7.1 – The Sons of Kaldor by Andrew Smith
Finding themselves in a seemingly deserted spaceship on an alien world, the Doctor and Leela stumble into some familiar foes – the Voc robots from the planet Kaldor – and… something else. Something outside. Trying to get in.
Reviving the robot’s Kaldoran commander from hibernation, the travellers discover that they’ve found themselves in the middle of a civil war. The ship was hunting the Sons of Kaldor, an armed resistance group working with alien mercenaries to initiate regime change on their homeworld.
But now the Sons of Kaldor may have found them. The Doctor and Leela will have to pick a side. Or die.
7.2 – The Crowmarsh Experiment by David Llewellyn
When attacked on an alien world, Leela falls unconscious… only to wake in another time, another place.
She is in the Crowmarsh Institute on Earth, in London, in 1978, and everyone is calling her Doctor Marshall. They tell her the world she has known is but a fantasy, a delusion, and that this place is the one that is real.
Surrounded by familiar faces on unfamiliar people, Leela knows what is true and what is false. But how long can she believe when everyone around her says it’s a dream? What’s really happening here?
7.3 – The Mind Runners by John Dorney
It used to be fun, Mind Running. Hopping into the heads of total strangers to see what they saw, feel what they felt. But one by one the Mind Runners are dying in a wave of suicides. And no-one on the planet Chaldera knows why.
The Doctor, Leela and K9 arrive in the city that covers all of this dying world as it prepares to evacuate its people, and they immediately find themselves involved in a mystery. Who or what is responsible for the wave of death? Is it the motorised cult known as the Digitals? The enigmatic Mr Shift?
Or did all the victims attempt to run the Night Mind, the demonic consciousness of legend that is so twisted and evil that it drives mad all who touch it?
The TARDIS crew are about to find out.
7.4 – The Demon Rises by John Dorney
A killer has been uncovered, but the mystery is far from solved. The Doctor, Leela, K9 and their friends are on the run, pursued from all sides. All the clues point to one place – but getting there alive may prove impossible.
Something horrific is happening on Chaldera… and it has been happening for longer than anyone could possibly have realised. Now every life on the planet is at stake. Bar one.
The dark secret at the heart of this world is about to be revealed.
THE SONS OF KALDOR
There’s not much to say about “The Sons of Kaldor” by Andrew Smith, the first release in the seventh series (and new box set format) of Fourth Doctor Adventures. As with basically every Fourth Doctor Adventure that brings back a character (in this case, the titular Robots of Death) from that era, it’s straightforward, plodding, obvious, and boring.
The structure of the story is probably the best part, because Smith at least tries to layer revelations into the script to keep it moving. I like the progression from discovering Commander Lind (Martha Cope) in stasis to learning that she’s an intelligence officer in a civil war to learning that the war ended over a year ago and her side lost. But there’s nothing thought-provoking here: Smith tries to add some texture by showing that Lind’s society was tilted heavily toward the rich, but promptly erases it by introducing Rebben Tace (Oliver Dimsdale), a man with a tragic backstory who grew up to be a sadistic totalitarian maniac. It is neither smart nor subtle; it’s just there.
However, in spite of Smith’s efforts to keep the pace moving, the two-episode format significantly hurts the story. When you always have to build to a cliffhanger at the story’s midpoint, it’s very difficult to keep the first part from feeling tedious and the second part from feeling overstuffed. And all of the revelations come in the second part, as is standard for this range, making it feel rushed. There’s no room to explore what it really means for the robots to gain sentience, apart from the usual pontificating about how they are now living beings and must be protected. Instead, the immediate threat to their safety is resolved and the Doctor and Leela promptly leave. The small population of sentient robots is still on a planet ruled by people who hate them and want them eradicated, and who now know where they are, but I’m sure they’ll figure it out, right?
Nick Briggs directs and it’s fine. Jamie Robertson does the sound and it’s fine. The robots sound like they did on TV. We get lots of references to Vocs and Super-Vocs and Dums. Robophobia isn’t mentioned, which is weird given the new society’s pathological hatred of robots, but there’s only room for so many references in one story, I suppose. Whatever. You could write “A Doctor Who story starring Tom Baker” as the synopsis and be done with it.
Blaaaaaaahhhhhhhh.
5/10
THE CROWMARSH EXPERIMENT
The thing about “The Crowmarsh Experiment,” by David Llewellyn, isn’t that it’s particularly brilliant or innovative. In fact, it’s a fairly clichéd, obvious science fiction story. The thing about “The Crowmarsh Experiment” is that it actually tries to do something other than “generic Doctor Who runaround” in a Fourth Doctor Adventure, which automatically sets it apart from its colleagues.
You’ve heard this story before. Not this specific one, with these specific characters, but if you’re any sort of science fiction fan you’ve heard this story before. Leela is captured by an alien computer and her mind is wired into a virtual reality space while her body is slowly drained of energy. While trapped in this reality, she begins to question her own sense of self, and whether she’d be better off staying in the false reality even knowing she would ultimately sacrifice her own life. There is absolutely no ambiguity here: the story shows Leela’s capture right up front, and from the moment she wakes up in the “dream” she knows something is wrong. The entertainment for the listener therefore comes from Leela herself: how she deals with this new reality. And this is a good decision on Llewellyn’s part because it allows us to enjoy Leela as a three-dimensional character rather than a knife-happy savage. The best writers understand that Leela is very intelligent, and both the script and Louise Jameson’s performance communicate this brilliantly as we watch her work her way through the difficulties she encounters. The virtual reality setting also gives us a great performance from Tom Baker – the restrained Dr. Stewart shows that the Doctor’s eccentricity is indeed an acting choice on Baker’s part, even if it does line up well with his own personality.
The problem is that while this is a good character piece for Leela, there’s not much in the way of drama or conflict. We know essentially what’s going on right from the start, so there’s no mystery: the question is simply how Leela is going to figure out what’s happening and escape. This would work if the character drama was sufficiently intense, but it’s not: Leela faces virtually no conflict whatsoever in the first episode, and the second episode chooses to introduce drama by bringing back Marshall (Damien Lynch) as Leela’s false husband Colin. What’s that? Who’s Marshall? You know, the guy Leela abruptly fell in love with at the end of “Requiem for the Rocket Men” and who promptly died in “Death Match?” Yes, it’s that same mediocre, underwritten character from three years ago, and the listener is expected to remember him because there’s absolutely no explanation given. I suppose, since I always criticize Big Finish for never following up on significant character moments, I should give them credit for actually showing some consequences – Leela was actually affected by their relationship! – but three years later and seemingly at random is really pushing the boundaries of acceptability.
Nicholas Briggs directs again, and the excellent performances across the board are at least due in some part to his efforts. Jamie Robertson’s sound design is similarly good. “The Crowmarsh Experiment” is a good story, and it’s a great Fourth Doctor Adventure by comparison to its fellows. But it’s not particularly deep, it relies upon an odd continuity reference from years ago, and it’s not innovative except when compared to this range’s normal dreary output. Still, there’s very little in the way of serious faults and I recommend giving it a listen if you’re desperate for good fourth Doctor material.
Recommended.
7/10
THE MIND RUNNERS
“The Mind Runners” by John Dorney is the sort of story that promises more than it delivers. It’s the first half of a four-part story, so of course nothing is resolved – but despite introducing at least three potential sources of conflict, nothing really happens in either episode.
On the planet Chaldera, a lack of energy means a lack of entertainment for the young, some of whom amuse themselves by “mind running” – using devices to insert themselves into other people’s minds and live their experiences. But something has gone wrong, and the mind runners are dying, victims of apparent suicides. Are they suicides? Are they being killed? Did they “run” with the wrong minds and learn something they shouldn’t have? Or did they run the legendary evil consciousness known as the Night Mind, which may or may not even exist? These are all interesting questions, and a great basis for a story. This story also includes Mr. Shift, a former scientist who was killed in a teleporter accident and transformed into a crazed killer who can morph his body into different forms. Now he’s stalking the mind runners and trying to kill them all, while being terribly theatrical about it. One would assume he is related in some way to their activities, but he gives no indication one way or the other. And then we have the Digitals, former inhabitants who have upgraded themselves into machine consciousnesses, and lurk underground preparing for the day when they will emerge and convert everyone to their form. And all the while we’re hearing about the failing power supply and how the planet will have to be evacuated at some point in the near future.
I’m giving the story some slack because it’s the first half of a greater whole, but that is a ton of plot material thrown at the listener and virtually none of it is given any development. The Doctor, Leela, and K9 meet some mind runners, but rather than getting involved in the plot, they waste an entire episode tracking them through the streets and sewers. It’s fun to imagine what, if any, relationship exists between the mind runners and Mr. Shift and the Digitals and the Night Mind, but the story does nothing to point us toward a possible answer. I don’t mind ambiguity, but I’m worried that it will be very difficult to reach a satisfactory conclusion in the second half. Another problem is that the ideas just aren’t very interesting: projecting yourself into someone else’s mind is hardly groundbreaking and we don’t even see it happen in the story. Mr. Shift is fun but he seems devoid of motivation. And a group wanting to convert a population to machine consciousness is something we’ve seen about a hundred times before in any Cyberman story you care to mention.
As for the production, it’s solid as usual. Nicholas Briggs directs again, and does it well, and Jamie Robertson is always reliable when it comes to music and sound design. My only complaint is with the filter on the voices of the Chalderans, which makes them hard to understand and doesn’t serve much of a point. Overall, I’m feeling cautious about this story – it’s not bad, but it packs a lot in, and it doesn’t seem all that interesting. Hopefully things will pick up for the conclusion.
Recommended tentatively.
6/10
THE DEMON RISES
My biggest concern with “The Mind Runners” was the sheer number of ideas it set up with no promise of resolution. In the conclusion, “The Demon Rises,” also by John Dorney, my concern was addressed in a curious manner: some of those plot threads were simply left unaddressed. The mind runners are almost completely left out, apart from a surprise revelation right at the conclusion concerning mind running, and the Digitals and their plot to “upgrade” the population out of their organic bodies just… disappear. This leaves Mr. Shift, who’s still around, and the power drain, which means it’s time for a twist: the evacuation rocket is actually a massive trap designed to drain the life energy from everyone inside. Who engineered this trap? Why, it’s the city of Chaldera itself, because it’s not a city at all, it’s a massive alien creature who hunts by… convincing people to build a civilization out of it and live inside it, I guess. And it’s dying, so after the rocket eats everyone and drains their energy, it will be launched with the creature’s eggs to start the whole process over again on countless other worlds. Pretty complex, right? Sounds like the sort of thing that could take four episodes to explore, but no, it’s introduced midway through the third episode at the expense of everything else – at least until Mr. Shift turns up at the end in a very predictable plot twist.
I’m also curious about Dorney’s characterization of the Doctor here. He’s definitely in “Pyramids of Mars” intense-alien mode, which is perfectly fine, but the conclusion of the story feels odd. The Doctor executes multiple plans designed to stop the creature’s scheme but keeps giving it outs along the way – and it keeps rejecting those and trying to continue surviving. So finally, with all other options exhausted, the Doctor gleefully executes the city, complete with triumphant “THAT’S how you kill a city!” taunt as it dies. This isn’t entirely out of character, though only the two Bakers could get away with it, but it jars with the rest of the story. It’s also a bit inconsistent philosophically: if this is truly how the creature reproduces, why shouldn’t it be allowed to try? Do we believe that a food chain ends when sentience begins? Dorney throws in a convenient line about how there are probably thousands of these creatures on other planets who are much more benign, but it just screams cop-out. When “The Trial of a Time Lord” is more willing to engage with the Doctor’s morality than you are, you should ask yourself why.
Just as in the first story, Nicholas Briggs directs and Jamie Robertson handles the sound design, and both are up to Big Finish’s usual standards of excellence. Overall, I can’t say I’m a big fan of “The Demon Rises.” It’s confused, it’s way too busy, and it doesn’t engage with its own questions. It’s certainly not boring, as Dorney keeps throwing so much at the listener, but it’s not rewarding. I applaud the ambition but not the execution.
6/10