The Doctor and Romana land in Budapest, intent on enjoying another holiday, but shortly after landing they find themselves too late to save the life of a man who has seemingly been attacked by a vampire. As they learn that this is the latest in a series of violent attacks, it becomes clear that they have stumbled onto something that needs investigating.
Aided by a vampire hunter who is searching for Dracula, they look into the nearby Buda caves, currently being used for storage by the military – and find that the soldiers have problems of their own.
Stalked through the tunnels by a monster, and up against an ancient evil, the race is on to escape alive – and foil the dastardly schemes of the maniacal Zoltan Frid.
THE LABYRINTH OF BUDA CASTLE
Does anyone else remember season 17 of Doctor Who on television? I do – I remember a playful tone, ambitious storytelling, witty scripts, and all the rest. But I’m not sure Big Finish does, as we’re now two stories into their season 17 recreation and the second, Eddie Robson’s “The Labyrinth of Buda Castle,” is as dull and uninteresting as the first.
Are we absolutely sure that Eddie Robson wrote this? He’s not only one of Big Finish’s most reliable writers, he’s one of their punchiest: almost everything he writes has a compelling hook or interesting central concept to capture the interest. But “Labyrinth” has neither of those things; instead, it’s a by-the-numbers vampire-but-not-really story that involves a lot of running from place to place. It almost seems to be a better fit with the Hinchcliffe-era audios, with its gothic horror iconography and revelation that the villain is actually an alien and not a mythological horror. It has a few of the trappings of “City of Death,” primarily the Doctor and Romana vacationing in a European capital, but it doesn’t otherwise feel like a season 17 tale.
Mark Bonnar plays the villainous Zoltán Frid, and director Nicholas Briggs must have told him to go as far over the top as possible. If this was filmed there would be bite marks on the scenery – he growls and wheezes his way through each line in what sounds like a mixture of murderous rage and sexual arousal. This sort of performance is well in line with Graham Crowden in “The Horns of Nimon,” but that story was self-consciously comedic. “Buda Castle,” on the other hand, sounds like it wants to be scary, and so Bonnar’s performance is jarring instead of amusing. Even at the beginning when he approaches Romana in the café – I’m not sure if this was supposed to be unnerving but it was really just uncomfortable. There’s also Kate Bracken as vampire hunter Celia, who’s hunting Dracula – but of course she has other motives as well. She comes across better than other attempts BF has made at characters like this, but she’s still largely unmemorable.
There’s a great scene at the start of the second episode where Tom Baker confronts the villain and they argue their philosophies. Baker is always larger than life, so this is the one moment where Bonnar’s performance actually works – and I always love a good confrontation scene between the Doctor and the villain. This is the benefit of unsubtle bad guys, as it happens. But it’s fleeting, as most confrontations are, and what happens next is by-the-book Doctor Who storytelling right up to the ruthless solution employed by the fourth Doctor. As I’ve said so many times about this range, “The Labyrinth of Buda Castle” isn’t poorly written or poorly made by any definition. It’s professional, it’s entertaining in spots, and it’s well produced. But it’s also utterly rote storytelling. I’m not sure if it’s the two-episode format or an editorial decision or something else, but this is yet another example of an uninspiring Fourth Doctor Adventure, and this time it’s from a writer with a justifiably great reputation. Is this the fate of all 4DAs? To be drowned in a vast, grey ocean of blah?
5/10