1.1 Technophobia by Matt Fitton
When the Doctor and Donna visit London’s Technology Museum for a glimpse into the future, things don’t go to plan. The most brilliant IT brain in the country can’t use her computer. More worrying, the exhibits are attacking the visitors, while outside, people seem to be losing control of the technology that runs their lives. Is it all down to simple human stupidity, or is something more sinister going on?
Beneath the streets, the Koggnossenti are waiting. For all of London to fall prey to technophobia…
1.2 Time Reaver by Jenny T Colgan
Calibris. The spaceport planet where anything goes. Where anyone who doesn’t want to be found can be lost, and where everything has its price. Where betentacled gangster Gully holds sway at the smugglers’ tavern, Vagabond’s Reach. The alien Vacintians are trying to impose some order on the chaos. Soon the Doctor and Donna discover why. An illegal weapon is loose on the streets. A weapon that destroys lives… Slowly and agonisingly.
The Time Reaver.
1.3 Death and the Queen by James Goss
Donna Noble has never been lucky in love. So when, one day, her Prince does come, she is thrilled to have the wedding of all weddings to look forward to. Though the Doctor isn’t holding his breath for an invitation. And her future mother-in-law is certainly not amused. But on the big day itself, Donna finds her castle under siege from the darkest of forces, marching at the head of a skeleton army.
When it looks like even the Doctor can’t save the day, what will Queen Donna do to save her people from Death itself?
TECHNOPHOBIA
After acquiring the rights to tell Doctor Who stories using post-2005 material, Big Finish rolled out a ton of product, from the new UNIT to River Song to Winston Churchill. The jewel in their crown, however, is “The Tenth Doctor Adventures,” a box set that reunites David Tennant and Catherine Tate as the tenth Doctor and Donna. The first story in the set, Matt Fitton’s “Technophobia,” is a fun adventure that captures the spirit of the Tennant era but is unfortunately lacking in depth.
Both Tennant and Tate have narrated BBC Audio releases in the past, but this is the first time they’ve reunited for a full-cast story, and the results are, happily, everything you would expect. Tennant in particular sounds like he never left the role: he’s all manic energy and inspiration, flipping emotions from anger to enthusiasm at a moment’s notice, exactly as he was on television. You can easily picture him bounding around the set in your mind’s eye. About the only element of his Doctor we don’t get is the brooding side, and I’m sure there will be time for that in future releases. Tate, meanwhile, has scaled her performance back slightly – this is still recognizably Donna but she’s not quite as brash and intrusive as she was on TV. I think this works, though – it was easy to get away with two boisterous stars on TV, but on audio it would overwhelm the soundscape. And with performances like these it’s no surprise to see Nicholas Briggs in the director’s chair, as he’s always been particularly good at directing the series regulars.
As for the story, Fitton provides a brilliant hook: rather than a story about technology run amok, he tells a story about technology performing exactly as intended but humanity becoming increasingly terrified of it. There’s an alien influence reducing humans’ brains to primitive states, stripping people of their ability to understand or even recognize technology. This leads to fantastic scenes like a man screaming in horror from inside an elevator, and that elevator slowly descending and the doors opening to reveal… a perfectly ordinary, functional elevator. It’s also interesting to listen to tech CEO Jill Meadows (Rachael Stirling) slowly lose her understanding of and start to fear her own mobile operating system. And, of course, the best part is when the effect reaches the Doctor, and he not only loses the ability to (psychically) control the sonic screwdriver, he starts to fear the TARDIS itself!
The problem with “Technophobia” is that once you get past the return of Tennant and Tate, and the strong concept at its heart, there’s not much actual drama on display. The story is confined to a couple of locations, which wouldn’t be a problem if those locations were populated with strong characters. But the supporting cast is uniformly unmemorable. Fitton tries to flesh out the characters, showing Jill wanting to be taken seriously as CEO and innovator and Bex (Niky Wardley) worrying about her nan, but these details don’t feel organic and don’t lend the characters any sympathy. As for the male cast, I already can’t remember which one was Brian, which one was Kevin, and which one was Lukas – one was a train driver, one was a maintenance worker, and the other one was in the museum and got killed? It’s not unusual for Big Finish stories to have thinly-sketched supporting characters, but since these stories are set in an era which was known for its guest characters, this area needs to be improved in the future. And without strong supporting characters, it’s difficult to care about what happens to them, which is what robs the story of dramatic tension.
On the production front, I already mentioned Briggs’ strong turn as director, which can be seen in the quality of the performances. (Tate and Wardley have distractingly similar voices for audio, but that’s a minor complaint.) Howard Carter’s sound design is effective enough, but the music is completely unmemorable, which prevents the story from sounding like it belongs in the Tennant era. Overall, though, “Technophobia” is a solid start to the Tenth Doctor Adventures, and I’m curious to see where they go from here.
Recommended.
7/10
TIME REAVER
While “Technophobia” hit all the marks of a tenth Doctor story, it sometimes failed to capture the feeling of one. That’s not a problem with Jenny T. Colgan’s “Time Reaver,” a fast-paced, enjoyable story based around another great concept and a great sense of humor. Hopefully this upward trend will continue!
I love the idea of the Time Reavers, weapons that, when fired, lock their victims into a state where the next few minutes of their lives seem to take hours, weeks, or even years. Naturally, these have all sorts of terrifying potential uses, whether in war or by common criminals, but what I love about the concept is that it’s not entirely terrible. We hear of people using the weapon to prolong moments of happiness – which is ultimately tragic in itself, given the condition those people end up in, but still gives nuance to the situation. And then there are the Vacintians, who want to use the Time Reavers to prolong the final moments of their civilization before it is consumed by solar expansion. Tragic, yes, but also heartbreaking, and made especially so by Cora’s (Sabrina Bartlett) naïve faith that people would only use the Time Reavers for similarly honorable purposes.
The setting is equally spectacular. The spaceport planet of Calibris is an alien world that would fit right into Tennant’s TV era – it’s the sort of Earth analogue that Russell T. Davies loved, rooted in his belief that even futuristic alien societies need to be relatable. And despite its massive scale, the soundscape makes it feel like a real place populated by real people. All credit to Howard Carter for his masterful sound design work on this story. Speaking of real people, Soren (Alex Lowe) makes perfect sense as a character: why wouldn’t the Doctor have a trusted mechanic for his TARDIS, especially in a post-Gallifrey universe? Makes it easier to replace a broken fluid link than the usual process of crash-landing somewhere and trying to find one.
Colgan absolutely nails the interactions between the Doctor and Donna in this story, as they’re constantly going back and forth in playful bickering. This isn’t surprising, as she’s been quite good at capturing the regulars in her prose work, but it’s delightful to hear Tennant and Tate reading the lines. But what really makes the script work is the dark undertone, the seedy underbelly of Calibris that is constantly threatening to break through to the surface. Yes, Gully (John Banks) is way over the top and the voice filter is a mistake, but in general the story’s humor is used to leaven the drama. The way the Doctor finally eliminates the Time Reavers is completely in keeping with his character but still quite difficult to hear, and it leads to a surprisingly downbeat final line. We also get to see Donna’s compassion come to the fore – and you couldn’t sum up Donna any better than when she channels the memory of her father to give Cora some final advice. Oh, and just for good measure, we get “There’s something on your back.”
The production is a huge improvement on “Technophobia.” Nicholas Briggs directs with his usual skill, of course, but Howard Carter is a star, as the score for this story is fantastic, perfectly matching the commotion of the sound design. “Time Reaver” is full of interesting scenes, memorable concepts, and an easygoing yet shadowy tone perfectly in keeping with Series 4. If this is how future Tenth Doctor Adventures are going to be, sign me up.
Highly recommended.
8/10
DEATH AND THE QUEEN
The final story in the Tenth Doctor Adventures set – and potentially the final tenth Doctor story from Big Finish for quite a while, depending upon how quickly they can get David Tennant back in studio – is “Death and the Queen” from James Goss, a story openly modeled on the logic of fairy tales that works brilliantly. If this is the level of quality we can expect from these stories going forward, I want more as soon as possible.
The most important thing to remember while listening to “Death and the Queen” is that it embraces a particular storytelling style. Yes, Donna and Rudolph (Blake Ritson) fall in love and decide to get married in approximately five minutes. Yes, all of the supporting characters are ciphers, from the evil Queen Mother (-in-law) (Alice Krige) to the weak, effete prince, to the heroic, brilliant chambermaid (Beth Chalmers). And yes, the Doctor and Donna eventually save the day – but it’s all part of the style, and Goss puts it across with such verve that it just works.
The script is hilarious from start to finish. I enjoyed the structural experimentation at the beginning, jumping around from date to date as Donna grows closer to Rudolph while the Doctor continually sticks his nose in. I loved the relationship between the Doctor and Donna, which is as sparky and witty as their best television episodes. And I also loved the conclusion, as even with the seriousness of Death himself entering the story, the Doctor remains at his comic best. But there’s also a great deal of subtlety to the writing – while the Doctor’s speech about losing companions is often hilarious, it also gets right to the heart of the character, and has more than a hint of sadness about it. And the aforementioned relationship between the Doctor and Donna is put under the microscope, with her impending marriage to Rudolph held up like a funhouse mirroring of her time with the Doctor. There’s even a little foreshadowing of her departure at the end, which is the ideal way to tell these “missing” stories: since we know how Donna’s time in the TARDIS ends, allude to it!
David Tennant and Catherine Tate saved their best performances for last with this story. Tennant in particular dominates the story, and even though he’s a supporting character for most of the running time he takes over virtually every scene he appears in. Tate gets most of the story’s emotional material and handles it incredibly well. I particularly enjoyed the scene where she puts on a brave face while describing life in the castle to the Doctor: it’s overtly comic, but it shows Donna’s emotional growth through her willingness to follow through on a commitment even though that commitment was probably a mistake. And while the supporting cast is playing a bunch of clichés, they play their clichéd roles to the hilt, making the story all the more enjoyable.
The production is first-rate as well. Some of the brilliance from the leads must be down to director Nicholas Briggs, while the sound design from Howard Carter is effectively ambitious. There’s a lot of action communicated through sound but without dialogue and almost every instance is immediately understandable. And there are lots of hilarious touches – the sound effect immediately before the end credits had me bursting out laughing. Overall, “Death and the Queen” is brilliant. It’s funny, it’s heartfelt, it’s emotional, and it’s well made. I admit I was skeptical going into the Tenth Doctor Adventures set, expecting to get more monthly range drudgery starring David Tennant. Instead, I got two good-to-great stories and an instant classic. Wow.
Buy this at once.
10/10