It’s not particularly well known, but Doctor Who has a long history of “Find Your Fate” / “Choose Your Own Adventure” books, and John Dorney embraces that history with “You Are the Doctor,” the first story in the 2015 anthology release. It actually makes a great deal of sense: just number the individual tracks and then have in-story cues about which track comes next. And there are certainly consequences: pick the wrong track and the Doctor and Ace die horribly; pick the right one and another deadly choice is soon to arrive. But as you listen, you notice the choices becoming more and more perfunctory, along with the reactions of the Porcians to those choices. That’s when you realize that Dorney has made the format a functional part of the story, and that the story works even if you just listen to the tracks in order. This doesn’t completely work – the silly tone makes it very difficult to take at all seriously, for example – but it’s a fun way to play with the audio format and a very enjoyable start to the anthology. We need more boundary-pushing work like this.
8/10
COME DIE WITH ME
The second story, Jamie Anderson’s “Come Die With Me,” isn’t structured particularly well. The Doctor and Ace show up at a spooky old house where a mad genius presents them with a murder mystery in which an incorrect guess means death. Fairly straightforward Agatha Christie-type material, but where are the victims? It turns out the victims are the previous players, and the task is to figure out who will kill you if you guess wrong. By the time this is spelled out, the story is half over, meaning the first half talk of murders is deeply confusing. And the resolution doesn’t help much: who was the original victim, anyway? Who killed that person? How did this endless cascade of murdered geniuses get started? I really like the central conceit that the previous victims are the murderers, but I don’t like how the story gets there. And Ace saves the day by catching an obvious flaw in the Doctor’s puzzle logic? Maybe I just wasn’t in the mood.
5/10
THE GRAND BETELGEUSE HOTEL
“The Grand Betelgeuse Hotel” from Doctor Who Adventures comic writer Christopher Cooper, is better than its predecessor despite one unavoidable flaw. The “planet with weird legal rules and court procedures” trope is overdone, but it’s nonetheless dramatic to hear Ace trying desperately to argue her innocence. It also underscores just how unlikely the Doctor’s adventures are – to an outsider, Ace absolutely sounds guilty at worst or an unwitting accomplice at best. But my problem, unfortunately, is with Sophie Aldred, who is asked to deliver intensely emotional lines about the Doctor and their relationship, and who is, on this particular day, not up to the task of the performance. There are certain scenes that she handles quite well; this is not one of them and it took me completely out of the story. Apart from that, though, “The Grand Betelgeuse Hotel” is a solid, entertaining story. I was hoping for a Wes Anderson pastiche, though!
6/10
DEAD TO THE WORLD
One of the best things about season 25 on television was how it mixed the humor of the early seventh Doctor era with the increasing darkness to follow. It always took its villains seriously: even in “Silver Nemesis” the threat is legitimate. Matthew Elliott’s “Dead to the World” trips up on this score: there’s an absolutely legitimate threat undercut by comedy aliens that the Doctor defeats with virtually no effort. I do like the reversal in the main plot, though: the captain is the only one who knows the Earth is in danger and she is heroically sacrificing herself and her crew to protect it – but no, she’s actually acting out of pure selfishness and saving the Earth is an extra benefit. The story doesn’t explore the implications to any great extent, but I like the moral ambiguity of someone doing the right thing for completely wrong reasons. As an aside, I think Sylvester McCoy is excellent throughout this box set: they really let him get back to his character’s comedic roots and it’s refreshing. “Dead to the World” is a valiant attempt that didn’t quite grab me, but I enjoyed the listen.
6/10
One of the more celebrated New Adventures was Andy Lane’s “All-Consuming Fire,” largely because it was well-written and because of the synopsis: the Doctor and his companions team up with Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson to battle Lovecraftian horrors! And since Big Finish produces Sherlock Holmes stories of their own, this was a natural target for an audio adaptation, in this case by Guy Adams. The result? Another success for what has become a very strong range.
Despite some of my criticisms, I have no problem with Nick Briggs’ ubiquity in the Doctor Who ranges. While I dislike his overuse in the writer’s chair, I have absolutely no issue with his talents as a director or as an actor. I mention this because some have dismissed “All-Consuming Fire” as a vanity project, given that Briggs himself plays Sherlock Holmes for Big Finish, but I don’t see the problem. In fact, this is my first experience hearing Briggs as Holmes, and I think he’s quite good! It’s akin to the classic portrayals: he’s brilliant but frustrating, arrogant but kind-hearted, and absent of the sociopathic characteristics of the modern Holmes presentations. I also like how Holmes is written: he’s intelligent enough to take everything in his stride, even a voyage to an alien world, but he’s thrown completely off his game by the Doctor, the only person on whom his famous deductions don’t work.
Frankly I’m surprised the Doctor Who/Sherlock Holmes crossover has only happened in this story. Holmes and Watson work brilliantly in a Doctor Who setting because their relationship remains strong even as Watson gets to see Holmes genuinely wrong-footed. The team of the genius detective and the pragmatic doctor works in even the most fantastic settings because it’s quite similar to the Doctor/companion relationship. I also like how Benny is presented as the star struck TARDIS crewmember while the Doctor is largely amused by the ordeal – a meta-acknowledgement of the situation, perhaps? Setting Benny opposite Watson is a delight as well. She acts entirely within character but to a man of Watson’s era she seems incredibly forward and uncouth – but he’s too much of a gentleman to point it out. Clichéd, sure, but entertaining nonetheless.
Unfortunately, the story goes a bit too far in how it tries to incorporate the Cthulhu mythos into Doctor Who. We’ve had hints at this in other (much, much worse) McCoy Big Finish stories, as well as other New Adventures, and though this story is better than many of those it doesn’t entirely work. The biggest problem is that it’s simply overcomplicated: I don’t mind the story following Holmes from Earth to another planet, but trying to introduce Lovecraftian elements with the story more than half over just clutters things up. It feels rushed and disorganized in ways the rest of the story does not – suddenly you have a villain with a motivation that is simultaneously basic and difficult to understand. The book handled this a bit better because it had more room to explore and elaborate, but the same struggles were evident there. But then that was the case with a number of the New Adventures: they were often too ambitious for their own good. That said, I’d rather have a story whose mission statement is “Sherlock Holmes and the Doctor team up to fight Azathoth!” than “It’s just like a TV episode from the 1970s!”
The production is great, both from director Scott Handcock and sound designer Alistair Lock. Sylvester McCoy is fantastic while Lisa Bowerman and Richard Earl, as Watson, have a great deal of fun. Even Ace, in her limited time, is quite clearly the “NA Ace” – and she’s quite likable. Overall, “All-Consuming Fire” is yet another strong release in the Novel Adaptations series, with only the overcrowded ending keeping it from joining the ranks of the elite. It’s Doctor Who meets Sherlock Holmes – how can you say no?
Despite shaping the entire revived Doctor Who series around the aftermath of an eternity-spanning Time War between Time Lords and Daleks, Russell T. Davies consistently refused to show the war on screen, arguing that any representation would underwhelm when compared to the audience’s imagination. But now, years later, Big Finish has secured the services of John Hurt and his War Doctor, and the first box set, “Only the Monstrous” from Nicholas Briggs, is set right in the middle of the Time War. And unfortunately it turns out that one of the most celebrated TV dramatists of all time was, shockingly, correct.
My biggest problem with “Only the Monstrous” has nothing specifically to do with the plot, or the characters, or anything like that. Rather, my biggest problem has to do with its almost total lack of imagination. Have you heard Briggs’ own Dalek Empire series? Then you’ve heard this, except this isn’t as good. Every military action we see, every strategy discussed, is done in entirely linear terms. There’s a brief mention of Time Lords “slaughtering” a faction of Daleks who can’t travel in time, but we never get to see how. There are Dalek fleets moving toward Gallifrey, transduction barriers, battle TARDISes – all hallmarks of a big, galaxy-spanning war, but absolutely no indication that this war is taking place through all eternity as the characters claim. We see Time Lords sent on a covert operation into Dalek territory, and they behave exactly like human soldiers armed with conventional weaponry. The Daleks are said to be hiding in a “null zone” where time travel is impossible, but this idea isn’t actually put to use, as all the scenes there are the same as all the scenes set elsewhere. Even the moment at the beginning, when the Time Lords earn a great victory against the Daleks, just uses the Time Destructor from “The Daleks’ Masterplan.” Sure, this reference tickles the fan gene, but all we hear is a giant explosion when it goes off. This is a huge opportunity for Big Finish to tell stories that we couldn’t see on television, and all we get from the first set is a bog-standard war epic. Great?
Of course, the other huge draw is the War Doctor himself. John Hurt is absolutely fantastic, but then you’d expect nothing less from an Oscar-nominated star – he gives this Doctor a fantastic combination of grumpiness, softness, and weariness. We’re rapidly faced with the difficulty of not using the name “Doctor,” but he defaults instead to John Smith, which is satisfying enough. Naturally, much of the story is devoted to demonstrating how different he is from his other incarnations, but I found that it mostly flagged up similarities. Part of the problem is the undergraduate pontification on war – “war is the embodiment of hypocrisy” and so forth – but a bigger part is that the Doctor doesn’t seem all that different. Briggs sets up a scene where the Doctor is forced to choose between two distasteful options – and it’s so obviously a riff on “The Parting of the Ways” it’s groan-worthy! I mean, really, a Dalek yelling “coward or monster?” – and the Doctor chooses the less distasteful of the two. Yes, this is different from the modern portrayal of the Doctor, who normally rejects the choice entirely and finds a way to save everyone, but what it does more than anything is make the “normal” Doctor seem like an irrational pacifist. This was addressed with much greater depth and sensitivity in “The Resurrection of Mars” two-part Eighth Doctor Adventure, but even there the Doctor’s heightened morals were shown to be specific to that incarnation. What it boils down to for me is this: is there anything in “Only the Monstrous” that you can’t see the seventh Doctor doing? Because if not – and the answer for me is “no” – then what’s so different about this Doctor?
There’s also a long segment about a faction of Time Lords who are so weary of the war that they want to negotiate peace with the Daleks. Everyone assumes that the Doctor is going to associate with the pacifists, but they were wrong, because this is the War Doctor! He’s much different from his other selves, and in a shocking revelation, he doesn’t want peace with the Daleks! Except, again, this is entirely consistent with his previous (and future) characterization, which has always shown him to be willing to kill Daleks without a moment’s hesitation while considering them utterly irredeemable. Add to that the fact that the peace plan involves the deaths of untold billions of people across a thousand worlds, and what other reaction did they expect? Instead of being shocked that the Doctor was unwilling to sue for peace, I was shocked that the Time Lords were so totally ignorant about the Doctor’s motivations and experiences. This makes Ollistra (Jacqueline Pearce) seem stupid, not cunning.
Otherwise, everything about this is generic and predictable. We see an idyllic society and then revisit it years later as a ravaged disaster under Dalek rule, we have the Daleks going back on a deal just like they always do, we get a cliffhanger with Daleks chanting something bizarrely out of character, and so forth. There’s even a second race of genocidal killers, and we know they’re genocidal because the Doctor says the word “genocidal” about five thousand times in the first episode alone. All we need is two rebels to fall in love and we’ll complete the bingo card. The production, from director Briggs and sound designer Howard Carter is pretty good – it certainly feels epic – but there are definitely moments where the sound design is confusing. The theme is also about the most generic thing imaginable – it sounds like a test version of the TVM theme. Overall, “Only the Monstrous” is exactly what I feared it would be: entirely lacking in ambition. It’s not terrible or anything – it’s solidly entertaining as these things go and holds the attention throughout – but it takes staggering concepts like the Time War and the War Doctor and does the bare minimum possible with them. Hopefully future War Doctor sets will make more of an effort – the new series license should be taken as more than just an opportunity to grind out generic Doctor Who stories with slightly different trappings.
The seventh Virgin novel adaptation from Big Finish is “Theatre of War,” originally written and adapted here by Justin Richards. The novel never had the best reputation in fan circles, so I’m not sure what drove the decision to adapt it – maybe because it introduces Braxiatel, or because Big Finish has a long history of working with Richards? In any case, the final product is a solid Doctor Who story that works on a refreshingly ambitious scale.
I suspect there’s a subconscious tendency among Big Finish writers to mimic the scale and budget of the TV stories. There are a lot of stories that take place across a few rooms on a spaceship, or in a series of easily filmable country houses and pubs. “Theatre of War,” on the other hand, starts in the ruins of a theater on a rain-swept planet before shifting to the galleries and arenas of the capital of an alien empire, with long digressions at the Braxiatel Collection and inside a holographic theater projector. Every episode seems to introduce a new location, which keeps the relatively straightforward plot much more interesting than it would otherwise be.
Even the plot is something I’d like to see more of. There’s a great moment where the Doctor is told that all of his deductions have been correct but his conclusions based on those deductions have all been wrong, and it works because the listener is led through those same deductions but given more information than the Doctor. Everything Benny learns at the Collection goes against what the Doctor learns on Menaxus, and the only conclusion – that everything is a fake – is so audacious that it surprises even when you know what’s happening. Additions like the living statues and the deadly fictional characters are largely there to fill time, but they both hint at the events of the conclusion.
I also appreciate it when Doctor Who stories actually take advantage of the companions’ backgrounds, and “Theatre of War” certainly does that. While Benny’s actual qualifications are murky at times, she claims to be an archaeologist and an academic, and so the Doctor sends her on a mission to do research into the planet they’re investigating. This sounds so simple, but it rarely happens, and it’s quite refreshing to hear. Furthermore, the Braxiatel Collection is a great digression from the main story. It’s calm and peaceful, and Braxiatel himself is as polite as can be, in spite of any dark undercurrents. And the idea of the Doctor simply needing to look something up every once in a while is appealing, especially in a story with 2 hours to fill.
All that being said, there’s nothing particularly outstanding about “Theatre of War.” This is the first outing for “new Ace” since all the way back in “The Dark Flame,” and there’s little here to indicate she’s any different from the TV character. And even though the Doctor is wrong-footed by the course of events, he easily corrects course and saves the day – this doesn’t seem particularly challenging to him. The bit at the end about Brax out-scheming the Doctor doesn’t feel earned, and the brief hints at their deeper relationship don’t go far enough. It’s easy to see why Brax becomes such a major character in the spinoff media, though. The production is excellent, both Scott Handcock’s direction and Peter Doggart’s sound design – most of these adaptations have had an epic feel and “Theatre of War” is no exception. In the end, “Theatre of War” is a solid adaptation of a solid, entertaining Doctor Who story, with just enough going on to hold the interest throughout.
Joe Lidster takes on quite a challenge in “One Rule,” the fourth release in the first series of Torchwood audios from Big Finish. Unlike the first three stories, “One Rule” features a regular character that was never seen in Torchwood! Yes, it’s Yvonne Hartman (Tracy-Ann Oberman) from all the way back in Doctor Who TV series 2 finale “Army of Ghosts” and “Doomsday, in a story set back in 2005, right after the Auton invasion. Yvonne was a multifaceted character on TV – she was lined up opposite the Doctor, but she was genuinely concerned about humanity – and Lidster expertly portrays this here. There’s a great moment where Yvonne, who has been take-charge and unafraid of violence or intimidation, expresses dismay at Barry’s (Gareth Armstrong) racist comments. It’s moments like these that make her a sympathetic character: we might not agree with her methods but we know she’s a concerned, well-meaning person underneath. I also like how her sneering disregard for Cardiff rapidly disappears the longer she spends there, and how the hidden beauties of the city are nicely represented by Helen (Rebecca Lacey), who fakes her drunkenness to put her opponents off guard. “One Rule” is an intriguing character piece, ably directed by Barnaby Edwards, that fleshes out an underappreciated Doctor Who character. It’s another in what is becoming an unbroken string of hits from the Torchwood range.
The most disappointing element of the Early Adventures to this point has been their general reluctance to stand apart from the pack. Unlike many of the Companion Chronicles, the first six Early Adventures haven’t attempted anything particularly ambitious – at least not in storytelling terms. This changes quite drastically with Simon Guerrier’s “The Black Hole,” a story that gleefully flaunts continuity and tells a very modern-feeling story set in the midst of season 5.
The Patrick Troughton/Frazer Hines segments of “The Two Doctors” are difficult to explain on their own: not only does the progression of time mean that our beloved characters look decades older, but the Doctor is consciously doing work for the Time Lords, something that would have been utterly unheard of in Troughton’s era. The “season 6B” theory sprang up around this: that the second Doctor, after his trial but before his enforced exile, ran errands for the Time Lords, who reunited him with Jamie (and possibly Victoria) for this purpose. Guerrier evidently has no time for this idea as, in the middle of “The Black Hole,” the Doctor and Jamie head off to meet Dastari on the bidding of a Time Lord, Stattenheim Remote Control in hand, and return later talking of Sontarans. This isn’t particularly relevant to the story, but I do love the audaciousness of it, and to see that idea worked into a 1960s-themed story is quite refreshing.
Even more interesting, though, is the way Guerrier completely disregards accepted limitations on the era. We can’t have a story involving Time Lords prior to “The War Games,” right? Well we’ve got one here! Admittedly it involves some convenient memory wipes prior to the conclusion, but it’s fascinating to hear the second Doctor interacting with one of his fellow Time Lords.
The Monk! I had no idea this was coming, and for good reason: Guerrier stages the revelation that there is another Time Lord around as though it’s the story’s grand twist, then later reveals that same Time Lord is actually the Monk. It’s a simple, tricky bit of structuring that certainly paid off to me. I also like that we’re seeing more Monk stories popping up – he was the first recurring individual villain in Doctor Who, and I see no reason why he can’t pop up to menace the second Doctor. Rufus Hound is excellent in the role, coupling the Monk’s gleeful love of interference with a surprisingly sympathetic side. We don’t get to spend a lot of time getting into his character – though we see a lot more of that in the Eighth Doctor Adventures – but it’s also commendable that he isn’t an out-and-out villain.
Additionally, not only do we have a third Time Lord, Pavo, involved in the story, we get to see that Time Lord regenerate and change sex in the process! I don’t know if it’s a coincidence that this came out right around the time that “Hell Bent” first aired on TV, but that’s a mind-blowing continuity step for any Doctor Who story, never mind one from the Troughton era.
The biggest problem with “The Black Hole” is that, despite the fun continuity elements, it doesn’t really dig into its characters. There’s a potentially interesting bit with Victoria being traumatized, but while it sounds disturbing, the script never explores it. This is surprising, since Guerrier is normally all about that sort of thing, but fortunately it doesn’t detract significantly from the story, which is solid enough, if a little confusing.
As for the casting, whoever decided to have David Warner narrate the story deserves some sort of award. He’s a brilliant narrator, of course, and it really saves on confusion to have someone narrate who isn’t otherwise in the cast. Frazer Hines, meanwhile, is playing both Jamie and the second Doctor again, and yet again the problems with his Troughton impression are flagged up: he can really only capture one of Troughton’s many moods, and the more you hear it, the more you realize it’s just Hines putting on a funny voice. Lastly, Deborah Watling returns to the role of Victoria, and while her performance is considerably better than her dreadful turn in “Power Play,” it’s still not that impressive.
The production is fantastic, from Lisa Bowerman directing to the sound design and score from Toby Hrycek-Robinson. Overall, “The Black Hole” is a strong release, the best of the Early Adventures thus far, and well worth hearing. It’s not a masterpiece, but it’ll nonetheless stick around in your mind for many reasons.
The penultimate release in the 2015 monthly range comes from a new author! Yes, it’s comics writer Ian Edginton, and he brings us “Shield of the Jötunn,” the final story in the introductory trilogy for new companion Constance Clarke. There’s not much new about the story, but it’s told in a refreshing, energetic way that holds the interest throughout.
It is often useful to tell Doctor Who stories by making full use of the four-episode format, and Edginton definitely engages with that idea. The story shifts from the Doctor and Constance sneaking around an installation to something akin to survival horror to a full-blown action epic as it proceeds, meaning it’s very difficult to get bored even if you dislike any one of those things. It’s obvious that Edginton comes from the comic world, as the script often presents set pieces that seem like “splash panels” – the massive terraformer powering up, or an army of giant Vikings doing battle with an army of frost giants. But he never loses sight of the audio medium, and so we are thankfully spared the characters taking time to describe things out loud that everyone can already see.
I also enjoyed the use of flashback. The TARDIS translation circuits enable Constance to read ancient Viking runes, but instead of Miranda Raison reading out loud, the story shifts to narration by an ancient Viking chieftain (James Caroll Jordan) describing the initial invasion of Earth by the villains. When that character appears in the present day, later on, the audience is more connected to him thanks to the story’s slight divergence. It also adds variety, as we haven’t seen much in the way of flashback in Big Finish Doctor Who stories.
The characterization is the best part of “Shield of the Jötunn.” I’m not entirely sure how all of these companions fit into the sixth Doctor’s timeline, but Edginton writes Colin Baker at his most prickly and sarcastic. It’s almost uncomfortable to hear this Doctor like this after so many stories presenting him as a cuddly old grandpa, but it’s a lot of fun listening to the Doctor dispense with social niceties. Constance, meanwhile, is pretty much the “plucky young woman” archetype, but her military background is brought to the fore, and it’s good to hear a companion actively take a different approach to the Doctor. I’m also a huge fan of Dr. Hugo Macht (Michael J. Shannon), the billionaire funding the terraforming project. He professes innocence and a desire to save the world, but this is Doctor Who, so he’s secretly a megalomaniac, right? Wrong! He’s a genuinely good person trying to change the world for the better. I’m not saying billionaires need public rehabilitation, but it’s nice to see the obvious stereotype and plot twist ignored in favor of something more thoughtful.
I was less impressed with the characterization of this month’s alien menace, however. Admittedly this is also an old Doctor Who trope – the seemingly harmless race of alien scientists suddenly revealed to be brutal conquerors – but that revelation is always less interesting than what precedes it. Giant ice men stomping around yelling about conquest doesn’t make for compelling drama, but at least it allows them to have a fight with giant ghost Vikings, which may not be deep but is certainly cool. The production is excellent – director Louise Jameson allows the sound design to tell the story in many places, and Martin Montague’s design communicates events without ever becoming confusing. Jamie Robertson’s music is effective as well. Overall, “Shield of the Jötunn” is a solid, entertaining Doctor Who story with surprises in a few places. I continue to wish for more from the monthly range, but at least this is a worthwhile way to pass a couple of hours.
After years of being restricted to only the Doctors and characters from the “classic” series of Doctor Who, Big Finish finally acquired a license to the “new” series and proceeded forth with a raft of new material. The first hint of this came with the appearance of new series Daleks in Gallifrey VI, but “UNIT: Extinction” is the first full example, bringing Kate Stewart, Osgood, and others together in a four-story box set from Matt Fitton and Andrew Smith. Unfortunately, this first trip into a new era is wholly unmemorable and stands as a colossal disappointment instead of a bold leap forward.
The plot, in a nutshell: the Nestene Consciousness has returned to Earth, and it is once again animating the planet’s plastic supply into killer Autons. Without the Doctor around, it’s up to UNIT to avert the invasion. But wait, you ask, didn’t we basically get that story in “Spearhead from Space” and then again in “Terror of the Autons?” Yes! If you’ve seen those stories, there’s very little reason to listen to “UNIT: Extinction,” as it hits almost all the same beats, starting with the plastic spheres crashing to Earth from space and finishing with a horrible monster manifesting in a glass tank. It completely lacks the inventiveness of its predecessors, though – it attempts to draw modern relevance through the use of 3-D printing, but that means no scenes of familiar plastic objects coming to life and menacing the populace. So the Autons are just killer robots.
The worst part by far, though, is the characterization. You’ve got Kate, played by a curiously flat Jemma Redgrave – though she does finally pick it up by the final episode – about whom we learn virtually nothing. You’ve got Osgood, and while Ingrid Oliver’s performance is very good, there’s really nothing to her other than “awkward yet heroic geek.” And then we have the new supporting characters, like Colonel Shindi (Ramon Tikaram), and Captain Carter (James Joyce), and Lieutenant Bishop (Warren Brown). Who are they? What are they like? Well, Carter’s a bit reckless, but other than that? Are these supposed to be the new recurring characters? Because right now they come across as a faceless group of generic soldiers – how fitting that they’re fighting Autons, right? And then there’s Simon Devlin (Steve John Shepherd), one of the most generic villains in recent memory. Shepherd chews the scenery to shreds, aided by no-really-they-wrote-this lines like “SEIZE HIM!” and drooling over “my master” and so forth. And then there’s Jacqui McGee (Tracy Wiles), perhaps the only interesting character because of her unusual relationship with UNIT. How can you write over three hours of modern audio drama without even attempting to get in the heads of your characters?
If there’s one good thing about “UNIT: Extinction,” it’s the global scale and believable design of the action. It’s nice to have a global invasion threat that doesn’t focus exclusively on London, and here we have scenes in Mongolia and Puerto Rico, among other locations. The music and sound design from Howard Carter is similarly expansive and inspiring, as is Ken Bentley’s direction. I also very much appreciated Bentley (and the scripts) allowing the sound design to tell the story – there are multiple action scenes without characters standing around describing everything, and it’s still quite clear what’s going on. Imagine that! That said, the ending is still a disappointment: after three episodes of globe-trotting action, the solution is to grab the anti-plastic from “Rose” out of the Black Archives and toss it in the Nestene tank? Really? This is both the initial foray into new series territory and the start of a new series of box sets. It should be ambitious, it should be inspiring, it should be insightful – instead, it’s a well produced but totally unimaginative action epic that stays in the mind mere moments after the credits roll. If this were a TV pilot, I wouldn’t bother with episode 2.
It’s looking increasingly like this first series of Torchwood audios is something special, as the third release, Emma Reeves’ “Forgotten Lives,” is a third straight home run for this new series. Set years after the events of Miracle Day, this story shows us that, no matter how much they try, Gwen and Rhys will always be haunted by Torchwood. A story about mind-swapping aliens isn’t anything new, but setting it in a dementia treatment center is a morbid stroke of genius: who’s been swapped and who’s just seeing their faculties failing? It also allows Jack to be in the story without John Barrowman, and I have to say that Philip Bond is surprisingly convincing as Jack despite the superficial lack of similarities. “Forgotten Lives” is a relentlessly downbeat story, leavened with occasional bouts of humor, that doesn’t shy away from the natural consequences of its plot. Sure, the day can be saved, but at how great a personal cost? Almost every character has skin in the game, and nobody gets out unscathed. Eve Myles and Kai Owen are fantastic throughout – really, only a few questionable acting choices from the supporting cast keep this from a perfect score. Many people wondered if Torchwood had run out of gas after Miracle Day; so far, this series is proving there are countless miles left in the tank.
Wait a minute – so the entire previous episode was a Matrix simulation? I understand it’s all part of a long game that is paid off at the climax of Justin Richards’ “Ascension,” the final part of Gallifrey VI, but really? 33% of the length of the box set is spent in a false environment? It’s also entirely unclear about the mechanics of the situation: how the Axis emptied directly into the Matrix, how the other universes are tied together, how Slyne got so intimately involved with the Daleks, and so forth. Was Romana actually in the Matrix trying to save the fake Gallifrey for years before she woke up Leela and Narvin or was that all part of the illusion as well? This isn’t a very good story, and it’s not very good because it does a terrible job of explaining itself. The Daleks’ plan makes absolutely no sense, even though it’s good to have them back in the action – pull any of the obvious loose threads and the whole thing falls apart. It’s structured well enough, with surprises stacked on top of surprises, but my overall feeling was one of confusion rather than excitement. And the ending is stunningly misplaced. I have absolutely no problem with the Gallifrey series tying into the start of the Time War, but really – Narvin starts it by accident? Complete with a labored joke? I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that the Gallifrey series ends (for now) with a thud. Frankly, I’m just happy that some of the set was entertaining.
So after the Daleks gave the Gallifrey series a much needed and long awaited shot in the arm in “Extermination,” we follow it up with a story featuring exactly four (and a fifth at the end) characters on an otherwise deserted Gallifrey? It’s an interesting decision, and actually a fairly successful one, that marks James Goss’s “Renaissance.” They’re finally back on the original Gallifrey, which is now devastated by the Dogma virus and haunted by monstrous survivors, both of which are basically written out and solved between scenes. This allows the story to get on with its own devices, but it’s pretty unrewarding to anyone looking for an actual resolution to the cliffhanger from all the way back in the third series. It’s also full of unnecessary, distracting continuity references that I think are supposed to be subtle hints toward the conclusion but actually come off as gigantic warning sirens. But the central idea is fantastic: a future incarnation of Romana flees the Time War into Gallifrey’s history in an attempt to change the future and make Gallifrey more prepared to confront the battles ahead. She even brings the entire Citadel back with her. And the new Romana is fantastic – Goss keeps the character recognizably the same person but completely changes Romana’s characteristic iciness, leading to a more emotional figure that will happily give hugs. Juliet Landau is equally fantastic casting, too. I’m not enamored with the ending, though – after a quiet, slow-burning story like this, having all the characters standing around screaming descriptions to each other is rather deflating and robs the scene of most of its tension. But in spite of all that, you can’t get more exciting than that cliffhanger! Overall, much more flawed than “Extermination,” but still worth a listen. I’m curious to see how this ends, which is something I didn’t expect to say coming into this set.
After two interminable box sets in which our beloved regular characters wander pointlessly around various alternate universes, Gallifrey VI finally brings them home. The first story in the set, Scott Handcock’s “Extermination,” features the Daleks laying waste to the alternate Gallifrey of the fifth box set, and as you’d expect, it’s… wait a minute, it’s actually good? Yes, and almost entirely because of the Daleks, who give the series the kick of energy it has desperately needed for years. It’s true that the Dalek plan is their usual “conquer all possible universes,” this time through the Axis, but their mere presence is enough to cast a fearful pall over the proceedings. With a rampaging, deadly menace around every corner, things finally feel dangerous – and it helps that Handcock gathers a number of characters from Gallifrey V and immediately kills them off. This was also Big Finish’s first toe in the water of new series-related material, as these Daleks are meant to be the same as seen on TV, and that’s immediately apparent from how terrified the characters are of them. No “Bye bye, Davros!” silliness here. All the tension between the characters from the past two sets is chucked out the window, and for good reason – this is much more interesting than any of that. There’s also a great scene where Romana interrogates a captive Dalek and the changes in her personality are readily apparent. There are some flaws – the sound design of the Dalek blasts doesn’t really match the (OTT) screams from the cast, and there’s very little here we haven’t seen before – but to finally have a Gallifrey story with this kind of energy is incredibly refreshing.
If these Torchwood audios continue on this early run of quality, this will be a special range. After the superlative “The Conspiracy” kicked things off, James Goss’ “Fall to Earth” marks the second release, and it’s every bit as thrilling. It’s a simple concept: Ianto is trapped on a crashing spaceship and his only available help is an outsourced telemarketer that happens to call him at the worst possible time. Goss structures events with assured elegance, piling on disaster after disaster without ever veering too far over the edge into silliness. I particularly enjoyed the idea of Ianto being menaced by (essentially) a zombie Richard Branson. The biggest strength, though, is Zeynep (Lisa Zahra), the aforementioned telemarketer, who is both Ianto’s lifeline and his connection back to the real world outside of Torchwood. Zahra’s performance is exceptional, switching effortlessly back and forth between insurance sales and researching spaceship manuals, and by the end of the play the listener is genuinely concerned about her fate. Gareth David-Lloyd is also fantastic, stepping back into the role like he never left it – admittedly, it’s weird to hear Ianto this hysterical, but then again he’s bleeding to death in a crashing spaceship, so it makes sense. Scott Handcock directs, with sound design from Neil Gardner and another fantastic score from Blair Mowat. Overall, “Fall to Earth” is a very strong story with great characters and a thrilling plot.
You know what you’re going to get from Justin Richards when it comes to Doctor Who: a very traditional story with good characterization of the regulars but very little thematic significance or depth. And that’s pretty much what you get with “The Forsaken,” the second story in the second series of Early Adventures – except that this one seems even more slight than usual.
There’s very little for me to say about this story because Richards doesn’t want to say anything about it himself. There’s a huge deal made out of the fact that, by random coincidence, Ben’s father (Oliver Jackson) is among the soldiers encountered by the TARDIS crew. They have to keep him alive – if they don’t, Ben might cease to exist! How will Ben interact with a man who will become his father in just under a year? What will we learn about Ben by getting this unique look into his personal history? None of these questions or concerns are addressed after his identity is revealed. Frankly, “Jacko” could have been any generic soldier character and it wouldn’t have made the slightest difference to the story.
These concerns continue throughout. This is the first trip that I can recall by the Doctor to the Pacific theater of World War II, specifically as the Japanese are pushing the British out of Singapore. Certainly, since this is a new environment for the series, it is rife for exploration – but it could be set in almost any jungle at any time period in history for all the difference the setting makes. The only relevant feature is the fact that they’re on an island, automatically isolating the people from rescue and the villain from escape. Speaking of the villain, we learn that he is one of the Forsaken, a race that travels to war-torn planets and feeds on the fear of the population. So we know how they eat, which is vaguely interesting, but if you want to know anything else about this alien race or how they operate, you won’t learn it here. All the creature does is run around saying evil things and killing people. You can write a successful story around a relentless, single-minded killer, but this certainly isn’t one.
I commented before that the casting of Elliot Chapman as Ben was a success, and it continues here – it’s difficult not to forget that you’re not listening to Michael Craze, as Chapman has great chemistry with Frazer Hines and Anneke Wills. I’m not a fan of these stories making the second Doctor such a major part of the scripts, however. Hines’ Troughton impression is effective in small doses, but when you have entire scenes between the second Doctor and Jamie, it rapidly becomes apparent that this Doctor is just Frazer Hines putting on a different voice. There are moments, particularly in long sentences, when Hines just reverts to his natural accent. It would benefit these stories to be formatted more like the Companion Chronicles, and not just because the Companion Chronicles were (thus far) clearly superior.
I don’t know what else to say about “The Forsaken.” The TARDIS lands, some dangerous things happen, they solve the problem, and they leave. Absolutely nothing interesting or thought-provoking happens in the interim. So what’s the point of it all? Just to grind out yet another generic Doctor Who story to fill a release slot? Are we really already at that point in the Early Adventures? I shudder to think what’ll happen when they inevitably extend this range to 12 months a year. Oh, I did like the score from Toby Hrycek-Robinson. It was unique, memorable, and effective. So that’s something.
The second release in the late 2015 Colin Baker trilogy, Marc Platt’s “Planet of the Rani” is largely a disappointment. It takes a number of interesting images and wastes them on a flat plot and a miscast villain, marking an unfortunate return to poor form for the monthly range.
The Rani reminds me a lot of the Valeyard, in that they are both characters that sound quite interesting on paper but rapidly devolve into generic nonsense once put on screen. The concept of the Rani, an amoral scientist who conducts bizarre biological experiments without any regard for consequence, is interesting, and a brilliant Time Lord scientist should make a good recurring nemesis for the Doctor. I enjoyed her debut story, “The Mark of the Rani,” quite a bit – she’s just trying to experiment on humans, and the Doctor and the Master keep turning up and interrupting her. The problem comes in her next story, when she’s trying to construct a giant brain to conquer the universe. Then, in the last Big Finish Rani story, “The Rani Elite,” she’s… trying to construct a giant brain, again. At least here she’s not trying to conquer or destroy the universe, but most of the plot of “Planet of the Rani,” as the title implies, involves the Rani trying to regain control of her adopted home Miasimia Goria. Why do these “villain” stories always involve conquering something? And why don’t they involve better characterization?
That’s the real problem here – the characters are all so flat. This is Constance’s first journey in the TARDIS, and she gets a lot to do – she’s separated from the Doctor after the first episode and spends most of the story as the Rani’s de facto companion. That’s potentially interesting material, but we don’t learn anything about her in the process. Sure, she’s military, and has the corresponding attitude, but what motivates her? What is she getting out of her travels with the Doctor? Okay, so her husband went missing – well we’re not going to learn anything about that on Miasimia Goria, so can we please learn something else? Fortunately, Platt does flesh out the relationship between the Doctor and the Rani a bit: we learned how the Doctor foolishly developed a dangerous microbe while at the Academy and how the Rani didn’t care about the potential consequences of using it. But even this revelation seems to come out of nowhere, and the story doesn’t spend enough time on the moral implications of the Doctor developing the “ablative” in the first place.
And then there’s the biggest problem: Siobhan Redmond is terribly miscast as the Rani. The only time in four episodes that she is convincing is in the moment of emotional attachment to her lost “son” – beyond that, her readings are consistently flat and tonally mismatched. Part of this is down to the writing and direction: she’s clearly playing up the “amoral scientist” angle, but Platt’s script is full of stereotypical villain dialogue that would be perfect for Kate O’Mara’s portrayal. I don’t usually harp on casting decisions because Big Finish almost always gets it right, but this is a bad mistake that needs to be rectified.
There are some interesting images scattered throughout, as one would expect from a Marc Platt script. The stone forest is particularly imaginative, for example. Furthermore, the first episode featuring the Rani’s prison break is considerably more exciting than the rest of the story. So it’s not all bad. But this is yet another main range story that isn’t good enough, and I still don’t know why this is happening. It took 15 years for Big Finish to get around to the Rani, and both efforts have been subpar.
I was never a big fan of “Dark Eyes,” the series of box sets starring Paul McGann that took the place of Big Finish’s old Eighth Doctor Adventures. They were driven heavily by technobabble, and tonal inconsistencies plagued the series. Fortunately, the final release in that series was the best of the lot, which bodes well for “Doom Coalition,” the new box set series. The first episode of the first box is “The Eleven,” written by Matt Fitton, and it’s largely an introductory piece that establishes the main players around a fairly traditional capture-and-escape plot.
“The Eleven” of the title is a Time Lord criminal dealing with a unique mental condition: he is in his eleventh incarnation, yet all ten of his previous selves are awake and fighting for position in his brain. Complicating matters is the fact that he’s largely insane, with only his eighth self appearing at all on the other side of the bounds of sanity. They do take pains to point out that this condition isn’t the cause of his insanity in itself, but I can’t imagine that it helps. Mark Bonnar plays the Eleven, and by that I mean he plays all eleven incarnations at once. It’s a very good performance – he powers through his scenes, papering over any inconsistencies with the force of his acting. It is, however, somewhat difficult to get over the fact that his arguments with his previous selves are composed entirely of the same actor doing a series of silly voices. And all of those arguments end the same way, with Bonnar yelling something like “All of you, silence!” The story is barely an hour long and it’s practically a running gag already. It’s also sledgehammer-obvious that he’s a twisted parallel of the Doctor himself: the Three is patrician, the Six is a maniac, the Eight is the most “human,” and so forth. Oh, and he steals a TARDIS at the end and flees (apparently) to Earth in the 1960s. I’m dubious about where this is going, but it certainly has the potential for greatness, so we’ll see.
The story is set on Gallifrey, and as usual for Big Finish, nothing particularly imaginative is done with the ancestral seat of the most ancient and powerful race in the universe. I understand that they want to maintain the bureaucratic feeling of the Gallifrey series, and I like the references to Romana changing the face of Time Lord politics, but it’s still a dreary setting. Here we have the Time Lord prison in the heart of the Capitol, the place where some of their most dangerous criminals are kept, and… the cells are kept in a slightly different time zone and the doors have “ultra-locks” on them. That’s it? I’m not asking for “The Book of the War” here but can’t we have something a little more interesting? Fitton also employs a device I don’t normally like: driving the plot forward by introducing a new aspect of Gallifreyan law. This is fine when it resolves a necessary obstacle – allowing the Doctor to avoid a murder trial in “The Deadly Assassin,” for example – but here it powers the entire story. Apparently, in a time of crisis and with the President away, the highest-ranking individual remaining may declare himself or herself Acting President without a vote – and wouldn’t you know it, the Eleven was technically on the High Council during his first incarnation! I don’t like this because it makes the story feel like it’s making things up as it goes; yes, it puts us in the Doctor’s shoes a few steps behind the Eleven, but there’s absolutely no sense of limit or control to the plot.
Despite all of that, there’s a lot to like in “The Eleven.” Some of the Eleven’s previous incarnations are genuinely disturbing, and if they’re allowed to come to the fore for more than just arguments, this could be a fantastic villain. He’s also unpredictable: I didn’t see the final scene ending the way it did. The performances are excellent across the board: I’ve already mentioned Mark Bonnar, and Paul McGann seems particularly invested in this, while Nicola Walker continues to give revelatory performances. Liv seems like a real person who actually reacts believably to the story – she’s rapidly becoming one of my favorites of Big Finish’s original companions. Kiani (Bethan Walker) is a bit too earnest at times, but that sets up the surprising conclusion so I’m not complaining. And the prologue, with Sylvester McCoy’s Seventh Doctor imprisoning the Eleven, is note-perfect and a fantastic introduction. Ken Bentley directs the whole set, while Wilfredo Acosta provides solid sound design. Overall, “The Eleven” is a very promising start that succeeds in spite of its few flaws. I’m excited to see where this goes, and that’s a great endorsement for a premiere.
Recommended.
7/10
THE RED LADY
One of the major problems with the Dark Eyes sets was their tendency to wander: they aimed to tell one coherent story spread across four set pieces, but almost always felt unfocused, unsure which path they wanted to take. Judging from “The Red Lady,” by John Dorney, this first Doom Coalition set will not suffer from the same issue: it’s an incredibly well told story that barely involves the arc plot at all.
The Doctor and Liv travel to 1960s London in pursuit of the Eleven, and while there, they become embroiled in an unrelated adventure. Sometimes I wonder if this is the ideal way to do Doctor Who arc plotting: an overall objective punctuated by adventures along the way. The series has frequently struggled with stronger narrative links, and that’s been true on television, on audio, and in the novels. And the arc plot is fairly silly here: the Doctor has to track a temporal anomaly to a stone tablet, which he must decode to find a message from Galileo? I understand the Eleven is insane, but really? The Master would be proud of that one.
The central concept of “The Red Lady” is brilliant: a mysterious woman appears in works of art to the first person to view them, and then steadily haunts that person, appearing to emerge from the art itself before finally killing them. It’s a ghost story, in essence, with strong elements of “The Ring” and the Matt Smith story “The Time of Angels.” Best of all, it’s genuinely scary: the tension is ratcheted up throughout, as each character starts to perceive the Red Lady and realizes their doom is drawing closer. We see the ultimate threat through the tragic demise of Walter (David Yelland) – and isn’t it nice to have a supporting character characterized this well? He’s actually sympathetic despite having some less appealing qualities, and his death is a genuine blow.
“The Red Lady” also introduces a new companion character in Helen Sinclair, a linguist and historian trying to assert herself in a male-dominated field in a misogynistic time. She’s classic companion material – smart, resourceful, sympathetic, funny – but Dorney doesn’t beat you over the head telling you how great she is, opting instead to show her suitability for the TARDIS crew through her actions. Some of the writing is a bit overwrought – her initial confrontation at work with a superior is almost a caricature of close-minded 1960s attitudes – but for the most part this is a great introduction. Hattie Morahan is a fine casting choice as well, portraying Helen as a mature, capable human being. My only complaint is that her voice is a bit too similar to Nicola Walker’s, but I’ll get used to it.
McGann and Walker are great in this, too. It’s a common strategy to have either the Doctor or the companion afflicted by the alien threat, but both of them at once? Dorney also continues his wonderful habit of effectively concealing information that seems so obvious in retrospect – of course the original collector was blind, why didn’t I figure that out? But perhaps best of all is the story’s refusal to be explained: we never find out who or what the Red Lady is and there is no last-minute technobabble describing what happened. While I appreciate the rational bent of Doctor Who for the most part, we need more stories like this – the Doctor doesn’t need to know all the answers.
Overall, “The Red Lady” is an excellent story, one that builds a great deal of confidence for this “Doom Coalition” series. It’s well written, scary, and it introduces a promising new companion to boot. More like this, please.
Highly recommended.
9/10
THE GALILEO TRAP
The third episode in the first Doom Coalition set, “The Galileo Trap,” comes from Marc Platt. After two high-quality installments to open the set, this story is a bit more sedate – not much happens and it seems to exist largely to set up the final part. Fortunately, some strong character work helps to elevate it above the purely mundane.
This is new companion Helen’s first journey in the TARDIS, and Platt’s script doesn’t shy away from showing her enjoying her new surroundings. As a qualified historian, she has a familiarity with Renaissance Italy, and it’s fun to listen to her marvel at the new sights while simultaneously understanding what’s going on around her. Unfortunately, she also immediately discovers what it means to be one of multiple companions: sometimes there really isn’t much for you to do. Granted, she’s out of her depth, while the Doctor and Liv are both well equipped to deal with alien incursions, but Helen mostly trails around in the background asking an occasional question. I have a good sense of her personality at this point but I’d like to know more about what experiences have informed her viewpoints, and there’s not much to learn from a story like this.
The best part of the story by far is John Woodvine’s Galileo. The famous astronomer is written and performed with much more depth than the usual historical celebrity figure: his story is layered with truths and lies, and his motivations are complicated and sometimes unclear. He obviously values his friendship with the Doctor, but he’s still willing to betray him to maintain a semblance of family life, even if he knows his “daughter” is really an alien mercenary. It’s very easy to describe a character as a genius; it’s much more difficult to create that impression, and Platt certainly does so with Galileo, who is basically the smartest person in any room.
The plot, such as it is, is very slight. Intergalactic mercenaries insert themselves into Renaissance life, monitoring Galileo for the next time the Doctor pays him a visit. From there, they aim to capture him and bring him to the Eleven. The Doctor vanquishes them – and then heads off to meet the Eleven anyway! I’m not saying this doesn’t make sense, but it does give a strong impression that this story didn’t really need to be here. On top of that, the mercenaries aren’t particularly interesting characters – Harry Myers in particular goes almost comically over the top – and together “The Galileo Trap” feels like it’s treading water until the finale.
It’s worth a listen, though, even if only to hear how the stage is set for “The Satanic Mill.” The script is exciting and economical, and as mentioned above, the character work is largely quite strong. In the Dark Eyes sets, a story like this would have been about the best we could hope for. In the early days of Doom Coalition, if this is the “floor,” we’re still in for a treat.
Recommended.
6/10
THE SATANIC MILL
The problem with writing epic conclusions to serialized stories is that you need to make the finale live up to the promise of the preceding episodes. I’ve complained at length about Big Finish’s pattern of failure in this situation, and the issue rears its ugly head yet again in Edward Collier’s “The Satanic Mill,” the final story in the first Doom Coalition series and a very disappointing conclusion to an otherwise entertaining set.
When the Eleven was introduced in, um, “The Eleven,” the character demonstrated serious promise. A Time Lord displaying the personalities of each of his incarnations is a concept ripe for exploration. In that first story, presenting the villain on a surface level was acceptable because it was his introduction – the fact that he doesn’t do much more than argue with himself didn’t bother me too much. Unfortunately, he’s exactly the same in “The Satanic Mill.” Get ready for more scenes involving Mark Bonnar arguing with himself in funny voices, then yelling “SILENCE, ALL OF YOU!” before continuing with his plans. He is neither interesting nor threatening; we learn nothing about him nor does he present any danger greater than that of a thousand other Doctor Who megalomaniacs.
He’s basically the Master with different trappings, in other words. His plan is utterly ludicrous: he constructs a space station inside the orbit of Mercury to house a stellar manipulator with which he intends to destroy the Sun. But he needs a Time Lord to power it, and he wants to use the Doctor for the purposes of irony. Now, Doctor, you shall be responsible for the destruction of your favorite planet! Mwa ha ha! But he needs the Doctor to actually show up and try to stop him, so he adds more nonsense to the plan to draw the Doctor in. But didn’t he hire a gang of space mercenaries to capture the Doctor in the story just before this one, thus obviating the need for a more elaborate plan? You may remember that, but Collier doesn’t, so the Eleven models his space station after a workhouse, complete with indentured workers, to compel the Doctor to intervene. This is saved largely because it’s a cool image, but really – powering your ancient Time Lord weapon by forcing a bunch of people to walk on treadmills?! Perhaps this is a consequence of contracting a brand new author, who has apparently never been credited with anything else, to write the final installment in the first box set of a new series. How curious.
The final confrontation is pretty weak as well. The Eleven straps the Doctor to his machine, argues with him for a while, and then runs off to savor his victory – and leaves the Doctor’s sonic screwdriver behind, unguarded, along with a worker that’s been helping the Doctor! Does the Eleven have a “really, really stupid” incarnation we haven’t heard yet that took over in that moment? Also, this is the final story in a box set named “Doom Coalition 1” – would it kill them to hint, even once, over four hours of drama, at what the Doom Coalition is? Or what the Eleven’s plan is, besides “kill the Doctor with irony?” Could they maybe have ended the story on a less awkward note than the Doctor declaring it time for a holiday?
There is some material here worth hearing, fortunately. The story wisely pairs up Liv and Helen, giving them their own obstacles to overcome. The actors have fantastic chemistry and the characters work together quite well – it’s a nice contrast between Liv’s pragmatism and Helen’s brash idealism. The set in general is also directed very well by Ken Bentley and features very solid sound design from Wilfredo Acosta. But overall, “The Satanic Mill” is a weak ending to an otherwise strong set, featuring generic Doctor Who villainy and very little to pique the interest. Hopefully future Doom Coalition sets will be closer to “The Eleven” and “The Red Lady” than they are to this.
After several full-cast releases, Doctor Who Magazine turned to the Companion Chronicles for its periodic free subscriber audio stories. The last of these to date was “The Revenants,” from Ian Potter, a story that was eventually released for purchase as part of “The Light at the End” limited edition set. It’s a creepy story with a ton of atmosphere that unfortunately slows down too much in the second part but still remains well worth hearing.
Separated from the Doctor and the TARDIS, Ian and Barbara are forced to walk across a dangerous marsh in the dying light of day’s end, trying to find shelter and avoid being sucked under the mud. That’s almost the entirety of the first episode, but Potter’s script makes it work: it’s incredibly dramatic, remaining gripping throughout, the threat of the marsh feeling shockingly real. The sound design is a particular pleasure, making everything realistic and believable – it’s one of BF’s best productions in recent memory, in fact. And this was for a DWM freebie! After they’re rescued, the tension doesn’t let up, because that’s when the Revenants show up.
“The Revenants” is in many ways modeled after a classic horror film. There’s the initial sequence in the marsh to build tension followed by the onslaught of what are essentially peat zombies, and the characters working together against the clock to find a way to defeat them. It’s genuinely unnerving for much of its running time, with the eerie score contributing to the disturbing feeling. Unfortunately, once Ian and Barbara are reunited with the Doctor, and after the initial Revenant attack, the story grinds to a halt so the characters can have an endless conversation about how to stop their attackers. Yes, it’s a great example of scientific inquiry to show their thought processes, and it’s very Doctor Who to have everyone miss the obvious solution, but about the only interesting thing in the entire sequence is the Doctor advocating for a quite permanent solution.
There’s actually a framing device here, and it’s quite pleasant: an older Ian is taking the ferry to Orkney to visit some old friends, and he tells a stranger a tale to help pass the journey. The placement of the story is curious: it’s right after Susan’s departure in “The Dalek Invasion of Earth,” so the Doctor is still understandably upset. This is implied to be the reason for his erratic behavior, but later in the story we learn that he spent years waiting for his timeline to align with his companions – so is he still upset? It’s unclear. There are even hints at the end that he was waiting much longer than that, which are interesting, especially for this incarnation. I also liked the Doctor taking the mantle of the ancient Wissfornjarl, and Barbara calling him out for playing the role of a god after the events of “The Aztecs.”
William Russell narrates, and I don’t need to tell you that his performance is generally excellent. It’s a bit confusing when he’s voicing the Doctor, Ian, and Barbara all having a conversation but that’s a limit of the format more than anything. Sharon Small is the guest performer, turning in a solid performance – though I actually liked her more on the ferry than in the bog! As mentioned above, the design is the star of the show: Toby Hrycek-Robinson deserves some sort of medal for both his sound design and his music, which create one of the most effective atmospheres I can remember in a Companion Chronicle. Overall, “The Revenants” is a strong release, especially for something that was originally released for free. It’s a great scary story for a quiet night.
The second release in three slots for author Richard Dinnick is also the final Companion Chronicle in the sixth series. “The Rings of Ikiria” returns to the traditional bent the series has taken of late, and while it’s a solid piece of drama, it’s at its best when it focuses on its lead character.
This is the second and, to date, final Companion Chronicle starring Richard Franklin as Mike Yates. This is unfortunate because the story actually tries to dig into one of the most interesting, underexplored supporting characters of the entire program. Yates’ betrayal in “Invasion of the Dinosaurs” and subsequent redemption in “Planet of the Spiders” is an underappreciated bit of characterization that has largely been unaddressed by the audio stories. Here, we finally get a look into Yates’ thought processes: how he never felt like he belonged in any particular group until he joined UNIT, how he trusts the Brigadier more than anyone else, and so on. This is largely new territory for this character, but it’s quite welcome: the format of the Companion Chronicles allows us to get into the companions’ heads, and that is exactly what “The Rings of Ikiria” does with Yates. Franklin’s readings are great, especially in the scene where the Brigadier threatens to reassign Yates from UNIT; you can feel the heartbreak in each line along with the depth of his feeling for his superior.
The problem is with the story itself: it is utterly traditional. A powerful alien intelligence has journeyed to Earth to tempt humanity with something that will lure us under its spell, and only the Doctor and his companion(s) stand in the way. The first episode is fine: Yates watches things spiral out of control with no apparent way out, with his investigations proving increasingly fruitless. But in the second episode, when the Doctor is re-introduced, Yates takes a back seat to the action. The Doctor comes up with a plan to defeat the invading Ikiria (Felicity Duncan) and instructs Yates on a specific part of it. This instruction is not dramatized, so the listener has no idea what Yates is trying to accomplish while he switches out one gem for another. Yes, this is certainly portraying what it’s like to be a 1970s companion – doing what the Doctor says without any idea what the hell is going on – but it’s hardly interesting drama when the character we’ve been following for 60 minutes has little to do with the resolution. And all of the interesting character work is thrown out: there’s barely any follow-up on Yates’ feelings about his friends after this story. Could this be one of the moments that eventually factors into his decision to betray UNIT? Sure, it could be, but you’ll never know from listening to this story.
I also don’t like the title. “The Rings of Ikiria” sounds poetic but it’s actually incredibly literal: there is a character named Ikiria that hands out rings to people. “The Claws of Axos” wasn’t actually about giant claws, you know? I have a lot of time for the production, though, especially the haunting score from Richard Fox and Lauren Yason – the Companion Chronicles aren’t known for their music but this is a particularly successful entry in that department. Overall, “The Rings of Ikiria” is a solid Pertwee-era tale that promises much in the character department but fails to deliver. It’s worth listening to if you want a traditional tale, but if you’re looking for much more than that you should probably look elsewhere.
The penultimate story in the sixth series of Companion Chronicles is the second Eddie Robson script in three slots. This one, “The Jigsaw War,” is a very strong release, using a nonlinear narrative to actually get into its characters’ heads.
Much like “Binary,” “The Jigsaw War” eschews the traditional Companion Chronicle narrative in favor of a full-cast style that incorporates two actors playing multiple parts into the fiction. So it’s not Jamie doing an impression of the Second Doctor, it’s actually the Doctor speaking through him. Likewise, Dominic Mafham plays both the colonial leader Moran and the true villain of the piece, Side. I like this because it gives the two-hand structure even more depth, allowing us to view the game from outside perspectives as well as those of the players.
After a few, more traditional, plot driven stories, “The Jigsaw War” is entirely about Jamie McCrimmon and his relationship with the Doctor. We see the foundations for his trust in the Doctor and the true depth of it: even in the face of significant evidence, he is unwavering in his support for his friend. But we also get to see Jamie as an intelligent human being, defined by more than his Scottish heritage and 18th-century upbringing. Much like Leela, authors have often put him into the “noble savage” box – meaning he’s brave, he’s heroic, and he’s lovable, but he’s also kind of an idiot. This story, however, requires Jamie to put together a series of discrete observations and deduce an unlikely solution, and he takes to the problem like a fish to water. Frazer Hines is great, naturally, but that goes without saying at this point.
The non-linear narrative is also put to good use. Of course, the non-linearity is the focus of the plot, as Jamie has to put the segments into the proper order, but by presenting the segments in this way we get to see Jamie’s trust in the Doctor put to the test. Taken in order, he would have no reason to distrust his own perceptions, nor would he have any reason to doubt the Doctor; the rearranged scenes, on the other hand, bring both of those issues to the fore. Narratives like this should never be gimmicky, and Robson shows a very good reason for telling the story in this manner.
I’m also a fan of the plot itself, which comes across as an attack on the veiled racism that drives anti-immigrant sentiment. We’ve all heard that sort of thing before – “sure, they seem like nice people now, but get enough of them together and look out!” – and of course the Doctor is going to react against it. But I also like that Robson doesn’t turn the humans into obvious villains: from everything they know, this race is indeed dangerous in large numbers, and they’re not being violent just for the sake of asserting dominance. I also approved of the final reversal: the revelation that they aren’t actually violent in large numbers, but their “god” alters others’ perceptions in order to keep them imprisoned. He’s the real villain, not the manipulated humans – and Jamie figuring that out is the key to finding the true solution to the puzzle.
The production is solid as ever, from Lisa Bowerman’s direction to the sound design from Howard Carter. But the script – including the narrative – is the star of the show. This is great work from Eddie Robson, and a return to form for the Companion Chronicles.
The tenth installment in the sixth series of Companion Chronicles, Richard Dinnick’s “The Wanderer,” takes us back to another Hartnell-era historical setting, with all the grand scale that implies. Yet again, however, there’s nothing particularly striking about this story: it’s well told, it holds the attention, and the lead actor is great, but it seems like more should be expected from this most experimental of ranges.
Much of the story is built around concealing the identity of its guest star until a grand revelation shortly into the second episode. Let’s see – we’re in Siberia, there’s a traveling mystic with a mighty beard who speaks of visions, people call him a “mad monk,” his name is Grigori – who could this possibly be? I can’t imagine – oh, it’s Rasputin! Bless my stars! Sarcasm aside, it is entirely predictable, but fortunately Tim Chipping’s performance as the Russian mystic is very strong. He’s a sympathetic, troubled character, who seems hungry for knowledge and power but seeks only to use that power to benefit others. Credit to Dinnick for not beating around the bush when it comes to the benefits of future knowledge: Rasputin directly references Hitler and the Holocaust when he names tragedies he could avert. Yes, it’s a bit grim for a series like Doctor Who, but if we’re going to have a serious moral debate about the perils of changing history, we shouldn’t ignore the very real events in that same history. As the story wraps up and the information grows too much for Rasputin, I think Chipping goes too far over the top – but that’s a small blemish on an otherwise excellent performance.
Speaking of excellent performances, William Russell narrates, and his voice is yet again a reason in itself to listen to this story. About the only weak spot is the Hartnell impression, which isn’t as convincing as usual, but otherwise his performance is unimpeachable. Dinnick expertly captures the feeling of these early stories: Ian’s earnest appeals to Rasputin’s sense of justice would probably sound overwrought in later eras, but here they work well, especially with Russell’s voice behind them. What the story doesn’t need is the giant scorpion men, who seem to show up only to keep the plot moving, pointlessly kill off a supporting character, and don’t sound much different from Cybermen.
The production is solid as ever, with Lisa Bowerman in her usual director’s chair and sound designer Andrew Edwards providing a suitably dramatic score. But the biggest problem faced by “The Wanderer,” as with the last couple of Companion Chronicles, is that it doesn’t do anything to set itself out from the crowd. It’s a celebrity pseudo-historical, and it’s a well-written and dramatic piece, but it’s predictable and unsurprising. It’s worth hearing for William Russell, of course, but beyond that it’s just sort of… there.
From Eddie Robson comes “Binary,” the ninth release in the sixth series of Companion Chronicles, and one of the more unique uses of the format. The story itself isn’t especially interesting, but the performances and style manage to hold the attention throughout.
“Binary” is one of a rare few Companion Chronicles that isn’t narrated at all. Instead, it is a true “full-cast” audio production starring Caroline John as Liz Shaw. It is also unusual in that it features three cast members instead of the usual two – ironic, given the title. It’s great to hear John’s voice in this sort of story: she was always a very capable narrator but this is like hearing the soundtrack to a brand new Liz story. Hopefully there will be another attempt at this format before the range finishes; I think variety benefits every range, no matter how successful.
As for the story, it’s fairly straightforward as these things go: Liz is attempting to repair an alien computer in a UNIT vault when she is miniaturized and trapped inside it, forced to repair it from within. There’s an AI with questionable motives, a horde of “monsters” running around trying to kill her, missing scientists also trapped inside, and so forth. And in keeping with the season 7 aesthetic, she’s faced with a moral dilemma, discovering that the situation isn’t as black-and-white as she thought. The title is a clue about the story: it can refer to the two aspects of the computer’s AI, or Liz’s decision whether to stay with UNIT or head back to Cambridge. It also refers to the format, as every scene is a dialogue between either Liz and Childs (Joe Coen) or Liz and Foster (Kyle Redmond-Jones). The problem is that none of this is especially interesting: the plot is entirely predictable, especially once the computer’s projection ability is revealed, and we don’t actually learn anything new about Liz. Yes, she’s far too qualified to be the Doctor’s assistant, and yes, she’s frustrated by this and wants to go back to Cambridge where she’ll be appreciated. This isn’t revelatory at all and yet it’s the foundation of the story.
As mentioned above, the performances are excellent across the board, especially John. Liz was always an underappreciated companion and it’s great to have a story that puts the formidable talents of both the actor and the character at the forefront. Both Coen and Redmond-Jones are threatening and sympathetic in turn; there’s no over-the-top villainy to be found here. Lisa Bowerman ably directs the piece, and the sound design from Matthew Cochrane is so minimalist it’s hard to notice. Another peculiar feature of “Binary” is that it features no incidental music. I’m not sure why that decision was made, because it adds nothing to the story, but at least it doesn’t actively hurt it either. Overall, “Binary” is another solid, unmemorable story. Its two biggest selling points are Caroline John’s performance and the oddities of the format; otherwise, there’s not a lot going on here.
The eighth release in the sixth series of Companion Chronicles is “The Selachian Gambit” from prolific Doctor Who novelist Steve Lyons. It’s a lighthearted, largely inconsequential story, but it spends enough time in the presence of a fun TARDIS crew to be entirely worthwhile.
There’s not a great deal to say about the plot of “The Selachian Gambit:” it’s a bank heist episode. The Doctor, Ben, Polly, and Jamie visit a bank in order to get money to pay a parking fine when Selachian robbers in search of the contents of the vault raid the bank. The usual tropes apply: there’s a hostage negotiator, a person (the Doctor) on the inside trying to prevent a disaster from ensuing, the villains threatening the bank manager to open the vault lock, and so forth. There’s a Doctor Who twist, of course – the vault is dimensionally transcendental – but that doesn’t alter the plot from its clichéd course. You’ve seen this movie before, in other words – heck, you even saw a Doctor Who bank heist episode recently in “Time Heist.”
If you’ve seen it all before, you’ll need other elements to make the story entertaining; fortunately “The Selachian Gambit” has those. This is an early season 4 story with a crowded TARDIS, and Frazer Hines pulls triple duty, playing Jamie, the Doctor, and Ben. There’s quite a bit of full-cast material here along with the narration, and Polly is separated from the other three about halfway through, so there’s quite a bit of Frazer Hines playing almost everyone in a scene. He’s talented enough to make it work, although as with every other time his Troughton impression gets extended airing, it grows less convincing with each passing minute. Anneke Wills is along to play Polly and some of the supporting parts – and even narrate her own segments of the story – which lends the story a great deal of period authenticity. And even though half the cast isn’t actually there, there is a palpable sense of affection in the performances: you can really visualize the actors enjoying the hell out of recording this. That more than anything else elevates the production from feeling generic.
There really isn’t any framing device on offer – it’s just first person narration from the two companions. It’s structured quite well, which is unsurprising from an old hand like Lyons – the story builds to appropriate peaks throughout. But given just how clichéd it is, there isn’t much more to say about it. The title and marketing copy makes it seem as though the Selachians will play a significant role, and while they are indeed the villains of the piece, they could be any generic warmongering alien race and nothing would change. Frankly, I never found them that interesting in the novels, but here they really are just indistinguishable heavies.
Kudos as usual to the production, from director Lisa Bowerman to sound designer Alistair Lock. Overall, “The Selachian Gambit” is a solid Doctor Who take on a traditional bank robbery story. It’s a fun way to pass an hour, and there’s not much more to say about it than that.
Finally, after years of waiting, Big Finish has secured a license to produce material related to the “new series” of Doctor Who and its related spinoffs. The first example of this is Torchwood, and the first release in Big Finish’s new Torchwood series (produced by James Goss) is “The Conspiracy” from David Llewellyn.
I’m not going to offer especially detailed reviews of the Torchwood releases, but I want to point out just how good of a start this is to an ongoing series. The plot is compelling even as it builds the titular conspiracy, while the rise and fall of Wilson (John Sessions) is surprisingly emotional. Sessions is fantastic throughout, even making his character’s alcoholism seem understandable, while the performance of Sarah Ovens as his daughter Kate is strong as well, if a little over the top at the conclusion. The star of the show, though, is John Barrowman, who narrates in character as Jack Harkness. He’s a capable narrator, with an appealing, easygoing tone, and he so easily recaptures his famous role it’s like he’s still recording the TV series.
I’m also a big fan of the conspiracy element. I’m a bit concerned about the scope of it – are they really going to be able to realistically deal with an alien organization that may have infiltrated every government on Earth? – but it’s set up incredibly well. I’m sure the technique of giving the details through a conspiracy nut who is later proven absolutely right has been done before, but it’s done here to great effect. I’m also a big fan of the sound design from Neil Gardner, and the score from Blair Mowat is a fantastic interpretation of the TV score. Overall, I’m very optimistic for this series based on “The Conspiracy,” one of the best Big Finish series openers in a long time.
With the progression into fall 2015 came the second series of Early Adventures from Big Finish, and the first of these is “The Yes Men” from Simon Guerrier. Much like the first series focused on the First Doctor, this series focuses on the Second, and this first entry is a solid, entertaining story that doesn’t outstay its welcome.
Recasting is becoming a habit at Big Finish, and “The Yes Men” features the debut of Elliot Chapman as companion Ben Jackson, replacing the late Michael Craze. Chapman’s task is easier than that facing Tim Treloar as the Third Doctor: only 13 episodes featuring Ben are known to exist, and while Craze was a fixture at Doctor Who conventions, he passed away in 1998, long before fans could easily record appearances. So there’s simply not much left of Craze’s performances – or, indeed, his voice – which is probably why Chapman’s impression sounds entirely convincing to my untrained ear. But Ben is missing entirely from the third episode – the reason why is explained in the extras, but it still jars.
Despite the inclusion of some effective narration, “The Yes Men” is a full-cast story with full participation from the Second Doctor. That means that Frazer Hines plays both Jamie and the Doctor, often performing against his own Patrick Troughton impression. While I’ve lauded Hines’ impression in the Companion Chronicles, its weaknesses really show through in this format: he’s excellent at capturing Troughton’s quieter, understated moments, but he’s not good at all at capturing Troughton’s excitement or authority. This means that the performance is often unconvincing, and an unconvincing Doctor makes the story difficult to take at times.
But what about the story, you ask? It’s good, if unspectacular. Set on Earth colony New Houston, there are two competing plots: the Doctor and Polly investigating the death of his old friend Meg Carvossa, and Ben and Jamie investigating the strange behavior of the colony’s robot servants. As with many of these “old friend” stories, the Doctor’s old friend is not the same person he remembers – and the plot twists in this regard are entirely predictable. Better is the robot subplot: there’s a beautifully haunting image of the robots creating a simulacrum of human society, imitating the interaction of social classes and putting the pointlessness of it all into sharp relief. And using Jamie as their model for leading a rebellion is probably the best idea in the script: hearing the robots dispassionately repeating “Creag an tuire!” adds to the unusual feeling.
I like the format into which the Early Adventures appear to have settled. Anneke Wills provides interstitial narration, which eliminates the need for tedious scenes of characters traveling and also reduces the amount of tortuous “Look, Doctor! It’s about thirty meters across!” descriptive dialogue. Guerrier has a ton of experience with narrative storytelling from the Companion Chronicles and the device is put to good use here. Unfortunately, what “The Yes Men” has in storytelling it lacks in depth: apart from a little bit of time with Meg Carvossa, the script doesn’t go into great detail about any of the characters. The story sounds and feels as though it stepped right out of its era, but unlike Guerrier’s best work, it doesn’t have much staying power beyond that. Lisa Bowerman is excellent as ever in the director’s chair, and the sound design from Toby Hrycek-Robinson is minimal but effective. Overall, “The Yes Men” is another example of a solid Doctor Who story. It’s well produced, well acted, and it will entertain you for two hours, but if you’re looking for something unique, this is not it.
Another year, another double monthly range release from Big Finish, and another new companion for Colin Baker. As the start of a new trilogy of stories, Matt Fitton’s “Criss-Cross” works well enough, though it’s needlessly technical and not as interested in its characters as it should be.
Though we already saw a glimpse of her in “The Sixth Doctor – The Last Adventure” box set, this is the formal introduction of Miranda Raison as Constance Clarke, the Sixth Doctor’s newest companion. She’s a WREN – and don’t worry, she’ll remind you of that over and over and over and over again – and the head of a code breaking group working at Bletchley Park. She’s also married, and her husband, an intelligence officer, hasn’t been heard from in months. I like the character in general – she’s intelligent, driven, and capable – but right now she’s painted in rather broad strokes. Hopefully we’ll learn more about her as the stories continue, and I *really* hope we don’t fade up on the second story in the trilogy with her and the Doctor having traveled together for months. Miranda Raison is great, naturally – she’s got a higher professional profile than almost every companion had when they were hired – and the strength of her performance should make up for any initial weaknesses in the writing.
As for the story itself, it’s solid, if unspectacular. It’s definitely a slow burn: the true villain isn’t even revealed until the third episode, leading to a lot of running around Bletchley Park and the surrounding area. The usual Doctor Who pattern is followed: the Doctor walks in as if he owns the place, people get suspicious and investigate, and he exonerates himself not by disproving their suspicions but by saving the world. It’s interesting, though, that the Doctor apparently has connections all the way up to Churchill – if this is true, then why is he being investigated by an intelligence officer? Shouldn’t he already be cleared? That’s a minor plot complaint, though – for the most part everything hangs together without complication. Far too much attention is paid to how the Waveform and its Chuadri work: there’s some brief investigation of their motive, but for the most part we have to listen to a great deal of technical jargon about how they function and how they can be defeated, and that’s something that has never interested me.
There’s no depth here, in other words, something I’ve said about a lot of monthly releases of late. Is the Waveform simply misunderstood in its attempt to communicate? Of course not, it’s just trying to take over the world. Is Agent Flint (Paul Thornley), or “Spark” or “Criss-Cross” or whatever, driven by a sense of abandonment or betrayal? We don’t know – all we find out is that he’s entirely self-interested and desirous of power. The Doctor, predictably, reacts with horror, asking things like “Is that really all you want?!” as though he can’t believe his foes are so one-dimensional either. There’s an interesting character beat early on when we discover that the Doctor has been working Sylvia (Charlotte Salt) half to death; this is of course not followed up in any meaningful sense, even though it could go a long way to defining the Doctor’s relationship with Constance.
This isn’t to say that “Criss-Cross” is a bad story. Despite getting bogged down in technobabble for a while, it moves along at a fairly brisk pace, and everything is sketched in broad enough strokes to be believable. But all of the potentially interesting elements are glossed over in favor of yet another standard Doctor Who runaround. There’s a brief mention of “Alan,” presumably Turing – and while I have to say I’m not displeased that such a notoriously complex individual was left out of this story, it did remind me of what the story lacked. Ken Bentley does his usual sterling job in the director’s chair, while the sound design from Steve Foxon is quite interesting – but then I would hope so, with a creature made out of sound appearing in an audio story! Overall, “Criss-Cross” is, yet again, solid and unmemorable. While the quality of the monthly range has certainly improved over 2014, it would be nice if something came along and tried something new.
It’s the final entry in this trilogy of season 24 Seventh Doctor adventures: “Terror of the Sontarans” from co-writers John Dorney and Dan Starkey. The story continues in the vein of other stories from that season: it has some interesting ideas but is largely a light, unimportant tale. It leaves us with two questions: what could possibly terrify a Sontaran and should the listener care?
There is some genuinely interesting material in “Terror of the Sontarans,” but it’s unfortunately buried under a great deal of cliché. The story has Sontarans in the title and Sontarans on the cover, yet for the entire first episode nobody refers to the Sontarans by name and the script acts as though we are supposed to be shocked when the Sontarans turn up at the end of episode 1. There isn’t even a cliffhanger, just “…for the glory of the Sontaran race!” Guys: everyone knew they were coming; we didn’t need an entire episode of the Doctor and Mel responding to a distress signal and then trying to open some doors. The remainder of the story turns up the action content significantly, but it’s largely a series of chases along corridors and capture/recapture plotting. I understand that long-time Sontaran actor Starkey is new to writing Doctor Who, but Dorney’s scripts usually have a bit more variety than this.
The selling point of “Terror” is that it goes into some detail about the Sontarans themselves, building them up only to show what it’s like when their training breaks down in the face of mortal horror. The problem, however, is that we really don’t learn anything new about them. They’re militaristic to a fault with a society built entirely around the concept of honor in battle, yes, but we learned that all the way back in “The Time Warrior” – do we really need that stuff repeated yet again? Perhaps one of the most interesting elements is glossed over – this story should have spent more time with the Sontarans involved in research and intelligence and played up the warriors’ disdain for that sort of behavior. Instead of simply being disgusted by a fellow Sontaran’s cowardice, why not have Kayste (Starkey) attribute it to that Sontaran’s job? I do like that Starkey takes them seriously – I like comedy Sontarans like Strax but I also enjoy seeing the Sontarans as a legitimate threat, and they certainly seem formidable in this story despite their losses.
The supporting characters are rather odd. Ketch (Daniel O’Meara) has a Mr. Fantastic-like ability to stretch his limbs, Jackson (Jon Edgley Bond) is an overconfident adventurer, and then there’s Stettimer (John Banks), a warlike crustacean that is bizarrely out of place. I don’t mind the ridiculous image of a giant lobster fighting a Sontaran, but triumphantly declaring “I caught you in a… PINCER MOVEMENT!” is unnecessarily silly in a story that doesn’t set itself out as a comedy. I do like Sylvester McCoy quite a bit in this story as he embraces the more lighthearted side of his character – his declaration of love for spiral staircases is refreshing, and I say that as someone who loves the dark Seventh Doctor. Bonnie Langford doesn’t get much to do, which is a shame – she’s capable of carrying so much more dramatic weight.
Ken Bentley directs, doing his usual, capable job. Andy Hardwick is a talented sound designer, but I must admit I don’t remember anything about the score despite having finished the story two days ago. Overall, “Terror of the Sontarans” is something of a struggle. It’s all about the Sontarans without telling us anything interesting about them. It doesn’t know what kind of tone it should have. Its characterization is uneven at best. Fortunately, it’s paced well enough that it rarely loses the interest, but this is something of a damp end to what had been an entertaining trilogy.
For many years, the Jon Pertwee era was largely underrepresented in the Big Finish catalog. Relegated almost entirely to the Companion Chronicles – and the last Lost Story – the second-longest-serving Doctor simply didn’t have much of an audio profile. But now that finally changes with the release of “The Third Doctor Adventures,” a box set of two full-cast, four-part dramas featuring the Third Doctor.
The first of these, Justin Richards’ “Prisoners of the Lake,” faces the same dilemma that will face every Third Doctor release Big Finish attempts: every regular cast member except for Katy Manning and Richard Franklin is either deceased or unwilling to participate. To get around this problem, Big Finish took the unprecedented step of bringing on Tim Treloar to play the Third Doctor. While Treloar did briefly appear in “The Light at the End,” this is still essentially the first time any Doctor has been replaced by an impersonator who wasn’t already a regular cast member. So we have to start with the obvious elephant in the room: Treloar’s impression of Jon Pertwee. It’s a significant improvement on his effort in “The Light at the End,” but it’s still not entirely convincing. He makes a good attempt at the voice, and he has the vocal tics and inflections down, but at no point did I forget that I was listening to an impersonator. Perhaps that’s an unfair standard, but every time Treloar failed to convince, it took me right out of the story. It’s easier to accept in the Companion Chronicles because there it’s being presented as an impression; here, we’re expected to accept that this is the Third Doctor, and at times it’s difficult. And honestly, did they have to black out Pertwee’s face on the cover? I suppose that’s better than Photoshopping Treloar’s head onto Pertwee’s body, but are you trying to call attention to it or not?
It seems as though there’s a standing contractual offer to Justin Richards from all producers of Doctor Who spinoff material. When a new range of novels or audios starts up, or a new Doctor is introduced into an old one, Richards almost always comes along to write one of the first stories. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, as Richards is adept at writing entertaining stories that mesh well with their eras, but it does mean that he often resorts to clichés. Nowhere is this more evident than in “Prisoners of the Lake,” which is quite possibly the most clichéd Jon Pertwee story in Doctor Who history not written by Terrance Dicks. A heroic archaeologist unearths an ancient, deadly menace, all the while fighting off the stupidity of the arrogant bureaucrat in charge? Lots of padded out sequences of the Doctor describing something incomprehensible followed by Jo or Yates summing it up with an apt metaphor? Ludicrously single-minded villains seeking to conquer or destroy the Earth, ignoring the Doctor’s desperate appeals to their morality? Venusian aikido? I could go on – it’s all here, and all in exactly the form you’d expect.
The biggest sin of “Prisoners of the Lake” is that it’s boring. Right from the protracted opening sequence in which none of the regular characters appear, you know you’re back in early-1970s storytelling mode, and this continues throughout. This could easily have been a full episode shorter if some of the interminable transit sequences were cut out – and that’s considering that much of that has already been eliminated through narration! None of the characters have any depth, which is a particular waste of Carolyn Seymour (or Caroline, as it’s misspelled on the website), and the villains are utterly two-dimensional. Frankly, it seems as though the mission statement for this was to recreate the era as slavishly as possible, not to create a compelling drama. Even the most comfortable periods in Jon Pertwee’s tenure occasionally offered something challenging or controversial – but not “Prisoners of the Lake,” which floats placidly by on stagnant, shallow waters. I’m sorry, but I no longer give bonus points because hey, it’s the first Third Doctor story.
They can do better.
5/10
THE HAVOC OF EMPIRES
Fortunately, they’ve got another story in which to try to do better! It’s “The Havoc of Empires,” from Andy Lane, and it’s a Pertwee-in-space story that serves as an appropriate companion piece to “Prisoners of the Lake,” for better or for worse.
This might as well be a Peladon story, because it basically hits the same sorts of notes. There are only two opposing factions here, and they are being united through a political marriage – a marriage that, naturally, parties within and without want to stop. The Doctor, Jo, and Yates arrive in the middle of everything and are mistaken for security consultants, so of course they stick around to solve all the problems. The people involved in the marriage of convenience are unsure about one another, but of course they seem to be falling in love by the conclusion. There’s a bigoted chief adviser who seems like the obvious villain, so of course it’s someone everybody overlooked. When everyone finds out at the end that the TARDIS crew aren’t security consultants but instead are random strangers, of course they don’t care about the massive deception. It’s a big pile of clichés, in other words.
Fortunately, Lane’s script makes these clichés reasonably entertaining. While the broad strokes are predictable, the details have a few surprises, and the plot is structured elegantly with few obvious holes. It’s fun to listen to Jo pose as a security expert, and actually use some of that UNIT training she always talks about – similarly, she’s never portrayed as silly or unthinking, though we still get stereotypical lines of the “He’s alive, I KNOW he is!” variety a bit too much for my taste. Yates is more superfluous, however – he doesn’t get a lot of stuff to do, despite the Doctor being tied up for most of the second half of the story, and the script seems unsure of what his actual personality is.
The script seems unsure of quite a lot, actually. Is this a comedy or a drama? Doctor Who often mixes both, of course, but this story veers wildly between the two with little consistency. The wedding planner, for example, feels incongruous with the rest of the story. And while the continuity reference to the Delphons amused me, did we really have to introduce them into the story? Yes, the Doctor needs to be released from imprisonment to communicate with them with his eyebrows – very amusing, I’m sure, but this is an audio story, remember? So instead of a great visual gag, we get people saying things like “Why is he waggling his eyebrows like that?”
I should mention that both stories use Treloar as a narrator to gloss over unimportant, transitional scenes. This works rather well – it takes us from one scene to another without needing to hear characters running up and down corridors. It’s a bit of a crutch, in that the best Big Finish stories succeed without it, but there’s nothing wrong with a more efficient story, especially one rooted in an era famous for its padding. Treloar is a very good narrator, too – better at that than playing Jon Pertwee, if you ask me.
Overall, “The Havoc of Empires” is a solid, unmemorable story. It has a bit more weight than “Prisoners of the Lake” but it’s still not the sort of thing to stick with the listener. While I’m not a huge fan of Treloar’s Third Doctor, he’s successful enough that I would purchase the next set – and with “Volume 1” in the title of this one, you know there’s more coming. But now that we’ve gone the traditional route, let’s hope we get something a bit more boundary pushing in the next set, lest these stories go down the same endless, miserable road of the Fourth Doctor Adventures.
After the disaster that was “Beyond the Ultimate Adventure,” almost anything would have been an improvement, but the prospect of a Simon Guerrier-penned script featuring Steven and Sara is particularly appealing. The result, “The Anachronauts,” is unfortunately not of the same quality as the “Home Truths” trilogy, but it’s still a strong, entertaining adventure.
This is the double-length Companion Chronicle of the sixth series. Its length is its biggest problem, so I’ll deal with that first: there’s not enough material here to fill out four full episodes and it definitely shows. To reveal after the first two episodes that nothing is as it seems and the TARDIS engineered the scenario is a great moment. To then reveal that the NEXT two episodes are all a dream is to seem repetitive. As soon as events get suspicious in Berlin, it’s hard not to think “Oh, this again? Already?” The Berlin plot is also rather dull – it’s a long series of captures and escapes, the most traditional sort of Doctor Who padding.
But that’s not to say I disliked the story. The first two episodes hold the interest very well, the TARDIS colliding with an experimental human time ship and both ships ending up marooned on a mysterious desert island haunted by ghosts. It’s reminiscent of “Lost,” and the revelation that the entire island is contained within the TARDIS is brilliant. I understand they want to avoid looking inward, but I really think the TARDIS has gone underexplored in every storytelling medium – we should have “bottle” episodes inside this indescribably magnificent vessel.
Unlike the (brilliant) trilogy that started with “Home Truths,” this is a much more traditional story featuring the Doctor, Steven, and Sara, set between episodes 7 and 8 of “The Daleks’ Master Plan.” The fit is a bit uneasy – the Doctor keeps making references to the Daleks chasing them even though they never show up – but we’re used to hearing new Sara Kingdom stories now so it basically works. The characterization, always one of Guerrier’s strengths, sets the story apart: Steven figures out that the adventure in Berlin isn’t real largely because of the way Sara conducts herself. She’s more clingy, more emotional, more loving – and though it’s hinted that Steven might like it if she were truly that way, he knows she isn’t. Guerrier doesn’t make it obvious, either: it’s there, but Jean Marsh isn’t acting wildly out of character or anything like that. Subtle character work like this is always welcome.
There’s no framing device, similar to Guerrier’s Oliver Harper trilogy, but with both Peter Purves and Jean Marsh in studio, the narration switches between them with every new episode. This allows us to hear each story from both perspectives, adding detail to an otherwise straightforward adventure. This is put to best use in the final episode, as Jean Marsh takes over the narration right up until Steven figures out that Sara isn’t real. By having “Sara” narrate her feelings about Steven, Guerrier makes them much more believable and leads the audience away from questioning the reality of the situation. It’s a skillful example of misdirection, and Marsh hits it out of the park, as expected.
The narration features a couple of odd touches. The crew of the time ship, for example, are referred to almost exclusively by their full names – by the end of four episodes, it’s weird to hear both Steven and Sara say “Natalie Lang” almost every time they refer to her. Ken Bentley directs, and Toby Hrycek-Robinson provides a surprisingly broad soundscape for a Companion Chronicle. Overall, “The Anachronauts” is a solid, entertaining story. It doesn’t need to be four episodes long, and it’s repetitive in places, but there’s still enough going on here to make it worthwhile.
THE COMPANION CHRONICLES: BEYOND THE ULTIMATE ADVENTURE
The Companion Chronicles is arguably Big Finish’s best Doctor Who range. Some of the best Doctor Who stories they’ve ever released are part of it, and so, with the landmark 50th release, one would expect something fantastic — something powerful, something complex, something intelligent, something thought-provoking. And so it was that Big Finish turned to… wait, they asked Terrance Dicks to write a sequel to “The Ultimate Adventure?!” Is this some kind of cruel joke? Sadly, it is not, and “Beyond the Ultimate Adventure” is easily the worst Companion Chronicle yet.
I genuinely have nothing good to say about this story. There isn’t even the slightest hint of an original thought or idea on display – I know you can say that about many later Terrance Dicks works, but this one is egregiously bad. We’ll start with the framing device, which features companions Crystal (Claire Huckle) and Jason (Noel Sullivan, doing an outrageously terrible French accent for no reason) submitting a report to the Time Lords about their recent adventure. Why are they submitting this report, you ask? Because the Doctor couldn’t find a way to defeat his nemesis, so he called up the Time Lords and had them solve the problem for him. That’s how it ends, and if you’re upset that I ruined it for you, just think: now you don’t have to listen to it! Dramatically unsatisfying doesn’t even begin to describe that sort of resolution, in which the Doctor honestly convinces the Eidolon to let him dick around in the TARDIS unsupervised for close to an hour, just so he can rig the ship to head straight to Gallifrey.
The whole story is like that: the entire first episode is a waste of time running around with mercenaries through awkward references to the original play, and the cliffhanger is appalling: the characters walk out of the TARDIS! My god, whatever will happen next? The TARDIS leaves all of time and space to journey into another dimension, where anything can happen. So what does the villain do in this bizarre dream-realm, with control of all reality at his fingertips? Conjures up old foes of the Doctor, of course. Look, it’s a vampire! And a Raston Warrior Robot! And a Rutan! And probably villains from dozens of other Terrance Dicks stories if only there had been time! Nothing remotely new or interesting is done with any of these characters, of course – it’s just rehashing old scripts without a hint of imagination.
But why make this in the first place? “The Ultimate Adventure” was many things, but it wasn’t boring: it was bombastic, it featured Daleks AND Cybermen, and it even had musical numbers throughout the script. None of this appears in “Beyond,” which is indistinguishable from any number of bad Doctor Who stories over the years. Why do a sequel to one of the most unique stories in franchise history if you’re not going to embrace the style? Why have a new (and terrible) theme song, new (and terrible) companions, and even have Colin Baker appear in the story if it’s going to be this bland? Is it just a coincidence that this was the 50th release in the range, or was this intentional?
The production isn’t bad. There’s nothing wrong with Jason Haigh-Ellery’s direction, and I actually liked the sound design from David Darlington. But on the whole, “Beyond the Ultimate Adventure” is terrible. It’s nothing but warmed-over, thinly-sketched material that would be left out of even an average script. It has a slapdash feel that it never overcomes. It even… wait, did they misspell “Terrance Dicks” on the product page?! They sure did! Sums it up, really.
As the Companion Chronicles have proceeded, several of them have started to take on a serial aspect, and the latest linked trilogy from Simon Guerrier comes to a close with “The First Wave,” the fifth release in the sixth series. As with its predecessors, “The Perpetual Bond” and “The Cold Equations,” “The First Wave” is a strong, powerful story that entertains throughout.
So this is the end for Tom Allen as Oliver Harper, a short-lived yet brilliantly effective companion for the First Doctor and Steven. It’s interesting to note that Oliver’s secret – he was a gay man living in notoriously intolerant 1960s London, a plot point that dominated his first two appearances – isn’t even mentioned in this story except for a brief, oblique reference. But it shouldn’t be – as soon as Oliver realized that neither the Doctor nor Steven was concerned about his sexuality, he had no reason to dwell on it, so why should the story? Instead, we get to see Oliver as a comfortable member of the TARDIS crew. He’s intelligent, cautiously adventurous, and very curious, full of positive qualities that make him a good listen. He’s still quite aware that he’s cut off from his own time, however, something that informs his decision at the conclusion of the story. That decision leads to his death; it’s a traditional sort of heroic sacrifice but it’s perfectly in keeping with what we’ve learned about him.
Which brings us to Steven, still nursing the wounds of the deaths of Katarina and Sara Kingdom, still trusting the Doctor but questioning the vagaries of time travel. To some extent, we know Oliver’s story has to end tragically: the next television story ends with an enraged Steven leaving the TARDIS, angry and frustrated at his inability to stop friends from dying, and guilty that they always seem to die to keep him alive. Such is the case here as well: without Oliver’s sacrifice, the Doctor and Steven would not survive, and yet Steven’s reward for making it out is a worsening case of survivor’s guilt. The seeds of “The Massacre” are sown here, as the Doctor appears willing to sacrifice both his friends and himself to preserve recorded history. It should go without saying by now that this is another fantastic performance from Peter Purves, both in his note-perfect Hartnell impression and in his increasingly pained performance and narration as Steven.
As if the emotional content wasn’t enough, “The First Wave” also tickles the fan gene as it features the Vardans, the energy creatures that spearheaded the invasion of Gallifrey in “The Invasion of Time.” We learn considerably more about them here: how they exist in the form of pure energy, travel at the “speed of thought,” and yet build ships to conserve energy over long journeys. The mass of transmissions coming from Earth draws them in, and it’s suggested that their crackling sound effect might be a manifestation of all these transmissions jumbled together. Director Lisa Bowerman steps in to voice a Vardan in an uncredited role, making them sound dangerous without resorting to over-the-top megalomania.
I’m not entirely sure what I think of the conclusion. Oliver doesn’t die – the Vardan converts him into energy – but he’s unable to communicate with the Doctor and Steven, so he follows them and observes their adventures together. This part is fine, but the very end, in which he witnesses the Doctor’s regeneration, almost seems to imply that Oliver’s “ghost” inspires the Doctor to become more of an interventionist, giving him the “evil that must be fought” mantra he proclaims in “The Moonbase.” This always seemed to be a natural progression of the character from his earliest days through his first regeneration – I’m not sure that a moment of inspiration helps that progression in the same manner. It’s thought provoking, however, and I did like how it tied back into the title of the story.
Lisa Bowerman is excellent as always in the director’s chair, and the sound design from Richard Fox and Lauren Yason is particularly effective, especially the haunting score. Overall, “The First Wave” is another triumph for Simon Guerrier and the Companion Chronicles. Intelligent, emotionally honest storytelling like this is always a delight. This range has really matured into something special.
Excluding the incumbent, Colin Baker is unique among the televised Doctors for a significant reason: he is the only one not to have the events leading up to his regeneration dramatized. Even Paul McGann and John Hurt were shown meeting their respective ends, but “Time and the Rani” starts with Sylvester McCoy on the floor in Baker’s costume and a blonde wig with the regeneration already in progress. The presumptive explanation is that the Rani’s tractor beam battered the inside of the TARDIS enough to severely injure the Doctor, but the utter lack of heroism on display – and the fact that it’s a stupid way to go – has led fans to think up alternative explanations. Two novels – Gary Russell’s “Spiral Scratch” and charity fan-fic “Time’s Champion” – provided different “final stories” for the Sixth Doctor, but both were unfortunately terrible. But now, almost thirty years after “The Trial of a Time Lord,” Big Finish is finally dramatizing the Sixth Doctor’s final moments in the aptly titled “The Sixth Doctor – The Last Adventure,” a box set of four linked stories.
The first of these, “The End of the Line” from “Scarifyers” creators Simon Barnard and Paul Morris, is creepy and largely effective. This is overshadowed, however, by the introduction of new companion Constance Clarke (Miranda Raison), who is due to be introduced in upcoming story “Criss-Cross” but debuts here because Big Finish brought the release date forward. There’s not much to say about her – she was in WRNS, she worked at Bletchley Park – but she’s basically another middle-class 20th century woman. She sounds driven and a bit cold, but it’s hard to say, as she’s not the focus of the story. It’s like watching “Terror of the Vervoids” – there’s a new companion and you just have to get used to it.
Fortunately, the story is very good, with Barnard and Morris expertly building suspense throughout. The Doctor and Constance land in a train station blanketed by fog, leading to a claustrophobic encounter with a marooned group of travelers, their conductor, and a mysterious train-spotter. It owes more than a little to “Midnight” – the setting, and the increasing mistrust of the Doctor by the passengers – but the story goes in a completely different direction as the Doctor realizes the fog is caused by the intersection of multiple parallel universes. By the end of the story, it has reverted to a more standard Doctor Who “stop the big machine” tale, but the first half is tense and gripping.
The other significant part of the story is the surprise inclusion of the Master – and not just any Master, the Ainley Master acting through an avatar! Chris Finney effectively switches between the regional accent of Keith Potter and the Master’s pompous enunciations, and the Doctor’s eye-rolling exasperation with the lunacy of the Master’s plan is quite entertaining. It’s always fun to put the Doctor and the Master together in a room and listen to them bicker, and “The End of the Line” is no exception. I also enjoy how the Master threatens to kill Constance if anything goes wrong, and then when something does go wrong he just runs off without killing her. Lastly, the story reveals the presence of the Valeyard at the conclusion, but at this point there’s very little apparent clue about his eventual plan for the Doctor. I’m curious to see where this goes, because the Valeyard has so rarely been used effectively, but it seems like Big Finish is going all-out with this one.
8/10
THE RED HOUSE
I’ll start by getting something off my chest: the correct word for “wolf-like” is “lupine,” not “wolverine!” Wolverines are weasels! They’re not even related to wolves! So in a story about reverse werewolves, who are absolutely related to actual wolves, calling them “wolverines” is annoying as hell. But then, “annoying as hell” is an accurate description of “The Red House,” Alan Barnes’ entry in the Sixth Doctor’s conclusion.
As a general rule, if you find yourself writing a teenage character who says things like “cool,” “dude,” “man,” and so forth, you should probably stop and come up with a different idea. Such is the case with Ugo (Rory Keenan), leader of the “wolverine” teenage rebels, who’s just, like, trying to create a better place, man. It’s the sort of predictably irritating thing that makes you root for the bad guys. Anyway, the central concept of “The Red House” is an inversion of a traditional myth: what if, instead of humans turning into feral wolves when exposed to moonlight, humanoid, civilized wolves turned into feral humans when exposed to sunlight? You might be thinking that’s a simplistic and rather silly idea. If so, you’re right. You might also be thinking that there must be more to the idea, that simply presenting it in reverse isn’t imaginative and doesn’t have any deeper significance. You’re wrong about that one – instead, all we get is a barrage of consistently appalling dog noises and actors doing caveman voices when the sun comes out.
The script isn’t much better. Alan Barnes has been script editing the monthly range for who knows how long and he still hasn’t figured out how to properly describe events on audio. This reaches its nadir when the Doctor gets scratched and actually yells out “Ouch! My face!” like something out of Scooby Doo. Perhaps, had there been a need to know precisely where the Doctor was scratched, a line like that would have been necessary, but it never came up again. Then of course there’s the return of Charley, and since she’s being written by Alan Barnes you know she’s going to be relentlessly cheery, totally unaffected by anything that happens, and so forth. But since it’s been a while, we need a few crushingly unsubtle lines at the beginning to remind us that she’s keeping a secret from the Doctor and that she’s… almost stereotypically upper class? I don’t remember that being a character trait, but it’s never mentioned again in the story, so I suppose it doesn’t matter.
Another in the litany of issues is the plot, which seems to be setting up a conflict between rebels and officials, between heroic teenagers and the evil mad scientist trying to steal their individuality. But then it turns out it’s not about that at all, and the entire conflict is a misunderstanding. This is fine if it’s trying to make a point, but it isn’t – it just feels like the author running short on time. Most egregious is the ending, in which the misunderstanding leads to an incoming nuclear missile that is taken care of “off-screen” by the Valeyard. I understand that Barnes is trying to illustrate that the Valeyard isn’t just a mustache-twirling villain like the Master, and that he’s working to an agenda that isn’t just “kill the Doctor at all costs,” but presenting that in this way robs the story of drama. The best part of the story is the Valeyard’s meeting with Charley, but nothing really comes of it in the end.
Overall, “The Red House” is a failure. It’s not very interesting, it’s not very well written, and it doesn’t seem to advance the arc plot in any meaningful way. At least it’s only the second episode – if the final installment grinds to a halt like this, I’m going to be more than slightly irritated.
3/10
STAGE FRIGHT
It’s understandable, because Colin Baker really improved his position in the Doctor Who hierarchy with his audio performances, but this box set might as well be called “The Sixth Doctor – The Last Big Finish Adventure.” Three out of four companions are audio-only, and Matt Fitton’s “Stage Fright” throws in Jago and Litefoot for no particular reason. I know that the Sixth Doctor met them in their spinoff series and the two “Voyage” special releases, but they serve absolutely no purpose here other than to add some local color to an otherwise bizarre story. That’s not a serious complaint, as this is otherwise an entertaining story and a vast improvement on the second part, but it does show the box set creaking around the edges as it tries to support everything Big Finish can throw at it. And all of this happens with the sad knowledge that Evelyn can’t join the sendoff. Still, it’s not a bad thing to hear Benjamin and Baxter in another Doctor Who story – I just wish their characters had more to contribute to the plot.
At least much of the story takes place in Jago’s theater, justifying his involvement. The Valeyard has rented it out for private exhibitions in which he dramatizes each of the Doctor’s regenerations, sapping the emotional energy from his actors each time and killing them in the process. This is a fantastic conceit that lets Michael Jayston have a great deal of fun, especially when he rephrases the Doctors’ final words into more formal tones. It’s also the sort of thing that would have been wonderfully creepy on television – dead bodies wearing fabrications of the old companions’ costumes – but unfortunately loses something when the characters have to describe it out loud. It also allows the Doctor to finally have a face-to-face confrontation with the Valeyard and actually defeat his scheme, rather than letting the drama fade into nothingness like it did in “The Red House.”
Flip is the companion in this installment, and Lisa Greenwood returns to the part for the first time since being abruptly written out at the end of her last trilogy. Fitton tries very hard to make the character interesting: she’s dealing with a long-buried childhood trauma, the Valeyard reflects on her tendency to blunder into things, etc., but it doesn’t work. I keep coming back to this, but Flip just doesn’t seem smart. She’s reckless, yes, but she’s also oblivious to almost everything going on around her. I don’t mind the modern cultural references or the “working class” portrayal; I mind the presentation of a Doctor Who companion almost completely lacking intellectual curiosity. It’s like having the depressing Donna from “The End of Time” as full-time companion. And the stage fright detail falls completely flat, as does the scene where she “overcomes” it – she’s standing in an empty theater! Does she also have a crippling fear of rehearsals?
“Stage Fright” isn’t bad, it’s just overfull. A great central idea is made overcomplicated by the inclusion of Jago and Litefoot and one of the weakest audio companions is back without even a hint of improvement. The imagery is enough to hold the attention, though, and as a penultimate episode it’s not bad.
6/10
THE BRINK OF DEATH
This is it: the final story, the last adventure for Colin Baker’s Sixth Doctor, the final battle between the Doctor and the Valeyard with his very life at stake. So how will we get to the first scene of “Time and the Rani?” This question is answered in “The Brink of Death,” which is written by Nicholas Briggs because of course it is.
Admittedly, “The Brink of Death” isn’t stereotypical Briggs for the most part. Yes, there’s a regional stereotype featured prominently in the cast, and yes, he even has the Valeyard refer to the TARDIS as “old girl,” but the story largely stays away from the clichéd, unimaginative tropes that have dominated his Doctor Who work of late. The problem hanging over the entire story, though, is that it has to end with the Doctor regenerating on the TARDIS floor and Mel unconscious nearby with no idea what’s happening. There’s no opportunity for the Sixth Doctor to say goodbye to anyone, in other words, or even do anything heroic that his companion can see. This could be viewed as starting a trend – four of the next five Doctors would regenerate without companions by their sides – but in practice it leaves “The Brink of Death” feeling rather empty. It also doesn’t help that we just saw a similar solution to the plot of “Return to Telos” – so does the Doctor remember any of his final battle with the Valeyard or will he just look back and remember that time he didn’t check the instruments and flew straight into a beam of lethal radiation? Colin Baker, fittingly, gets a number of great speeches in this, battling the Valeyard with his trademark bombast and shifting emotions from anger to terror and back again. Briggs also gives him a moment to reflect on all his companions, much like McGann in “The Night of the Doctor,” and you can hear the emotion in Baker’s voice when he recalls Evelyn.
The other big problem with “The Brink of Death” – and the box set in general – is the Valeyard himself. I’ve been building a suspicion over many years of Doctor Who fandom, and this box has finally confirmed it for me: the Valeyard is not an interesting character. He’s an interesting concept, certainly – an amalgamation of the Doctor’s dark thoughts sounds terrifying – but in practice it never works out. We’ve had a “dark Doctor” since 1971, and we call him the Master. We don’t need another one, and in an effort to make the Valeyard different from the Master, authors always turn to similar tropes: trying to undo the Doctor’s past adventures, or convoluted nonsense involving Gallifrey and the Matrix. It’s the latter that Briggs employs here: the Valeyard implants a race of telepathic creatures into the TARDIS’s symbiotic nuclei, and their feeding on the Doctor’s mind will enable the Valeyard to take over the minds of every Time Lord. What? That’s an incomprehensible threat without any relatable elements, and the elements cobbled together from the other three stories don’t really fit together in any meaningful way. But that’s what always happens with the Valeyard because authors don’t really know what to do with him. Similarly, please let this be the last story ever set on the Time Lord space station from “Trial.” The Doctor spends the first several minutes trying to get out of the Matrix, accomplishing nothing, something quite similar to the first few minutes of “Trial of the Valeyard.”
Another element I disliked was the almost total absence of Bonnie Langford, something no Doctor Who fan would likely have said back in 1987. Mel is a useful, appealing character, and here she’s stuck on the sidelines, wandering around with the Valeyard and asking questions. Liz White turns up as Time Lord pseudo-companion Genesta – and seriously, a Time Lord with a Yorkshire accent taking Matrix engineering classes at night school? The demystification of Gallifrey continues apace – and dutifully follows the Doctor around asking questions. I generally liked the inclusion of Sylvester McCoy at the very end, but I’m not sure about the decision to have them share the final line – shouldn’t that be Baker’s alone?
There’s a lot of technobabble, a lot of incomprehensible sound design… it’s a Big Finish epic in every way, good and bad, but the central performances from Baker and Jayston hold the entire thing together. In the end, though, what’s the lesson of “The Brink of Death” and the box set as a whole? It’s better than the two “last adventure” novels, but that’s hardly an achievement – really, if there’s a takeaway here, it’s that fans should leave well enough alone. It wasn’t dignified and it wasn’t meaningful, but can’t we just accept that the Sixth Doctor hit his head on the TARDIS console and be done with it? Do we have to keep trying to cram universe-spanning epics into the opening moments of “Time and the Rani?” This was supposed to be a mind-blowing epic; instead it lands with a dull thud.
In a recent poll ranking the Doctor Who regeneration stories, “The Trial of a Time Lord” came last, probably because it isn’t a regeneration story in the first place, and Colin Baker was understandably upset. Well, now he has a regeneration story of his own, and guess what? It’s still the worst.
“The Warehouse?” I understand that you can’t judge a book by its cover, but “The Warehouse” is one of the most boring titles I’ve ever heard. Imagine some other Doctor Who stories with similar titles. “The Planet,” or “The Caves,” or “The Daleks.” Wait, forget about that last one. Anyway, Mike Tucker’s “The Warehouse,” the second entry in the 2015 Sylvester McCoy monthly range trilogy, is straightforward, reasonably entertaining Doctor Who. Which surprised me, given that I’ve struggled to find some of Tucker’s other work even reasonably entertaining. Never let it be said that I lack an open mind!
It’s almost impressive how “The Warehouse” manages not to be about anything in particular given the wealth of material ripe for satire. It’s set in a giant Amazon-like warehouse, maintained by a small army of clones and utilizing swarms of drones to deliver products to the planet below. There’s a living mold slowly infecting the place that got its start when scientists on the aforementioned planet engaged in careless genetic modification. There’s a cargo cult on the planet, formed after a disaster and worshipping the warehouse as the home of the gods. Look at the opportunities! You could write a treatise on worker abuses at warehouses like this, or commentary on how military drone technology doesn’t blend well with consumer desires, or how clone technology is dangerous if misused, or how we are slaves to online ordering, or even a cautionary tale about GMOs. Tucker fails to engage with any of the material to any significant extent – the most depth he reaches anywhere is the idea that we need to be careful with technology, which is hardly the stuff of great insight. And I’m not saying that I wanted “The Warehouse” to be a plot-free meditation on a variety of real-world issues – though that would be an impressive step for a Big Finish story – but I am saying that a little more depth would not have gone amiss.
The shallowness is so disappointing because the plot is actually exciting! It’s very Doctor Who – there’s lots of running up and down corridors while being chased, lots of characters being captured and recaptured, lots of “What is it, Doctor?” from the supporting cast, and so forth. But Tucker’s script is tight and eventful: there’s surprisingly little padding and there’s always a new threat on the horizon to keep the pace up. Yes, the first episode is incredibly slow, but by the conclusion you’ve forgotten all about that. Perhaps some of this is down to director Barnaby Edwards, who reliably turns out the paciest, most exciting Big Finish stories, but all credit to Tucker for producing a solid action script. I just wish the dialogue wasn’t so clunky – there’s a lot of “Ew, look! He’s got mold growing all over his face!” that still sounds out of place 200 releases after the range started.
We need more Sylvester McCoy and Bonnie Langford stories, as the two work incredibly well together despite their short time together on screen. Part of my enjoyment of “The Warehouse” comes from their command of the material and their chemistry, as well as from the supporting cast, especially Phillip Franks who switches effortlessly between officious and menacing as the Supervisor. I’ve already mentioned the fine direction from Edwards, and the sound design from Richard Fox and Lauren Yason adds some much-needed atmosphere. Overall, “The Warehouse” isn’t that bad if you like solidly-plotted Doctor Who stories with little to no depth. It’s a decent listen – if a little clunky – but it carries a feeling of lost potential.
After “The Fate of Krelos,” a slow-paced tone piece that actually tried to feel different, it was natural to expect “Return to Telos,” the final story of the fourth series of Fourth Doctor Adventures, to feel similarly innovative. Yeah, it’s by Nicholas Briggs, but so was “Krelos,” so this could still be good despite being yet another series-ending “spectacular” featuring the return of old enemies, right? Well, it COULD be, but it isn’t.
I’m not sure what’s worse: a Doctor Who story completely devoid of interesting ideas or one that takes an interesting idea and completely wastes it in the least imaginative way possible. “Return to Telos” is an example of the latter. The idea is indeed interesting: what if something that happened during “The Tomb of the Cybermen” had unforeseen consequences for the Doctor in a later incarnation? In fact, why not show a couple of “deleted scenes” from “Tomb” that illustrate how this happened? And why not get Frazer Hines in to play both Jamie and the Second Doctor? It’d be a perfect follow-up to the scene from “Krelos” in which the Doctor and Leela discover a scrap of Jamie’s clothing – just imagine the Doctor’s two warrior companions finally meeting. Perhaps two Doctors meeting would be a step too far, but imagine the potential of a future Doctor trying desperately to correct the mistakes of his past self.
Keep imagining, because “Return to Telos” will give you none of that. The deadly mistake by the Second Doctor and Jamie? Yeah, Jamie brushed up against something in the tomb and got “cyber-particles” on his kilt. That’s the entirety of the conflict, and through a Rube Goldberg-ian series of events, those particles lead to the destruction of Krelos by the Cybermen. There’s still potential, though: what about the growing conflict between the Doctor and Leela, between her desire to help and the Doctor’s knowledge of the laws of time? As usual, that conflict is entirely ignored – the Doctor decides that because the Cybermen were using time travel to interfere, he is justified to change history.
Briggs doesn’t stop there. It’s commonly accepted that in drama, actions should have consequences – well they certainly don’t in “Return to Telos,” because the Doctor’s plan is to change history and undo everything that happened. You remember that this all happens because of something stuck to Jamie’s clothing – well, get ready for the epic climax, in which K-9 desperately tries to get Jamie in contact with a vacuum cleaner! Thrill as the long-awaited meeting between Leela and Jamie never happens! And marvel at the conclusion, in which everything is undone, nobody remembers anything that happened, and the Doctor and Leela enjoy a fish dinner!
I understand that these are “missing adventures,” slotted in between television stories, and that massive changes to the status quo generally aren’t possible. I also understand that Briggs is driven by the desire to recapture the joy he felt watching Doctor Who as a child. But this is utterly cynical storytelling. To tell a story in which everything is undone by the conclusion is to tell a meaningless story: it is literally true that nothing happens in either “The Fate of Krelos” or “Return to Telos.” You could even do another “Leela meets the Cybermen” story if you wanted – it wouldn’t contradict anything here. It’s also the sort of thing that Doctor Who should never do because it flags up one of the central problems with time travel stories: if the Doctor can just go back and change history so that the conflict never happens, why doesn’t he do that every time? The whole dramatic point of the “laws of time” is to prevent plots like this from being written because they are utterly unrewarding, and Briggs should know that.
For what it’s worth, “Return to Telos” is fairly dramatic as it goes along, and certainly builds tension as it presents the Doctor and Leela with what appears to be an unsolvable situation. Briggs directs his own script, and the story is paced quite well as a result. The performances are very good, as is the sound design and music from Jamie Robertson. But when a story prioritizes nostalgia and convenience over drama and consequence, it’s never going to be very good. Overall, “Return to Telos” isn’t very good, and it’s a huge flop at the end of what had otherwise been a fairly entertaining series. But honestly, do you expect any different at this point? I certainly don’t.
THE COMPANION CHRONICLES: THE MANY DEATHS OF JO GRANT
I enjoyed “The Many Deaths of Jo Grant,” the fourth release in the sixth series of Companion Chronicles, not least because it’s from Cavan Scott and Mark Wright, two of my favorite Big Finish writers. It’s not a boundary-pushing release by any means, but it has a strong central concept that is executed convincingly.
For the second release in a row, a Companion Chronicle eschews any framing device, this time dropping the listener right into Katy Manning’s narrative. As the title implies, the story is structured into a series of vignettes, each ending with Jo dying in some sort of horrible fashion. I like how Scott and Wright describe these scenes: it would be easy to resort to nasty and/or visceral descriptions of violence, but instead the material is handled sensitively. It’s jarring enough to hear a companion suffering fatal injuries, and as a result the death scenes unintentionally show off one of the central unrealistic tenets of Doctor Who: this really should happen more often.
Fortunately, the authors largely sidestep that issue by focusing on the self-sacrificial aspect of the story. As plots go, this is an hour-long expansion of the end of “The Dæmons” – an alien race lacking the understanding of or the capacity for self-sacrifice uses Jo’s selflessness as a model. But rather than melting down in confusion, the alien learns – he’s a scientist, not a torturer, and he’s trying to learn why an enemy would resort to suicide attacks. It’s entirely appropriate for this story to feature Jo, who was perhaps the most willing of any companion to sacrifice herself for the Doctor – and the script lightly pokes fun at that idea, revealing that she has “died” over 400 times in the experiment, giving herself up to save the Doctor in every single scenario. Importantly, the Doctor is shown doing the same for her – not that we don’t think he would, but it would be churlish to show Jo sacrificing herself so many times without the Doctor returning the favor.
I love the Katy Manning Companion Chronicles because of the obvious fun and affection in her voice in every part of her narrative. It doesn’t matter that her impressions of Jon Pertwee and Nicholas Courtney aren’t very accurate – or that they largely sound alike – because you can hear her love for both men in every line and that warmth stands out. She’s also quite good at pitching her voice upward to recapture how she sounded in the 1970s – there’s a noticeable difference between her narrative and her performance and the story is all the better for it. Nicholas Asbury is the supporting actor, and he gets to play multiple roles, doing well enough that it’s easy to forget he’s the only supporting voice.
The production is solid, including both Lisa Bowerman’s direction and Matthew Cochrane’s sound design, but the score from Daniel Brett is particularly good. Overall, “The Many Deaths of Jo Grant” is an entertaining, loving homage to the Pertwee era. It’s not particularly deep – it wears its emotions on its sleeve just like the TV show did – but it’s compelling enough to hold the attention. I don’t object to nostalgia; I simply prefer it to arise from a sense of love rather than a sense of obligation. Good stuff.
“The Memory Cheats,” from Simon Guerrier, the third release in the sixth series of Companion Chronicles, is a sequel to “Echoes of Grey,” similar to Guerrier’s Sara Kingdom trilogy or Nigel Fairs’ work with Leela. As the title implies, it’s largely about Zoe’s memory after the Time Lords wiped it – but while the framing scenes are fascinating, the central story is much less interesting.
The framing device, as I mentioned above, is excellent. The mysterious Company is trying to figure out if there’s anything useful in Zoe’s mind, and they suspect she has a memory block though they don’t know why or how. Zoe herself is torn because she knows she has a photographic memory and yet experiences vivid dreams about adventures with the Doctor, adventures she knows she couldn’t have had. The title – which I assume is a cheeky nod at one of John Nathan-Turner’s favorite sayings – does give the game away in some respects, but Guerrier makes it work anyway. I love how the script turns itself around twice in the final moments, first by revealing that Zoe fabricated the entire story from her rapid observation of Company documents, but then revealing that there is actual proof that she was in Tashkent at the time of the Russian Revolution. So we don’t know how much of the story is false and how much actually came from Zoe’s obstructed memory, and that ambiguity sets up a nice cliffhanger into the next story in this series.
Unfortunately, the story itself isn’t very interesting. I like the setting quite a bit, as I always enjoy Doctor Who stories that take place in little-used historical periods, but apart from the constant sense of paranoia there’s not much to distinguish Tashkent. I like the little details like Jamie getting to know the local kids, but the actual plot, featuring a frightening alien abducting the local children, is very traditional Doctor Who material that fails to inspire. The other problem with the unreliable narration is that it uses the conclusion as a point of conflict: Zoe says that the creature was allowed to take the children with it, something that we know the Doctor would not have allowed to happen. But we never find out what actually happened, and while that lends ambiguity to the framing device, it also makes the story unrewarding. I don’t mind this in theory but, if that was Guerrier’s angle, he shouldn’t have made the story the central part of the script. I understand that’s the format of the Companion Chronicles, but there’s no reason that format can’t be broken.
The production of “The Memory Cheats” is stellar from start to finish. Wendy Padbury is fantastic, switching her performance noticeably between the present day and the flashbacks, and Charlie Hayes supports ably, driving the framing device along. Lisa Bowerman directs at the usual high standard, while the sound design from Richard Fox and Lauren Yason is excellent, particularly the haunting score. Overall, I enjoyed it quite a bit. Despite the fact that it falls down in a few places, it’s still an intelligent, boundary-pushing script supported by excellent performances. Ambitious stories like this seem to be the hallmark of the Companion Chronicles, which might just make it my favorite range. More like this!
William Russell appeared in his first Companion Chronicle in the third series; it took until the second release of the sixth series, John Dorney’s “The Rocket Men,” for him to appear in his second. It makes you wonder what took them so long – “The Rocket Men” is one of the best Companion Chronicles of the entire range.
Dorney is one of a very few Big Finish writers who never forgets that he’s writing a script for audio. We’ve had great stories from writers who didn’t take full advantage of the medium, of course, but Dorney always seems to remember one key facet of the experience: the audience cannot actually see what is going on. “The Rocket Men” is structured in a non-linear fashion; the narrative jumps from point to point in the story at seemingly random times. But because you hear Ian, Barbara, Vicki, and the other hostages being interrogated by Ashman (Gus Brown) without knowing how they got there, you also hear those scenes without knowing where the characters are or what they’re wearing. Without that information, the cliffhanger is so much more effective than it would have been in a linear narrative. Dorney also remembers that these audio plays are part of a larger series, one where we already know the endings. We know that all four regulars are going to survive, so Dorney just tells us that and builds the suspense around not knowing how it happens.
Despite all the wonderful narrative work, “The Rocket Men” really isn’t even about the plot, or the villains, or even the Doctor himself. Right from the very first lines, “The Rocket Men” is explicitly about the relationship between Ian and Barbara and the growing romantic feelings between the two companions. There’s no framing device for the narrative, as Dorney opts instead to have a question hang over the story: what is the moment when you truly know you love someone? I’ve criticized Dorney’s other Companion Chronicles for a lack of subtlety; that is certainly not the case here, as the romance that shoots through the entire story is never spelled out. There’s no mawkish scene where the two characters declare their love for one another; in fact, the Doctor encourages this to happen off screen in a wonderful moment at the conclusion. We would never have seen the Doctor take Ian aside and tell him not to miss his chance with Barbara on television, and yet Dorney and Russell make it sound like the most natural moment in the world.
Indeed, “The Rocket Men” is absolutely of its era despite some of its boundary-pushing moments. This is 1960s sci-fi through and through, with a bright, advanced future and square-jawed heroes taking on dangerous villains while everyone wears rocket packs. To realize this story on screen would take a multimillion-dollar budget, but I’m quite confident that the Doctor Who production team would have attempted it somehow.
William Russell deserves some sort of award for this story. Dorney’s script is beautiful and his narration often lyrical, and Russell brings it to life with consummate skill. Ian’s obvious affection for Barbara is always there, of course, but Russell reads his lines with a depth of emotion that hints at deeper feelings. The horrifying moment when Ian leaps from the airlock is delivered with heartbreaking desperation – at the time, it appears suicidal, but Russell makes it completely understandable. Director Lisa Bowerman also deserves a lot of credit, as non-linear narratives are notoriously difficult to direct, and this one is both powerful and easy to follow. Lastly, the sound design from Howard Carter is convincingly of the era, with a few excellent moments in the score.
Overall, “The Rocket Men” is another triumph for the Companion Chronicles. This is what the range was born to be: a superb actor giving previously unknown depth to a beloved character in a tense, exciting story that gives modern flourish to a classic era.
The sixth series of Companion Chronicles from Big Finish opens with a new take on the format from Jonathan Morris in “Tales from the Vault,” an attempt to graft Companion Chronicles together with anthology releases. The attempt is successful in that it produces a coherent, enjoyable story, but the format robs the narrative of any depth or significance.
It works like this: two UNIT officers (Daphne Ashbrook and Yee Jee Tso, who are certainly not playing their characters from the TVM, rights holders!) are exploring a secret vault in which UNIT keeps all the alien technology it captures. If this sounds similar to the Torchwood vault from “Army of Ghosts,” it’s because it’s exactly the same idea. The various artifacts have corresponding audio recordings, and these recordings feature different companions of the Doctor describing how those artifacts were acquired. So in addition to the framing story, we get four smaller stories starring Peter Purves, Wendy Padbury, Katy Manning, and Mary Tamm. All of this is crammed into a single-disc release – but at least it doesn’t insist upon being separated into episodes, existing instead as a single hour-long story.
The problem, of course, is that it’s virtually impossible to tell five different stories in an hour and have any of them be interesting. There are attempts to tie a couple of them together, and these attempts are fairly successful, but ultimately the story boils down to foiling the plans of a clichéd evil mastermind. You can’t flesh out the characters to any significant extent when you have this many disparate plot strands trying to come together. Perhaps the climax sums things up best: with time running out and no solution presenting itself, Ashbrook’s character looks into the future, sees how the enemy dies, and then does exactly what she saw. Lucky for her that’s what the painting said – imagine if it had showed him dying of old age a thousand years later, having ruled several lifetimes as galactic emperor?
Since they can’t use any characters from the TVM apart from the eighth Doctor himself, Big Finish cast Ashbrook and Tso in different roles but paired them up. I get that they did this because they wouldn’t otherwise be able to use them, but it’s hardly appealing. There are certain former Doctor Who actors that I would love to see in other parts, but neither Ashbrook nor Tso fall into that category. Ashbrook is fine, if a little theatrical, but Tso is wooden and unconvincing. Which doesn’t surprise me – he’s been wooden and unconvincing in every performance of his I’ve seen – but it did make “Tales from the Vault” hard going at times. Katy Manning gets by far the best of the four companion parts because it actually hints at how exasperating life with the Doctor can be. The Steven and Zoe segments are largely clichéd and unmemorable, while the Romana segment is so brief and insignificant I’m not even sure if it actually happened.
Lisa Bowerman directs; Alistair Lock provides what little sound design there is, though I liked the editing on the Jo segment. Overall, “Tales from the Vault” is entertaining enough but paper-thin, and it’s headlined by one of the weakest actors in the Doctor Who canon. It’s a pleasant way to pass an hour, but it’s hardly essential listening.
The title of the final installment of the fifth Gallifrey series, David Llewellyn’s “Arbitration,” is a rather large clue that nothing interesting is going to happen. If you’ve never been part of or witnessed an arbitration hearing, you cannot even begin to imagine the wonder and excitement you’ve missed. It’s also telling that the cliffhanger, which has absolutely nothing to do with the rest of the story, is the part everyone talks about when they discuss Gallifrey V instead of the three mind-numbing hours that precede it. Nothing of consequence happens in the entire set, including this episode – Llewellyn tries his hardest to make the story about the regular characters, but the drama largely arises from silliness. Leela is convinced that a small settlement of recently freed slaves will be able to defeat a heavily armed battalion of soldiers that outnumber her people 10-to-1, but when Narvin actually sends in a small unit of those soldiers, they are immediately slaughtered without a single opposing casualty! Is Leela right? Are the Outsiders naturally talented warriors? Is the Chancellery Guard composed of idiots? Don’t worry, there’s no explanation given. It’s also amusing that Romana and Leela constantly make overtures about how they want to make a difference and bring positive change to this new Gallifrey, but the instant they are shown a way home they take off. Oh, and the final scene has to be heard to be believed – the crowd reactions are so unbelievable and so unconvincing it almost sounds like it’s being pitched as satire. But apart from that, none of “Arbitration” is terrible. It’s just inconsequential meandering around an alternate universe until our characters finally find a way to go back. Honestly, you could have ended Gallifrey IV with this same cliffhanger and not missed a thing.
Can we please be done with this alternate universe already? I know, I know, I didn’t really like this series when it was set on “Gallifrey Prime,” either, but at least then it was developing something real. “Evolution,” the second installment of Gallifrey V from Una McCormack, is largely an exercise in spinning wheels. We already know that this Gallifrey has a more brutal history than our own, so the revelation that the Regenerators conducted cruel experiments upon their slaves doesn’t come as a shock. We’ve never heard of Maris before, so while Anjli Mohindra and Louise Jameson give good performances, her betrayal of Leela carries very little weight. And none of this particularly matters anyway, because the main characters make plain their desire to leave at the first possible opportunity. If they actually kept them here permanently, things might be different, but they’re obviously going home eventually. Paul McGann didn’t stay in the Divergent Universe indefinitely, either. Even the efforts to get home fall flat: Romana commissions a competition among all the greatest scientists to make progress on time travel, and then promptly tells anyone who’ll listen how boring she finds it! If your lead character is complaining that she’s bored, odds are your audience is following suit. Also, while I generally liked the sound design, this is yet another in the endless list of examples of Big Finish struggling mightily with crowd scenes. Characters yelling “Everyone!” to an obviously empty room will never be convincing. Despite all this, there’s nothing overtly bad about “Evolution,” but there’s nothing particularly good, either.
Two more years passed between the release of Gallifrey IV and Gallifrey V, and the fifth series opens with James Peaty’s “Emancipation.” We’re still on the alternate-universe Gallifrey with which we left off the fourth series, and Romana is now trying to leverage her power into converting this paranoid, vicious world into something closer to her real home. Narvin is her right hand man, while Leela has retreated to the Outsiders, now serving as their diplomatic envoy. I like how the structure of the play relates to the characters: we’re unsure throughout just how ruthless Romana is prepared to be as she clashes fiercely with Narvin and Leela, but in the end we realize she’s only doing what she thinks will make the world better. Peaty also bridges the continuity gaps through the use of a newscast – and while I’ve always found the idea of TV news on Gallifrey deeply silly, it elegantly catches the listener up on what’s been happening and keeps you informed. The problem is that nothing much happens – there’s a political negotiation over mining profit rights, which is precisely as interesting as it sounds, and then there’s an assassination attempt with the most obvious “twist” resolution possible. Add to this the fact that I just don’t care what happens to an alternate universe Gallifrey that they have to leave at some point and, well, I’m afraid this is going to be yet another dreary experience.
After the “Locum Doctors” trilogy to mark their 200th monthly Doctor Who release, Big Finish made a conscious effort to return to standalone, accessible storytelling. With a years-long, complicated Sylvester McCoy arc now solidly in the past, Jonathan Morris returns to season 24 with “We Are the Daleks,” a story pairing the Seventh Doctor and Mel that is very much of its era.
I often criticize Big Finish’s Doctor Who output for lacking depth, but that is certainly not the case with “We Are the Daleks.” Set in 1987 in the latter years of the Thatcher government, the story casts the Daleks as arch-capitalists, getting their claws into UK (and therefore Earth) society by promising favorable trade deals. Of course, their ultimate plan is still to control the population and transform them into slaves, but the rhetoric is familiar: promising full employment, eliminating people who rely on public assistance, “gentrification” of slums, and so forth. It’s never explicitly stated which party Dalek collaborator Celia Dunthorpe MP (Mary Conlon) belongs to, but it doesn’t take a political insider to figure it out. Given the politics of the show, and especially the politics of the show in the Cartmel era, it’s no surprise that “We Are the Daleks” is strongly against this “free market above all” philosophy, but Morris still tries to balance it out with a brief scene in which Celia articulates conservative arguments and the Doctor, oddly, isn’t able to properly respond.
The story also engages with online gaming and drone warfare, conflating them in “Warfleet,” a Dalek-crafted MMO that puts unknowing players in control of actual remote drone ships far across the galaxy, using them to destroy Thal and other rebels. While Morris is to be commended for ignoring the easy (and often lazy) stereotype of gamers as unwashed layabouts, the political element is clunky. There are some hints of commentary about how drone warfare dehumanizes the opposition and makes killing easier, but the theme takes an odd turn in the final episodes, shifting instead to the Dalek argument that humans are naturally murderous and quite similar to Daleks, deep down. This is where the title of the story comes from, but the argument is quickly dismissed without serious engagement. Still, the fact that it is there at all is quite welcome.
As a drama, meanwhile, “We Are the Daleks” is quite good. I like the little pre-credits sting, and I like how the story jumps right from there into the Doctor and Mel already infiltrating and investigating. McCoy stories often avoid the traditional explore-and-get-captured format and are often better for it. And while there is some repetitive journeying back and forth to Skaro, Morris gives each trip a new justification. The fourth episode throws a major wrench into the works, giving events a panicked feeling, and that makes for a gripping listen. It’s also interesting to have a story set on a rebuilt Skaro, one that isn’t a war-torn radioactive wasteland, and to have the knowledge that the Doctor will soon be destroying the entire planet. There are also a few subtle continuity nods to “Remembrance of the Daleks” – the suitability of children to Dalek battle computers being a big one.
The production is similarly successful. Ken Bentley is reliable as ever in the director’s chair, and Wilfredo Acosta’s sound design is dramatic and believable. Overall, “We Are the Daleks” is a strong release with a lot to say. Sylvester McCoy is great, and Bonnie Langford once again shows why their pairing had the potential to be so successful. Well worth a purchase.
Much to my surprise, the fourth series of Fourth Doctor Adventures from Big Finish hasn’t been terrible – it’s focused on nostalgia as usual, and it’s dragged down by a couple of weak stories, but some strong releases mark the middle of the run. But with the Nicholas Briggs-penned series-ending two-parter on the horizon, I sharpened up my knives, ready for the usual nostalgia-obsessed, dreary runaround with terrible characterization and dialogue. And sure enough, “The Fate of Krelos” is – wait, it’s a minimalist tone piece?!
All credit to Briggs for trying something different, as “The Fate of Krelos” is unlike anything he’s written in a long time. There’s very little plot, to the point that the script is almost self-conscious about it, and the events that occur are designed to build a feeling of dread and anticipation for the concluding story. And it’s genuinely interesting in parts: you know it’s going to be Cybermen from the title of the next story, but there’s very little here to indicate they’re coming. Instead, the Doctor and Leela explore a ruined city, horrified at its seemingly instant destruction and with no ready explanation for what caused it to fall. There’s also some interesting characterization for the regulars (I know!). The Doctor gets a melancholy moment when he discovers a piece of torn fabric from one of Jamie’s old outfits, and ponders that his old friend likely died in battle after his return to Earth. And there’s a great scene near the end where Leela finally gets to have the classic companion-Doctor argument: why can’t he go back in time and change history to save people? His response is perfect: he tries to argue, then just walks away. So yes, there’s a lot to admire here.
The biggest problem with “The Fate of Krelos,” however, is that it doesn’t do enough to justify its almost total lack of incident. Briggs directs, and together with sound designer Jamie Robertson tries to construct a mounting feeling of dread, but they don’t quite capture the sense of existential terror necessary to build that feeling. Part of this is down to the first episode, which is largely an exercise in pointless wandering around. The aforementioned scene with the Doctor’s memories of Jamie comes in the midst of an extended sequence in which the Doctor and Leela wander around the TARDIS looking for fishing rods. K9’s possession is intriguing but after the eleventh or twelfth repetition of “Calculating…” it loses its effectiveness.
The other problem comes with the structure of the story. There’s obviously not enough material here for two episodes, and that becomes apparent from the very first scene: an extended sequence of context-free sound effects that convey absolutely nothing apart from confusion. Briggs resorts to sound effects for this purpose on multiple occasions, and though Robertson makes a valiant effort it’s often difficult to understand. The plot also involves K9 reconfiguring the TARDIS architecture and restoring the console room from the Troughton era. This is obviously aimed at instilling a sense of nostalgia in the listener, but how? We can’t see it! All we get is the Doctor and Leela remarking that it looks different, and the Doctor trying to find the old door switch. This is a similar mistake to “Destination Nerva,” in which Briggs somehow forgets that visual nostalgia cannot, by definition, work on audio.
So, ultimately, “The Fate of Krelos” is a flawed release. But it’s worth hearing if for no other reason than Briggs is finally trying to do something different with a Tom Baker story after four years of relentless nostalgia. Hopefully things won’t revert to normal in the next story.
If you’re going to give your story the same title as one of the most celebrated science fiction short stories of all time, you’d better make it a good one – and that’s exactly what Simon Guerrier does with “The Cold Equations,” the final entry in the fifth series of Companion Chronicles and one of the best releases in the history of the range.
The story opens brilliantly: Steven and Oliver, trapped on a crippled ship, air supply running out, no hope left and waiting for death. And with so little time remaining, Steven asks Oliver to admit to the crime that had him so eager to flee. From there, the story jumps back in time, and we spend the first episode seeing how Steven and Oliver got into that position and where the Doctor was at the same time. For the most part, this episode is largely a plot mechanic designed to get the characters in place for the sublime drama of the second part, and while I’ve seen the story criticized for this, I have absolutely no problem with it. There’s a nice little reference to “The Guardian of the Solar System” in there as well. Guerrier also makes use of a real-world problem to get our heroes in trouble: the abundance of debris in Earth’s orbit that makes space travel so treacherous.
The second episode is one of the best single episodes Big Finish has ever done. For starters, it’s almost certainly the best use of Steven in any audio story, or even any TV story: it embraces the little-used detail that Steven is a trained space pilot and allows him to use that unique skill to get out of an impossible situation. Classic series companions were constantly plagued by this: sure, Sarah was a journalist, and Mel was a programmer, and so forth, but their skills and training rarely, if ever, came to the fore. Here, in a brilliant bit of monologue, Steven talks the listener through the calculations necessary to compute an orbital flight path, and Guerrier somehow manages to make this intensely technical discussion quite gripping and dramatic. Even the flight itself, which (due to the constraints of audio) has to be described by other characters, is utterly convincing and never resorts to terrible audio dialogue. We also learn more about Steven, how he doesn’t want to get close to Oliver because he’s afraid to lose another friend – it’s hinting at the breakdown between Steven and the Doctor coming in “The Massacre,” and I’m nervous about what it’s hinting about Oliver’s actual fate.
As for Oliver, his secret is both incredibly important and yet incredibly unimportant: he was in a relationship with another man, something that was criminalized at the time in the UK. This informs so much of his behavior and nicely underscores why he’s such a good fit with this TARDIS crew: he, too, is an exile, someone who can’t get close to those that he loves for fear that they will be hurt. But the best scene comes when Oliver finally confesses his “crime” to Steven, and all Steven can do is laugh at the absurdity. The great secret that Oliver has tried so desperately to hide is, to Steven, utterly inconsequential, a relic of a less enlightened time. And this is absolutely wonderful to hear: it’s one thing when this progressive attitude comes from the pen of Russell T. Davies in a modern Doctor Who series, but it’s quite another to hear it in the thoughts of a character from the 1960s. And this is why a slavish adherence to traditional Doctor Who mores robs so many stories of impact: we would NEVER have seen an episode like this in an actual Hartnell TV story from the era, but now we can.
This might be Peter Purves’ best Doctor Who performance – and Tom Allen is equally fantastic – and I’m sure a great deal of that is down to director Lisa Bowerman. The sound design, from Richard Fox and Lauren Yason, is stark but effective, easily matching the tone of the story. Overall, “The Cold Equations” is one of the very best Companion Chronicles, and that’s with nearly the entire first episode being used purely to set up the second! It’s smart, it’s powerful, it gives previously unseen depth to a beloved character – in other words, a must buy.
I can’t say I know anything about what happened behind the scenes of “Ferril’s Folly,” the eleventh Companion Chronicle in the fifth series – all I know is that it was announced for 2009 but didn’t see release until 2011. Whatever the case, the final result, from writer Peter Anghelides, underwhelms, as it takes a new narrative idea and fails to do anything interesting with it.
“Ferril’s Folly” takes the approach of a few Companion Chronicles before it by delivering exposition through two narrators instead of the usual one. Anghelides puts a unique spin on this by using the villain, Lady Ferril (Madeleine Potter), as one of those narrators in addition to the companion. It’s certainly interesting to have a Doctor Who story narrated by an outsider, someone unfamiliar with the TARDIS crew – we can see the Time Lords’ obvious intelligence counterpointed against their seemingly erratic behavior, the Doctor’s lack of seriousness, and so forth. But that’s as far as the interest goes: the script does not take advantage of the medium, as we learn little about the villain or her motivation. In fact, we learn those things when Romana is narrating, which to my mind defeats the purpose of the exercise. (Or we learn those things from the product synopsis, which casually gives away revelations from the second episode. Funny that I didn’t feel like I’d been spoiled.)
There’s really not much to say about this story. There’s a former astronaut under the influence of an alien race, and one of those influences gives her the power to control iron. (Get it? Her name is Ferril? It’s similar to the Latin? Eh?) So there’s the obligatory scene with household tools coming to life and attacking people and… that’s pretty much it. The plot is perfectly standard, the resolution comes without a great deal of effort, and the Key to Time is crowbarred in because the story is set in season 16. This time they actually find a segment, but they can’t convert it for plot reasons, so instead it’s dispersed and found later. As exciting resolutions go, that’s not so great.
“Ferril’s Folly” also has absolutely no framing device. Romana leaps into the narration and off we go – it’s basically an audiobook of a first-person short story. This was okay at the start of the range when it was finding its feet, but now it just serves as a red flag. The Companion Chronicles have done brilliant things with the format, but this is just another standard Doctor Who story. And it’s especially galling in retrospect that this is the late Mary Tamm’s second and final Companion Chronicle – she was an excellent narrator and she was wasted on this and “The Stealers from Saiph.” Even the production isn’t great – Lisa Bowerman’s direction is fine, but the sound design from Daniel Brett is occasionally overwrought and unconvincing. Overall, “Ferril’s Folly” has an awfully fitting title.
THE COMPANION CHRONICLES: THE SENTINELS OF THE NEW DAWN
With the fifth series of Companion Chronicles winding down, Big Finish turned to Paul Finch, son of “Leviathan” scribe Brian Finch and writer of the Lost Story adaptation, to pen a prequel to that story. The result, “The Sentinels of the New Dawn,” is a fairly traditional story that promises interesting material at the beginning but then fails to follow through.
I love the idea behind this story. Set in the aftermath of “Inferno,” with Liz now working at Cambridge, the script presents an interesting concept: how will the Doctor react when Liz approaches him for help? Will their relationship be different now that she’s voluntarily parted company? Will the Doctor be delighted to be reunited with a fellow scientist in a welcome relief from the early days of his partnership with Jo Grant? Liz dwells on these issues, and it appears to be setting up some meaty character work – and then she says something about the Doctor largely acting the same and it’s never brought up again. This happens a lot, actually: the Doctor is curiously reserved when they travel to 2014, for example. Is his reunion with Liz proving more difficult than he previously thought? Could he be plotting yet another attempt to escape Earth? How to read the mind of a Time Lord? But no, he’s just playing dumb to fool their captors, and none of these potentially interesting ideas are explored.
This applies equally to the main villains. The Doctor and Liz travel forward in time to a period when New Dawn is gaining power and influence. At first, their ideas are revolutionary, but in that idealistic, undergraduate sense – so are they really in the wrong or just overenthusiastic? Is the creature they have created truly a monster or merely a tragic figure trying to come to grips with its own monstrous nature? The answers to these questions are again the most basic: yes, it’s an evil monster, and yes, the group is really in the wrong in the most obvious way possible. When you have a dictator giving a podium-pounding speech in which he extols the virtues of Hitler and Nazi Germany, you’re perhaps being a little too obvious.
None of this takes away from Caroline John’s performance, though, which is first-rate throughout. She’s an excellent narrator, one who actually makes “said the Doctor” prose asides sound like a natural part of her conversation. I also like the framing device – a UNIT officer coming to talk to Liz about her encounter with New Dawn three years before that encounter even happens – but the twist at the end also seems unnecessary and makes Liz come across as a bit of an idiot. Duncan Wisbey goes progressively far over the top as Beauregard, but this is a conscious choice given how natural he sounds as the operative during the framing sequences. Lisa Bowerman directs, and the sound design from Richard Fox and Lauren Yason is up to the usual high Big Finish standards. Overall, “The Sentinels of the New Dawn” is a missed opportunity. It wastes a talented narrator and a fascinating setup on an average, unimaginative Doctor Who story.
Multiple ranges of Doctor Who and related spinoffs have come and gone throughout Big Finish’s history, but the monthly Doctor Who range has remained a constant since 1999 – and Eddie Robson’s “The Secret History” is the landmark 200th release in that range as well as the conclusion to the “Locum Doctors” trilogy. And it’s quite good! There’s no anniversary feel to it whatsoever, but given some of Big Finish’s previous bites at that apple, that’s probably a good thing.
Robson does a better job of embracing the trilogy concept than either of his two predecessors. “The Secret History” is a Hartnell historical through-and-through: the Doctor and his companions land in Earth’s past, witness a significant event, become embroiled in affairs by accident, and ultimately just want to get back to the TARDIS and escape. And while the Fifth Doctor’s approach to this is not much different from the First’s, the plot puts a significant twist on the formula. This feels like a Hartnell story starring Peter Davison, something the other two stories in this trilogy never really accomplished. Robson skillfully evokes the setting and provides some convincing historical characters in Procopius (Tony Millan), Belisarius (Giles Watling), and the Emperor Justinian (Tim Wallers).
The most significant part of the story, though, cannot be discussed without major spoilers, so be forewarned. If you’re wondering why the mysterious physician seen throughout the first episode is uncredited, it’s because he’s played by Graeme Garden and is better known as the Meddling Monk – though he humorously points out that only the Doctor calls him that! In an interesting twist on Big Finish continuity, this is the “present-day” Monk last seen in the final Eighth Doctor Adventure, “To the Death.” He’s still gravely hurt by Tamsin’s death, he still blames the Doctor, and he’s trying to gain some measure of revenge. He’s still interfering in the past with his usual gleeful, childlike motives – note the scene where he describes a fleet of warships as “cool” – but this time they’re tempered by his sadness. He has the means to stop the plague from spreading, but he refuses to use them, offering them instead to the Doctor to present him with an impossible choice.
It’s a compelling listen, especially the scenes that set Garden and Davison against one another, but unfortunately it goes off the rails a bit by the final episode. The Monk wants to remove the Doctor from history and take his place – and perhaps save his friends, though that’s not explicitly discussed – which is a fascinating idea, but I’m not sure about Robson’s decision to start the final episode as though it’s a Doctor Who story starring Graeme Garden. I like seeing how things would be different if the Doctor was more interventionist, but the implication that he’s been behaving like this through all his travels stretches credulity to breaking point, especially since Vicki and Steven don’t seem at all on board with his actions. The conclusion is great, though, especially the confrontation between the two Time Lords in the TARDIS.
The performances are strong across the board, especially from the regulars. All of the Doctors seem to up their game with better scripts, and this is no exception as it features one of Davison’s finer performances. Special mention should be made of Peter Purves, who gets the “action” role as he becomes a chariot driver! Barnaby Edwards directs, and he always does a good job with these sweeping, large-scale stories. The sound design from Andy Hardwick is solid as well. Overall, “The Secret History” is a strong release, a good end to the “Locum Doctors” trilogy, and a fine way to mark Big Finish’s 200th monthly Doctor Who story. It has a couple of flaws that keep it from joining the all-time classics, but it’s still well worth hearing.
Given what we know now, it’s amazing, in retrospect, that Russell T. Davies actually wrote a New Adventure. Already a celebrated dramatist, and years before bringing Doctor Who back at shocking levels of success, he wrote “Damaged Goods” for the tie-in range – and it instantly became one of the best novels in the series. It’s one of the most influential novels, by definition – the seeds of Davies’ concept of the new TV series are visible throughout, even as he keeps to the grimmer house style of the NAs. All these factors make “Damaged Goods” an obvious target for an audio adaptation, and Big Finish turned to Jonathan Morris for just that reason.
Many of the hallmarks of RTD’s Doctor Who writing are here: a focus on working-class, urban families (one of whom is called the Tylers); a respectful look at sexuality that never feels tokenistic; a fascination with Time Lord technology and past and future wars; and so on. So even though Sylvester McCoy is playing the title role, this is an RTD story through and through, and fans who don’t appreciate his work probably won’t enjoy “Damaged Goods,” either. Fortunately, I am not one of those fans – I think RTD is quite possibly the best writer the series has ever had, and even through the lens of adaptation this story helps you understand why. For starters, the family dynamic between Winnie (Michelle Collins), Bev (Georgie Fuller), and Gabriel Tyler (Tayler Marshall) is utterly believable, even though it’s somewhat thinly sketched. It’s easy to understand why Winnie did what she did, and the story makes her sympathetic without ever arguing that she did the right thing in selling her child. Bev is the picture of teenage angst – listening to the Seventh Doctor trying to turn his manipulative skills on a teenage girl is quite entertaining – and Gabriel is caught in the middle of everything.
The biggest problem with this adaptation is that it can’t possibly capture everything in the novel, so it makes a number of edits for time and pacing. While this is understandable, it does make events feel rushed: the quiet, brooding tone of the first episode gives way to a frantic runaround in the second, with all the characters getting into place for a rapid conclusion. Mrs. Jericho’s (Denise Black) descent into madness shifts too quickly from hallucinatory to murderous, and the elimination of a subplot from the book strips her character of some of its depth. And while Chris (Travis Oliver) and Roz (Yasmin Bannerman) were long-time companions by this point in the NAs, this is their first audio appearance – and unfortunately they don’t have much to do other than fetch things for the Doctor, so it’s hard to see their appeal.
When it comes to adaptations, however, it’s a fool’s errand to compare them too closely to the source material. Unless you go the Game of Thrones route and dedicate 10 hours to every book, compromises have to be made, and the adaptations should be considered on their own terms as a result. And on its own terms, “Damaged Goods” is a fantastic Big Finish release. There are so many wonderful little scenes, from the Doctor being asked what he sees when he looks at Gabriel to Chris’s casual acceptance of differing sexualities – a precursor to the attitudes embodied by Jack Harkness, perhaps? And while the companions may be slightly shortchanged, the Doctor certainly is not: this is a tour de force performance from Sylvester McCoy, one in which he never puts a foot wrong. I really liked the “I’m talking!” snap; it was the sort of immediate, reactionary anger we rarely see from this character. The supporting cast is similarly excellent, particularly Michelle Collins – and I know Peter Barrett has come in for criticism for going wildly over the top as the Capper, but I think the performance is actually quite suitable for the story.
Big Finish production values are almost always high, but Howard Carter deserves some sort of award for his score, which is one of the best and most memorable in many years of Big Finish releases. It’s haunting, beautiful work that will stay with you long after the story is over. I assume he also arranged the new version of the theme, which is equally brilliant and seems quite appropriate for the later NAs. Credit as well to director Ken Bentley for organizing such a large, diverse cast and bringing a challenging script to fruition. Overall, “Damaged Goods” is a triumph. It’s entertaining, thought-provoking, emotional Doctor Who with a true sense of maturity. No, it’s not quite as good or as detailed as the novel, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t great. It even incorporates some references to the modern series, both to eliminate complicated long-term plots from the NAs and to provide little Easter eggs to new series fans looking to check out RTD’s other Doctor Who work. In sum, this is a great adaptation of a brilliant book.
Of the three Gareth Roberts season 17 Missing Adventures, “The Well-Mannered War” has always been my favorite – it’s missing some of the trademark silliness of the others, but it actually has a number of coherent ideas assembling into an interesting plot. The same is true of the audio adaptation from John Dorney, and as a result it’s easily the best of the three releases.
The central conceit, the “well-mannered war” of the title, is a fantastic war satire in the vein of classic films like “Grand Illusion.” It’s not especially subtle, but that’s okay – we still see how individuals on both sides of a conflict have so much in common that they don’t want to fight at all, and only make perfunctory overtures toward military action. You really believe that Dolne (Tim McInnerny!) and Jafrid (Jon Glover) are close friends despite their backgrounds and the conflict dividing them, and the scenes in which both leaders invent excuses to avoid attacking the other are quite entertaining. Of course, the conflict eventually heats up, but Jafrid is reluctant throughout. About the only thing his heart is into is torturing the Doctor to death, and eventually he reverses course even there. As silly as it can be, it honestly makes you wonder – why can’t we get along like this?
But there’s much more going on in the story, including an election between the incumbent, Harmock (John Banks), and his opponent’s last-minute replacement, K9! Yes, a little-known doctrine of “constitutional privilege” entitles K9 to run for the presidency of an entire planet, which of course he does because it will give him access to more resources to help the Doctor and Romana. “K9: The Logical Choice” is a funny slogan, as are Harmock’s “going to the dogs” references. Roberts and Dorney skewer politics right along with war, with K9 quickly devising more efficient ways to run the government, free of outside influences. But this isn’t a crash course in idealism – the riots cannot be quelled, even with K9’s logical approach to stopping them. Of course, by the end, the irrelevance of the election becomes clear; this is another in a series of unexpected plot twists that drive the story in fascinating directions.
I love how this story uses the Fourth Doctor: he blunders into the situation with his usual lack of subtlety, and takes control with his usual aplomb, but he’s aware throughout that something is seriously wrong. Despite this, he never quite figures out what until it’s too late. There are many humorous scenes for Tom Baker, which is always a delight, but his nervous ponderings are a particular highlight. Romana works very well with K9, and is able to solve the problem of Galatea (Elizabeth Rider) without the Doctor’s help, but even she misses the scheming going on behind the scenes. All of this leads to a final scene that was controversial when it concluded the Missing Adventures range and still provides a defiant lack of closure even today. I’m not sure if this was actually Roberts’ attempt to invalidate 1980s Doctor Who, as has been rumored, but I admire Dorney and Big Finish for resolutely ending the story with a cliffhanger instead of constructing a new conclusion.
The cast is great across the board. Even if they’re not in the studio together, finally pairing Tom Baker and Lalla Ward has been an unquestioned success. This is also one of John Leeson’s best performances, as the script gives K9 more to do than perhaps he’s ever had. I mentioned McInnerny, Glover, and Banks above, but you’ve also got Michael and David Troughton supporting, both playing very different characters but both leaving unforgettable marks on the story. The production is also strong, from Ken Bentley’s direction to solid sound design from Peter Doggart. Overall, “The Well-Mannered War” is the best novel adaptation from Big Finish since “Love and War” kicked things off. It faithfully translates one of Gareth Roberts’ best novels to audio while making a strong story even more accessible. More like this, please!
The sixth entry in the fourth series of Fourth Doctor Adventures, Jonathan Morris’ “The Cloisters of Terror,” marks yet another return to the ultra-traditional feel this range is known for. Fortunately, it’s a reasonably entertaining story, but – yet again – if you’re looking for anything substantial, you’ve come to the wrong place.
Frankly, you couldn’t write a more Hinchcliffe-type story if you tried. Set in the cloistered halls of a 1970s women’s college, largely under the darkness of night, there’s a ghostly presence stalking the students: if you see the three sisters, you are doomed to die! So we spend the first episode fleeing from ghosts until we discover, in the second, that the “ghosts” are in fact telepathic manifestations of a crashed alien spaceship, one that will destroy the country if left unattended, and it’s up to the Doctor to fix it and save the day. The Doctor’s involvement has a “Seeds of Doom” feel to it – he intercepts a police transmission and uses his UNIT credentials to justify his involvement. The problem, as with so many other stories in this range, is that Morris does absolutely nothing more with the script than what tradition dictates.
In the recent anthology release “Breaking Bubbles and Other Stories,” Una McCormick’s script “An Eye for Murder” was one of the best in the collection. It also featured a women’s college – though a bit earlier, historically – and spent time engaging with the concept, the struggles of the characters, and the Doctor’s interaction with an all-female environment. “The Cloisters of Terror,” on the other hand, could be set on the moon for all the difference the setting makes to the plot. Even the two students, Megan (Claudia Grant) and Lynn (Allison McKenzie), are interchangeable ciphers, to the extent that I lost track of which one was which. And the plot develops exactly as one would expect, with nothing in the way of surprise along the way.
There’s also an appearance from Dame Emily Shaw (Rowena Cooper), evidently the mother of companion Liz Shaw, and evidently introduced in a Companion Chronicle that I haven’t heard. While there’s nothing wrong with the character, I’m not really sure why she was included – she’s a fairly typical investigator, and apart from a brief conversation with the Doctor about Liz, there’s nothing that really sets her apart from other, similar characters. Is this some attempt to duplicate the success of Kate Stewart from the TV show? Otherwise I can’t really see the point.
The production is very good, especially Jamie Robertson’s sound design, which expertly captures the oppressive atmosphere of a dark, stormy night. But as usual with this range, I’ve run out of things to say. “The Cloisters of Terror” is a well-made but thoroughly uninspiring Doctor Who story. I know I’m beating a dead horse at this point, but we’ve literally had hundreds of these, and I just don’t see the point of making more.
To kick off the second half of the fourth series of Fourth Doctor Adventures, Big Finish turned to long-time contributor Alan Barnes for “Suburban Hell,” a story that places the Fourth Doctor and Leela into a very unusual setting. Unfortunately, this setting is not used to its full potential, but that should be thought of as par for the course for this range by now.
I suppose I shouldn’t complain. I’ve been begging this range to try something different for years, and this is certainly an example: setting the Doctor and Leela into a suburban neighborhood is very far from the traditional trappings of the Hinchcliffe era, or indeed Tom Baker’s era as a whole. And seeing the TARDIS crew in “ordinary” surroundings is a great opportunity to understand more about them. We saw this with Steven and Sara in “An Ordinary Life,” one of the better Early Adventures. And we’ve also seen Barnes tell a great Doctor Who domestic story with “Death in Blackpool.” The problem is that Barnes opts against the delicate touch necessary to make this story work, resulting in “Suburban Hell” being one of the nastiest pieces of work I’ve heard in quite some time. Thelma (Annette Badland) is the only supporting character that’s even remotely likable: the rest are spineless or domineering or brutish or cowardly or helpless or arrogant or any number of negative descriptors. Belinda (Katy Wix) in particular is a miserable human being that seems to exist only to nag her husband and guests and berate them whenever things don’t work out. At first, I wondered if there wasn’t some sexism on display – I mean really, your lead female character is a shrewish harpy? – but then I heard Pete (David Ricardo-Pierce) and realized Barnes was simply working with broad caricatures without a hint of depth. Even the humor comes at the expense of others, always punching down when it could be aiming its shots elsewhere. If this is truly how Alan Barnes views life in the suburbs, I hope he never leaves the city.
And once you get past the setting, the story is full of obvious clichés. The cast doubles up to play the Priest and the Acolytes, and they do so by adopting some of the least convincing OTT performances in recent memory. The plot is obvious, even predictable, and it provides little to no challenge to the Doctor and Leela, whose only difficulties involve ignoring the irritations of the suburbanites around them. There’s also a needless time travel element, something Barnes also deployed unnecessarily in “Last of the Cybermen,” that only serves to confuse the story without telling us anything interesting about anyone involved.
Which leads me to my final complaint about “Suburban Hell:” it’s incredibly slight. There’s nothing to take away from the story; there’s no thematic consistency and we learn nothing about the characters. Removing Doctor Who characters from fantastic settings is a great way to learn more about them, but all we do in this suburb is listen to a couple bicker as their marriage falls apart. We should at least see more of Leela in this setting – more so, anyway, than hearing her threaten to stab anyone that irritates her. The production is fine, I guess, from director Nicholas Briggs to sound designer Alistair Lock, but what’s it all in service of? Why are we taking one of the rare unique ideas in the history of this range and wasting it on material like this? We’re in the fourth series, for heaven sakes – and yes, it’s been better overall, but is it ever going to be consistently good? I thought we were starting to get there but, well, here we are again.
From Styre on 207 – You Are the Doctor and Other Stories
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From Styre on 08 – All-Consuming Fire
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From Styre on Volume 1 - Only the Monstrous
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From Styre on 07 – Theatre of War
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From Styre on 06 – Damaged Goods
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From Styre on 05 – The Well-Mannered War
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From Styre on 4.06 – The Cloisters of Terror
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From Styre on 4.05 – Suburban Hell
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