The Doctor offers Tegan and Nyssa a trip to the paradise world of Florana, but instead the TARDIS takes them to a domed city on a planet scarred by warfare. A world where everyone is young, and fighting for the glory of the Elite…
Hidden away in The Cathedral of Power, the High Priest is watching. It knows the Doctor, and his arrival changes everything…
THE LOST STORIES: THE ELITE
After recreating the original “season 23” and the proposed “season 27,” and bringing back box sets of missing Hartnell, Troughton, and Tom Baker stories to boot, Big Finish headed into its third series of Lost Stories with only Jon Pertwee and Peter Davison’s eras left to tackle. The first three stories knocked out one of those two, each featuring Davison’s fifth Doctor. The first of these, “The Elite,” from an idea by “Enlightenment” scribe Barbara Clegg and adapted by John Dorney, is thoughtful, surprising, and exciting: in other words, a strong success.
For starters, it’s amazing how effortlessly this script captures its era without ever feeling like it’s trying too hard. The Fourth Doctor Adventures force the ‘70s feeling on the listener at every turn, but “The Elite” is much more sedate: lots of rebels, a returning bad guy, a city-based setting, a wonderful synth score, and so on. Set after Tegan’s return in “Arc of Infinity,” the relationship between the Doctor, Nyssa, and Tegan is brilliantly captured, with the Doctor seemingly reluctant to even welcome Tegan back on board in the first place! Davison underplays these scenes somewhat, but it’s interesting to see the front he puts up to keep everyone peaceful. The rest of the story, though, sees the fifth Doctor at his most forthright, sarcastic, and demanding, something we only occasionally saw on television. Janet Fielding is magnificent, too – she goes too over the top in some of her Big Finish work, but here she’s pitched perfectly to the material. And it wouldn’t be a Doctor Who story if it didn’t hypnotize Nyssa and push her helplessly to the side, so I suppose I can’t complain too much.
There’s no escaping the central twist of the story, though. The setting is very well realized – it’s a typical dystopian state, with everyone driven to accomplish the dream of a master race, inspired by a High Priest that descended from heaven one day to bring the people the word of God. Between its voice, and the message it espoused, I’m really not sure how I didn’t guess the twist before it happened, but I was thrilled when the casing sealed shut and the Dalek was revealed. It’s fascinating to compare this story with “Dalek” or “Jubilee,” the other great “lone Dalek” stories – in those, the Dalek almost shuts down without other Daleks around to inspire it or give it orders. Here, the Dalek founds its own religion – as it states, if there are no Daleks around, it will turn the local population into Daleks instead. It’s disturbing how quickly the population takes to Dalek philosophy, and it’s a credit to the authors that they don’t shy away from the bleaker implications of that way of thinking.
But as predictable as the second cliffhanger should have been, that’s how stunning the third is, and that’s the moment that elevates the story to excellence. The Dalek trains his acolytes too well, and when its true goals are revealed, its priest rises up and kills it. Ryan Sampson’s performance as Thane is first-rate, showing a man tipping over the edge from religious fervor into utter madness. Cries of “exterminate” are all the more effective due to how that word was used in our own history by people that also sounded just like us. And yet again the story is unforgiving: there is no last-minute salvation, no redemptive self-sacrifice. Lots of people die and there’s nothing that can be done. It’s Sawardian, in other words, the Doctor emerging “victorious” but without much to feel accomplished about.
The production is fantastic. Ken Bentley’s direction maintains a high, effective degree of tension throughout, while the sound design and score by Fool Circle Productions almost steal the show with a note-perfect recreation of Paddy Kingsland’s music. Overall, while there are a couple of minor complaints – Nyssa’s sidelining, the generic rebel characters – “The Elite” is generally excellent Doctor Who. It’s hard to say if “The Elite” would have been this good on television, but this is definitely a story that deserved to be brought to life.
Highly recommended.
9/10