sometimes. I’m not sure if the intent was to counterpoint Peri against Erimem, but Nicola Bryant’s performance, while true to the script, started to grate after a time. The supporting cast is very strong, led by David Bamber’s powerful turn as Emperor Constantine. Steve Kynman is suitably driven as Arius, while Claire Carroll brings an enigmatic air to Fausta.
On the production front, Gareth Jenkins does his usual excellent work. Perhaps the only complaint is that the crowd sounds aren’t exactly perfect, but capturing the sound of a large crowd is incredibly difficult. Russell Stone provides his first score since The Next Life, and it, too, is up to his usual standard, though it’s remarkably subdued for a Stone composition. Gary Russell directs the play well, giving the necessary breathing room to a thoughtful piece.
I won’t hail The Council of Nicaea as the all-conquering classic that some have called it, but I will say that it’s the best BF production in well over a year and the best Davison play since Omega. No, it doesn’t aspire to any great heights, nor does it achieve the greatness of some of its historical predecessors, but it does combine a straightforward, provocative script with excellent performances and a fine production. This is the sort of thing we used to see all the time from Big Finish — now could they please keep it up?
Since Arrangements for War left my CD player, I’ve been despairing Big Finish’s apparent inability to recapture — even once — the skill necessary to produce great Doctor Who. Looking back on the 2005 releases I’ve reviewed thus far, I’m starting to understand why: the ambition seems to have gone. Of the first five releases of 2005, only one — Dreamtime — made any attempt to push boundaries or offer gripping and/or thought-provoking drama, and it was let down by a rare spate of horrible acting. David A. McIntee’s Unregenerate! makes an attempt to explore an intriguing concept, but by wrapping the story in a flat, uninteresting traditional Doctor Who corridor runaround, one is forced to wonder just what the author was attempting to achieve.
The aforementioned concept is fascinating: artificial intelligences (if indeed that is the proper term for TARDIS minds) implanted into living bodies. This in turn is wrapped in a traditional device: the Faustian bargain, giving up control of one’s death — in this case, “donating” one’s body to the AI experiments — in exchange for a successful life. Right there, we have enough material for a successful, insightful drama, allowing of course for the insertion of a suitable plot and appropriate characterization. But McIntee doesn’t stop there: not only are alien beings experimenting on humans, but these alien beings are in fact Time Lords! Not only are they Time Lords, they’re CIA agents working in violation of the Laws of Time! Not only are the Time Lords implanting artificial intelligences into human brains, they’re implanting TARDIS minds into human brains! There’s a TARDIS-human walking around talking to TARDISes! Not only is the site of this experimentation a creepy, disused Victorian-era asylum, it’s a creepy, disused Victorian-era asylum.. ON AN ASTEROID!
Such an array of ideas is not necessarily doomed to failure; Douglas Adams, for example, was never known for a paucity of concepts in his Doctor Who scripts. But it is also important to note that all of the aforementioned revelations — save the asylum’s position on the asteroid — occur in the fourth episode. By the time we’re done learning about the involvement of rogue Time Lords and TARDISes and the Doctor is done shaking his head at all involved, we’re barely left with enough time to consider the implications of what’s going on. There’s little to no room for moral ambiguity: Louis reverses position on the Faustian scenario under the slightest pressure from Mel, for example, and its only enthusiastic proponent is the violent and obviously unbalanced Rigan.
So what do we have for the first three episodes? The first two alternate between scenes of a babbling, insane Doctor, and Mel and a cabbie trailing Louis and Rausch to the asylum and subsequently running around in its corridors and rescuing the Doctor. These scenes are fairly entertaining, but with a flippant tone and Keff McCulloch-style music cues they do not sit well with the play’s conclusion. Episode three is told mostly in flashback, and details how the Doctor came to be driven insane — something which seemed to happen almost entirely through complete carelessness on his part. Though this provides a transition into the final episode, it jars with the first two, as we go from a frantic runaround to a long conference with no intermediate steps.
I know Sylvester McCoy is a talented actor. I know this because of his strongest TV performances and because of his masterful turns in plays such as The Fearmonger. However, I’d never know it from this play, as yet again McCoy appalls the listener with an over-the-top this-is-the-first-time-I’ve-read-the-script performance. His attempts at conveying insanity are cringeworthy — forget about any subtlety or clues that McIntee may have attempted to hide in the dialogue — and his “sane” performance isn’t much better, as he maintains his bizarre tendencies to enunciate incorrect syllables and roll every single “R” in the script. Fortunately, Bonnie Langford is much better — and she ought to be, having featured in fully half of the 2005 releases to date — lending Mel an appealing strength of character that has grown in each of her performances. The supporting cast is mostly strong, especially Jennie Linden as Klyst, and Hugh Hemmings, who turns in a remarkably touching performance as the TARDIS-possessed Rausch. The cabbie is deliberately painted in broad strokes, and Toby Longworth gives a welcome sense of dignity to an already appealing character. Gail Clayton is a little over the top as Rigan, however, but this is a fairly minor complaint.
Ian Potter’s sound design and music, while very good, seems to be deliberately evoking a late-80s story, and I suppose the uncertain tone of stories such as Paradise Towers manifests itself here as a result. The subtle inclusion of aural clues pointing to the involvement of Time Lords is appealing. John Ainsworth’s direction is uninspiring, much like his previous efforts in Nekromanteia and A Storm of Angels, but it is sufficiently effective. Lastly, the cover is intriguing, but the title seems nonsensical.
Unfortunately, Big Finish is starting to lose my interest. After two monumentally uninteresting releases, here we are presented with a play overfilled with ideas and completely unsure of its own direction, crippled by a horrible performance from the lead actor. It’s not one of the worst releases of all, as it certainly starts well and features excellent characterization throughout, but it’s solidly below average and represents yet another disappointment from a company once reputed for consistent excellence.
With TV and Doctor Who novel writing experience under his belt, Colin Brake seemed a natural choice to enter the Big Finish fold in the Doctor Who audio range. Brake’s novels seemed to receive an unnecessary amount of criticism, and as his television reputation was good, I approached Three’s A Crowd hoping that it would provide a much-needed shot in the arm to the lacklustre audio range. I was left disappointed, as the play revealed itself as yet another exercise in treading water.
There’s a great deal of promise to open the play. Brake has a number of interesting questions in mind, chief among them the question of how people would develop if they were raised alone, allowed to communicate with their fellows only through audio communication. How would these people react if presented with other individuals in their physical presence? What would their reactions be upon finally seeing the face of someone they only knew by voice? What happens when a person raised under these conditions actually goes outside? These are fascinating questions, and they form the core of an excellent piece of science fiction drama.
Or at least they would form the core of that piece of drama if they were actually acknowledged again after their introduction. Instead, they are resolved in simple, obvious ways. Bellip, so scared of human contact that she refuses even to use her video link, is shocked by Peri’s entrance into her quarters. What happens? Five minutes of excruciating Bellip-has-a-panic-attack-and-Peri-talks-her-through-a-breathing-exercise torture. Bellip finally meets her audio love Laroq after years (?) of loving only his voice — hugely dramatic scene, right? Nope, they briefly talk at each other in a hallway before running off. The three shut-ins finally go outside and see the sky for the first time, with an inexorably ticking bomb behind them. This has to be tense, right? Nope — two of them deal with the problem with no trouble and the third just needs to do more breathing exercises.
I mentioned a bomb, and this is an example of why the script doesn’t work as it should. About halfway through episode 2, we’re hammered with another bog-standard Doctor Who runaround plot, the sort of which we’ve seen hundreds of times before. Turns out the people are shut in to make them better eating for a militaristic race of alien lizards aboard the orbiting space station — but fear not, for the aliens are defeated by a long series of runs up and down and teleports between corridors and a gigantic explosion at the end. We learn nothing about these aliens — the Khellians — other than that they have a queen who is devoured by her offspring and that they like to eat humans. Indeed, they’re such one-dimensional villains that the surprisingly violent ending seems appropriate, despite the fact that the Doctor joyfully blows up presumably hundreds of Khellian children. But then maybe the children are terrible and dangerous? Who knows? Certainly not the audience!
The regulars are well-served by the script. Brake chooses to explore the fallout from The Roof of the World and present an Erimem who is starting to lose her enjoyment of travelling with the Doctor. After Nekromanteia and the subsequent releases, I’m hardly surprised, and this discussion is worthwhile — but unlike in the exceptional Arrangements for War, there is no cathartic moment for Erimem, who apparently decides that *this* experience of running around whilst being shot at is better than usual. Still, what material there is works well with Caroline Morris, who turns in an excellent performance. Nothing new happens with Peri, but Nicola Bryant is reliable as ever. The Doctor, too, is fairly uninteresting — and it sounds like Peter Davison smoked about ten packs of cigarettes before recording, raspy as his voice is!
The supporting cast is headlined by Deborah Watling, returning to Doctor Who after playing Troughton-era companion Victoria Waterfield in the 1960s. Unfortunately, her character Auntie (oh come on) appears to be a complete moron. After being taken in by the most obvious ruse in the history of deception, she completely reverses position about three or four times throughout the course of the play before finally deciding to take violent revenge against the Khellians. And the ending — “Oh, by the way, the terraforming worked after all” — give me strength! Apart from this, Watling’s performance is excellent, something which surprised me as she was never the strongest actor during her period on the show. The rest of the supporting cast is adequate, with Richard Gauntlett going suitably over the top as General Makra’Thon and Lucy Beresford, Daniel Hogarth, and Richard Unwin giving convincing, if uninspiring, performances as the three shut-ins.
David Darlington’s sound design is up to his usual high standard, providing all the creaks and clanks of a space station and isolated colony, while the rather minimalist score is adequate. I’d have liked to see a little more work done to play up the concept of isolation, but Gary Russell’s direction seems remarkably lifeless — nothing is done to enliven a decidedly average script. Even the cover is boring.
All of this is not to say that Three’s A Crowd is *bad* — it’s just uninspiring. This is one of the most decidedly average Doctor Who stories I’ve ever heard, and unfortunately an average play is below par for Big Finish. Sure, it asks some good questions, but it abandons them in lieu of workmanlike, uninteresting plotting. Big Finish has been stuck in a rut for a long time — is another great play on the horizon or has BF finally become redundant?
While “above average” is hardly a condemnation of a production, it hardly implies greatness — and for a company like Big Finish that regularly achieved greatness in its first few years, a seemingly persistent inability in 2004 to return to those heights was troublesome. The first three releases of 2005 were no different: two above-average yet flawed plays, and one purely average release. The fourth release came from the pen of Alison Lawson, whose short stories in Big Finish’s anthologies were uniformly excellent character pieces. As expected, some of her character work in this audio is equally good — but unfortunately she forgot to include a plot, something which cripples the production.
Here’s the plot: Mel visits her scientist uncle John Hallam, and a piece of rudimentary time technology flings her back in time. The Doctor and Hallam go back in time after Mel, but discover that she has apparently become part of her own history and can’t leave. Then they find out they were wrong and take her back. The end. That’s bad enough, but the interesting part — the possible consequences to history — takes place entirely within the fourth episode. Catch-1782 is very poorly structured — the entire first episode, for example, involves the Doctor and Mel arriving at her uncle’s conference. We don’t learn anything significant about the regular characters during this episode, nor does anything of any interest happen, other than some blatant foreshadowing for later episodes. Mel’s disappearance happens without any warning, and the cliffhanger is simply bizarre, coinciding not with Mel’s disappearance or her reappearance in the past, but with John’s discovery of her absence and questioning the Doctor about his identity.
The bulk of the play takes place in the past, as a confused Mel is, in a way, held prisoner by her ancestors, who drug her with laudanum, suspecting that she suffers from a mental disorder. Dr. Wallace thinks she should be committed to an asylum, while Henry Hallam wants to keep her around, first out of a sense of duty and later because he finds himself falling in love with her. The maid, Mrs. McGregor, secretly loves Henry. That’s all the listener learns for two episodes. Sure, the characters engage in endless conversations, rife with period detail, but absolutely nothing of interest is conveyed. Wallace and Hallam seemingly engage in an hour-long argument over whether or not to send Mel to an asylum — the passage of time doesn’t change anything.
And when the final episode rolls around, we’re finally presented with a conflict — Mel might have to stay in the past to become the mysterious Eleanor Hallam. But the possible consequences of this are never explored, and when the obvious foreshadowing elements (the dress) reappear, the solution becomes clear even before it is revealed. And it’s such a simple solution that it almost beggars belief — there actually is no problem and the Doctor just misinterpreted the situation? This isn’t the only shortcut: despite fairly convincing period characters, Lawson’s Dr. Wallace is way too easily convinced that the Doctor and John are time travelers, for example.
Colin Baker gives his usual steady performance — this is the later, mellowed sixth Doctor, and his jibes with John never stop sounding friendly. His sympathy for Mel is touching, and his outrage at the treatment she receives is quite convincing. However, there is absolutely nothing new or challenging given to the character — this is the sixth Doctor by numbers. Accurate as Lawson’s characterization may be, it simply isn’t interesting. Fortunately, Colin Baker does his best with the material.
Mel, on the other hand, is given the lion’s share of the development — or at least it appears that way for most of the play. After all, she is sent backwards through time and forced to live in quasi-captivity for six months under the influence of drugs. Mel’s suffering is presented well, and Bonnie Langford’s performance is very strong — a haunting portrayal of a confused person stranded in time. As Mel recovers her senses, Langford reads the character with a stronger voice, ultimately restoring her to her original outgoing personality. Unfortunately, at this point the time travel-induced amnesia rears its head once again, and Mel claims to have forgotten the events of the past six months. I hate reset buttons, and this is a particularly egregious example.
The supporting cast is a particular strength. Derek Benfield presents a great character in John Hallam, an aging eccentric that is a delight to hear. Keith Drinkel’s obsessive Henry Hallam is equally convincing, tipping over the edge at the conclusion in heartbreaking fashion. Dr. Wallace is an interesting character, one who shifts in the listener’s estimation from “villain” to “hero” as the play progresses, and Michael Chance’s portrayal is subtle enough to allow for both interpretations. Finally, Jillie Meers gives an appropriately dignified performance as Mrs. McGregor. It should also be noted that these characters are uniformly well-drawn; much of my review has been critical of Lawson’s writing, but her greatest strength — characterization — should be underscored as much as possible.
On the production front, Gareth Jenkins’ sound design is up to his usual standard of excellence, matching the quiet tone of the play with subtle yet accurate effects. Andy Hardwick’s score fits the period quite well. Despite the repetitive nature of the script, Gary Russell’s direction keeps the pace up — despite the fact that I recognized that I should have been bored, the play held my interest, and I put that down to the director.
Overall, there are some commendable elements to Catch-1782. Lawson has a real knack for characterization and dialogue, and her characters are a pleasure to the ears. However, she appears to have no idea how to construct an interesting plot, as the plot here is barely sufficient for a short story, much less a four-episode audio drama. If this play was truly a character piece, the absence of plot wouldn’t matter — but it isn’t, it’s a set of characterizations in search of a framework. My score may seem unnecessarily harsh, but despite the performances and production, this is a deeply flawed and badly structured script, one that I score as a disappointment and one that I would struggle to recommend.
To call the run of Big Finish audios from 2004 onwards a “rut” would be somewhat unfair, given that I’ve given more “7” ratings recently than I care to count — but the fact remains that the excellent play seems to have escaped BF’s grasp of late. Enter Simon A. Forward, an author I greatly admire — his BBC novels “Drift” and “Emotional Chemistry” were both excellent, his Telos novella “Shell Shock” was stunning, and his previous audio “The Sandman” was, and still is, one of the best of the range. Dreamtime, his latest script and Big Finish’s March 2005 offering, features some brilliant writing — but unfortunately production flaws render this yet another missed opportunity for Big Finish to achieve superiority.
This is a relatively unique script in many ways. The plot and its conflicts are quite conceptual — there’s very little in terms of pure action or direct conflict — and yet it succeeds by turning up the atmosphere and allowing the Aboriginal mythology to police itself. Some have complained that there is little to no explanation of the Dreamtime and this mythology, but I feel that such explanations would have ruined the mood. Furthermore, there is no villain as such, and what dangers there are are by their nature rather nonthreatening — but the proceedings never become unbelievable.
Episode one is, additionally, one of the best I have ever heard. From the wonderfully diverting opening, to the arrival of the TARDIS on a mysteriously empty Earth city/landmark floating in space, to the discovery of the statutes and the inevitable realization that they used to be people, this is gripping stuff and comes across as the sort of thing that would work amazingly on television. The final three episodes aren’t weak, but it’d be almost impossible for them to measure up: for 25 minutes, at least, I thought I was listening to a masterpiece.
Unfortunately, the acting told another story. Many have praised the acting in Dreamtime, and I honestly cannot see why — and the faults begin with Sylvester McCoy. Yet again, he sounds as though he’s never seen the script before: he frequently gets inflections completely wrong and rolls his “r”s far too often. Certain scenes — those with his companions, or those where his righteous anger come forth — capture the old magic, and his performance as the “death” version of his character is chilling. But there are just as many bad points as good. Listen to The Fearmonger, or Project: Lazarus, or Master — these are great performances from McCoy, and prove he can act as well as anyone. So why doesn’t he do it here?
Perhaps the most surprising performance in this play comes from Sophie Aldred — she’s actually great! Forward very casually adds to the character’s maturity, while shying away from the ridiculous “McShane” thing whenever possible, and Aldred turns in a solid, assured performance. She works better as the assured counterpart to Hex’s wide-eyed amazement, and her confident leadership here is much more convincing than her corresponding characterization in the NA audios.
Philip Olivier makes his first official appearance as a companion, and Forward writes a solidly natural progression from his appearance in The Harvest — even if, apparently, this story wasn’t supposed to be released in this slot. Hex’s medical background comes to the fore quite nicely: though he’s overwhelmed by the alien environments, he rapidly asserts himself in stressful situations, just as would be necessary in an ER. I like this character — he could be a much more modern Harry Sullivan, maybe?
As for the supporting cast, Steffan Rhodri and Tamzin Griffin turn in solid performances as the two Galyari — I like Forward’s characterization here and he works in Sandman continuity without it sticking out. John Scholes is excellent as Baiame, too — he portrays a fascinating, mysterious character who adds to the play’s atmosphere. But then we come to the rest of the supporting cast. The liner notes say the UK is “pretty full of Aussie thespians” — why, because they can’t find work in Australia? The “human” actors are stunningly poor, barely seeming to grasp basic concepts of performance, wrongly enunciating words, and catastrophically failing to inject the play with any sort of emotional resonance. This doesn’t measure up to a professional standard, in my opinion.
Which is a shame, because the rest of the production is so good. Steve Foxon’s sound design is magnificent — atmosphere takes an appropriate script and a wonderful soundscape, and Foxon comes through perfectly here. Gary Russell seems to have a fine grasp of the script through his direction, but some of the acting faults must lay at his feet as well as those of the actors in question. Overall, though, the sound on display here is some of the most beautiful BF has released.
A shame, then, that the acting was such a disaster, given that we’ve got a strong script supported by excellent design. Merely competent performances would rate Dreamtime at least an 8, possibly a 9, but as it stands, that can’t happen. It’s worth hearing, and Forward is to be commended on his writing, but ultimately this is yet another BF offering that fails to reach any heights of greatness.
In his author’s note, scriptwriter Darin Henry commented that the fifth Doctor had never been given the chance to tackle a memorable Doctor Who experience: the six-part story. Of course, at the time producer John Nathan-Turner had done away with the six-part story, making this feat impossible for Peter Davison — but with the aid of Big Finish, Davison finally became able to fill this monstrous hole in his Doctor Who career. And unlike many of its predecessors, this six-part story is quite good.
Henry has a long career in comedy television scriptwriting, and it shows in this script. Though the plot doesn’t always make a great deal of sense, Henry has an excellent sense of dramatic pacing: there isn’t a scene here which outstays its welcome while the narrative throws in a new twist every time the story seems to be getting repetitive. This alone sets The Game above many Big Finish plays — the author clearly knows how to keep his audience interested, and true to form, the play never gets boring. It’s fairly obvious from the beginning how the game of naxy is actually played, but it’s also a fairly believable degeneration from a real game in context.
Unfortunately, despite its length, the play also bears a striking resemblance to many half-hour television comedies in negative ways: there is little to no character development, for example. While Carlisle is a believable character, his relationship with Nyssa seems forced and hurried. Her decision (later changed, obviously) to leave the TARDIS is abrupt and not supported particularly well by the script. Secondly, Henry struggles with the audio format to some extent: the use of a play-by-play commentator to call the action was a brilliant move (even if his call of his own death is a bit too silly), but once Diblick is removed from the play, Henry is forced to resort to clunky descriptive dialogue. This is at its worst at the climax of part six, which is not the place where you want poor dialogue to sneak into the script.
Peter Davison is, as usual, excellent as the fifth Doctor. Surrounding the fifth Doctor with unspeakable violence works rather well, and his ability to (barely) control it here provides an unintentional yet fascinating point of comparison with his behavior in his final television episodes. Of course, it’s a great help to Davison that he doesn’t physically have to act the part as written — but he delivers his lines with such desperation that it’s easy to believe that he’s in mortal danger.
Sarah Sutton makes her first appearance for Big Finish since all the way back in Creatures of Beauty, and shows no difficulty in returning to the role. Some deride her performances as wooden — I think there’s a surprising degree of subtlety and restraint on display. Her relationship with Carlisle is touching, too, even if her aforementioned decision to leave the TARDIS is somewhat unbelievable.
And speaking of Carlisle, our attention must turn to William Russell, original companion Ian Chesterton, returning to Doctor Who for the first time since 1966. Russell, one of the most talented regular actors in the history of the series, proves here that he’s still got it with a brilliant performance as Lord Carlisle. This is easily the best character in Henry’s script, which helps, but Russell plays the character perfectly: at the start of the play, it’s seemingly obvious that Carlisle is a brilliant negotiator that pretends to be a senile old man to take advantage of his opponent — but all of this is a facade, as Carlisle really is a helpless old man with little diplomatic skill. His relationship with the Doctor is close to unique to performed Doctor Who, if not to the books, and his final scene is quite touching. All in all, this is an amazing performance.
Unfortunately, the rest of the supporting cast is not nearly as interesting. Christopher Ellison is over the top and cliched as Morian, a character that, despite his crucial involvement in the plot, never proves interesting or compelling. Greg Donaldson and Dickon Tolson don’t even beg comment for their roles as the opposing coaches, so unmemorable were they. Ursula Burton is horrible as Faye, too — maybe I’m just not used to hearing American accents in Doctor Who plays? And while Jonathan Pearce does his job, I’m curious if he sounds like the typical English pxp announcer — the average American play by play style is much different, and the lines seem to have been written with an American announcer in mind.
Gareth Jenkins does phenomenal work on the sound design, somehow managing to convincingly recreate the sound of a sports stadium from field level. Andy Hardwick’s music is suitably energetic, too. Gary Russell’s direction doesn’t do much with the actors, unfortunately, but the pacing here is some of the best in BF history and is, more than anything, the saving grace of The Game. The cover is wonderful — but why are they at Busch Stadium? 😉
Overall, The Game is yet another solid entry in the BF canon. Though the plot doesn’t make a good deal of sense, and some of the acting isn’t up to par, the pacing and the performances of the leads ensure that The Game is never anything less than fun to hear. I realize as I give this play yet another 7/10 that I haven’t given any release an 8 or better since Arrangements for War, almost a year ago — here’s hoping that BF hasn’t settled only for above-average releases.
So, a Doctor Who play that puts Davros in a corporate/scientific setting, earning the trust of those there, and arguing to the Doctor that he’s turned over a new leaf. Have I accidentally decided to review Lance Parkin’s sublime Davros a second time? Nope, it’s Scott Alan Woodard’s The Juggernauts, a play which, despite its high aims, doesn’t really provide anything new or interesting to the listener.
I have to question the motive behind this play. Apparently the decision to include the sixth Doctor, Mel, Davros, the Daleks, the Mechanoids, and an explanation of how Davros got from Revelation to Remembrance was made before a writer was even selected — isn’t this the sort of self-indulgent nonsense which built John Nathan-Turner’s “stellar” reputation within fandom? There is no need for the Mechanoids in this play, especially not in the way that they’re handled. If, for example, they had been called “Juggernauts” throughout, recognizable as Mechanoids only to those fans that had seen The Chase, there wouldn’t have been a problem. Think the Cyberman head at the start of Dalek. However, the script goes out of its way to show that the Doctor and the Daleks have met the Mechanoids before, but Davros hasn’t — and then this knowledge isn’t used to advance the plot. Some find this entertaining; I find it irritating.
Furthermore, the plot doesn’t make a great deal of sense. There’s nothing stopping the Daleks from invading Lethe, yet they shanghai the Doctor into doing their work for them — even though one of their other goals is to gain the secret of TARDIS travel from his brain. This is a far-future society — how has Mel gone from what must have been total ignorance to the role of lead programmer in three months? There are, however, fine scenes — the beginning, for example, plunges the listener straight into the action, something which Doctor Who doesn’t do very often. Many of the Davros-being-evil scenes are downright chilling, while others don’t ring true, but overall the character is handled well.
Despite this play taking place well into Mel’s tenure with the Doctor, here we see Colin Baker being asked to assume the mantle of his season 22 performance: spiky, sarcastic, and irritable. Though this leads to many funny scenes, the Doctor shows absolutely no respect for the Daleks, openly defying them and inviting his own death. Indeed, his initial conversation with the Black Dalek could have been reproduced from a million other Doctor Who stories, obvious as it is. Baker’s performance is solid, of course, but there’s virtually no depth to his character, something which is at odds with the Big Finish portrayals we’re used to.
Perhaps the most popular aspect of The Juggernauts is its portrayal of Mel: as Woodard actually tries to give her a personality, we’re allowed rare insight into her thought processes. However, this portrayal is inconsistent at best. Despite being separated for three months, she shows absolutely no sign of distancing or separation from the Doctor. Her relationship with Geoff is touching at times but just confusing at others. Her trust in Davros is shattered, but her extreme reaction just rings hollow because there hasn’t been nearly enough time spent building that relationship. An obvious course would have been to set her against the Doctor, but this never happens. And the scenes with the Doctor in which she almost breaks down are too close to those with Evelyn — rather than a new exploration of a previously shallow character, this seems hollow and rings untrue.
Terry Molloy’s Davros is as manipulative as ever, seen here using implants to trick the perceptions of those around him into thinking that he’s actually a nice old man. Much of Woodard’s characterization of Davros is excellent: this is a great ironic juxtaposition against Remembrance of the Daleks, as here Davros is desperate to retain his remaining humanity while exterminating the Daleks. And Molloy’s performance is excellent: he’s ruthless when necessary, but there’s a detectable resentment in his voice when he speaks of the Daleks. Though this isn’t as strong a script as that used for “Davros,” it still does more with the character than all three of Molloy’s television scripts put together.
The rest of the supporting cast is forgettable. Klaus White is very good as Geoff, but the character is inconsistent at best. Paul Grunert goes way over the top as Brauer as well. Not much to say about the other actors, but what on earth happened to Nicholas Briggs’ Dalek voices? Those heard in the Doctor’s initial confrontation are almost comical — fortunately he redeems himself with the broken Daleks from later episodes.
Thumbs up to Gary Russell’s direction, which uses some effective crosscutting and fades Molloy’s Davros voice in and out to excellent effect. Unfortunately, much of the last episode is full of running around and explosions, things which don’t really work on audio, but despite this the direction is solid. Steve Foxon’s sound design is excellent — he does a wonderful job with the Mechanoids — and the score is subtle in places and dominant in others, remaining effective throughout.
Overall, The Juggernauts is something of a disappointment. It’s an average play, but given its ingredients something greater was expected. Woodard’s script has ups and downs, but he shows great promise for future efforts. Still, this is inconsistent. For every great moment of insight, there’s a poor attempt at characterization. For every effective plot twist, there’s a massive plot hole around the next corner. It’s worth owning if you really like Daleks, but otherwise, take it or leave it.
With the new series on the immediate horizon, the Big Finish eighth Doctor series had to end, and because of this an epic story was commissioned, extended across six episodes over three discs. Unfortunately, I had no expectations whatsoever going into this play, given that it was written by Alan Barnes and Gary Russell, two authors who, whatever their other qualifications, had repeatedly proven themselves among the worst writers in BF history. Did The Next Life prove me wrong? In a way, yes, as it wasn’t as absolutely terrible as I expected — but as a Doctor Who play it still fails miserably and easily checks into the range’s bottom ten releases.
A common thread through Storm Warning, Neverland, and Zagreus is a complete inability to present convincing dialogue, and this continues in The Next Life. As usual, nothing is communicated through action: every major revelation in the play comes through endless expository speeches. Take the history of the Church of the Foundation and its behaviors, for example: we never see characters executing its belief system, we merely hear about it in long lectures from Guidance. Nobody discovers the Foundation/Foundry misnomer on-screen — we’re told about it after the fact by C’rizz. Writing like this strips the play of dramatic value, as there is no immediacy to events. Of course, these failings would be more acceptable if the dialogue itself was convincing, but it isn’t: the period dialogue in the scenes with Louisa Pollard, for example, is so cliched you could be forgiven for thinking it was satirical.
The structure of the play is bloated and vague. The first two episodes essentially take place within the minds of Charley and C’rizz — and much of the drama revolves around the two companions discovering that they’re in a fictional reality. Unfortunately, the nature of their perception is revealed almost immediately, yet again stripping the play of any drama. Perhaps if, at this point, something interesting was learned about either character, the episodes could be saved — but all we hear is an unbelievably poor scene about the guy whom Charley replaced on the R101 and more C’rizz/L’da angst.
The best parts of The Next Life are the hunting scenes: taken out of context, these are fun, generally lighthearted Doctor Who runarounds. However, considered as part of the greater whole, they’re completely mishandled: the Doctor is trying to win a race to the gateway back to his universe and is being pursued by a crazed maniac! Where’s the tension? Where’s the drama? Where’s the hostile, threatening jungle environment? Where’s the threat of death? The Next Life has *none* of this, making it an incredibly incompetent “epic” conclusion to an entire series.
This is something of a shame, because there are some good ideas on display here. The Divergent universe runs cyclically? That’s an interesting concept worthy of exploration, even if the previous stories in this arc didn’t really touch on the concept very often. Then again, copouts abound from previous stories: we never see the awful-sounding Divergents from Zagreus pounding at the borders of the universe, because they’ve all been absorbed by Keep.
The ending, however, is the worst of all offenses. At the conclusion of The Twilight Kingdom, the Doctor bellowed “RASSILON!” as the target of his quest, the one figure he aimed to confront above all others. So what happens in The Next Life? The two barely even meet, and Rassilon is defeated by Keep with the Doctor totally offscreen. How is Keep defeated? Not by the Doctor, not by his companions — heck, for all the talk about how the Doctor upset the balance of the universe, he plays no role whatsoever in the conclusion! Of course, once all the bad guys defeat each other, the Doctor has mere minutes to escape — so instead he makes his companions talk out their problems! I almost drove the car off the road when I heard that, maybe the most staggeringly poor example of writing from this duo. Then we hear Rassilon and the Kro’ka duplicating the initial scenes from Scherzo — and that’s right, Rassilon, most legendary Time Lord of them all, gets the dialogue of early 20th century human Charley Pollard. And then, just as things couldn’t possibly get any worse, just as the play should end, here comes Davros with his Daleks, yelling hilarious “IT IS THE DOCTOR!” and “Ah, Doctor… I… we… have been expecting you!” dialogue.
Underneath it all, this is a fine performance from Paul McGann as the Doctor — it’s just a shame that it doesn’t match the plot at all. For some reason, after spending the last few plays in ambiguous fashion, here the Doctor is nothing but fun, not sounding threatened by anything and facing every danger with an absolutely cringeworthy pun. As mentioned above, he’s also completely sidelined, making this the second epic Doctor Who release in a row in which the Doctor doesn’t actually accomplish anything. Still, it must have been a fun role to play, even if it was basically useless.
And so we come to India Fisher. It’s common knowledge by this point that Charley Pollard is an outdated character, one whose relationship with the Doctor has been made unnecessarily complicated and one whose interesting backstory is long since over. But those statements imply character development, something which isn’t seen here at all. Charley acts like a fifteen-year-old girl throughout the play, worrying over issues (the R101) that were resolved years back, being fooled completely by obvious villain Keep, and, worst of all, engaging in a thoroughly irritating bitch fight with Perfection. Her bizarrely immature claims at the end that she doesn’t want to share the Doctor are completely at odds with her apparent “just friends” relationship with him, and they represent the final insulting claims that this disaster of a character should ever have been kept around after Zagreus.
On the other hand is C’rizz, who’s been criticized since his debut for not having much of a personality. Despite the fact that I don’t agree with these claims, there’s an explanation provided here anyway: not only are Eutermesans chameleonic on the surface, they’re the same way mentally, meaning that C’rizz’s thought processes will align themselves to those of whoever he’s around. Was there much evidence of this before? Not really — I think he’s had a fairly consistent personality — but if the future authors actually *use* this idea, it’ll make for a fascinating companion. Conrad Westmaas turns in an excellent performance in The Next Life, representing C’rizz’s internal conflicts very well.
Headlining the guest cast is Daphne Ashbrook, who is bizarrely given top billing over Paul Darrow because she was in the TV movie. I didn’t like her in the TV movie, I didn’t like her when she guested on DS9, and I don’t like her here — she reads her lines in that haughty, utterly unbelievable Katharine Hepburn voice that never fails to infuriate me. Perfection spends the majority of the play openly lusting after the Doctor, and guess what? Ashbrook did the same thing as Grace in the TV movie! Oh, what a hilarious inside joke! Let’s repeat it over and over and over again for an hour and a half! Indulgent writing like this wouldn’t be allowed into most fan fiction anthologies. She’s over the top as Perfection, but goes into ham overdrive once she turns into Zagreus, yelling her lines, shifting pronunciation styles, and enjoying the terrible puns she’s been given far too much.
With that out of the way, I can reveal that I actually enjoyed the rest of the supporting cast. Despite the fact that it rendered the character almost completely nonthreatening, I loved Stephane Cornicard’s performance as Keep, and Paul Darrow provided a stunning interpretation of a religious fanatic as Guidance. Although Rassilon is completely emasculated here and is reduced to the level of any other two-dimensional idiot villain in Doctor Who, Don Warrington is superb in the role, his dark, fluid tones lend a strong sense of menace to the character. Stephen Perring is given quite a bit to do as the Kro’ka, and he is made all the more interesting by the script — one of the few truly bright spots in this play. Finally, Anneke Wills gives a dignified performance as Louisa Pollard, even if the scenes themselves aren’t particularly good.
Gareth Jenkins’ sound design, as always, is exceptional, as he is asked yet again to reproduce a huge number of diverse environments and he manages this task without fail. Andy Hardwick and Russell Stone combine on the score, which lends the play an epic quality even if the dialogue fails to do the same. Gary Russell is directing his own material, and it must be said that the performances are generally good (Fisher and Ashbrook excepted) despite the quality of the script. The pace, though, is painfully slow.
In many ways, The Next Life is a perfect climax to the McGann arc: overblown, far too long, and generally boring, with a few good ideas presented from time to time. It’s not as disastrous as Zagreus, but neither is it even as good as Neverland. The best part about The Next Life? It ends the McGann arc, meaning that, for the foreseeable future, Barnes and Russell will not be writing any more “event” audios upon which fans will waste their money. This is, quite simply, a bad release, and it’s only worth buying if you haven’t already lost interest and absolutely have to know how the McGann arc ends. Otherwise, stay away.
With the accelerated end to Big Finish’s eighth Doctor arc on the horizon, it fell to Lloyd Rose, celebrated author of three highly-acclaimed BBC novels, to provide the story which would prepare the listeners for the grand finale. Her attempt at this, Caerdroia, features some of the best writing seen in the range — but still cannot overcome an inherent, fundamental flaw.
For the first time in a long time, it sounds as though fun is being had in the McGann arc. Rose’s script is full of wonderful scenes and delightful interactions between the characters, and every actor is clearly enjoying the heck out of their lines. It also amuses me that she so clearly lampoons the range up to this point: the Doctor constantly mocks the Kro’ka for being an unimpressive villain, while the Kro’ka himself is given intentionally terrible clichéd villainous dialogue. Rose is yet another author to draw attention to the patently ludicrous concept of a universe without time, and she also manages to make fun of the entire alternate-universe concept with her tongue-in-cheek scripting. As a result, Caerdroia is fun from start to finish, and never fails to entertain the listener.
And yet, there’s a grand failing here: absolutely nothing of significance happens over the course of 95% of the play. The remit here is obvious: get the TARDIS back in the Doctor’s hands and reveal the true nature of the Kro’ka. This is exactly what happens — but that’s also all that happens. We learn that the Kro’ka is a lackey of the Divergents (and Rassilon) but we learn almost nothing about his exact role. We know that the Kro’ka sounds squishy when he walks, but we know nothing about his appearance. We know that this story does not take place within an Interzone experiment but rather, in parts, within the TARDIS itself — but we learn nothing about the Interzone itself. Clearly, questions must be left for the finale to answer, but Caerdroia is remarkably empty of substance, yet again making me suspect that the upcoming The Next Life will feature pages and pages of exposition. I can’t imagine that much of this was Rose’s fault, but, fun as the play may have been, something approaching a plot would have been nice.
Paul McGann, after several uneven performances, hits a home run with this play. Clearly enjoying himself, especially when playing all three versions of his Doctor, McGann brings a wonderful enthusiasm to the role that brought a constant grin to my face. He’s incredibly Doctorish here, full of eccentricities and funny behavior, yet brilliant at the heart of it all. The concept of an embodiment of the Doctor’s pragmatic side is fascinating — and his frivolous side is hilarious — while the inside of the Doctor’s mind is straight out of the New Adventures, something Rose handles quite well. It’s been said before, but there’s no reason why something like this couldn’t have been done for the fortieth anniversary — BF just needed the right author.
As for India Fisher, she rebounds magnificently from her terrible outing in The Last. Charley is written perfectly in this play, and Fisher rises to the occasion, achieving that rare goal of making the character appealing and charming rather than chirpy and annoying. It’s wonderful to hear her paired with the angry Doctor, too — he says many of the things many of us wish we could say to the character.
Conrad Westmaas gets in on the act as well, as for much of Caerdroia we see C’rizz as the pragmatic member of the group, constantly rolling his eyes at and barely tolerating the frivolous Doctor. There’s very little continuity with this character — his brief mention of L’da seems almost crowbarred in as it’s quite out of place — as we learn nothing new about him. Indeed, we haven’t seen this side of C’rizz at all — but Westmaas plays the part well enough that it’s difficult to notice. It’s rare to see an entire TARDIS crew having this much fun, and that reason alone is enough to recommend Caerdroia.
Rounding out the cast is Stephen Perring, who gets to take center stage as the Kro’ka for the first time since being introduced back in season three. Perring obviously relishes his over-the-top villain lines — this performance would fit in very well in The Horns of Nimon (and I love that story, so that’s a strong compliment). He’s a talented actor, from the sound of it; in this story, given the chance to take a leading role, he rises to the occasion, going toe-to-toe with a reinvigorated McGann and carrying himself well. Hopefully the character will make another appearance in The Next Life; it’d be a shame to cut him down after finally seeing what he’s capable of.
On the production front, Steve Foxon handles all the significant sound duties, and turns in an excellent, if subdued, set of work. Considering the wide range of settings featured in the story, Foxon never fails to convince — even his roaring monsters don’t sound comical, something which can be quite difficult to achieve. The score, too, is minimal, but quite effective when it does appear. Gary Russell’s direction keeps the story flowing well, but the obvious love for the script by the cast would have made this a success in almost anyone’s hands. The cover, unfortunately, is absolutely terrible.
It’s difficult to rate Caerdroia. On the one hand, I haven’t had this much fun with a Doctor Who audio in a long while. On the other, I’m quite aware that the play was almost completely bereft of plot and significance. I was thinking an 8/10, but looking at similar plays convinced me otherwise: The Stones of Venice, for example, had a much better setting, while Omega’s plot was greater. So I recommend this play, and I believe you’ll probably enjoy it more than the rating would indicate — but a flaw, unfortunately, is a flaw.
With the run up to the conclusion of the Divergent universe arc near its end, Big Finish was running out of opportunities to push the boundaries of Doctor Who within this new setting. With The Last, Gary Hopkins made his first offering for the range incredibly bleak, setting it after a nuclear holocaust and drawing up horrible fates for the Doctor’s companions. While he certainly accomplished his aim of generating a bleak story, there are, unfortunately, one or two severe flaws in the script and in the production which prevent the play from achieving any heights of greatness.
Hopkins desired to create a bleak atmosphere, and he has certainly done so with this play. The constant sounds of hollow wind echo through the play, while the characters’ footsteps crunch over broken, lifeless ground. An entire population has been wiped out by nuclear war, and Hopkins presents us with the only survivors, locked away deep underground in a shelter. As a tale about the consequences of nuclear war, this is unflinching: there is no hope of survival for these people, whose own actions have doomed them to extinction. Something this unforgiving is rarely seen in Doctor Who, and in this respect Hopkins makes the most of his opportunity.
The main point of controversy in The Last is its use of the reset button: a plot device which erases all dramatic events that have occurred over the course of the play and which restores the status quo in time for the conclusion. Is this misused here? Fundamentally speaking, no, it is not — one theme repeated throughout the play is that of rebirth, and this becomes an explicit part of the plot at the conclusion. Indeed, as the planet on display is revealed to be an intricate part of the Interzone experiments, this revelation will certainly have an impact on the remaining plays of the season. However, the author’s notes make it quite clear that Hopkins wanted to write a play in which the Doctor honestly faced the prospect of his own death, a fact which leads to two possible conclusions: either Hopkins presented the idea and the Big Finish team came up with the theme of rebirth, or the BF team informed Hopkins of the theme and Hopkins used this an excuse to write the play. The third possibility — that Hopkins and BF came up with identical themes without consultation — seems unlikely, especially since the reset button seems crammed into the script. This script is clearly designed to make the deaths of Charley and C’rizz as dramatic and shocking as possible, something which is obviously undermined by the conclusion. In a play with a reset button, the events which necessitate its being pushed cannot be the focus, otherwise the entire thing just seems disingenuous — and that’s exactly what happens here.
Of course, it doesn’t help that two of the regulars seem to have no idea how to play their parts. Paul McGann just isn’t very good in this play — when prompted to give a reaction to the deaths of his companions, he adopts an unsure, muted tone, something which jars entirely with the content of his lines. Then again, many of these lines are confusing: the Doctor’s unflinching, desperate optimism in the face of Charley’s paralysis seems wildly out of character, especially given this new post-Zagreus Doctor. Perhaps better direction was in order?
This may also be India Fisher’s worst-ever performance for the range. Divorced from Fisher’s acting, Charley’s lines seem desperate: someone struggling with the reality of her paralysis, bravely putting on a positive front for her friends but falling apart beneath the surface. Fisher, however, decides to play the character as blithely unconcerned with her situation: her voice never wavers, she just merrily cracks jokes about never being able to walk again. So poor is her performance that her discussion with C’rizz about suicide comes completely out of left field: there’s nothing in her readings that shows that she’s been contemplating death. Fisher isn’t a particularly good actor, but she’s usually better than this.
C’rizz, on the other hand, is a revelation in this play. Rather than dealing with his murky past, Hopkins shows the character at his limit: C’rizz is fiercely protective of his friends, willing to die to protect them — and dangerous to those that would threaten them. Conrad Westmaas’ performance is exceptional, a convincing portrait of a desperate man that runs the full range of emotion. Indeed, his nature gets him “killed” in this play: it’ll be interesting to see if it gets him into real danger as the series continues.
As for the supporting cast, Carolyn Jones is outstanding as the crazed leader Excelsior. True, the material she’s given is over the top — despite some tantalizing hints that she knows more than she lets on — but Jones plays it to the hilt, showing us a type of maniac not normally seen in Doctor Who: insane and dangerous. Ian Brooker and Robert Hines provide a nice double-act as the Ministers Voss and Tralfinial, while Richard Derrington is suitably enigmatic as Landscar. Jane Hills, sadly, isn’t particularly good as the Nurse, overplaying her final lines.
As mentioned above, Hopkins’ script is dependent upon excellent sound design, and David Darlington comes through here, presenting a terrifyingly realistic-sounding nuclear wasteland. Some of the effects sequences take too long — the rocket launch, for example — but all sound convincing. His score is an unusual offering that accompanies the setting quite well. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem as though Gary Russell put much effort into the direction this time around. McGann and Fisher sound as though they have no idea where their characters should go, and this is entirely down to the director. I get the impression that on many Big Finish plays the actors aren’t held to a particularly high standard by the director — witness some of Sylvester McCoy’s hurried performances — but this seems to be a particularly egregious example.
Many of my above comments have been negative, but, other than India Fisher’s performance, there is nothing bad about The Last. It’s a solid offering whose plot twists are suitably interesting to prevent total irritation with the reset button, but ultimately it only manages to be slightly above average. Hopefully things will pick up with Caerdroia — this season is supposedly the centerpiece of the Big Finish range, and after sixty-two releases one would expect better.
With the announcement that the new Doctor Who television series would commence in March of 2005, Big Finish decided to move its Paul McGann audio releases forward to the end of 2004, thereby preventing their ongoing series from conflicting with its official counterpart. This meant that after an 18-month gap between Neverland and Zagreus, nine of the following fifteen plays would feature McGann’s Doctor — but after the up-and-down third season, the fourth would have had to be something special to keep listeners’ interests through December. And after the silly, needless “cliffhanger” at the end of The Twilight Kingdom, it fell to Graham Duff’s Faith Stealer to kick off the fourth season with a bang. Unfortunately, that’s not what happened.
When you close a season with your lead actor bellowing “RASSILON!” as the object of his obsession, you generally expect the next season’s first episode to deal with this in some way. Of course, Faith Stealer has absolutely nothing to do with that exclamation, existing instead as a purely standalone adventure that has little to nothing to do with the Divergent universe. This isn’t Duff’s fault at all, but it is emblematic of the arrogant wrong-headedness that has dominated the books and audios of late. “I’ll destroy Gallifrey to *make* the authors tell stories they couldn’t possibly have told before!” bellowed Justin Richards, and lo, the range produced 90% stories that would have worked under the old order. Here, it’s the same thing: “I’ll put the eighth Doctor in a completely new universe, forcing the authors to push the boundaries with new, thought-provoking Doctor Who stories!” was the word from BF — but so far the only thing different about this universe is the absence of the word “time” from the vocabularies of its population.
But despite the uncontrollable factors, there’s a great deal to like about Faith Stealer. Doctor Who doesn’t normally go after religion (and recent efforts like Companion Piece might show you why not), so it’s refreshing to hear an author satirizing religion without resorting to baseless attacks or offensive comparisons. Though there are ludicrous religions on display, most of them are shown to be honorable at heart — Duff pokes fun at the specifics but seems to have a healthy respect for the benefits of religion. Duff also displays a keen grasp of comedy: there are several hilarious scenes, perhaps none more so than C’rizz and the Bishop together: “Uh oh!” “What?” “It has to do with turning back!”
Unfortunately, one of the few common themes of Doctor Who that annoys me rears its head here: the necessity to explain away something horrible with pseudoscience or alien influences. If Laan Carder was simply a religious maniac, if Miraculite wasn’t relying upon him for existence, if this had been a pure exploration of the effects of rampant fanaticism, Faith Stealer would be a better story. Despite the elegance of Duff’s solution, the ending seems to be something of a cop-out — and, in either case, narratively speaking it’s quite rushed. This doesn’t detract from the play as a whole, but I think more could have been done with the premise, amusing as the humorous content may be.
I wasn’t particularly impressed with Paul McGann’s performances as the Doctor in the third season, especially since his only chance to play the Doctor “straight” in The Creed of the Kromon was disappointing. The authors don’t seem to know where to take the character post-Zagreus: Shearman made him darker in Scherzo, Martin made him generic in Kromon, and Shindler put together a combination of the two in The Twilight Kingdom — and here he’s just bland, bereft of his usual enthusiasm but also lacking the darkness that has characterized him from time to time since the universe changeover. Usually he sounds great, but here McGann just isn’t very interesting.
The companion role has been a struggle over the past few plays as well. Charley does next to nothing important in this play; Duff writes the character well and makes her charming rather than irritating, but she’s utterly superfluous. Because of this, it’s hard to rate India Fisher’s performance — it’d be nearly impossible for her to impress or disappoint based upon the material, and as expected she’s decent but unspectacular. C’rizz, on the other hand, gets some exploratory material: we see his guilt over having to kill L’da, and his manner of dealing with it. Unfortunately, his past life as a monk is only briefly mentioned, despite this being a play about religion, leading me to believe that we’re going to get annoying hints about his past for two more plays before getting a poorly-written explosion of exposition come The Next Life. I like Conrad Westmaas, but, much like Fisher, he doesn’t have the best material in the world here.
The supporting cast is, as usual, very good. Christian Rodska adds a small amount of comic melodrama to his performance as Laan Carder, making it all the more effective. Tessa Shaw is wonderful as the Bordinan, lending an enlightened centerpiece to a society founded in religion. And Ifan Huw Dafydd is hilarious as Bishop Parrish, especially in his scenes with C’rizz.
Gareth Jenkins’ sound design is as good as you might expect — this time he’s asked to replicate the sound of someone’s forehead birthing a crystal and he manages it without audible effort. Russell Stone’s score is magnificent as always, offering a tone that matches both the content and subject matter of the play. Gary Russell assembles a large cast for the play, rather than re-using actors, and it pays off — plus the pace is kept up. The cover is not good, though — the stained-glass motif was used to better effect on the Jubilee cover and it isn’t evocative of the content at all.
Despite its flaws, the content of Faith Stealer is effective enough to make this a better-than-average play. However, this is a solid midseason episode; as a season premiere it’s completely inappropriate. This won’t affect my rating of the story, but this makes the series seem as though it’s treading water rather than blazing a trail to an epic conclusion. As it stands, though, Faith Stealer is recommended — you could do worse than this play as a vehicle to introduce a new listener to the McGann range.
Big Finish’s resolution for 2004 was simple: every play would be written by an author new to Doctor Who audio. Yet while 2003, which featured only three authors new to Doctor Who audio, was the most experimental release year in Big Finish’s history, 2004, featuring all new authors with supposed new takes on the material, was surprisingly traditional. Robert Ross’s Medicinal Purposes fits this profile, winding some new material into a very traditional Doctor Who format that appeals nicely.
The largest bone of contention about this story is the Doctor’s attitude towards Burke and Hare: despite his insistence that he does not condone their actions, he seems remarkably accepting, even encouraging, of their murderous ways. Certainly his motives for meeting them are humorously appropriate: he wants to be able to name-drop them in conversation. Would the Doctor do such a thing? Of course — if he can drop Mao’s name, he can certainly use Burke and Hare or Robert Knox. However, his actions seem out of character: it’s one thing to begrudgingly respect someone’s contributions to history, but it’s quite another to shake their hand and encourage them to keep up the good work. However, this is only a minor distraction in the first episode and is not something which takes away from the drama.
Much like its immediate predecessor The Roof of the World, Medicinal Purposes does not have enough of a plot to justify a running time of well over two hours. In terms of actual plot events, little to nothing happens — the characters mainly run back and forth between the public house, the catacombs, and Knox’s house and learn something new at each stop. There are also a great number of misleading plot threads: it takes three explanations before we learn the true reason for Knox’s involvement in events and their particular nature. However, again much like The Roof of the World, this play succeeds because it approaches its material and its setting with complete devotion. Edinburgh of the time is captured amazingly well in both dialogue and performance, while the characters are so involved in the plot that its flaws struggle to stand out.
Colin Baker is, as always, excellent here, as Ross characterizes him a bit more harshly than usual and allows his abrasive side to shine through. His confrontations with Knox are delightful, while his scenes with Evelyn show that it’s been some time since Arrangements for War, but the lessons of that play have not been forgotten. It’s easy to take Baker for granted at this point, as his performances are so steady, but it’s also surprising that he seems to get the best scripts — for whatever reason, this Doctor brings out the best in his authors.
Unfortunately, Evelyn doesn’t get much of anything to do in this play. She’s used to great effect as an emotional point of reference, but her involvement in the plot is minimal and consists mostly of walking back and forth from place to place much like everyone else. Maggie Stables gives a fine performance, and much like Baker, her interactions with the Doctor show a subtle understanding of the character development incurred over the course of their previous appearance. Their rapport is easily the strongest of any of the BF Doctor/companion combinations; hopefully this will continue into 2005 and beyond.
The supporting cast is exceptional. At the time, the easy headliner was Leslie Phillips, who lends nuance and menace to a character that might have been a generic ranting maniac in a lesser actor’s hands. However, in hindsight, David Tennant’s scenes suddenly take on greater importance — the play is full of scenes between two Doctors! Fortunately, Tennant is brilliant as Daft Jamie — it’s easy to overplay such characters but he makes him very sympathetic. Kevin O’Leary and Tom Farrelly present a fine case of contrasting personalities as Burke and Hare, while Glenna Morrison is surprisingly effective as Mary.
On the production front, the high standard continues, as David Darlington provides a fine recreation of the sounds of 1827 Edinburgh. The score is first-rate as well, and his use of certain more familiar sound effects in unexpected places is quite effective. Gary Russell finally surpasses the quality of the script with his direction, taking a plot-light script and managing to keep up an excellent sense of urgency while getting strong performances from his actors. And I love the cover design.
Medicinal Purposes is not without its flaws. However, it still represents a strong entry into the Doctor Who canon — if you like your stories heavy on plot, with lots of complicated twists and turns, you might want to stay away. If you’re more into atmosphere and character development, this is a fine effort and well worth the purchase. Overall, nicely above average and recommended… it says something about the Colin Baker releases that I consider this his worst story since …ish and it still gets a…
The 2004 range of past Doctor releases continued with a script by longtime professional fan Adrian Rigelsford, who was generally more famous for the things he didn’t do (The Dark Dimension) than those that he did. As you might expect from someone with a long-term love of the program, The Roof of the World is very traditional — but Rigelsford goes the extra step with his treatment of the regulars, turning an average plot into a very strong story.
The loudest criticism of The Roof of the World I’ve heard sounds something like this: “It’s exactly the same as The Abominable Snowmen!” I’ve never been able to figure out quite why a story is bad if it’s similar to one of Doctor Who’s most beloved television serials — perhaps if this script was derivative of Timelash, the complaint could be made. To be fair, the basics of the plot are somewhat lacking: the Old Ones who lurk behind the scenes as the bad guys don’t really do anything. Sure, there’s a great deal of yelling about how dangerous they are, but even the Doctor sarcastically puts them down without any sense of danger. The ending is unimpressive as well — these monsters are defeated almost as easily as the Cybermen in The Harvest.
However, Rigelsford makes up for his plot weaknesses with some wonderful atmospheric writing. The setting is brilliantly captured — especially impressive given the small cast — and the author’s treatment of the colonial period actually shows that it had some positive elements. With the constant, harsh (and often deserved) condemnation of the colonial ethic throughout Doctor Who’s history, it’s nice to see a story showing real, sympathetic people involved. Rigelsford also has an easy grasp of his characters: much of the first episode is lighthearted and easygoing, and it’s nice to hear the characters getting along without sounding forced. Indeed, the quieter scenes here are the best: the final lines, especially, are particularly effective.
After a strangely weak performance in The Axis of Insanity, Peter Davison returns to form here with some exceptional acting. We get to see the character having fun as well as demonstrating emotional intensity: his speech overheard at Erimem’s “funeral” is heartbreaking. Furthermore, his performance as the false Doctor in the scene with Peri is amazingly subtle: there’s just enough wrong with the character to communicate that something is wrong but it’s not immediately obvious. This is something I would have loved to see on television: the Doctor sounds much like he did in Black Orchid, a refreshing story in its own right.
BF has been developing Peri as a character to some small extent: she’s not nearly as whiny and helpless as she appeared on television — making one wonder when she’s going to revert — but compare this to The Axis of Insanity to see how one author can get it and another cannot. Rather than being obnoxious and bitchy, here she’s simply strong-willed — of course, she still makes some stupid decisions, but if that ever stopped it’d be a different character entirely. Nicola Bryant’s performance is strong as well, and she does much better with the accent than in her previous appearance.
The focus of much of the story, though, is on Erimem — indeed, the entire second episode concerns itself with Davey’s interrogation of her within her own mind. This allows the audience to see her vulnerable side, something which distinguishes her quite sharply from Leela — and Caroline Morris’s performance is excellent and quite poignant. Rigelsford also captures the Peri/Erimem relationship well; rather than the annoying sorority-sister impression I got from the previous play, here their interactions seem very friendly and natural.
Edward de Souza, distinguished as the only actor to lead in a Doctor Who story without playing the Doctor, returns to the fold here as Davey, and his performance is excellent. As with many older actors, he possesses a gravelly voice which is easily made menacing, and he nearly steals all his scenes. William Franklyn is effective in the role of Erimem’s father, while Sylvester Morand lends a quiet dignity to the role of the blowhard General Bruce. Alan Cox rounds out the cast, nicely exasperated with Bruce in the role of John Matthews.
The production is up to the usual standard, with Gareth Jenkins providing excellent design work. Perhaps the only flaw is the filter put on Caroline Morris’s voice when Erimem is possessed — it’s a bit too cliched and ineffective. Russell Stone’s music is, of course, brilliant, and matches the more casual tone of the script. And with the stronger material comes stronger direction from Gary Russell — the actors all sound as though they’re enjoying every minute of the performance.
The Roof of the World seems to be yet another one of those stories which is condemned for the crime of being too traditional, something which I cannot understand. Yes, the plot has its flaws, but with the work that’s done here on helping to develop the various characters, coupled with a fine atmosphere, it’s hard to bring this script in for too much criticism. A solid entry in the Doctor Who canon and one worth listening to.
I have to agree with Octafish and others when they say that starting a new range with a comedy that parodies pantomime is a risky idea. I can take or leave panto but had I hated it, having it as the theme of this play might have put me off.
It seems even crazier in retrospect because it was on the strength of the Benny range that BF secured permission to do Doctor Who, which must have been on their minds when they started. Then when they did get permission to do Doctor Who they did the same thing again, and started with a confusing story that was more likely to alienate newcomers than appeal to them.
One could be forgiven for wondering what on earth they thought they were doing – did they really want to shoot themselves in the foot and narrow their audience before they had even begun?
Furthermore, considering that both the Benny and the Doctor Who ranges had ultra traditional second stories, Beyond the Sun and Phantasmagoria respectively, wouldn’t it have been better to start with those and gradually get more complex and esoteric? Whilst part of the appeal of audios is that they can go into more depth and be more experimental than other media such as TV, even those fans who welcome that depth and experimentation feel they should have started with something more straightforward.
However, the first few Benny plays are essentially versions of the books, and this was the first story in the Virgin New Adventures range. Therefore, whilst risky to begin with, it is at least faithful to the Benny timeline and a more reasonable place to start than it seems.
So. Having started the Benny range with a parody of panto, is it any good? Well, yes. It is. It’s great.
A friend of mine once said to me that upon hearing this play he got the impression that Bernice Summerfield, for all that she is an academic and a professor of archaeology, comes across as a bit shallow. This is fair comment, at least at first, as she ogles the male students and appears flippant and frivolous. It’s not long, though, before disaster hits and Benny takes charge, showing more of the mettle we would expect from someone who not only travelled with the Doctor but who impressed him so much he gave her a Time Ring as a wedding present. Not something we’d expect our favourite time lord to do on a whim.
It feels like a bit of a rush, from “flippant Benny” to “take charge Benny” in such a short time, but the play flows very well and sweeps you along with it as events unfold into madness, mayhem and, of course, panto.
As if escaping from a virtual panto world wasn’t enough, Benny is being pursued by the Grel. A squid faced race of Data Pirates, obsessed with the gathering of facts, the Grel are hilarious as they hunt Benny and her friends and it’s easy to forget that they are a genuine threat; perfectly prepared to invade planets, destroy ships in space and even kidnap people in their quest for knowledge. Their desire to acquire facts and keep them from others makes them anathema to Benny, and anyone else who believes knowledge should be freely available.
As Benny gets sucked into the “story”, the play sets a theme that will appear throughout the range – that stories have a life of their own, and bend others to their desire to be told. There are echoes of Terry Pratchett’s Wyrd Sisters here, which also explores this theme, that stories exist independently of the people in them, are some kind of entity in their own right, will bend their players to their will, and can be directed easier than they can be changed. It also works as an allegory for time travel. The web of time can be thought of as the version of the story of the universe, perhaps all universes, that must be told.
Special mention should be made of Nicholas Courtney who plays Benny’s cat and is clearly having a great time with more innuendos than a Carry On film. Speaking of which, Mark Gatiss as the Grand Vizier is a scream, stealing the show for me as he channels Kenneth Williams, and there are strong showings from the rest of the cast too. When the cast is clearly having so much fun with a story, it seems rude not to join in.
Apart from the threat of the Grel there is another, the Perfectons, whose missile has caused the panto world to be created and the crew of Benny’s ship to be trapped in it. The ending, after all the frivolity, is actually very serious as Benny has a judgement call to make – to allow the Perfectons to live again means that she, and everyone else, will be enslaved by them. At the end of it we see the world-weariness which will become a feature of her character later in the series.
Having seen what happens to Benny later I can look back fondly on this play as a bit of fun before things start getting serious for her. How she will be callously manipulated and sold down the river by those she trusts the most. But I’m getting ahead of myself. That is for future reviews.
Lisa Bowerman is a perfect choice for the part. She’s very versatile, switching from funny to serious to haggard with ease. It’s very refreshing to see such a well rounded female character, especially a female lead, and Lisa clearly relishes the part. It’s also a testament to how good she is in the part that having heard her, I can’t now imagine anyone else doing it. Even Paul Cornell, creator of the character, says he hears her voice in his head when he writes for Benny. High praise indeed, and well deserved.
Great fun and an interesting, if totally mad, start to the range.
Oh No It Isn’t – Paul Cornell, adapted by Jac Rayner
I think that starting the range with Oh No It Isn’t is a brave move…
Oh! No it isn’t!
Oh! Yes it is!
Okay, I’ll cut it out…
Panto and Carry On humour has the potential to be alienating, I have to admit to being a bit concerned when the panto stuff kicked in but I needn’t have been. The humour may not be sophisticated, but it is genuinely funny. I loved the Grel, with a name like Octafish how could it be otherwise? They’re cosmic squidfaced-librarians who are obsessed with collecting and cataloguing facts. They get mixed up in the panto scenario leading to lots of chasing Benny about through several fairytale scenarios.
Lisa Bowerman is perfect and gets the character immediately. I never doubt for a second that she is Benny. That Wolsey is voiced by Nicholas Courtney is Brigadier-tastic, while Mark Gatiss channels Kenneth Williams in full Carry On mode in his portrayal of the Grand Vizier.
This is a fun, funny play, which unravels the rules of panto and fairytales as it goes.
From Master all the way through to Dreamtime, a gap of *seventeen* releases, Sylvester McCoy’s Doctor featured in exactly one Big Finish play: Dan Abnett’s The Harvest. (Unless, of course, you buy into Big Finish’s outright lie advertising Zagreus as part of “The Seventh Doctor Collection.”) Of course, this wasn’t the company’s fault, as the McGann season was forced up the schedule by the advent of the new series, but for those of us that like McCoy it’s an unbelievably huge gap. Perhaps this gap coupled with the return of some old monsters explains why this story is so overrated — it’s certainly not bad, but a top ten BF release? Never.
I mentioned before that it seems as though comic writers have a hard time with the audio medium — fortunately, Abnett does not suffer from this apparent handicap. He doesn’t overreach himself, opting instead to construct a very traditional Doctor Who environment: brightly-lit corridors, dark basements, a couple of CSO car chases, etc. And the decision to bring back the Cybermen limits Abnett’s scope, so he doesn’t get carried away with insane fantasy villains like Simon Furman before him.
Ah yes, the Cybermen. Careful watching of the televised Cybermen stories reveals that they’re at their most effective when they’re used to illustrate the differences between man and machine (The Tenth Planet, The Invasion, among others). To this end, a story built around the horror of conversion would, theoretically, be an ideal Cyberman story. Big Finish realized this, and so they released Sword of Orion, which dealt in part with the horrors of conversion. Then they released Spare Parts, which dealt with the horrors of conversion. Then they released Real Time, which dealt with the horrors of conversion. Abnett notices this trend and reverses it: in The Harvest, it’s the Cybermen who are trying to convert themselves back into humans! This is a brilliant inversion, but unfortunately it falls almost totally flat because we never really learn their motivation: Subject One tells the Doctor they merely want to recapture their emotional roots, but as it turns out he’s just lying and they’re as murderous and evil as ever. You can’t ask a question this big without an answer. (And “well now they can lie!” isn’t the answer, because they did this all the time in their other stories.)
There are other flaws throughout the play. The script is riddled with cheap shots at the concept of a unified Europe which aren’t supported by anything and just come off as sophomoric. There isn’t enough plot for the running time; the entire second episode is basically superfluous. The ending is horrible: suddenly it’s revealed that there’s a secret code which instantly kills all the Cyber-humans. Nice, that. The entire thing feels like a first draft, as conversations drag on pointlessly and scenes take forever to conclude — does Big Finish have a script editor? Simply tightening this script up would make it so much better.
Sylvester McCoy is inconsistent at best as the seventh Doctor, sad to say. He has some excellent scenes — his final lines to the dying Cyberleader are wonderful, for example — but his long speeches are disasters, as he slips back into his bad habit of speeding through the script and getting all the tonal shifts and inflections wrong. Surprisingly, though, his angry scenes are great — but as I’ve said before, McCoy does great anger; he just doesn’t shout very well. Still, someone needs to give him more direction: we know he can do much, much better than this.
This is Sophie Aldred’s first appearance as the not-NA Ace in about six billion releases going all the way back to The Rapture, and I was stunned to hear her turn in a fine performance. Much like Jonathan Blum’s The Fearmonger, The Harvest realizes that Ace is a perfectly workable character when portrayed as a mature adult rather than as a whiny teenager, and Abnett writes the character perfectly. However, if she is indeed a mature adult, the “Just McShane” stuff doesn’t even make sense — but it’s sounded more and more idiotic with each passing audio, so this is no surprise. I mean, the Doctor still calls her Ace and she’s identified as Ace on the packaging — can we please bring this ridiculous “character development” to a stop?
The Harvest ushers in a new companion (finally!) for McCoy: Hex, played by Philip Olivier. I mentioned in my review of Arrangements for War how that play’s examination of Evelyn’s emotions evoked a new series feeling; here, Hex’s real-world reactions and culture shock to the Doctor and the TARDIS remind one strongly of Rose. Olivier is very convincing in the role, bringing just the right amount of emotion and desperation: I’m looking forward to future appearances. Hopefully the character will develop properly as well — he’s very ordinary in this play, but that’s the point. This is promising.
As for the supporting cast, William Boyde steals the show as Subject One. He’s got a wonderful voice for audio, and captures a perfect balance between human and robot with his intonation. Mark Donovan is similarly effective as Polk, and Janie Booth does a fine computer voice. Richard Derrington’s performance as Farrer is a little cliched, but sounds good nonetheless, while David Warwick’s Garnier is nicely villainous.
On the production front, David Darlington is in charge of the sound design, and generally it’s very good. While I felt the Cyber-footsteps were a little over the top, he accurately recreates a hospital environment and the filter put on the voices of the Cyber-actors is quite effective. Unfortunately, the music is another story: it’s a bizarre electronic suite like that heard on The Sea Devils or Doctor Who and the Silurians. I didn’t care for this music, but many found that it added to the drama — I’ll mark this down as a difference in taste rather than a qualitative evaluation. Gary Russell’s direction seems almost disinterested: other than Boyde, nobody in the cast really stands out, McCoy struggles with his lines at times, and there are pauses between scenes which last way too long.
I don’t see what’s so wonderful about The Harvest. It’s a bog-standard Doctor Who runaround — with all the corresponding problems — whose few new ideas are consumed by the flaws in the plot. Sure, it’s always fun to hear the Cybermen again, but this was the only McCoy release for seventeen months and this is all we got? Unfortunately, just because it’s better than most of the McCoy’s doesn’t mean it’s anything special.
Despite almost a full year passing since the release of Project: Lazarus, the impact of that play upon the sixth Doctor and Evelyn could not be ignored. With Evelyn, much like with Rose in the new series, a companion was finally seen to be realistically affected by her travels, and to gloss over the tragic loss of Cassie would have been a terrible mistake. Unfortunately, given the shockingly poor attempts at romance seen in the eighth Doctor audios, I was doubtful of Big Finish’s ability to convince in this regard — but Paul Sutton’s Arrangements for War managed instead to deliver the most convincing romantic material the range had ever seen.
Sutton chooses to present a very traditional setting: two countries, at war for years, about to finally reconcile their differences through an arranged marriage. Of course, the princess scheduled to be married is in love with one of the palace guards and is faced with the choice of love or duty. But, unusually for this sort of story, there are third parties involved: on the large scale, there is a third country helping to broker the peace between the larger two, and on the small scale, there is the Doctor, finding himself caught between the two young lovers. And on top of all that is Evelyn, desperately seeking emotional healing after her encounter with the Forge, and finding it with the governor of the smaller nation. This play could easily have slipped into a bad cliche, but Sutton uses his third parties to create a unique spin on the format that keeps the listener guessing.
Yes, the play occasionally dips into melodrama, but it works. The plot isn’t particularly intricate — it’s focused on its characters — so the broad strokes that don’t provide a lot of detail don’t annoy. Indeed, the simplicity of the plot is refreshing. The climax is somewhat muddled, unfortunately: the screaming goes a little over the top and it’s difficult to tell what’s going on with the gunshots, but the conclusion that follows is brilliant and the final scene is praiseworthy. Sutton has clearly spent a great deal of time and care on his characters and their relationships, and every one save one is sympathetic in one way or another.
Colin Baker gives yet another brilliant performance here as the sixth Doctor, showing the character at his quietest and most mournful. There’s a poignant insecurity which comes out in his first conversation with Marcus, something which continues throughout the play and shows itself in Baker’s marvelous voice. For a play that appears to be about Evelyn at the outset, its emotional heart is the Doctor — and at the end, when he’s been stripped down to almost nothing, it is impossible to predict what actions he’ll take. This is an incredibly challenging role for Baker and yet he pulls it off perfectly.
Of course, the play is also about Evelyn’s emotional healing, and so Maggie Stables takes center stage for a large percentage of the running time. Thanks to the scope of Sutton’s play — one of the longest periods of time over which a Doctor Who story has ever taken place — we are able to see Evelyn at various stages of her healing process, from her initial anger with the Doctor to her talks with Rossiter to the conclusion, where she is finally able to understand the Doctor’s perspective. As the Doctor explains in the final scene, Evelyn is a unique companion — and Stables gives one of the greatest companion performances you’re ever going to hear in this production.
After his classic turn as Sutekh in Pyramids of Mars, one would not expect Gabriel Woolf to be able to take the part of a kind, romantic old politician — yet here he does exactly that in a remarkably sympathetic performance. He and Stables have wonderful chemistry, and it’s a delight to hear a romance between two older people, something rarely seen in drama. Katarina Olsson is every inch the stereotype princess as Krisztina, but she plays the role with such charisma that it doesn’t matter, while Lewis Rae is equally effective as Marcus. Sadly, Kraig Thornber is a weak link: Pokol is little more than a plot device in character form and Thornber goes way over the top with his performance.
Steve Foxon makes his Doctor Who debut, and for the most part his sound design is exceptional. His use of water effects, for example, really helps set the tone of the play, and the score cannot be praised enough: much like the piano score in The Wormery, the use of the various instrument sounds heard here make this one of the greatest, most dynamic scores ever composed for the range. Unfortunately, I recognized a few of the sound effects from computer games — this isn’t Foxon’s fault, of course, but something like that can take you out of the fictional reality. Still, this is outstanding work. Gary Russell directs yet again, and here with an excellent script he works great performances from his actors and keeps a very strong pace to a story with very little action.
There are some minor flaws here and there that keep Arrangements for War from reaching the pinnacle of BF’s releases, but as a demonstration of how the format of Doctor Who can be stretched it’ll be tough to top this. I expected that Big Finish would want to deal with the emotional fallout from Project: Lazarus but I never suspected they’d devote an entire play to it — and then turn out one of their most poignant releases in the process. Amazing, and highly recommended.
Big Finish seemed to have settled into a comfortable pattern: follow a McGann season with a brilliant Marc Platt script. However, with the 2004 “new writer” policy, this was naturally impossible, and Doctor Who comic and Transformers writer Simon Furman was brought in to pen the first past Doctor release of the year. His offering? A bizarre, surrealist plot that attempts to represent the point holding together the various broken realities caused by alterations to history. Unfortunately, these ideas are wrapped in a thoroughly uninteresting plot, and the audio as a whole struggles to be anything greater than terrible.
So far, it would appear that comic writers struggle with the audio format. Alan Barnes’ DWM strips were well-received; his audio scripts to date have been terrible. Furman, meanwhile, fills the play with staggering imagery: giant, fire-breathing dragons, carnivals, jesters, a TARDIS graveyard! — but forgets to include convincing description or any sort of plot. What we’re left with is a tedious runaround in which almost nothing happens when the characters aren’t running around in circles telling each other how evil they are. There’s bad expositionary dialogue, the settings don’t really come across, the characters are poorly captured, and the conflict lacks any sort of tension. I’ve often said that boredom is the worst crime a Doctor Who story can commit, and this is yawn-inducing.
This is a shame, because buried in the script are some wonderful moments. The final confrontation, in which the Doctor explains the eccentricities of Time Lords, is brilliant. The final scene in the TARDIS graveyard is beautiful. The cliffhanger revelation of a Time Lord corpse at the end of episode three is terrifying. Furman has a knack for these sorts of scenes, and one is forced to wonder why an editor didn’t work with him to generate a better plot.
The acting in The Axis of Insanity seems poor across the board, and even Peter Davison shows a marked step down from his usual excellence. To my ear, he sounded bored and more sarcastic than usual, and distinctly unimpressed in his confrontations with the villain. True, he rises to the occasion when necessary — as above, the scenes at the end are magical — but I was surprised that not even the Doctor could draw me into proceedings. Still, a middling performance from Davison trumps good performances from many, as he still sounded quite natural in the role.
Nicola Bryant, on the other hand, fails to pass muster as Peri. Furman clearly doesn’t understand the character: this is a Peri we’ve never seen on television, on audio, or in the books: she’s forthright, argumentative, sarcastic, and jaded. How on earth does this character turn into the one seen in The Caves of Androzani? I understand that some liberties must be taken but this is pushing things too far. Bryant, meanwhile, seems to be voicing the character at a higher pitch than usual, and her accent is the worst we’ve heard it since Whispers of Terror — shockingly, for a character I usually like, she constantly annoyed me.
Erimem is all over the map in this play: she goes from chirpy and inquisitive to easily-offended to cunning to ignorant with almost no natural flow. Caroline Morris does what she can with the material, but it doesn’t sound as though she knows what approach to take. This has to be down to the direction; I don’t think I’ve ever heard a Doctor Who play with such wildly inconsistent regulars. It’s a shame, too, because there’s some good material for Erimem in here: learning to read, learning about other Time Lords, and basically saving the day on her own — plus Chicago references always make me happy.
Many have lauded Garrick Hagon’s performance as the Jester, but I found it utterly irredeemable. It’s a bad ripoff of Mark Hamill’s Joker; Hagon’s too old to be cackling like that, as his voice wobbles badly when it should stay strong. At least he has some charisma, which is more than can be said for Liza Ross, who fails to convince. Marc Danbury is likable as Tog, but the character is thinner than the paper CD insert. Only Roy North impresses as the Overseer, so of course he gets killed off.
The sound design is masterful. Gareth Jenkins impresses yet again, as he’s asked to create a surrealistic land of fictional/alternate realities purely out of sound and somehow manages to succeed. He even makes the Firebreeds scary, despite a lack of any support in this regard from the script. Andy Hardwick’s music is excellent as well, perfectly capturing the intended mood of the various scenes. I’ve made the Gary Russell’s-direction-directly-proportional-to-script-quality argument before, and here it’s readily apparent: this is a poor script, and the performances are hesitant at best all around.
This would never have been a great BF release, as it’s working against too many negative factors. But it seems as though nobody wanted to rise to the occasion: despite some excellent sound design, the performances are about as poor as the script. One of the most disappointing Doctor Who audios I’ve ever heard — and having no idea going in just made it worse.
And so the third season of Big Finish’s eighth Doctor audios comes to a close, a season which saw the Doctor flee to an alternate universe to sequester himself from the familiar. Along the way, he picked up a new, alien companion and started to learn the nature of the planet on which he was stranded and the differences between its Zones. To this point, the alternate universe plot has seemed utterly pointless — there have been no explanations of how things are different here — but at least the third season finale by Will Shindler is a solid Doctor Who adventure.
The Twilight Kingdom has come under fire from some quarters for two reasons: one, it’s very traditional, and two, it evokes a Sawardian atmosphere. Part of the problem here is the Big Finish release order: first, an epic anniversary story, followed by a minimalist two-hander, followed by a large-scale ultratraditional Who tale, followed by the most high-concept, experimental Doctor Who audio ever, followed by an ‘80s action runaround. There haven’t been any intermediate steps; the tone of the range this season has shifted from extreme to extreme, and it’s disconcerting at best.
Shindler, an experienced television writer, is here new to Doctor Who writing. His author’s notes indicate that his experiences with the show were confined to seeing it on television, so it shouldn’t come as any surprise that this script closely resembles a television story. This is a very hard-bitten story, with soldiers and rebels generally being nasty to one another as an alien influence lurks in the background. Unfortunately, Shindler falls into the same trap that consumed countless authors before him: not writing enough plot to fill out the running time. Much of the middle two episodes are consumed with capture/escape scenes, running through caves, and redundant philosophical discussions; this detracts from the ideas which dominate the first and fourth parts.
These ideas, fortunately, are rather good. Shindler’s foreshadowing might be a little blatant (and the cover art doesn’t help) but the concept of an organism whose digestive tract appears to be soil and water is excellent, and the first episode does a fine job of building up tension and confusion over what, exactly, is happening. Furthermore, the imagery of the organ-cave at the heart of the creature is horrifying, and Shindler manages to communicate its nature without resorting to poor expositionary dialogue. There’s very little here that’s truly difficult to predict, but it’s carried off with enough flair that the predictability doesn’t really matter.
Paul McGann gives an excellent performance in this audio, and Shindler’s Doctor is suitably dark to fulfill the requirements of the plot and the characterization established in Scherzo. Unfortunately, neither the Doctor’s behavior nor the actions of the cave dwellers manage to convince the listener that Charley’s suspicions of the Doctor are correct — but McGann himself voices the part in a manner that indicates a change in the character. His confrontations with Koth and, latterly, the Kro’ka, are excellent, and his reading of “Rassilon!” at the end sends shivers down the spine — no mean feat, considering how silly that “cliffhanger” is.
Unfortunately, I am yet again forced to criticize India Fisher’s performance as Charley. Shindler doesn’t seem to like the character, as she’s criticized for complaining too much in the first five minutes — and then spends the rest of the play complaining. Furthermore, Fisher is asked to show Charley turning against the Doctor before it’s obvious that she’s being manipulated, and instead of bringing any originality to the part she voices it in boring soap opera “I don’t know you anymore!” style. The brief “love” conversation at the end — are we ever going to get away from this? — grates, but thank heaven for the Doctor asking her never to mention it again. Maybe she’ll listen… and maybe I’ll win the lottery.
C’rizz does very well in this story, however. He’s forced to go against his nature when brainwashed, learning to accurately fire weapons, and this allows for easy, effective character development, something we haven’t really had yet with this companion. Conrad Westmaas sounds very good in the role: he presents a wonderful mix of sarcasm, politeness, and genuine emotion, all without radically altering his voice. I’m looking forward to more stories with this character — it’s just a shame it took three stories to provoke any interest.
There’s a surprisingly large supporting cast in this story, though they don’t distinguish themselves to any great extent due to the nature of the material. Best among them is Michael Keating, who goes wonderfully over the top with his villain voice as Koth — but then, when portraying a talking, disembodied head mounted on a wall of organs, how can you possibly restrain yourself? Alan Rothwell gives a nicely understated performance as Janto, and Ann Carus-Wilson is solid as Vayla — but she sounds a lot like India Fisher, which might cause confusion if you’re not paying full attention. Stephen Perring retains the slimy superiority seen in The Creed of the Kromon as he reprises the role of the Kro’ka. And I hate to sound like I’m piling on, but near the end of the play, I heard Orvik giving a radio report and was stunned at how unconvincing he sounded — so I look up the part and it’s Gary Russell. Russell has done excellent work in fill-in roles in other audios — what happened here?
On the production front, Gareth Jenkins’ sound design is up to its usual standard of greatness — the jungle effects in episode one are especially convincing. Russell Stone contributes yet another excellent score; he’s clearly wrapped up in the ‘80s sensibilities of the script and his music is suitably dominant and melodramatic to match. I mentioned in my last review that Gary Russell’s direction seems to follow the quality of the script, and this seems to be the case here as well: a solid script is given solid pacing with decent performances — but just as there’s nothing exceptional in the script, there’s nothing exceptional on display in the direction. This is not to condemn, of course.
Closing the third season with a Saward-esque violent runaround seems an odd way to compel listeners to pick up season four, but I don’t grade on a play’s usefulness as an advertisement for the rest of the range. Shindler has provided a solid yet uninspiring script with just enough ideas to keep the interest. Above average work, and worth hearing — just don’t expect the world to be changed by the experience.
After the ultratraditional The Creed of the Kromon, it didn’t even matter that Jim Mortimore was writing the following story: The Natural History of Fear was going to be more complicated and more experimental. Nobody could have guessed that it would be quite this experimental, however, as Mortimore’s script deals with the nature of perspective and of history in such complicated fashion that the play almost demands repeated listening. This style has its drawbacks, of course, but ultimately it stands as a minor masterpiece of the audio range, something of which the McGann series could use more.
Mortimore has long been one of Doctor Who’s most imaginative, high-concept authors. Even his short stories generally aspire to terrifying heights, and his novels often seem to slip the bounds of sanity. Given the landscape of a true dramatization, then, it is unsurprising that Mortimore brings the full scope of his imagination to bear, producing one of the most complete societies heard in a Big Finish audio. Despite encountering only a few of its citizens, the constantly shifting personalities on display allow the listener to experience the full breadth of life within Light City. This also leads to some very confusing initial scenes: by the time Paul McGann is repeating the attempted suicide heard at the beginning of the play, one wonders if events are even supposed to make sense.
By the conclusion, however, Mortimore has elegantly wrapped up all of his script’s themes and plot strands, using a particularly inventive series of twists, one involving the physiology of the population of Light City. Rather than a story of the Doctor, this is a story about the Doctor, showing his impact on a population generated simply by showing up and asking questions. Indeed, since even possessing an identity is a bizarre occurrence in the city, the presence of such a powerful individual as the Doctor naturally prods along the breakdown of the society. It’s not the easiest Doctor Who story ever recorded — indeed, if you haven’t been paying attention the last half of episode four will melt your brain — but it’s amazing to see what a mind like Mortimore’s can produce in a performed medium. It’s easy to see why McGann loved the script: it’s as good as any to come through BF.
Paul McGann is simply excellent in his role as (generally) the Editor, playing a man with everything to lose and nothing to gain nonetheless pursuing the so-called revolution with almost fanatical devotion. It’s a desperate, intense performance injected with some Doctorish mannerisms — and when the Doctor does make an appearance at the end it’s easy to see the differences between the two strong performances. An actor who is enthusiastic about his script almost always gives a better performance because of it, and this is some of the best acting we’ve seen from McGann in the range.
India Fisher, on the other hand, seems to struggle somewhat with the opportunity to expand her range. Her performance is too close to Charley for my liking, and when her characters undergo stress she often resorts to whining — still, her sinister moments as the Conscience work very well, much less over the top than their equivalents from Neverland. Her brief time as Charley is much more successful, as Mortimore demonstrates quite a grasp of the character and she rises to the occasion.
One of the primary flaws with The Natural History of Fear, much like The Creed of the Kromon before it, lies with its release order. This is the first full story with C’rizz as companion, and unfortunately Conrad Westmaas loses his identity in the script just like everyone else, meaning that it’s almost impossible to tell who he’s supposed to be. Westmaas lacks a particularly distinctive voice as C’rizz, and without more exposure to the character and his mannerisms, it’s impossible to draw comparisons with his performances in this play. Still, he turns in a solid performance — he seems to be quite good at wringing emotion out of his characters.
Unfortunately, it’s impossible to critique individual members of the supporting cast since I have absolutely no idea who any of them were. As a group, however, not a single performance sounded anything less than good — this is yet another strong supporting group from BF.
Not only did Mortimore write this play, he also handled all the design work. His earlier work was some of the range’s most innovative, and this is no different, as here he creates an immersive soundscape which utterly convinces. The effect accompanying the Light City public address system is terrifying, while the effects use to describe the spinning top are bizarre yet appropriate. Mortimore’s music, too, is wonderful, working a strange rendition of the Doctor Who theme into the play as part of the regular “infotainments” of the city. Gary Russell directs, and clearly has a strong grip on the material as the actors seem to effortlessly reach the right notes in their performances and the pace never seems to drag.
Its placement causes some problems, but unlike The Creed of the Kromon, The Natural History of Fear is not negatively affected by these issues. Jim Mortimore has proven with this script that he remains one of Doctor Who’s most important writers, one who is willing not only to push boundaries but to do so in innovative ways. The themes at the heart of this script might be old but the execution certainly is not; that it also stands as one of BF’s greatest releases is almost incidental.
It gives me great pleasure to unreservedly recommend a McGann audio after so long.
The Doctor: I’d like to propose a small plan of campaign.
Iris: Must you? Oh well, when you’ve met as many camp pains as I have…
To some this may be a Marmite story because of Iris Wildthyme. Not everyone likes the character and in The Wormery the 6th Doctor meets Iris in an interstellar nightclub.
However, even if you don’t like Iris, you might still like this.
Paul Magyrs has a knack for parodying Who in a way that is affectionate whilst being barking mad. Much like Paul Cornell, he challenges our preconceptions and some of our entrenched views about the show and then weaves a story around them that ironically leaves few in doubt that, even if they don’t like the story, it’s still damned good Dr Who. Also like Cornell, Magyrs’ frequently humorous stories are well balanced by providing believable threats to the Doctor and his companions.
Magyrs has a knack for making the minor characters interesting too, much as Robert Holmes did, with a few lines that manage to speak volumes and flesh them out to be more than just bit parts. From Aliss and Baliss (co workers on a failed project who are also lovers), to the waitress who is the “narrator” of the story, all are well constructed and make you care about what happens to them. The only exception to this is the trigger happy policeman. With more power than self control he is a one-note cipher for authoritarian violence – although Bianca easily puts him in his place, which fits in perfectly with his characterisation as a bullying thug, big and tough till a woman tells him to put a sock in it.
Which brings us to Bianca, played by Maria McErlane. Stylish and sophisticated, she is everything that Iris isn’t, and Maria brings her to life wonderfully as the club owner and prima donna with ambitions to perform for the universe. So dedicated is she to her own self-gratification that she is prepared to undermine the fabric of space and time with dodgy technology. She even tries seducing the Doctor to get him on her side, much to Iris’ dismay, yet she comes across as more misguided and short sighted than as a ranting megalomaniac. Initially we see her as a luvvie with too much technology and no common sense, being easily led despite her conviction that she is in charge, and influenced and helped by others to take her narcissism to its desired conclusion. It is only later that another side of her is revealed, which is genuinely sinister as opposed to being just irresponsibly egotistical.
The main villains are telepathic worms, split into 2 warring factions, which looks really silly on paper but again Magyrs takes the ridiculous and gives it an aspect of his trademark menace. They make up for their physical frailty by being immensely powerful mentally. The way they have all but hypnotised the people at Bianca’s is much like the Master’s mass hypnosis of the people of Earth in the new series, and is as insidious and evil as any villain in Who.
The 6th Doctor never met Iris in Excelis so this is their first and to date their only appearance together on audio. Colin and Katy are marvellous as they bounce off each other. The Doctor’s irritation with Iris’ drinking and debauchery is clear, yet he cares for Iris in his own way and will not see her hurt. The reveal of Iris not just being her usual gratuitous self but drinking to try and understand what’s going on is a great twist that absolutely fits her character, as well as being a clever way of making her character traits part of the solution. The Doctor would never consider getting drunk to try and understand a threat, and it’s also more interesting than having the Doctor find out everything himself.
The last and biggest reveal about Bianca is one that could have gone badly, and Magyrs could be accused of pre-empting this by making the obvious comment about it himself. What he actually does, though, is to turn that into an argument between Iris and the Doctor, therefore presenting it as a divide and conquer tactic by Bianca, which is excellent and adds an extra layer of fun and intrigue to an already entertaining story.
The ending provides one final twist, the identity of the silent listener to the waitress’ narration, and puts the icing on the cake of a hugely enjoyable play.
With Scherzo in the books and the Doctor/Charley relationship somewhat resolved, it was time for the eighth Doctor’s adventures in the Divergent universe to begin properly. To this end, the production team decided that the best way to introduce their audience to a new universe with different laws of time would be to… release an ultratraditional story written by Philip Martin?! Even before the play was released, this didn’t look like a good idea, and despite the inherent factors in its favor The Creed of the Kromon lives down to every one of those negative expectations.
Quite frankly, I’m not sure why this wasn’t called Vengeance on Varos II: The Reckoning. It’s exactly the same: there’s an alien race with distinctively non-human physiology and an obsession with finance and profit oppressing another race by controlling their economy and holding the population hostage to costs. There’s also a sequence in which the companion is partially mutated into an alien and, while this is going on, the Doctor and a rebel of the indigenous population are running up and down corridors trying to stop it. This wouldn’t be so bad, except that a) the story lacks Varos’s most brilliant element, the media satire and b) Martin doesn’t know how to write for audio. The script is full of terrible, terrible exposition — the scene where the Doctor and Charley find C’rizz features some of the poorest dialogue written for the range since the earliest releases. Indeed, there isn’t a single spark of originality in the entire script — there’s a time and a place for this sort of story, and it’s BBC1 in 1985.
The opening sequence, taking place in the Interzone, is utterly confusing. Sometimes it makes for effective drama to drop the listener into the middle of events and let them catch up to the characters, but when we last saw the Doctor and Charley they were taking their first steps into a new universe, leaving behind the TARDIS. When The Creed of the Kromon begins, not only are they in this Interzone, they sound like they’ve been through it before, leaving the listener without any frame of reference. Furthermore, the TARDIS has suddenly just gone missing, something which is not properly explained within the text.
Furthermore, this story is the first adventure in the Divergent universe that does not take place in a giant glass tube, and as such it should, at the very least, communicate to the listener that it takes place in a truly alien, bizarre environment where even time itself has no meaning. The script utterly fails in this regard, as there is absolutely nothing unusual about the setting or the characters. Because Zagreus established the linking characteristic of our universe as a humanoid appearance, all the authors have to do to create a so-called “alien” universe is present nonhumanoid aliens — something the series could have been doing all along. The “no time” concept is ludicrous to begin with, and Martin doesn’t help things by interpreting it as “the aliens don’t know what the word means” rather than anything interesting. Where’s the hook? What in this play makes me want to hear the next one?
Paul McGann is again on fine form in this play, but unfortunately someone forgot to tell Martin that Rob Shearman had planned to alter the character’s psyche in the previous release. The darker, cynical Doctor of Scherzo is completely gone here, replaced with breathless, heroic McGann, who tries his best to keep the character interesting. I should note that this is not an objectively poor portrayal of the Doctor, but these plays do not take place in a vacuum — as a followup to Scherzo, this is yet another misstep.
Charley is given a bizarre treatment here, as her character development in the previous story is mostly overlooked in lieu of a stereotypical “80s companion” portrayal that sees her scared to move while asking obvious questions. India Fisher plays the part fairly well, and fortunately she doesn’t annoy, but she sounds as though the writing sits uneasily with her. I don’t have a problem with the metamorphosis on its face, but its execution is so inconsequential it’s basically free of drama. Apparently, she is altered at the genetic level to become part Kromon — but fortunately she’s able to eat some roots and herbs and get better!
The Creed of the Kromon will perhaps be most remembered for its introduction of new companion C’rizz, played by Conrad Westmaas. Unfortunately, there isn’t much on display here that distinguishes C’rizz from the wallpaper: he’s headstrong, impulsive, and emotional, but there’s nothing which makes the listener think “Ah, I expect this guy will become a companion.” By the end of the story, he has some mysterious backstory crowbarred in, but for the most part there’s nothing particularly interesting going on. Westmaas plays the part well, though, putting believable emotion into lines that could easily have been disastrous — I’m looking forward to hearing him in a better script.
Of the supporting cast, Stephen Perring gets the most work, voicing the Kro’ka and half the Kromon. He’s great as the Kro’ka — patronizing, smug, and amusing all the same — and, along with Daniel Hogarth, never falls into the trap of sounding the same when he voices different characters and extras. Brian Cobby’s Oroog sounds like he just saw the Ents in Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy before he played the part, but it works well. And Jane Hills… well… she screams well, I suppose.
David Darlington handles the sound and music design, and though there’s nothing especially notable about his effects work, his score is a work of brilliance. Atmospheric guitar pieces at the beginning give way to 80s-style synth-sounding tracks as the story moves further indoors and grows darker — this is the sort of score I’d buy separately. As for Gary Russell’s direction, it seems to me that he’s always tied to the quality of the script. When a great script comes through, the acting and production seem to be top-notch, but when a poor script comes through everything seems much more low-key and disinterested. There’s nothing particularly poor here, but the material could easily have been tightened up, despite the generally high quality of the acting.
This is not to say that The Creed of the Kromon is terrible. Disassociated from its surrounding material it’s the most average Doctor Who story that BF has ever released and would warrant a 5/10 or so. However, as the first full adventure in a new universe and a vehicle to introduce a companion, it’s poorer than that. A shame, as it’s basically required listening, but I still can’t recommend it.
If 2003 was the high-performance sports car of Big Finish’s output, Zagreus was the crash of that car into a brick wall at 100 mph. Out of the twisted, flaming wreckage, the McGann arc had to continue, so of course now Gary Russell felt it was appropriate to once again commission Rob Shearman, greatest of all Big Finish authors. But the restrictions came in: this was to be the first post-Zagreus release and it had to be a two-hander between Paul McGann and India Fisher. Shearman thus went the only way he could have: an exploration of the diabolical “love” relationship which evolved between the Doctor and Charley during Neverland and Zagreus, mixed together with some exciting new-universe physics.
As this relationship between Doctor and companion had never been seen before, Shearman wisely decided to explore the standard relationship and the manner in which the eighth Doctor and Charley differed. His supposition, in keeping with his traditionally dark tone, is that the Doctor’s companions serve as a sort of memento mori: a reminder of the Time Lord’s own mortality in a universe in which he can cheat death twelve (or more) times. Of course, this doesn’t gel with the relationships we saw before, but this is also a much darker and more cynical Doctor than before. My concern is with why Charley has suddenly built this deep relationship with the Doctor: we’ve seen nothing, in my opinion, in their adventures thus far that the Doctor would not have done for his other companions. Indeed, the concept sounds forced and hollow, as if the decision to make Charley “special” came down from on high rather than from Shearman’s own mind. The lack of Inside Story-type material on post-Zagreus stories makes it difficult to say, however.
Scherzo is also Big Finish’s first attempt to create a universe wholly different from our own, one in which “time does not exist” or some such nonsense. Of course, with the play restricted to two actors, it’s difficult to do much exploration, as evidenced by Shearman’s decision to lock the Doctor and Charley in a circular glass tube. The sensory deprivation on display is amazing, as Shearman establishes early on that time has no meaning to the characters without their other sensory inputs, and then plays games with the listener, sometimes setting consecutive scenes hours or days apart. The sound creature is also fascinating, communicating as it does not with words but with intonations. Furthermore, the rapid, unusual nature of evolution within the tube provides both drama and a cathartic moment between the Doctor and Charley near the conclusion. Of Shearman’s varied settings in his BF work, this clearly took the most imagination, and its execution demonstrates just why Shearman is so highly acclaimed among Doctor Who fandom and the outside world.
After a shaky performance in Zagreus, Paul McGann is on amazing form in Scherzo, showing a dark, embittered Doctor angry at himself, at Charley, and at the universe for seemingly invalidating his sacrifice. There’s a threatening edge to his voice, something that Zagreus attempted but failed, that makes his actions truly unpredictable. And his fatalism is quite depressing — this is not the standard behavior of the Doctor, and as such it unsettles. Furthermore, Shearman leaves the nature of the Doctor’s love for Charley ambiguous, easily the best move he could have made — had McGann been (metaphorically) all over Fisher, it would have irreparably damaged the drama.
It’s incredibly easy to get a laudable performance out of India Fisher: don’t write Charley as insufferably smug. Here she’s frightened, confused, and near hysteria by the differences between the universes, and to top things off she sees her expressed love for the Doctor apparently go unrequited. As a result, Charley is necessarily crushed, and Fisher gives an impressive, powerful performance. Unfortunately, she does have a tendency to inject too much melodrama into the love dialogue, but this is a relatively minor flaw.
As sound design creates the third character in this play, Gareth Jenkins & Andy Hardwick had an incredibly difficult task in front of them. Their work, however, is phenomenal, mixing together McGann and Fisher lines along with various other sound effects and music samples to create a bizarre, unnerving creature of sound. Russell Stone provides the limited incidental music, and it is up to his usual brilliant standard, especially that used underneath McGann’s precredit narration. Gary Russell rises to the occasion with his direction, and the knowledge that the actors delivered these performances on what was basically a straight run through of the material in one day further underscores his achievement.
For the most part, Scherzo is up to Shearman’s usual standard of production. However, much like Robert Holmes before him, it seems that despite the excellence of his work it could have been even better without constraints imposed by the production office. Shearman does a better job with this concept than, I suspect, anyone else could have, but I still remain unconvinced that the characters can stretch to accommodate this material. Highly recommended regardless, but be forewarned.
Regardless of its quality, Zagreus was the 800-pound gorilla of the fortieth anniversary year which dominated conversation and anticipation. Big Finish’s release of another play in the same month necessarily led to The Wormery being overlooked — and this is a true shame, as it’s so much better than its counterpart they’re almost beyond comparison. Though not the strongest sixth Doctor release of 2003, it still continues the exceptional run of quality during the anniversary year.
Bringing together Paul Magrs and Stephen Cole to co-write a script was a stroke of genius on the authors’ parts: while Magrs is a master of lyrical, atmospheric writing, he is often criticized for his plots, and Cole often receives the opposite criticism. As such, one would expect great things from a cooperative effort, and the script provides these despite a few moments where the two styles chafe against one another. This is yet another brilliantly lyrical Magrs production: Bianca’s is a realistic venue given a subtle, surrealistic twist and its inhabitants fit together as one of the most bizarre yet appropriate groups of characters in Doctor Who history. Yet there’s still a solid Doctor Who plot at the core — conflicting groups of aliens vying for control of a powerful influence — which is itself given a bizarre twist by the play’s conclusion. As a result, this play is much more grounded than Magrs’ earlier The Stones of Venice — it seems as though this was Cole’s influence on the script.
There’s also a brilliant little framing device: the play is narrated to a silent observer through the use of magnetic tape recordings, and every so often the tapes malfunction or drop out, eliminating the need to present every uninteresting piece of action to the listener. Indeed, as the play is also given narration by Mickey, it’s possible to blend the perspective of the tapes with the possibility of an unreliable narrator, thereby allowing for some of the play’s “unrealistic” excesses. The revelation of the true identity of Ashcroft — which I’ll spoil in the next paragraph, so look away now — is equally brilliant, supporting Baker’s performance and adding an extra layer of understanding to the play.
Just as I’d started running out of superlatives for Colin Baker’s performances as the sixth Doctor, he turns around and offers a new take on the role. I’m not sure if this story happens post-Trial and pre-Evelyn or post-Evelyn and pre-Mel, but Baker presents a Doctor that, much like his successor, has been roaming for some time and has grown somewhat world-weary. The revelations of Trial clearly hang heavy on this Doctor, who despite remaining standoffish is more willing to slip into the background or to discuss his feelings. This, too, would gel with a tragic end to his travels with Evelyn, something which at this point seems increasingly likely and would allow for a catharsis with Mel. Best of all, though, is the appearance of Sylvester McCoy in the final line, who with about ten words gives us a world-weary seventh Doctor looking back on a previous self in a similar period of crisis. In a way, this final scene legitimizes The Wormery in ways no other scene possibly could.
Katy Manning is, in some respects, the lead actor in The Wormery, and any who still think the character of Iris Wildthyme is a one-dimensional foil to the Doctor should listen to this play immediately. When we first see Iris she’s as irreverent and meaningless as ever, but by the conclusion she has evolved into a stunningly textured character, one whom we can see has an intelligence comparable to the Doctor’s and one who conceals her own fears and desires beneath a blustery exterior — again, just like the Doctor. If she’s mirrored the Doctor’s adventures before, here she truly mirrors the character, and Manning gives a shockingly good performance that, quite frankly, I cannot reconcile with the woman I hear in the DVD commentaries. Yes, Bianca’s nature is a cheap ripoff of the Valeyard, but Iris’s reaction to this revelation is the important scene, not the joke. It may have taken a long time for the true importance of Magrs’ creation to come to the fore, but I suspect that without the Iris books and audios that came before The Wormery, it just wouldn’t have the same resonance.
As mentioned above, the supporting characters are largely part of the atmosphere, and the cast seems to have been assembled with this in mind. Maria McErlane has a wonderful voice for Bianca, and she knows exactly when to understate the part and when to go over the top. The same goes for Paul Clayton, who is able to sound remarkably threatening when necessary. James Campbell convinces as two (stereotyped, but funny) people as Allis and Ballis, while Jane McFarlane provides excellent narration. Nobody stands out, but this is intentional — this is an exceptional supporting group.
Discussion of the production starts and ends with Jason Loborik’s music. The piano score (and other incidentals) is astonishing, serving in a filmic capacity to add emotional resonance to the play. Rarely for Big Finish, much of the score is diegetic — the piano is actually being played in Bianca’s — but it’s used in a non-diegetic capacity as well, as it matches the tone of discussions to which the piano player could not possibly be privy. Ian Potter’s sound design is equally marvelous, recreating a period environment with ease. And Gary Russell’s direction is to its usual standard of quality, recognizing the various tones of the script and drawing fine, unusual performances from the leads.
If there’s a problem with The Wormery, it lies with the plot — frankly, at its heart, the conflict is fairly silly. The cliffhangers don’t mesh particularly well, either — they seem forced and unconvincing. However, the rest of the play is up to the lyrical standard of excellence that we’ve come to expect from Magrs, and it provides the listener with a unique take on the sixth Doctor and Iris that render them more believable than ever. As a character piece this is magnificent, and compared to Zagreus it’s unbelievable that this was released by the same company.
This was the big one. Every other range of Doctor Who products remained somewhat subdued for the fortieth anniversary: BBCi remade Shada, BBC Books released a novel by Terrance Dicks and Barry Letts, Telos just stuck a foil stamp on The Eye of the Tyger, and the folks behind the DVDs put a 40-year highlight montage on the discs over a new remix of the theme tune by Orbital. Big Finish, however, pulled out all the stops: their November 2003 release coincidentally lined up as the fiftieth in the range, and they planned to simultaneously resolve the stunning Neverland cliffhanger and deliver an anniversary story featuring a huge cast of former Doctors and companions. Given that this was the highest-profile and most important release in the history of the company, Big Finish obviously turned to one of its consistently excellent, critically-acclaimed authors like Rob Shearman, Marc Platt, or Lance Parkin, right? No? They turned to Alan Barnes and Gary Russell? Sadly, this was exactly the case, and the play turned out just as one would expect a play by those two authors to turn out: ludicrously overlong, boring, and full of awful characterization, poor scripting, and constant, pointless, and irritating continuity references. Zagreus is an absolutely horrible piece of audio drama, and shows BF falling so hard on its face that it’s unsurprising a number of listeners were turned off of the range after this “reward” for their longevity. Indeed, this reviewer didn’t listen to a single BF release for almost an entire year after hearing Zagreus for the first time — and my return trip was just as bad, if not worse, as the first.
The idea behind Zagreus, I gather, was to present a new type of anniversary story: one that did not revolve around reuniting multiple Doctors and glorifying fannish continuity. Instead, Zagreus was to continue Big Finish’s eighth Doctor arc and weave anniversary elements into their epic “turning point” story. In this the company failed — Zagreus isn’t a cheap excuse to bring multiple Doctors together but it’s certainly a cheap excuse to bring their corresponding actors together, and any claims to be avoiding continuity go completely out the window after only a cursory examination of the script. Lines that were among the best in the history of the series (“Is this death?” or “There should have been another way” are two examples) are dragged out and needlessly raked over the coals throughout the play. The Death Zone reappears, but this time it’s smugly (and badly) deconstructed, complete with snide comments about Wales and a needless retcon of the chessboard scene from The Five Doctors.
Of course, the play is also a continuation of the cliffhanger at the conclusion of Neverland — but it functions in this capacity in name only. There’s an endless, boring recap of the events of Neverland to start things off, which would have been great had ninety percent of the recapped scenes had anything whatsoever to do with Zagreus. As it stands, however, they do not, rendering the recap a colossal waste of time. After this, the story launches into the Grainer theme — it then closes part one with the Howell theme, starts part two with the Glynn theme, closes part two with McCulloch, opens part three with Derbyshire, and closes the play with the Arnold arrangement. Why?! Every single other anniversary, multi-Doctor story uses the incumbent’s titles — hell, even Dimensions in Time — and the departure from that tradition here is confusing and annoying in equal measure. Is this a McGann story or an anniversary party?
In yet another annoyance, Zagreus works in a long, painful scene in which alternate realities are viewed in order to — gasp! shock! — draw a line between the BF continuities and those of the books and comics. Ironic, of course, that an audio which ends with the main character abandoning his universe and starting anew cannot justify itself without first referencing all of the continuity it seeks to abandon — of course, this same annoying kick in the teeth happened in the books’ Sometime Never… and I don’t like it in either place.
Furthermore, the buildup to the release of Zagreus was deeply misleading. As far back as Project: Twilight, the Doctor has been making Zagreus references in Big Finish plays, something which built to a head in the previews appended to the conclusions of the villains trilogy. Every annoying repetition of the various stanzas of the Zagreus rhyme served to make one point: Zagreus was coming. Then Zagreus arrived, and it turned out that Zagreus himself had almost nothing to do with the play — indeed, the only contribution of Zagreus seems to have been an annoying tendency for every character to rhyme their lines from time to time for absolutely no reason.
Of course, if I focus entirely upon points of continuity I’ll hardly justify the tone of my review, but unfortunately the script itself is just as bad as the content it hopes to project. The entire thing functions on some level as an Alice parody, but any thematic parallels are obvious and unenlightening. For the most part, the script appears to reference Alice just because it can — and in one of my worst pet peeves, makes reference to this later on, apparently attempting to justify its own shortcomings by pointing them out before reviews can be published. Bad is bad, no matter how often you point to it and say “Look at how bad this is!”
Yet the script suffers from even more fundamental flaws than its lack of a thematic subtext. The dialogue in Zagreus is atrocious, frequently constituting nothing more than obvious exposition. The Schrodinger’s Cat scene, for example, is neither interesting nor enlightening — it merely regurgitates information to the listener that is completely obvious to anyone familiar with the theory and utterly boring to anyone that isn’t. The worst example of this by far is the Old Gallifrey sequence with Colin Baker, in which the character of Cassandra exists only to badly describe the environment and the characters speak in an awful formal speech pattern that fails to convince. Occasionally characters even come close to direct addresses to the audience for no reason, such as the scenes in which the Doctor references the BBC and Monty Python.
And then there’s the oft-mentioned emotional core of the play, which purports to examine the relationship between the Doctor and Charley. Throughout the history of Doctor Who, it’s been very obvious that the Doctor has loved many of his companions (platonically, of course). To this end it was not surprising that the eighth Doctor, arguably the most emotional of his incarnations, expressed his love for Charley in a touching (though amateurish) scene in Neverland. Nor is it surprising, then, that in Zagreus, poster child for excess and indulgence, the Doctor and Charley spend the last 15 minutes professing their love for one another like lovesick teenagers. Then comes the infamous “you’re dumping me” scene, in which we get to witness a domestic dispute between the Doctor and Charley featuring such brilliant dialogue as “It’s not you, it’s me.” It stuns me that, after this diabolical attempt at soap opera dialogue, anyone can accuse Russell T. Davies of writing “soapy” scenes into Doctor Who. That Davies’ writing isn’t soap is irrelevant — this isn’t even good enough to be called soap.
One would be forgiven for expecting, after the cliffhanger to Neverland and the buildup to Zagreus, that Paul McGann would feature as the lead character in an epic play. These expectations were dashed, however, as McGann is reduced to the role of supporting actor in his own series. He spends the entire first disc doing almost nothing but talking to himself, occasionally raving in Zagreus form or talking to the Cat, but he gets absolutely nothing in the way of a significant role in the action. It doesn’t help that he fails to convince as Zagreus, his cries of “GIRL!!!” being laughable. When he’s allowed to take center stage as the Doctor, he’s wonderful as ever, but sadly for a four-hour play that doesn’t happen too often.
The lead actor of Zagreus, rather, is India Fisher, as Charley takes center stage for 90% of the play’s running time. Throughout the second “season” of McGann plays, Fisher’s performances and the character of Charley steadily grew stronger — by Neverland Charley deserved to stand among the greatest companions. However, that’s all been forgotten here, as the character is sadly returned to the annoying cipher that climbed up my back for the entire first “season.” Presented with a bizarre fantasy world in which anything can happen and terrible, indescribable danger exists around every corner, what’s her reaction? Fear? No: chirpy, smug sarcasm. By the time her whining about her relationship with the Doctor rolls around, I’m desperately hoping for another character to horribly murder her just to shut her up. As I’ve said before, this isn’t Fisher’s fault — she plays the character as written — but bad is bad.
Coming straight off listening to Shada, the effect a good script can have on a production immediately becomes obvious. Lalla Ward plays Romana in both plays, but while in Shada she sounds bright and enthusiastic, here she just sounds bored. John Leeson is excellent as K9, but he’s in a unique situation: a script full of tiresome exposition actually suits his character. And then there’s Louise Jameson, who makes her long-awaited return to the role of Leela. This is an older Leela who has obviously spent some years on Gallifrey, and to make this point the authors attempt to make her sound wise and insightful. Of course, they fail in this attempt — her speech at the end, intended as a heartwarming tribute to the Doctor, is utterly unbelievable in both language and content. Furthermore, there’s no consistency to the character: despite having apparently spent years living in a civilized society, she still displays eating habits like those shown in The Talons of Weng-Chiang. And the mortal-wound-but-not-really joke is so catastrophically out of place it wouldn’t have made it into community theater. Jameson does what she can with the material, but given the material that’s not much.
Don Warrington returns to the role of Rassilon, something which was foreshadowed both in Neverland and Seasons of Fear. However, somewhere in the interim the character was stripped of all subtlety, leaving Rassilon nothing more than a generic science fiction raving maniac. The moral ambiguity and mystery on display in a hundred previous Doctor Who television stories, novels, and audios? Gone. Rassilon, you see, was simply a paranoid bigot who took credit for the discoveries of his contemporaries, fashioning his own technology all in an attempt to shift the development of life in the universe towards his form. Of course, as Rassilon actually had the technology to pull this off — and appears in some ways to have succeeded — the play is just begging for an exploration of the moral and religious (and other) implications of these actions. But instead of that we get the other characters standing around telling us that Rassilon is a bad guy. And to add insult to injury, the script retcons the vampires! Vampires — the awful scourge of the universe who fought a horrific, bloody war with the Time Lords across a thousand star systems before finally being beaten entirely out of the universe. Vampires — a race so inimical to natural life that the Doctor is more than willing to sacrifice himself to kill them. Turns out that vampires were actually nice guys that ate only synthetic blood until Rassilon decided to oppress them. I’m fairly sure that even John Peel was forced to surrender at the sight of a retcon that big. Again, Warrington does what he can with the material, but as it’s impossible to care it doesn’t really matter.
Last among the “cast actually playing their own characters” (excepting Miles Richardson) is, surprisingly, Jon Pertwee. That’s right, the disembodied voice of the third Doctor voices itself to its future self in order to provide guidance. This amounts to an old, mostly inaudible interview of Pertwee’s being cut into pieces and thrown into the play, with some of the most ghastly written-in-response-to-previously-existing-lines material I’ve ever heard given to Paul McGann in response. The recent film Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow tried this type of scene and it worked: the characters didn’t interact with the ghost and his lines were intelligible. In contrast, the use of Pertwee in Zagreus is little more than grave-robbing for a cheap thrill, and it might be the biggest offense in a play composed of nothing but.
As for the rest of the cast, well, there’s not much to say. There’s nothing exceptional or even out of the ordinary about the performances of the other three Doctors: Peter Davison sounds more desperate than usual, Colin Baker is more sinister, and Sylvester McCoy turns the wackiness up to 11, but as they’re simply playing slightly altered projections of their original characters, the entire exercise seems pointless. (Though Uncle Winky’s sudden transformation into a dirty old man on disc three is both tasteless and unsupported by the rest of the script.) Sure, the one scene at the end that actually features the four Doctors talking to one another is fun, but it just goes to underscore how the “FOUR DOCTORS — ONE DESTINY” line on the package is blatant false advertising.
Meanwhile, eight million former companions appear as the various supporting characters in the play. This is an utterly meaningless exercise: if they’re not playing their original characters, why have them appear at all? Why not cast actors more suitable for the parts? Let’s be fair — when Sophie Aldred drives down to Big Finish to record a Doctor Who audio, she doesn’t stop on the way to pick up an Oscar, so why should I waste my time listening to her struggle with a character I don’t care about? To make matters worse, the script attempts to justify this: rather than just accepting that the voices are going to sound alike, the script makes the unbelievable assumption that all of the characters actually *look* like the former companions in question. This begs the question: was the endless, boring, and utterly drama-free TARDIS “holodeck” sequence framed that way for a reason or simply to explain why Louisa Pollard looks like Anneke Wills? Imagine the utter disaster if Meglos had explained why Lexa looked so much like Barbara — oh, wait, you don’t have to imagine, you can just listen to Zagreus. There’s not much to say about the performances — some are good, some are poor — but the casting limitations are hilariously apparent: Nicola Bryant with American accent and Nicola Bryant with English accent as two different characters, for example. And Nicholas Courtney is the cornerstone of possibly the biggest “jump the shark” moment in Doctor Who history: the TARDIS manifesting itself as the Brigadier and complaining about the Doctor’s companions leaving their dirty underwear around!
Perhaps the one saving grace of Zagreus is its production. Gareth Jenkins, apparently given less time than usual to do a double-length play, does a phenomenal job with the sound design — ironically enough, the only weak point is the Divergents, the most important design element in the play, as their sound effects don’t communicate anything other than the facts that they’re loud and they make pounding noises. Andy Hardwick’s score generally tries to stay out of the way, and it’s very good, but it’s a shame that Russell Stone didn’t have time to work on this — I could have paid attention to the music rather than the rest of the play. And Gary Russell is directing what is largely his own work — but I cannot pass judgment on his direction because I don’t believe he could have saved the script no matter what he did with it.
Divorced of context, Minuet in Hell remains worse than Zagreus, as its offenses to the senses were even more shocking than those of its successor. However, the fact remains that Zagreus must be considered within the context of its release. Not only does it have one of the worst scripts ever written for Doctor Who and not only is it founded almost entirely upon stunningly poor decision-making, it was also released to commemorate the fortieth anniversary of Doctor Who and to serve as the epic centerpiece of Big Finish’s eighth Doctor saga. This is not a tribute, it is a disgrace to the series it thinks it’s honoring. And unlike Minuet in Hell, this play absolutely must be heard if one wishes to follow the McGann arc. Coming after the mostly excellent 2003 release year, it was unthinkable that Big Finish could ever fall on its face this hard and this fast, but Zagreus proved otherwise. As an anniversary story this is an abomination, as an arc story this is painful and boring, and as a culmination and celebration of Big Finish’s Doctor Who range this is a slap in the face to its loyal subscribers and casual purchasers.
I cannot and will not recommend this to anyone, ever.
With the somewhat surprising (but ultimately successful) decision to explore Omega with the first release of the villains trilogy behind them, Big Finish turned to Lance Parkin to provide a new perspective on a much more famous villain: Davros, creator of the Daleks. Parkin’s script shows an unexpected level of depth to the previously one-dimensional ranting megalomaniac, and the excellent writing, superior performances, and high-quality production values combine to produce a legendary BF release.
Much of Davros is told in flashback, as the listener is allowed to witness Davros’s life leading up to and immediately after the Thal attack which left him crippled. Parkin’s characterization here is astonishing: Davros is clearly insane, but his obvious love for Shan leads him to do things for what he honestly believes are good reasons; it’s hard to tell who should be the subject of sympathy. The scenes set after the attack are equally powerful, as Davros comes to terms with his injuries and, in the best pre-credits sequence in Doctor Who history (against admittedly small competition), decides not to commit suicide but rather to emerge as a new, stronger being at the head of a new race.
Of course, the main plot is just as strong. Davros’s awakening and first exclamation of “DOC-TOR!” is absolutely terrifying, but the scene to follow quickly shifts to a humorous tone as Davros and the Doctor are hired to work for a large corporation. From here, the tone generally remains light (except for the flashback sequences) as Davros carefully involves himself in corporate affairs and positions himself for a takeover. Some have read anticapitalist messages in this play; I don’t see them — the only real alternative offered is Davros’s concept of a military economy, and the play clearly isn’t advocating that! The idea of solving the stock market has been done before (Aronofsky’s ?) but I love Parkin’s twist on it: using that solution to bring down the entire economy. This is a much more believable conquer-the-galaxy scheme than most, given that money tends to be more powerful than weapons.
Colin Baker shines in this play, as he returns to his abrasive season 22 persona. His breaking of cover early in episode 1 is hilarious, but throughout you can clearly sense his character’s utter disdain for Davros. The Doctor knows what will happen eventually — and he’s proven right — but until that happens, his interactions with Davros provide no end of amusement. This might be the least central to the plot the sixth Doctor has ever been, but it’s understandable given the subject matter.
Terry Molloy returns to the role of Davros for the first time since 1989, and I have to think some people questioned the wisdom of bringing him back. After all, he wasn’t anywhere near as good as his predecessors on television — but if Davros proves anything, it’s that this was the fault of the scripts. Molloy is brilliant in this play, managing to give Davros a full range of believable emotions and even generating sympathy for one of the most evil characters in Doctor Who history. Not only that, but he’s *scary* — his insane laughter as he prepares to detonate the nuclear weapon is absolutely terrifying. It’s very difficult to make a character seem frighteningly insane rather than merely over the top, and Molloy carries it off perfectly. And his performance as the younger Davros are just as good, again combining insanity with sympathy. This is the sort of performance that should win awards.
Davros also sees the return of two former Doctor Who stalwarts: Wendy Padbury, who starred as Zoe in Patrick Troughton’s final season, and Bernard Horsfall, who was all over the series in various guest roles in the 1970s. Padbury’s turn as Lorraine Baynes is solid, though the historian-blind-to-reality aspects of the character are somewhat overdone. Horsfall, meanwhile, is wonderfully understated as Arnold Baynes — he could have played the character much louder and domineering but this portrayal appropriately allows Davros to dominate proceedings. The remainder of the supporting cast is decent but unmemorable, though Katarina Olsson is quite good as Shan.
Jim Mortimore handles the sound design with Jane Elphinstone composing the music, and they make an interesting yet amazingly effective decision: Davros must be one of the quietest plays ever released by Big Finish. Often, rooms are left in almost complete silence as the characters interact, and the music is reduced mostly to bizarre background effects between scenes. This style allows the central characters to take over, and it works remarkably well. I’m sure some of that is down to Gary Russell’s direction, which is again excellent — I’d never have expected this kind of performance from Terry Molloy, but there it is. My only complaint with the play regards its length: like Omega, Davros is too long, clocking in at over 150 minutes. However, it fills out its length better than its predecessor and only has one or two seriously dry spells.
Davros is unquestionably the highlight of the villains trilogy. With one of the best “bad guy” performances ever from Terry Molloy, a strong turn from Colin Baker, an intelligent and capable script, and the usual excellent production values, Davros is a true classic that should reside in every fan’s library.
For the fortieth anniversary of Doctor Who, Big Finish, in addition to its Unbound series and the upcoming Shada webcast, produced the so-called “villains trilogy” — a series of three plays designed to examine the characters of and motivations behind some of the series’ most dangerous villains. The first of these proved a surprising choice: Omega, the mostly one-dimensional baddie from The Three Doctors and Arc of Infinity, didn’t generate a great deal of belief that BF was out to reinvent characters. But Nev Fountain presents an intelligent, textured, and witty (but overlong) script that serves as a solid start to one of Big Finish’s greatest concepts.
Though many of them have been excellent, the more po-faced Doctor Who stories miss an important element of the original series: its humor. Rare was the story that lacked humor; even somber stories like Logopolis defused situations with occasional jokes. Fountain clearly understands this, and puts his comedy background to good use: this is one of the wittiest Doctor Who scripts ever written, filled as it is with sarcastic exchanges and humorous asides. This adds to the drama: horrific scenes are often more effective when they follow on the heels of humorous scenes and this tactic is employed throughout Omega.
The focal point of the play, of course, is the titular character. We learn of his background, but that merely serves to underscore his desire to preserve his place in history. Omega is a story about storytelling, both about the shifting content of stories and their importance to history. With these themes come the expected swipes at Doctor Who fans and their obsessions over continuity — but there’s more going on here, given the villain’s motivation. Fountain draws some fascinating parallels between Omega’s story and that of the Doctor, even if this gets a bit heavy-handed at the conclusion. There’s also some work with unreliable narrative — it’s not as immersive as that seen in Doctor Who and the Pirates, but it’s surprisingly effective nonetheless.
Unfortunately, Omega is too long. Fountain has several interesting things to say, but the plot within which he makes these statements is too thin to support 140 minutes of running time. The twist at the end of episode three is absolutely brilliant, making the entire thing worth a relisten just to pick up on the hints, but that doesn’t change the fact that episodes two and three could have been condensed into one without losing too much. The play’s humorous tone doesn’t support its slow, meditative pace — more severe script editing was required.
I’ve commented before that Peter Davison comes across as a very natural and talented comic actor, and he’s really allowed to come into his own with this script. His delivery is note-perfect and hilarious; he clearly understands and appreciates the humor in Fountain’s script while the script simultaneously understands exactly the type of humor natural to the fifth Doctor. I adore his resigned sarcasm; this is the sort of thing we should have seen more of on television.
The villains trilogy features no companions, but Ian Collier returns to the role of Omega and, much like Davison, betters his television performance. Of course, this is much easier for Collier, given that the Arc of Infinity Omega was a cliched megalomaniac. He has a guttural, threatening voice that makes Omega quite frightening — I can’t believe it’s a coincidence that all three of the villains trilogy actors have some of the most evil voices ever heard in the original series. Collier and Davison have great chemistry, and Collier gives his character a surprising degree of sympathy given his actions.
The supporting cast is strong. Caroline Munro turns in a stellar performance as Sentia; like Collier, she’s remarkably sympathetic and utterly convincing as she slowly lapses into insanity. Hugo Myatt is hilarious as Daland, as are the duo of Anita Elias and Faith Kent as the doddery old ladies Glinda and Maven. Patrick Duggan turns in a dignified performance as Ertikus and, though Conrad Westmaas goes a little over the top as Tarpov, he still lends credence to the atmosphere.
It’s yet another spaceship/station setting for Big Finish, and as usual the production does a great job of rendering a convincing environment. Some of Gareth Jenkins’ sound design is unexpected — the sounds of the weapons, for example — but overall it’s quite effective. This is probably Russell Stone’s most subdued Big Finish score yet, but when it crops up it lends a light, ghostly quality to the proceedings. As mentioned above, Gary Russell needed to cut down the script even more than he already did, but his direction keeps the pace up as best he can and, as usual, gets great performances from his actors.
Overall, Omega is a very strong opener to the villains trilogy. It has a flaw or two, but the characterization, dialogue, and themes are strong enough to overcome a relatively weak plot. Coupled with one of the best shock twists in Doctor Who history, this is well worth owning and well worth hearing a second and third time.
Written based upon the Black-White listening order.
After experimenting with a variety of narrative styles, Big Finish took their innovative year a step further: they produced a story whose innovation related partially to the plot itself and partially to the physical nature of the CDs upon which it was released. Jonathan Morris’ Flip-Flop is unique: neither CD comes first, as it can be listened to in either order. The packaging is constructed in support of this idea: instead of the standard jewel case, Flip-Flop comes in a cardboard sleeve containing two separate jewel cases, neither of which is labeled in any way to give the impression of coming first. But is the play any good? Yes, somewhat — though perhaps it’s indicative of the problems of attempting to push boundaries with every single release.
Flip-Flop contains some of the most detailed plotting ever seen in Big Finish thanks to the central time-travel and alternate-reality conceits which Morris has also explored in his BBC books. Though listening to one disc points the way toward what’s going to happen on the other, it’s fascinating to hear events building towards an inevitable conclusion. Additionally, the various conflicts underscore a simple, effective point: possibility is always more attractive than reality. This leads to an incredibly fatalistic feel: the listener is presented with, essentially, two alternatives, both of which lead to utter misery. This is a consequence of the format — it would be impossible to write a happy ending on one disc and still have it lead naturally back into the other one — but it makes everything seem incredibly pointless, especially since the tone of the play doesn’t match the script’s fatalist undertones.
There’s also a political discussion on display here with the Slithergee world: an alien race is shown to take over a world by guilting its inhabitants into conceding more and more land and power. Clearly, Morris isn’t a member of the politically-correct brigade — the concept of hate crimes, for example, must not appeal to him. Fortunately, he presents his arguments in comedic scenes which match the overall tone of the play: despite their power, the Slithergees really are quite silly, and their begging for mercy is amusing. Morris also introduces a number of continuity elements into the play; they’re quite amusing and unobtrusive.
After his understated and effective turn in Project: Lazarus, Sylvester McCoy is asked here to return to his more expressive season 24 persona. Unlike his performance in Bang-Bang-A-Boom!, McCoy keeps his acting in check, recapturing his manic earlier role without lapsing into silliness or poor line readings. Morris is a strong comedic writer and McCoy nails his performance, demonstrating some excellent comic timing and good chemistry with the rest of the cast.
Flip-Flop also marks Bonnie Langford’s third return to the character of Mel, and again, unlike Bang-Bang-A-Boom! she somehow manages to return to her earlier persona while remaining charming. There’s a fine line between an admirable Mel with a great deal of integrity and a thoroughly annoying and preachy Mel, and both Morris and Langford combine to create the first kind. There are also some nice continuity nods with this character, especially the “deceitful and dishonest” line which nicely subverts The Trial of a Time Lord.
Unfortunately, the supporting cast is almost totally insignificant. Stewart and Reed have the potential to turn into a great Doctor Who double act, but they’re rendered almost entirely as plot devices, acting only to generate the temporal paradoxes which drive the play. Francis Magee and Audrey Schoellhammer try to wring as much drama as they can from the roles, but it doesn’t really work. Bailey and Potter are ciphers as well, though Pamela Miles does decent work with the part. Trevor Martin, though, is superb as Capra, easily the best supporting character in the play.
David Darlington has really outdone himself with the sound design on Flip-Flop: it is exceptional. From the sound of snow underfoot and the work on the Slithergee voices and sound effects to the exciting and dynamic score, this is yet another triumph at the production level. Gary Russell offers his usual effective direction — this can be a difficult pair of regulars from whom to draw a solid performance but he does it easily. As mentioned above, the packaging is also effective — some have complained that it’s nonuniform but it’s close enough.
Overall, Flip-Flop is constructed almost entirely upon its structure, and this isn’t necessarily a positive. Fortunately, Morris has built this plot with a great deal of care, and everything holds together well — but this comes at the expense of characterization. The political references might also annoy, but that’s no fault of the author. It’s a fascinating play, and very well-produced, but one gets the sense that it could have been even better.
The 2003 experimental year rolled on for Big Finish, and after two strong successes in Doctor Who and the Pirates and Creatures of Beauty, Cavan Scott and Mark Wright were called in to sequelize their popular Project: Twilight audio. The experimental twist to Project: Lazarus? A new approach to the multiple-Doctor story, essentially composed of two separate two-episode stories, one per disc, and one featuring each of the two Doctors. The result? Yet another successful release from Big Finish.
Project: Lazarus, technically speaking, isn’t a multi-Doctor story at all. It’s divided into a sixth Doctor story and a seventh Doctor story, and though Colin Baker appears in both stories, he’s only actually playing the Doctor in one of them. Yet despite this technicality, this is easily the most workable approach to a multi-Doctor story ever undertaken by the series. Rather than having to explain precisely why the Doctors have come into contact with one another, it simply allows them to encounter the same location at different times and engage in different reactions to their surroundings. This also allows for a difference in style between the two stories, down to the use of each Doctor’s title music for his respective episodes.
This also adds to the effectiveness of Project: Lazarus as a sequel. After the immense popularity of Project: Twilight, and especially its ambiguous “villain” Nimrod, a sequel was always on the cards — and by mixing it with multiple Doctors, the story is automatically given an epic quality that might otherwise have been absent. Cavan Scott and Mark Wright pen a brilliant opening pair of episodes, the opening scenes in Scandinavia feeling incredibly horrifying and claustrophobic despite their outdoor setting. When events return to the Forge, the plot becomes more standard, but the strength of the central characters is such that everything holds together.
This is Colin Baker’s play through and through, and his performance as the sixth Doctor in the first two episodes is up to his usual standard of brilliance. After his first encounter with Nimrod, this Doctor feels as though he can reason with the deputy director of the Forge, but he finds out this supposition is completely wrong — Baker’s voice becomes increasingly desperate, conveying a feeling not often heard from this most confident of Doctors. His intense “Damn you, Nimrod!” near the end is stunning yet entirely in character — and his failed attempts to comfort Evelyn in the TARDIS are heartbreaking to hear.
Of course, he also plays a cloned sixth Doctor in episodes 3 and 4, and this time his character is much more vulnerable. This is a fake Doctor, one who attempts to put up the same facade as his doppelganger but fails to show much in the way of confidence or charisma. This is most evident as he goes to confront the arriving alien horde — you can hear him trying to reason with them as the Doctor would, but he fails, and gets his arm chopped off for his trouble. Baker is much more sympathetic here — and those few times when he is successfully playing the Doctor lead to some entertaining banter with McCoy.
After being put through the emotional wringer in Doctor Who and the Pirates, Evelyn could have used a break. Instead, she witnesses the horrible brainwashing and demise of a girl she thought she’d saved — it’s really no surprise that she finishes the first story an emotional wreck, and I’m pleased to know this is addressed down the line in her next story. Maggie Stables gives a great performance, and her sobbing fit at the end is as disturbing as it is convincing — nice old grandmotherly types aren’t supposed to go through this, by god!
Then, of course, there’s Sylvester McCoy, playing his companionless near-the-TVM seventh Doctor that we’ve seen infrequently in the books. The script scales back his active role, allowing him to remain in the background and issue intimidating comments — precisely the sort of thing McCoy does best, and he’s brilliant here. When he growls to Nimrod that he’s not as forgiving as his previous self, you believe him. When he appears in scenes seemingly out of nowhere (much like The Fearmonger), you don’t question it. And his lines in the rain at the conclusion send shivers down the spine. It’s performances like this that make you wonder why he wasn’t scripted this way for the NA audios.
Stephen Chance returns as Nimrod, and he steals the show without even trying. Scott and Wright give him lines that are at times ridiculous and supervillain-y — “Artemis, you’re fired!” and such — but Chance’s insanely melodramatic and threatening voice make all of these lines *work* so well it hurts. Every time he spoke, I was grinning — one (minor) problem with the BF output is a lack of truly memorable villains, but Nimrod is definitely the exception to this rule. Rosie Cavaliero returns to the role of Cassie, and she’s less over the top than she was in Project: Twilight, but unfortunately she can’t pull off the scenery-chewing like her counterpart. The other supporting characters (Crumpton, Frith, Harket) are little more than ciphers, but this might not be a bad thing as they’re overshadowed by their larger-than-life costars.
The sound design on display is excellent as usual, with Gareth Jenkins recreating all sorts of awful, violent noises of mayhem and destruction. Andy Hardwick’s score is excellent, giving the play an epic, big-budget horror feel. Gary Russell returns to the director’s chair and provides his usual steady hand, keeping two Doctors in line and drawing some of the best Sylvester McCoy performances seen in the range out of the actor. Lee Binding’s work on the double-cover is excellent, representing one of the best of the range.
There are undoubtedly some flaws with Project: Lazarus, but the play overcomes them through sheer drama. By the time you get past Evelyn’s emotional trauma, and Nimrod’s menacing tones, and McCoy’s quiet intimidation, are you left with much? Maybe not, but the play is simply too much fun to be brought down by other factors. A triumph in spite of itself it may be, but a triumph it remains.
After the experiment in narrative strategy that was Doctor Who and the Pirates, Big Finish offered another production in the same vein: rather than exploring the technique of the unreliable narrator, Nicholas Briggs’ Creatures of Beauty uses the fragmented narrative style popularized by the Christopher Nolan film Memento. Rather than adopting that film’s backwards-narrative style, Creatures of Beauty rearranges its scenes in thematic fashion — and succeeds admirably, resulting in a second consecutive Big Finish success.
Many have pointed out that the actual plot of Creatures of Beauty is weak, and this is a legitimate opinion: the Doctor and Nyssa arrive on a planet, become involved due to a misunderstanding, explain the misunderstanding, and are allowed to leave. However, the entire point of the script is that the actual events of the plot are unimportant: what Briggs chooses to emphasize is the difference in perspective between each set of people involved in the situation. There’s a great plot twist at the end that simply would not work without the restructured narrative, but other than that the plot is generally insignificant.
The strength of Creatures of Beauty, then, lies with the way in which Briggs rearranges his scenes to draw attention to his characters. Each character is introduced so that the listener perceives them in a certain way — a way which is subsequently undercut in a later scene. Only the Doctor and Nyssa avoid this treatment, mostly because we already know about them, but this allows them to serve as a grounding element for the play; their intermittent discussions help to frame events in comprehensible fashion for the listener. This is very much a shades-of-gray play as well, as no character is out-and-out good or evil — even the fearsome Koteem are shown to be somewhat sympathetic in their actions by the play’s conclusion. Unfortunately, Big Finish’s persistence in using the Doctor Who format of approximate 25 minute episodes interrupted by cliffhangers somewhat damages the play’s effectiveness, as its entire structure defeats the purpose of cliffhanger endings.
Peter Davison gives one of his more brooding performances in Creatures of Beauty, a turn quite evocative of what would become his season 21 characterization. This is a Doctor becoming disillusioned with his role in the universe, contemplating whether or not it is truly worth saving; it’s refreshing to have an author that recognizes the path along which the character was treading at this point in his development. Davison, of course, is brilliant in the role — you can hear the weight of the universe on his shoulders with each line, yet his traditional heroism comes to the fore when necessary.
After her extremely successful turn in Spare Parts, it’s wonderful to hear Sarah Sutton remain on form here as Nyssa. She gets put through the wringer in this episode — a common occurrence with BF companions in this period — and convinces throughout, bringing a heartfelt emotion to her voice that, in many cases, wasn’t even seen on television. Briggs uses the character as a perfect companion: rather than being a near-idiot that asks the Doctor questions for the sake of exposition, Nyssa intelligently questions the Doctor’s actions and motivations. All of the companion pairings have benefitted from the BF range (save perhaps Ace), but it’s between Nyssa and Mel for the greatest improvement.
The guest cast is, as usual, excellent, but David Daker’s performance as Gilbrook is one of those legendary BF guest appearances that will be remembered for years. This is a million miles away from Irongron — Gilbrook is tired yet vicious, world-weary yet driven, and he represents one of the most threatening characters we’ve yet seen. David Mallinson gives an exceptionally nuanced performance as Brodlik, something which develops along with the theme (and, incidentally, Brodlik is a great name — it’s nice when authors take the time to write names that sound good on audio). Jemma Churchill is effective as Forleon, and Emma Manton is sympathetic in limited screen time.
Nicholas Briggs handled virtually the entire job of post-production, and it is thus no surprise that Creatures of Beauty sounds as polished as it does. He knows his own material well enough to design appropriate, non-intrusive sound while his direction seems to improve with each play — this time all of his authors are absolutely spot-on and the pace is stellar. The cover art is a little odd, but that’s obviously a minor complaint — and I continue to love the use of the Howell theme.
Overall, Creatures of Beauty is another success for the Big Finish line. I think that these experimental releases would benefit from being freed from the standard Doctor who episode format, and this marks the only significant negative about the play — otherwise, this is a well-written and well-acted piece of drama that deserves to stand amongst its counterparts at the height of the BF pantheon.
DOCTOR WHO AND THE PIRATES, OR: THE LASS THAT LOST A SAILOR
For better or worse, 2003 marked an almost wholly experimental year for Big Finish’s Doctor Who releases. The first real departure from the norm, though, came with the April release of “Doctor Who and the Pirates,” a Jacqueline Rayner script billed as a Doctor Who musical but functioning instead as a masterpiece of narrative style and framing devices.
It’s rare that a production matches an intelligent script with perfect direction, but “the Pirates” accomplishes this with relative ease. Dealing with Evelyn’s desire to avert the suicide of Sally, one of her students, the story involves the Doctor and Evelyn arriving at Sally’s apartment to tell her their own story of their recent adventures on the high seas. Rather than lapsing into a pure flashback story for four episodes, however, the script uses the apartment as a frame, constantly reminding the listener that the events on display are not objectively viewed but are rather seen through the eyes (or heard through the ears, I suppose) of the two narrators. As such, the story can be prone to exaggeration — Red Jasper walking on two wooden legs, for example — or confusion: the Doctor “dying” early on only to be resurrected when Evelyn remembers that he wasn’t the heroic sacrifice. But rather than using this style purely for comedic effect, Rayner weaves the variations in tone into the characters’ personalities: when Evelyn is troubled by a particular event, she either leaves it out or surrounds it with humor in an attempt to ameliorate its effects.
This leads to the third episode, the musical. Generally, I cannot stand musicals because they don’t make any sense: why do the characters break into song for no reason every five minutes? Where do the choreographed dance numbers come from? However, “the Pirates” avoids this conflict because the narrator, the Doctor, is aware of the cliches of the musical genre and inserts them into his own story. There’s also a scene where Sally herself begins to sing — in this one case, the world of the pirate narrative bleeds together with the “real” world, but it’s so natural and so effective that it does not jar at all. The lyrics are brilliant as well — yes, they’re just rewritten Gilbert & Sullivan songs, but nothing sounds forced or unnatural.
“The Pirates” served as a new challenge for Colin Baker’s Doctor: never before has the sixth Doctor been forced into such a sympathetic role. It’s somewhat ironic that his most mature, touching moments come when he needs to comfort Evelyn, rather than his other, younger, companions, but this is the first major case of that trend and Baker pulls it off magnificently. His character shifts back and forth between arrogant and subdued, often in hilarious fashion: this is really a stellar performance, as Baker plays the Doctor both as Evelyn sees him and as he sees himself and manages to show a significant difference between the two.
This is Evelyn’s story, however, as for the first time here she is brought face to face with the extent and danger of human insanity. Yes, the writers seem to enjoy putting Evelyn through the emotional wringer, but in Project: Twilight and later in Real Time, she witnesses the cruelty of vampires and Cybermen. Here, Red Jasper, insane as he may be, is still human, and his madness and sadism towards Jem and the rest are naturally more unnerving because of it. Maggie Stables gives arguably her best performance thus far, switching from her own suffering to a desire to help Sally — outside of the books and the new series, it’s hard to argue that we’ve ever had a companion this well-developed or well-played.
Bill Oddie headlines the supporting cast, and he gives an excellent performance as Red Jasper. As the story begins, he’s a typical “arr”ing pirate captain, but as it continues he becomes all the more serious and evil, and Oddie’s performance shifts to match. Helen Goldwyn is perfectly convincing as Sally, coming across as sympathetic without ever becoming whiny, and she has a beautiful singing voice to boot. Dan Barratt is solid as Jem as well, while Nicholas Pegg is absolutely hilarious as Captain Swan — this is yet another excellent Big Finish supporting cast.
The Inside Story reveals that David Darlington’s sound design was reworked extensively to match the framing device — well, whatever was done, it worked, as the sound perfectly matches the script. It seems as though the effects become more realistic as the tone becomes more serious — whether or not this is a matter of my perspective is in question, of course, but I was very impressed. Barnaby Edwards was called to direct and he brought in Timothy Sutton as musical director, and together the two of them oversee a production that is indeed superb, just as it says in the liner notes. The musical elements blend perfectly with the rest of the play, nor do proceedings ever seem to flag in order to allow in the various elements on display. Even the theme tune is reworked — the closing music is brilliantly appropriate.
There are a lot of words such as “brilliant,” “superb,” and “excellent” in the above review, and there’s a good reason for this trend: they all apply. “Doctor Who and the Pirates” is a masterpiece of narrative structure which expertly interweaves two separate stories thanks to a fine script, brilliant performances, and skilled design and direction. It’s Doctor Who at its most experimental, but it’s also amazing Doctor Who that should feature prominently in any collection.
After the (relative) success of The Shadow of the Scourge led to fans clamoring for additional New Adventure-based audios, Big Finish commissioned Trevor Baxendale to pen a new script. Baxendale never wrote for the original Virgin range, which perhaps explains why, as a piece of standard Doctor Who, The Dark Flame almost holds up — but why as a New Adventure it fails miserably.
The NAs aspired to tell stories “too broad and too deep for the small screen,” a motto that earned placement on the back cover of each novel. Generally, this meant multilayered plots, intelligent explorations of the regular characters and their motivations, and thematic arcs that rarely linked together in exact plot terms. Baxendale, though, writes an average “evil from the dawn of time” story that would not have been out of place in the mid-70s. There’s really nothing NA-ish about this at all, save perhaps Benny’s sarcasm: the Doctor is very much an early McCoy, and the story seems as though the dark nature of the script is being hammed up for camp effect.
Baxendale attests in The Inside Story that he desired to get away from the tone of the NAs — perhaps this seems like a silly thing to say, but doesn’t it sort of defeat the purpose of writing an NA-type script if you’re going to intentionally make it different? However, it should be noted that this functions fairly well as a Doctor Who script. It’s not particularly deep or well-developed, and some of the dialogue is horrendous, but cast Tom Baker in this thing and you might have a minor hit.
As mentioned above, this isn’t really an NA, and Sylvester McCoy isn’t anything like his performance in The Shadow of the Scourge. This is a late-season 24 or early-season 25 McCoy — he plays the role in a very lighthearted sense, putting odd emphases on his lines that, for once, actually work. His tortured screaming late in the play is virtually identical to that in Scourge, meaning that most people hated it and I enjoyed it for some reason I cannot fathom.
Sophie Aldred usually comes in for a lot of stick from me, but she’s surprisingly good here. Unlike her failure to grasp the part in Scourge, here she sounds almost exactly like you’d expect the character from the books to sound: a combination of hardened soldier and more mature Ace from television. When she threatens someone, you believe her, yet there’s an awful lot of sympathy for the character to be felt as well. I never found myself cringing when she spoke, which hasn’t happened since The Fearmonger almost forty releases ago.
Then of course there’s Lisa Bowerman, who’s been playing the role of Benny so often that she’s better associated with the role than the initial NA characterization. This is entirely to her advantage, as she sounds the most comfortable of any actor in this play — but a sarcastic academic has to be the dream role for most actors in terms of ease of portrayal. Baxendale, unfortunately, doesn’t give her anything *else* to do, as she’s either sarcastic or possessed for the entire running time — but then this isn’t too different from her portrayal in most of the poorer NAs.
Michael Praed is hilariously evil as Slyde, though he can’t measure up to Andrew Westfield as the two engage in a scenery-chewing contest that couldn’t have left any of the sets standing. Steven Wickham is good as Joseph, too — though I have to wonder why it appears as though the production was instructed to turn the humor up past the point of sanity.
In production terms, this play represents a return to form for Big Finish — Gareth Jenkins doesn’t have a great deal to recreate from the script, but this is yet another convincing outer space environment. Andy Hardwick’s score is suitably doom-laden, even if the dialogue doesn’t really back it up, while Jason Haigh-Ellery does a fine job with the direction, keeping the running time short and the pace high. The cover is beautiful, too — this is near the end of a run of brilliant covers from BF.
Ultimately, The Dark Flame is a disappointment simply because it tried to be an NA but failed. If you approach it as a standard Doctor Who story with the NA crew, it works much better — but one is forced to question why BF decided to waste its final attempt at a live-action NA on something so average. It’s not as poor as some will say, but it’s not really worth buying, either.
Scriptwriter Austen Atkinson was drafted to write the first Peter Davison release of the fortieth anniversary season, and the reception of the result, Nekromanteia, was lukewarm at best. Though it makes a valiant attempt at capturing the grim mood of season 21, and succeeds in places, Nekromanteia ultimately fails as a production, falling down due to obvious, boring plotting, poor acting, and some questionable sound work.
It shouldn’t be particularly surprising that the main objection to Nekromanteia since its release has been over the content. This is not a forgiving play, featuring as it does cannibalism, beheadings, attempted rape, nudity, and a million other elements that couldn’t be seen on the BBC at 5:25 on a Saturday. I do not, however, join with those that question the inclusion of these elements: it is my firm belief that Doctor Who can accommodate any subject matter that does not alter the essential character of the regulars, and as such there is nothing in Nekromanteia that offends me on its face.
Furthermore, Atkinson is plainly familiar with the latter days of the Peter Davison era on television. Yes, the Doctor is ineffectual in this play, but for once this is appropriate: that is *exactly* how the fifth Doctor was portrayed on television in his final episodes. Yes, terrible things happen to the companions, but Resurrection and Androzani weren’t exactly kind. However, Atkinson misses two key elements of season 21: first, this is not a precisely fatalistic fifth Doctor like we saw in that year, and secondly the characters are forced to reset themselves at the play’s conclusion. I admit I haven’t heard the next Peri/Erimem story but if they were to come off this audio unchanged it would sadly be inappropriate.
Unfortunately, the plot doesn’t support these embellishments. Sure, there’s a whole clash-of-cultures thing going on, plus an evil corporation and a hard-bitten starship crew, but the actual plot is nothing more than a group of people pursuing one thing. And as none of the characters (save perhaps the regulars) are sympathetic, it’s impossible to care about who gets there first, since as far as I was concerned the whole group of supporting characters could have accidentally fallen into the sun.
Peter Davison bravely recaptures his season 21 persona in this play, and, as stated above, the ineffectual nature of his character in the script is entirely acceptable. Davison is at his best when he is allowed to play the character with a hint (or more) of desperation, and that is certainly the case in Nekromanteia. He is, of course, perfectly situated at the fictional cricket match, and his interactions with Shara are, from his perspective, fun to hear.
Peri, on the other hand, is dealt with in somewhat questionable fashion. She is given realistic lines (the famous “I was born with the word trouble tattooed on my ass” comes to mind) that would probably work coming from the mouth of a believable American character, but unfortunately Nicola Bryant isn’t American and Peri isn’t believable. Bryant does what she can with the material, but this is a poorly-characterized version of Peri and it doesn’t really hold up.
Erimem, meanwhile, might have developed in an entirely different direction had this been her second story as originally intended. Here she’s almost raped, fighting Harlon off to avoid it — and her reaction afterward is believable. Her reaction to Rom’s death is fascinating as well, though between that and her threats of violence Atkinson draws dangerously close to transforming her into Leela II. Fortunately this extra step never takes place and the character remains believable.
The supporting cast, for the first time in a long time, has its faults. Glyn Owen is awful as Harlon, failing to convince in any measurable sense, especially when trying to be evil. Ivor Danvers is okay as Marr, though the character is the worst type of cliche, and Simon Williams is decent as Addison, but someone needs to check up on Gilly Cohen right now to make sure she’s stopped cackling. Ugh. Gary Russell, though, is really quite good as Thesanius at the play’s open.
David Darlington’s score is reminiscent of his Excelis work, and it is accomplished — it’s not what I would have conceived of as the score for this script, but it works quite well. The sound design is solid as well, though unfortunately the recording failed in at least one area: during the latter half of the play, especially in episode three, there are several occasions in which Bryant’s levels clip — this is especially noticeable when she is yelling with clipping and someone else is yelling back without it. John Ainsworth’s direction is a bit obvious in places but works rather well despite the source material — but wow, that cover looks great!
Overall, Nekromanteia is a disappointment. With a few rewrites and some different casting decisions, it might have been much better, but as it stands it’s a failed attempt to do something darker with the fifth Doctor. It has its redeeming moments, but overall it’s hard to recommend.
Returning to Jubilee after seeing Robert Shearman’s TV episode Dalek is a difficult proposition: while Jubilee is able to explore its themes over 2+ hours of running time, Dalek has the advantages of a better cast, better production values, and, most importantly, a visual element. However, these are not comparison pieces, even though Dalek was an adaptation — and disassociated from its TV remake, Jubilee still stands tall as one of the most thought-provoking dramas ever released by Big Finish.
There are two primary themes explored by Jubilee, the first of which is the devaluation of Daleks as threats in the minds of the population of Rochester’s England. This is another use of Daleks-as-Nazis, though it’s a rather unique perspective on the issue, very pointedly reminding us that history will repeat itself if it is not respected. The evil perpetrated by the Daleks was so awful that the people of this play cannot imagine it ever happening again — but in doing so they ignore their personal reenactment of this evil every waking minute of their lives. The image of a lone Dalek standing before an angry mob of thousands, all chanting “Exterminate,” is terrifying — and rightly it should be. This is also the most manipulative we have ever seen a Dalek, with its definition of power — the ability to do what one orders others to do — used to shocking effect.
But even as the first theme compares human nature to that of the Daleks, the second deconstructs the nature of the Daleks themselves as Shearman contemplates the extension of their ultimate mission to its natural conclusion. Terry Nation’s concept of the Daleks as ruthless, paranoid killers, hell-bent on exterminating all other forms of life, is brilliantly simplistic and effective — but it is not until Jubilee that anyone bothers to ask what happens if the Daleks actually win. The answer? They begin to destroy each other until only one Dalek is left, alone in the universe and totally insane. This is explained to the lone Dalek, and predictably it does go insane, reaching the only logical conclusion: in order to be the supreme beings of the universe, the Daleks must never become the supreme beings of the universe. Bang go the Daleks in a Douglas Adams-ian puff of logic.
And with all of this going on, Shearman still finds time to include some of the most effective set pieces ever seen in Doctor Who. The prisoner in the Tower, hinted so obviously to be Davros, is revealed to be a tortured parallel sixth Doctor — and the scene in which the Dalek approaches him for orders is horrifying. There’s also more than a small amount of dark humor — the idea of Rochester collecting dwarves and forcing them to drive around in Dalek costumes is hilariously gruesome — almost as much as their mass extermination by a real Dalek, appalled at the idea of Dalek song.
Colin Baker stars as the sixth Doctor, and his turn in the role is once again magnificent — he’s forced to run the entire range of emotions, including playing a parallel version of his own character, and acquits himself very well. Unfortunately he approaches the jubilee speech scene improperly, and quite frankly sounds terrible rather than pointed, but aside from that flaw this is a fine performance. Shearman knows this Doctor, and it is difficult to imagine any of his counterparts coping in this larger-than-life environment that is the English Empire.
Maggie Stables, however, steals the show as Evelyn, as Shearman allows her to explore her character in ways that haven’t been seen since Project: Twilight. Her career as a history professor is actually incorporated into the plot, while her natural sympathy comes to the fore in her confrontations with the Dalek. Remember, unlike Rose in Dalek, Evelyn has encountered the Daleks before (The Apocalypse Element), and her ability to show sympathy for the lone Dalek despite her history makes her scenes with it all the more effective.
Many have criticized Jubilee for making Rochester and Miriam utter cliches, but I disagree with this condemnation: as they are the leaders of the Dalek-influenced English Empire, they represent the Empire to the listeners, and as such it’s necessary for them to be over the top and melodramatic to get the point across. After all, the story isn’t about the Rochesters at all, it’s about humanity v. Daleks. Despite this, though, Martin Jarvis and Rosalind Ayres turn in excellent performances, at once terrifying and hilarious. The star supporting cast member, though, much like in Dalek, is Nicholas Briggs, who brings a shocking amount of sympathy to the lone Dalek despite retaining its cruel, manipulative nature.
Nicholas Briggs took on a huge responsibility with the sound design for this play, given its scope, but as he clearly worked closely with Shearman himself everything turns out well. The score is menacing and every locale is captured convincingly — as Briggs often designs his own productions, the direction works exceptionally well. Granted, the play may overrun to a small extent, but there isn’t a scene present which doesn’t work in one way or another — to cut it down would be to make it smoother but would also lose an effective element of the atmosphere. Shearman directed the Dalek scenes so that Briggs could perform opposite the actors, and the fact that these scenes are among the play’s most effective points to his ability in this role.
Jubilee isn’t a perfect production and doesn’t feel quite as polished as Shearman’s first two Big Finish scripts. However, the sheer quantity of ideas on display coupled with the author’s knack for creating effective set pieces makes this arguably the most thought-provoking Doctor Who audio to date. For that reason alone it achieves must-own status; that it is strongly effective as a piece of drama as well simply elevates it to that elusive 10 rating.
After a December release the previous year with comedic overtones and a positive audience reaction, it’s not particularly surprising to learn that Big Finish went down exactly the same road for their following Christmas release. Keeping Bonnie Langford around was of course necessary, but this time instead of Colin Baker they opted for the season 24 Sylvester McCoy, and Gareth Roberts returned with Clayton Hickman to pen the script. It’s a shame, then, that rather than recapturing the old magic, they merely managed to deliver a smug, unfunny travesty of a play.
The primary appeal of The One Doctor was its satirization of the original television series — the concept of someone masquerading as the Doctor in order to pull confidence tricks on unsuspecting civilizations is brilliant — but obviously the same technique couldn’t have been used twice in a row. But rather than exploring a different comedic path, the authors decided to pen another satire, this time of American science fiction. While I agree that much of American scifi is unnecessarily bleak and cliche-ridden, I do not perceive it as deserving of mockery on this scale. I’m currently in the process of watching Babylon 5, and I’ve been blown away — and the idea of two *Doctor Who* writers thinking they’re entitled to the satiric high ground is patently ludicrous. Yes, B5 may have given us “Grail,” but Doctor Who gave us “The Monster of Peladon.”
Of course, there’s nothing wrong with satire on its face, but Bang-Bang-A-Boom! is shockingly mean-spirited. Virtually every character is an irredeemable idiot, and the writing makes them annoying rather than amusing. It can be funny to repeat a joke past the point of humor, but that presupposes the joke achieved humor to begin with — the “death sting” and the “I felt so.. helpless!” elements are painfully unfunny and draw the fingers to the fast-forward button. Ironically enough, this script, played (relatively) straight could have made an amusing Star Trek episode — but rather than letting the characters play it straight and allowing the humor to arise from the ridiculous situation, Roberts and Hickman fill the play with over-the-top cliches designed only to draw attention to themselves.
Wrapped up in all of this is Sylvester McCoy, whose attempt to return to his early characterization of the Doctor is a partial success. McCoy turns in one of the hurried, lazy line readings to which we’ve become accustomed, but fortunately the nature of his character is such that his manic stumbling over lines sounds appropriate rather than out of place. The scene in which he is seduced by Angvia is utterly cringeworthy, failing to provoke laughter but rather causing this listener to wonder “Is nothing sacred?!”
Bonnie Langford’s performance is somewhat better, which is interesting as it’s basically the same sort of thing we heard in season 24. I suspect that her acting has simply changed with age, as she’s actually quite likeable rather than grating despite the situation not really allowing for this shift. The competent-companion-with-bumbling-Doctor concept is amusing, certainly, but as with most everything else here it’s overplayed.
The supporting cast is monstrous, and there’s hardly a good performance to be found in the crowd. Graeme Garden was reportedly hilarious in the minds of his co-stars, but I fail to see why. Patricia Quinn’s turn as Angvia is grating on the ears, though not as annoying as Jane Goddard’s Geri Pakhar. Sabina Franklyn does well as Harcourt, though the material itself is the worst sort of cliche, while I have to say I found David Tughan hilarious as Logan, even if I’d never heard of the person he was supposedly impersonating.
Andy Hardwick and Gareth Jenkins provide mostly excellent sound design, replicating the typical sounds of US sci-fi space stations. The music, however, is poor — granted, it fits perfectly with the tone of the piece, but as that tone is overwrought, unsubtle, and unfunny, it’s hard to give it a good grade. It’s hard to comment on Nicholas Pegg’s direction, but it appears that the production aimed to wring every last possibility of humor from the script — and if you haven’t guessed from the tone of this review, I don’t think it succeeded. I do, however, like the inclusion of the McCoy theme, which fits with the mood of the play and is also more appropriate to the range in general than the ‘70s theme. The BBC-style continuity announcements are funny as well.
I qualify the preceding statements by pointing out that this play simply did not feature my preferred style of humor. For what it is, it’s done well, but this still rubbed me the wrong way and left me angry and annoyed at the conclusion. Some people will no doubt love this play, but, to me, The One Doctor was about as funny as this play wasn’t.
After the pseudohistorical delight that was The Eye of the Scorpion, it’s really no surprise to see Big Finish going right back at it, plunging the new Doctor/Peri/Erimem team into another historical adventure, this one transpiring in seventeenth-century France. Authors Cavan Scott and Mark Wright, meanwhile, depart radically from the tone of their first audio (Project: Twilight) to offer a fun Parisian romp. The result? A nearly flawless production.
The historical genre always seems to succeed within Doctor Who on television for a number of reasons, but one of the main reasons was the BBC itself. Rooted in a history of producing costume dramas, the BBC could make much more convincing, expensive-looking Doctor Who when it took place on the streets of Victorian London rather than on a moon of Saturn. However, Big Finish suffers no such budgetary restrictions, so why have the historical stories fared so well on audio? Simple: the characters and settings are already written. Rather than introducing an alien society, the author is introducing a familiar human society to which audiences are naturally sympathetic, regardless of the story’s tone.
Tone, however, is equally significant. When one recalls the other Doctor Who story set in sixteenth- or seventeenth-century France — The Massacre of St. Bartholomew’s Eve — one recalls one of the original series’ bleakest, most dark tales. The Church and the Crown is absolutely not that — it is a witty romp, full of exciting swordfighting and verbal exchanges to rival the best of the Dumas adaptations. Rather than an out-and-out satire like the following month’s Bang-Bang-A-Boom!, The Church and the Crown’s comedy lies with its characters — the settings are serious and mostly realistic, which in some respects makes the play funnier and helps to emphasize the seriousness of the torture scene.
Peter Davison is, as expected, in control of proceedings as the Doctor. He’s a naturally-talented comic actor, something which wasn’t explored to any great extent on screen, and here we see his talent on display as he shows remarkable ease in give-and-takes with Richelieu and others. This Doctor would, of course, be totally out of place in season 21, but that’s a common complaint and not one that should interfere with one’s enjoyment of the play — Davison is clearly enjoying himself and it’s refreshing to hear the fifth Doctor actually having fun with his companions.
The old mainstay of a Doctor Who plot, that of the doppelganger, rears its head in this play, with Peri and Queen Anne turning out to be doubles. This allows Nicola Bryant to act in a Doctor Who story without adopting an American accent, and she is surprisingly good as the cynical queen. Of course, this mainly leaves Peri to be captured and freed, but then this is a Doctor Who historical, after all.
Caroline Morris’s first story as a fully-fledged companion is a stunning success. Unlike her “predecessor,” Leela, Erimem comes from a civilized society and, as such, she has little trouble fitting in at the French court. Indeed, the scenes showing her to be more adept than the Doctor at such situations are both effective and hilarious. Yet she’s still very new to travelling, and it’s equally wonderful to hear her sheer joy at discovering new things — the new concept of glass in a window is a nice little piece of writing.
With respect to its supporting characters, The Church and the Crown is quite reminiscent of a Robert Holmes script. Between Andy Coleman as Rouffet and Peter John as Delmarre, and Amdrew Mackay as Louis and Michael Shallard as Richelieu, as well as Nicola Bryant and Wendy Albiston as de Chevreuse, double-acts abound, and the characters and actors spark off each other with an easy, natural rhythm. Mackay is also quite funny as Blind Maurice — you wouldn’t know the two characters were the same actor without checking. It’s something of a repetitive task to praise BF for its casting choices, but this is yet another example of a superb supporting cast.
The sound design by Gareth Jenkins is masterful, as he presents swordfights that sound exactly like their epic, overblown film counterparts — and captures a nice sense of scale at the same time. Russell Stone’s score is magnificent, a fast-paced period piece that adds to the lighthearted tone of the proceedings and contributes to both the humor and the drama. Gary Russell, meanwhile, offers his usual solid direction, demonstrating a keen understanding of the script. The “quick cut” to Rouffet and Delmarre fighting is handled perfectly. Clayton Hickman’s work on the cover is great, too — it looks like Davison was photographed in that hat.
When the best of the best Big Finish productions are identified, we often point to the works of Shearman or Platt, those plays which carry huge dramatic weight or reinvent Doctor Who history. In doing so we often overlook gems like The Church and the Crown, a triumph of the historical genre and one of the best productions in BF history.
The third “experimental” release in a row for BF and the first offering from novel scribe Simon A. Forward, The Sandman poses an interesting question: what if, instead of being the hero, the Doctor is a villain? Besides the central question, the play also strongly develops a new alien race and features excellent production work, marking yet another strong offering from Big Finish.
Can the Doctor be a villain? Of course, the circumstances described by the play do not label him as such from an objective standpoint (or at least the standards of objectivity that we find appropriate). But is it hard to believe that other races view him with fear? The NAs loved to play up the “Ka Faraq Gatri” concept of the Daleks viewing him as a mythological terror, and I’m sure the various other recurring monsters hold no love for the Doctor. But here, Forward offers a race that views the Doctor as a villain but isn’t itself evil. And though it’s clear that the Doctor won’t be revealed to be truly evil, Colin Baker’s performance coupled by the perspective of the aliens gives the listener some moments of doubt.
None of this could be possible without the development of the Galyari. From the descriptions of the Clutch, to the concept of the Srushkubr memory eggs, to the fleshing out of the individual character types among the Galyari, this is one of the most detailed, believeable alien races ever created for Doctor Who. It’s rare to see a creation that is noticeably alien but still sympathetic without resorting to obvious human tropes, but Forward has constantly demonstrated in his work that he is a master of characterization. And, as I mentioned in another review, I’ve got time for any author that makes his actors say words like Srushkubr with a straight face.
Of course, if any actor is going to work his tongue around complicated alien terminology, it’s Colin Baker, who turns in a very strong performance as the sixth Doctor. Because he’s forced to assume the role of villain in the eyes of the Galyari, he must return to the early season 22 portrayal of the Doctor as angry and unstable, and he’s entirely convincing. Baker has a very threatening voice when he turns his mind to it, but he allows a small amount of hesitation creep into his voice when threatening the Galyari — it doesn’t get much better than this from the lead actor.
Unfortunately, in her first appearance since Project: Twilight, Maggie Stables doesn’t get anything to do as Evelyn. Sure, she wanders around with the Doctor and passes disapproving commentary, but this is some of the least effectiveness we’ve ever seen out of the companion role. This doesn’t negatively impact the play — as a piece of drama it functions well, it’s just not very “modern” Doctor Who in that respect — but if you’re listening for some quality Evelyn stuff you’ll be disappointed. Stables does well with the material, though.
As well-developed as Forward makes his characters, their success would not be achieved without solid acting — and the cast of The Sandman is very good indeed. Anneke Wills returns to Doctor Who as Nrosha, and her bitter, hostile performance is miles from what we saw on television — but it’s excellent all the same. Ian Hogg is equally powerful as Voshkar, while the Marks Donovan and Wharton are strong in support. Stephanie Colburn’s turn as Nintaru, coupled with the voice filter, is a bit annoying, but surely that’s the point.
Gary Russell directs The Sandman with his usual skill, drawing solid performances from his actors and keeping proceedings to a good pace. It’s wonderful to have a director that understands a complicated script, and that is clearly in evidence here. Gareth Jenkins’ sound design presents a nicely alien environment, and his work with the birdsong is distinctive and fascinating. Russell Stone’s score, meanwhile, is of course excellent, and it’s much darker and more dramatic than some of his more experimental offerings.
Overall, The Sandman is another excellent Big Finish production. There are hardly any flaws on display, and though it doesn’t aspire to any particular heights of greatness it reaches them all the same. With excellent characterization, a fine plot, and solid acting, it’s hard to go wrong with this play.
In my previous review of …ish, I expressed my happiness that BF started to take storytelling risks, pushing the boundaries into areas previously unexplored by Doctor Who. Joseph Lidster’s The Rapture is the second example of that trend to be released in two months, taking place as it does in and around the Ibiza club scene. Though it suffers dramatically in places, Lidster uses the setting to help explore human emotion, and he succeeds in this attempt.
The Rapture is often savaged in reviews, and unfortunately the reason why is down to simple prejudice. The plot of the Rapture isn’t nearly the worst we’ve ever seen, the characterization is excellent, and the direction is innovative. It’s not the best release in BF history by a long shot, but it’s no Minuet in Hell, either — but it’s treated as such. Why? Because the plot deals with young people combatting depression. Regardless of how well written such a script is, it will be casually dismissed because older adults don’t like listening to their younger counterparts struggle to achieve stability. The Rapture is certainly not pleasant to listen to at all times, as it puts most of its characters through the emotional wringer, but this characterization is, for the most part, spot-on: Caitriona is the best example of this, Lidster capturing perfectly the manifestation of depression in a young woman.
Unfortunately, there isn’t much of a dramatic backbone to The Rapture. The basic plot, Jude-and-Gabriel-are-angels-no-wait-they’re-actually-aliens, isn’t exactly the most original we’ve ever seen, and the resolution amounts mostly to two groups of people shouting at each other for ten minutes. By the time the Doctor has avoided capture by crawling through a ventilation duct — the author even having the stones to have him comment on it — it’s obvious there isn’t much going on here. Which is a shame, because this play is full of beautiful little character moments — the Doctor being friends with a beach café owner, Gustavo, is strangely appropriate, and Gustavo’s revelation as a villain at the end of episode three serves as one of the best-produced cliffhangers BF has ever done.
Sylvester McCoy’s performance here is mostly strong, though he does lapse into overacting when required to shout. He also shows another problem characteristic of his weaker BF performances: emphasizing the wrong syllables in his lines. I’ve said before that McCoy clearly requires strong direction to turn in a great performance, as here it sounds like he’s just tearing through the script without adequate preparation. However, when he’s on, he’s great, as with the aforementioned episode 3 cliffhanger — his disbelieving cry of “Gustavo!” is note-perfect.
Unfortunately, this play also features Sophie Aldred as Ace. This is yet another horrible performance from Aldred, whose attempts to sound like a young person fitting in in episode 1 are cringeworthy. The character seems to be written well — in light of the recent events of Colditz, the revelation that she has a long-lost brother would naturally be disturbing — but Aldred spends the entire play whipped into a frenzy of hysteria, shouting all her lines and generally sounding embarrassing. However, by the end of the play, the stupid “McShane” nonsense seems to have ended, as everyone’s calling her Dorothy — hopefully by The Harvest she’ll have matured enough to actually use her real name, because hearing McShane is just jarring on the ears, especially when all the liner notes and cast lists call her Ace anyway.
The supporting cast is solid all around. Matthew Brenher and Neil Henry play off each other very well as Jude and Gabriel — the relationship is captured expertly by the two. David John is good as Liam, as unlike Aldred he sounds somewhat realistic in his discovery of a long-lost sister. It’s nice to hear someone with an actual Spanish accent playing Gustavo, and Carlos Riera acts the part well. Anne Bird is excellent as Caitriona — the performance might be annoying, but it’s certainly accurate. And I’ve never heard of Tony Blackburn, but I’m going to assume he played himself well.
Though I praise Gary Russell’s direction in almost all of his productions, special mention must be made here of Jason Haigh-Ellery’s first effort for the Doctor Who range. This is far and away the most innovatively-directed play of Big Finish’s first thirty-six, as the distribution of scenes follows the same pattern one might see on a club mix. Much of this is also down to the sound design, as Jim Mortimore and Jane Elphinstone (along with Simon Robinson and Feel) convincingly (at least to someone like me who’s never been there) recreate Ibiza and provide an excellent score. The remix of the main theme is a particular delight, as is the manner of its introduction at the opening of the play. And Clayton Hickman’s cover design is absolutely stunning.
The Rapture has its flaws, no doubt. Between some questionable acting from the regulars and a shaky plot, there are certainly complaints that can be made. However, Lidster’s characterization and a stellar production raise the play to at least an average level — and The Rapture is worth hearing just to experience a new variety of Doctor Who.
Not to everyone’s taste, but recommended all the same.
It is rare nowadays to see something truly original in Doctor Who. This is not a criticism, of course, as inventing new territory to explore isn’t exactly easy, but forty years of accumulated material can become repetitive from time to time. Phil Pascoe’s …ish is thus quite refreshing in this sense: Pascoe provides a plot dealing with the intricacies of language, something which has not been explored thus far in Doctor Who.
The problem with scripts such as …ish is reconciling an objective review of the material with one’s own personal views. I absolutely cannot stand so-called logophiles — it’s one thing to speak using proper grammar and appropriate vocabulary, but it’s quite another to use unnecessarily florid, overcomplicated language merely for the purposes of self-indulgence. Meeting one person who behaves in this manner infuriates me, so imagine my reaction to a play set at a college populated with nothing but!
Furthermore, I am not enamored with the play’s view of the English language as transcendental. The concept of English as inherently superior, as a language that will never die out when all others will, as somehow “special” as compared to other languages, is remarkably close-minded. It’s one thing to accept the fact that everyone in Doctor Who speaks English because it’s a dramatic convention — indeed, in The Masque of Mandragora there’s even an attempt to explain this — but when you draw attention to this fact and attempt to justify it you approach a backward, colonial mentality. English isn’t even the most widely-spoken language on Earth; why, other than the fact that it’s the primary language of the West, will it spread through the universe like none other? Or are we to assume that Earth will function in the same culturally imperialist manner as the modern West? Is there a McDonald’s on the corner at this college?
Add to this the fact that the play is monumentally uninteresting and …ish falls down on far too many levels. The threat of language becoming disassociated from meaning is far too large to comprehend (unless you’re really into your Derrida), and a group of people repeating “ish” over and over cannot convey the proper scope. Despite some of the thought-provoking dialogue, the action takes place primarily in two locations between which the characters walk. Ultimately, this play suffers from the same problem as many of the season five base-under-siege stories: if the Earth is being invaded, it’s just not interesting to have people standing around watching a radar screen and telling you about it. Similarly, there may be a threat of the universe being reduced to chaos, but all the audience hears is a group of people speaking about the threat in abstract terms. This is the main problem with the play: Pascoe’s concepts are imaginative but he wraps them in a bog-standard Doctor Who plot.
It goes without saying that Colin Baker is great in this, since it’s well known that he loves verbally-complicated material. There are a number of moments wherein Baker gets to take the stage and yell, just as the best of his TV stories, and he plays them to the hilt — but he’s also given some fine contemplative moments and his relationship with Peri is entertaining.
Nicola Bryant is also strong as Peri. While her earlier appearance alongside Baker (Justin Richards’ Whispers of Terror) featured the argumentative relationship so familiar from season 22, here Pascoe writes a much calmer, friendlier series of interactions. It’s also nice to have a script that draws attention to the differences between Peri’s American English and the Doctor’s (and the surrounding show’s) English — but of course this amounts mostly to mockery of the American tongue.
Moray Treadwell’s performance as Book is wonderful, as he takes a standard unemotional artificial intelligence character and slowly fleshes it out with well-delivered deadpan humor and a surprisingly poignant performance. Marie Collett and Oliver Hume do well as Osefa and Cawdrey, while Chris Eley gives Warren just the right amount of insanity. Pascoe’s writing is very strong on character, as every member of the small supporting cast is given multiple dimensions.
On the production front, Neil Clappison provides his first sound design work for the Doctor Who series. The design is unique — he gives a distinct filter to Book’s voice while playing some fun tricks with the “props” such as the babel masters. His score is quite effective, as he allows it to remain in the background at all times — and there’s a great use of sound in the background of most scenes that quietly builds up a nervous sense of dread. Nicholas Briggs takes the director’s chair, and, considering the nature of the script, draws some amazing performances from his actors, none of whom sound as though they’re new to the material.
Overall, I can’t rate …ish very highly, as I do not believe it functions well as a piece of audio drama. My personal opinion of the play is very low, but that’s a function of my bias against much of the material — as a Doctor Who play it’s high-concept but otherwise rather boring. I think there’s a great story to be told using the same concepts, but this was off on the wrong foot from the beginning. It’s better than I remembered, but I still can’t bring myself to recommend it.
By their nature, subscriber (or indeed DWM) freebies are not expected to be particularly deep, dramatic adventures — a fact I’m sure many people overlooked when considering that The Maltese Penguin was written by Robert Shearman. The Holy Terror or Jubilee it is not, but it is a fun little pastiche of detective films noir — and I doubt anyone could argue it’s not worth the cost.
This is very much a companion-oriented story, with the Doctor barely appearing in the action. However, the objective here is to create a comedic mood piece — we’ve got actors doing impressions of more famous counterparts (and sometimes of each other), an over the top musical score, and a ludicrous plot right out of the worst of the detective genre. But despite the material, the characters (minus ironic commentary from the Doctor from time to time) take the plot quite seriously, meaning that proceedings never degenerate into outright mockery. Quite simply, this makes the play a lot of fun to hear — it’s a familiar universe with new trappings.
Despite the lack of involvement from the Doctor, Colin Baker is very much the star of the show, as Frobisher brilliantly disguises himself as the Doctor for most of the play. This forces Baker to imitate Robert Jezek’s New York accent, and though objectively it’s of course terrible, it works for the same reason the accents in Invaders from Mars succeeded so well: this is demonstrably not an effort to create American accents but rather to create comedy. Of course, Baker also appears as the sixth Doctor, and he gives a very sympathetic performance, admitting loneliness when bereft of companionship.
Robert Jezek performs as Frobisher in penguin form (and as narrator) and effortlessly slips back into the role he perfected in The Holy Terror. He vacillates between cowardice and bravery, much as before, and even shows involvement in a love story, something that comes off very well. One never thinks of the character as Jezek doing a voice, something which speaks very well of his ability to inhabit the role.
As for the guest cast, Toby Longworth does his best Sydney Greenstreet impression as the villainous Josiah Dogbolter while simultaneously injecting the role with some exceptional comedic timing. BF sound wizard Alistair Lock, meanwhile, appears as Peter Lorre as Chandler, and this impression is similarly impressive. Jane Goddard is sufficiently sultry as Alicia.
The production is perfectly in line with Shearman’s script, as David Darlington fills the play with a distinctive score. The sound design lends a noirish feel, but the highlight of all has to be the reworking of the Doctor Who theme at the play’s conclusion. Gary Russell’s direction is excellent as usual — it’s obvious the cast is having a ball and the enthusiasm bleeds over to the listener.
Ultimately, The Maltese Penguin is nothing more than a pleasant, humorous diversion from the epic McGann season and the bleak Excelis trilogy. But as a subscriber freebie it works very well, providing a solid hour’s worth of humor and entertainment. Not essential listening, but a lot of fun.
There are stories which fans have waited ages to hear, and rarely do they live up to the hype. It seems like every range has a sixth-Doctor-meets-the-Brigadier story, the books have taken several shots at Liz’s departure, and the Daleks even invaded Gallifrey in The Apocalypse Element. An origin story for the Cybermen, however, had never been touched — and giving the writing job for this epic task to Marc Platt might have been the best decision Big Finish ever made.
Part of what made Genesis of the Daleks so successful was the relationship between Davros and his creations. A scientist, hell-bent upon creating an emotionless super race, is eventually overthrown and killed by his own creations who do not understand his cries for pity. However, the horror of the Cybermen lies not with the fact that they are emotionless or implacable but rather with the fact that they were once, essentially, human like us. As such, to create a Davros for the Cybermen would have been a terrible mistake. What Platt realizes in the script is simple: Cybermen were not created, per se — they evolved. The concept of the population of Mondas slowly replacing their body parts as the environment grows more unforgiving is terrifying — we, as listeners, know what’s coming and, rather than waiting for the Cyberman to leap from the shadows, watch as the people slowly turn themselves into the enemy.
It helps that Mondas has been established as Earth’s twin planet, because this allows Platt to ground the script in very human feelings. Some have condemned the script for having an indistinct time period represented on the surface, while others have condemned the portrayal of Mondas for being too human — but this misses the forest for the trees. Mondas *has* to be a human society or else the terror will be partially lost on the audience. Russell T. Davies has said of the new series that it revolves mostly around Earth because people don’t care as much about the political strife of the planet Zargax, and he’s absolutely correct: had Platt taken the time to flesh out an alien society, Spare Parts would simply not have been as effective.
Peter Davison’s performance in Spare Parts is absolutely astonishing, and it ranks as the best, to my ears, of any of the Doctors in the initial thirty-four releases. Platt understands the character better than most, and here we see the Doctor, still damaged by the loss of Adric, surrounded by the evolution of the very beings he has grown to hate. As such he’s much more desperate than usual, and his relationship with his companion is stretched almost to the breaking point. The use of the Doctor as model for the Cybermen could have been nothing more than a tired fannish indulgence, but the closeness of the event to Adric’s death makes it heartbreakingly poignant. This is a Doctor who is also very well characterized in relationship to his chronological portrayal on television — rather than the fatalist of season 21, this fifth Doctor is still willing to take up the mantle and fight against insurmountable odds, even when he knows from the beginning that he’s going to lose.
Balancing the Doctor is Nyssa, who manages to keep a level head even as the Doctor flies off the handle. Nyssa has always been one of my favorite companions simply because she’s intelligent and practical — to my mind, she got the short end of the stick on television because she had so many other companions to contend with. Spare Parts betters any portrayal of Nyssa on television — here she’s the ultimate altruist, immediately willing to sacrifice herself to help the people of Mondas and, though she and the Doctor fundamentally disagree, she still serves as his moral compass throughout much of the play. Sarah Sutton’s performance is incredibly nuanced — the character’s diction has always been somewhat flat but here it’s invested with a great deal of emotion, especially regarding the issue of Adric.
It’s impossible to discuss the supporting cast without first dealing with the Hartley family, whose tribulations encapsulate the entire play. Paul Copley, Kathryn Guck, and Jim Hartley are superb: Platt writes a deliberately cliched working-class family, with loving father, rebellious son, and idealistic daughter, and destroys their world — and the actors shift from their initial cliches to heartwrenching performances as they crumble along with Mondas. It’s appropriate, meanwhile, that Doctorman Allan is the moral high point of the higher-ups on Mondas, as she’s a pessimistic alcoholic — Sally Knyvette nails the role, and she and Davison work quite well together. With Pamela Binns surprisingly sympathetic as Sisterman Constant, and Derren Nesbitt creepy as Thomas Dodd, it’s hard to imagine the supporting cast could be any better. Nicholas Briggs provides the voices of Zheng and the other Cybermen, but his work as the Cyber-converted Yvonne might be the best of the play — it’s a beautiful performance that’s absolutely shattering.
The sound design provided by Gareth Jenkins is, as we’ve come to expect, exceptional — he expertly recaptures the voices of the original Cybermen and, combined with Russell Stone’s score, gives the play a very quiet sense of impending doom. Stone should be commended as well, though I’ve never heard anything approaching a bad score from the man. It should come as no surprise that Gary Russell directed this play, as he holds everything together exceptionally well — all involved should be proud. And the cover’s amazing.
Many times, ideas like “Genesis of the Cybermen” are dismissed as fannish indulgence before they even get off the ground. Oftentimes this is the appropriate reaction, but every so often a long-awaited concept lives up to the hype and even surpasses it. Such is the nature of Spare Parts, one of the best productions BF has ever released and essential listening for every Doctor Who fan.
After the complete waste of time that was the first Paul McGann season from Big Finish, one could be forgiven for thinking that the opportunity to tell new, unrestrained Doctor Who stories had been well and truly wasted. However, with a run of three exceptional plays to start season 2 followed by two slightly less capable — but still highly enjoyable — offerings, all of those bad feelings were wiped away. But season 2 set itself as a story arc, meaning that the season finale, Alan Barnes’ Neverland, needed to be the best of the lot (or close to it) to fulfill the promise of its early episodes.
Unfortunately, it was the worst offering since the first season.
It’s obvious from the first minute that Barnes is in love with Gallifrey and its mythology, as the opening hook of the story features a voice in the Matrix recounting historical events getting things wrong before degenerating into madness. Effective though this may be to the informed, for those who don’t recognize the Matrix background effects and have no idea what the voice is talking about (and that has to be the majority of the audience), I can’t see where this opening is anything but incomprehensible. Not since The Sirens of Time has a story been opened in such inaccessible fashion.
Sadly, things don’t get better. Here’s the plot of Neverland in a nutshell: the Time Lords have been erasing criminals from time, causing them to appear in a universe of anti-time. These criminals want revenge, so they trick the Time Lords into thinking that Rassilon is trapped in the anti-time universe. After capturing the Doctor and Charley, Romana and Vansell (and other various Gallifreyans) use Charley’s anomalous relationship with time to journey into the anti-time universe to find Rassilon. The anti-time people give them what they say is Rassilon but is in fact, essentially, a bomb. Just before it blows up Gallifrey, the Doctor saves the day. That sounds to me like a solid four-part Doctor Who story — here, it’s a needlessly-long six parter that was apparently edited down from an eight- or ten-part length. And there’s absolutely no drama involved — while Barnes has some great concepts in mind, everything is resolved by ridiculously long, drawn-out scenes of characters explaining the plot to one another. The threats are impossible to understand in real-world terms, leading to distancing instances of technobabble. And the scripting is the worst since Storm Warning, as everyone feels the need to describe their surroundings to one another. Barnes simply is not a good author for audio, and this script again demonstrates why.
Paul McGann, for his part, does a fine job as the Doctor. He has to run the gamut of emotions from apprehension to horror to heroism to love, and he performs the role with his usual skill. However, Barnes falls into the trap of self-referential dialogue: why is it that the eighth Doctor has to be the one to say things like “I’m the Doctor, I never give up”? It’s just annoying, makes the character a parody of itself, and adds nothing to the drama. This is a shame, because Barnes writes a pretty good Doctor otherwise, especially with his heated threats to Vansell and the anti-time people regarding Charley’s safety.
Speaking of Charley, India Fisher’s performance is of the same strong caliber that has been seen throughout this second season. The character is pushed to the emotional limit — indeed, she decides to sacrifice her life at one point — and Fisher acts it well, rarely slipping into melodrama or overacting. However, another flaw in the script rears its head here: the Doctor/Charley exchanges as she prepares to sacrifice herself. The “I love you” stuff is fine in theory, but here it just comes across as bad soap writing, and the fact that the Doctor apparently won’t sacrifice his friends for any reason, no matter how dire the situation, simply emasculates the character.
Lalla Ward returns to the role of Romana for the second time in the Big Finish range, and her performance is once again admirable. She captures the same combination of aloofness and warmth seen in the television series, and portrays the alt-universe Imperiatrix with suitable menace. There’s a point where she shifts back into the companion role with McGann and it works very well — this was a great omen for the upcoming Shada play. Anthony Keetch turns in a fine final performance as Vansell, lending the traitorous character a suitable level of disguised heroism. And Don Warrington is wonderful as Rassilon, despite the fact that the entire portrayal of the character is torn up and thrown away in Zagreus. The rest of the cast is utterly forgettable, both in performance and in scripting.
What most disappoints about plays such as this is the relationship of the script to the quality of the production: such an amazing design job should not be let down by the script, but unfortunately it is. Alistair Lock’s sound design is excellent as always — he captures the anti-time universe, giving it a unique sound, while Nicholas Briggs adds his usual type of score: subtle, never overwhelming, yet very effective. And thank God that Gary Russell was able to direct this play and cut it down from what I’m sure was a five-hour script to begin with.
Overall, Neverland is a crushing disappointment. Despite some great ideas, and an imaginative and unique way to resolve the Charley paradox, it falls flat on its face thanks to dull, uninspired scripting. It doesn’t matter how good the performances are or the production is when they’re coming together to say something completely devoid of interest. Is it actively bad, like Storm Warning or Minuet in Hell? No, but it’s a crushing bore, and with Doctor Who that’s almost as bad.
Necessary to hear, but I still can’t recommend it.
From Styre on 079 – Night Thoughts
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From Styre on 078 – Pier Pressure
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From Styre on 077 – Other Lives
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From Styre on 076 – Singularity
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From Styre on 075 – Scaredy Cat
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From Styre on 074 – Live 34
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From Styre on 073 – Thicker than Water
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From Styre on 072 – Terror Firma
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From Styre on 071 – The Council of Nicaea
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From Styre on 070 – Unregenerate!
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From Styre on 069 – Three’s a Crowd
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From Styre on 068 – Catch-1782
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From Styre on 067 – Dreamtime
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From Styre on 066 – The Game
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From Styre on 065 – The Juggernauts
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From Styre on 064 – The Next Life
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From Styre on 063 – Caerdroia
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From Styre on 062 – The Last
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From Styre on 061 – Faith Stealer
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From Styre on 060 – Medicinal Purposes
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From Styre on 059 – The Roof of the World
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From Phill on 1.1 - Oh No It Isn't
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From Octafish on 1.1 - Oh No It Isn't
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From Styre on 058 – The Harvest
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From Styre on 057 – Arrangements for War
Go to comment2016/05/08 at 12:10 am
From Styre on 056 – The Axis of Insanity
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From Styre on 055 – The Twilight Kingdom
Go to comment2016/05/08 at 12:08 am
From Styre on 054 – The Natural History of Fear
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From Phill on 051 – The Wormery
Go to comment2016/05/07 at 11:53 pm
From Styre on 053 – The Creed of the Kromon
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From Styre on 052 – Scherzo
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From Styre on 051 – The Wormery
Go to comment2016/05/07 at 11:49 pm
From Styre on 050 – Zagreus
Go to comment2016/05/07 at 11:47 pm
From Styre on 048 – Davros
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From Styre on 047 – Omega
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From Styre on 046 – Flip-Flop
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From Styre on 045 – Project: Lazarus
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From Styre on 044 – Creatures of Beauty
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From Styre on 043 – Doctor Who and The Pirates
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From Styre on 042 – The Dark Flame
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From Styre on 041 – Nekromanteia
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From Styre on 040 – Jubilee
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From Styre on 039 – Bang-Bang-A-Boom!
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From Styre on 038 – The Church and the Crown
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From Styre on 037 – The Sandman
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From Styre on 036 – The Rapture
Go to comment2016/05/07 at 11:31 pm
From Styre on 035 – …ish
Go to comment2016/05/07 at 11:30 pm
From Styre on 33.5 – The Maltese Penguin
Go to comment2016/05/07 at 11:29 pm
From Styre on 034 – Spare Parts
Go to comment2016/05/07 at 11:28 pm
From Styre on 033 – Neverland
Go to comment2016/05/07 at 11:27 pm