It’s murder at the Intergalactic Song Contest on Dark Space 8 and it’s up to the Seventh Doctor and Mel to solve it.
2 Comments
Styre
on May 7, 2016 at 11:34 PM
BANG-BANG-A-BOOM!
After a December release the previous year with comedic overtones and a positive audience reaction, it’s not particularly surprising to learn that Big Finish went down exactly the same road for their following Christmas release. Keeping Bonnie Langford around was of course necessary, but this time instead of Colin Baker they opted for the season 24 Sylvester McCoy, and Gareth Roberts returned with Clayton Hickman to pen the script. It’s a shame, then, that rather than recapturing the old magic, they merely managed to deliver a smug, unfunny travesty of a play.
The primary appeal of The One Doctor was its satirization of the original television series — the concept of someone masquerading as the Doctor in order to pull confidence tricks on unsuspecting civilizations is brilliant — but obviously the same technique couldn’t have been used twice in a row. But rather than exploring a different comedic path, the authors decided to pen another satire, this time of American science fiction. While I agree that much of American scifi is unnecessarily bleak and cliche-ridden, I do not perceive it as deserving of mockery on this scale. I’m currently in the process of watching Babylon 5, and I’ve been blown away — and the idea of two *Doctor Who* writers thinking they’re entitled to the satiric high ground is patently ludicrous. Yes, B5 may have given us “Grail,” but Doctor Who gave us “The Monster of Peladon.”
Of course, there’s nothing wrong with satire on its face, but Bang-Bang-A-Boom! is shockingly mean-spirited. Virtually every character is an irredeemable idiot, and the writing makes them annoying rather than amusing. It can be funny to repeat a joke past the point of humor, but that presupposes the joke achieved humor to begin with — the “death sting” and the “I felt so.. helpless!” elements are painfully unfunny and draw the fingers to the fast-forward button. Ironically enough, this script, played (relatively) straight could have made an amusing Star Trek episode — but rather than letting the characters play it straight and allowing the humor to arise from the ridiculous situation, Roberts and Hickman fill the play with over-the-top cliches designed only to draw attention to themselves.
Wrapped up in all of this is Sylvester McCoy, whose attempt to return to his early characterization of the Doctor is a partial success. McCoy turns in one of the hurried, lazy line readings to which we’ve become accustomed, but fortunately the nature of his character is such that his manic stumbling over lines sounds appropriate rather than out of place. The scene in which he is seduced by Angvia is utterly cringeworthy, failing to provoke laughter but rather causing this listener to wonder “Is nothing sacred?!”
Bonnie Langford’s performance is somewhat better, which is interesting as it’s basically the same sort of thing we heard in season 24. I suspect that her acting has simply changed with age, as she’s actually quite likeable rather than grating despite the situation not really allowing for this shift. The competent-companion-with-bumbling-Doctor concept is amusing, certainly, but as with most everything else here it’s overplayed.
The supporting cast is monstrous, and there’s hardly a good performance to be found in the crowd. Graeme Garden was reportedly hilarious in the minds of his co-stars, but I fail to see why. Patricia Quinn’s turn as Angvia is grating on the ears, though not as annoying as Jane Goddard’s Geri Pakhar. Sabina Franklyn does well as Harcourt, though the material itself is the worst sort of cliche, while I have to say I found David Tughan hilarious as Logan, even if I’d never heard of the person he was supposedly impersonating.
Andy Hardwick and Gareth Jenkins provide mostly excellent sound design, replicating the typical sounds of US sci-fi space stations. The music, however, is poor — granted, it fits perfectly with the tone of the piece, but as that tone is overwrought, unsubtle, and unfunny, it’s hard to give it a good grade. It’s hard to comment on Nicholas Pegg’s direction, but it appears that the production aimed to wring every last possibility of humor from the script — and if you haven’t guessed from the tone of this review, I don’t think it succeeded. I do, however, like the inclusion of the McCoy theme, which fits with the mood of the play and is also more appropriate to the range in general than the ‘70s theme. The BBC-style continuity announcements are funny as well.
I qualify the preceding statements by pointing out that this play simply did not feature my preferred style of humor. For what it is, it’s done well, but this still rubbed me the wrong way and left me angry and annoyed at the conclusion. Some people will no doubt love this play, but, to me, The One Doctor was about as funny as this play wasn’t.
Big Finish Productions, Main Range #39. 4 episodes. Written by: Gareth Roberts & Clayton Hickman. Directed by: Nicholas Pegg.
THE PLOT
Space Station Dark Space 8 is facing a time of abrupt transition. Its former commander has died, and its replacement commander – a captain of high repute – is on his way. But when the new commander’s ship is destroyed on its way in, Dark Space 8 beams the only life signs aboard just in time… and retrieves the Doctor and Mel!
Mistaken for the late captain, the Doctor assumes the role of station commander to investigate the ship’s destruction. When he discovers that Dark Space 8 is hosting the Intergalactic Song Contest, he finds that he has stepped into a diplomatic minefield. Two of the competitors represent species who are at war with each other, and the Doctor tries to keep them away from each other’s throats to avoid an incident that might disrupt peace talks on another station, far away.
A tricky situation is about to become a dangerous one, however. One of the contestants is murdered in her quarters – and she is not fated to be the final victim…
CHARACTERS
The Doctor: Sylvester McCoy seems completely at home in this story, and I do mean that in a good way. McCoy gives a performance that’s much more relaxed and confident than his televised performances that I’ve reviewed – likely an advantage of this being recorded decades later, long after he fully found his footing. The Doctor gets to balance being the clownish early 7th Doctor, mangling proverbs and doding amorous female suitors and even playing the spoons (on audio!), while at the same time being genuinely shrewd and observant.
Mel: Slotting their story in directly after Paradise Towers, writers Hickman and Roberts actually use the potential pitfalls of Mel’s characterization to good effect. Instead of giving us a subdued, perfectly competent Mel (the approach of David McIntee in Unregenerate!), we get a Mel who is genuinely overenthusiastic and prone to leaping to conclusions. She inadvertantly commits assault at one point, and equally accidentally propositions a pop star at another. She even gets to indulge her obsession with swimming! The only real difference between this Mel and Paradise Towers Mel is that this version works. All the “Mel traits” are here, but presented in such a way that she remains likable and compassionate.
THOUGHTS
I’m aware that Bang-Bang-a-Boom! is a divisive audio within Big Finish fandom. Some love it, others hate it. I fall, if not quite into the “love it” category, at least into the “like it very much” category.
It’s a comedy Who story, but it’s not an overplayed farce. The humor is constantly there, but it’s kept at a level where you’re left chuckling as the story weaves its way along, rather than aiming for direct belly laughs. This keeps the comedy from becoming too wearying, while at the same time giving just the right touch of lightness to a fairly traditional “Agatha Christie in Space” Who plot.
The setting and guest characters are clearly signposted to send up American science fiction series, notably Star Trek (particularly Next Generation and Deep Space 9, though I caught references to the other series too) and Babylon 5. As someone who loved Babylon 5 at its best, loves the 1960’s Star Trek, and has a certain residual fondness for some of the Trek spinoffs, I recognized the references and enjoyed the way the story played with the trappings.
I also appreciated how extremely well this story fits into Season 24. This is very much an “early McCoy” story. While more than one Season 24-set Big Finish McCoy story tries very hard to work against what that season was on television, this story actively embraces Season 24 for what it was – It just does it well, instead of doing it badly. At well over 2 hours, the result is a sort of epic of foolishness and whimsy. It may turn off those who like their Who to be dark and scary; alternatively, those who only like comedy Who when it completely “goes for it” may be turned off by this story’s being satisfied with merely striking a whimsical tone instead of going for all-out farce.
In the end, I can only speak for myself. I absolutely enjoyed Bang-Bang-a-Boom, from its opening moments through to its post-credits tag. Paradise Towers was a good script badly produced. This, by contrast, is a good script whose production is entirely in step with it, and the result was one that I found a joy to listen to.
BANG-BANG-A-BOOM!
After a December release the previous year with comedic overtones and a positive audience reaction, it’s not particularly surprising to learn that Big Finish went down exactly the same road for their following Christmas release. Keeping Bonnie Langford around was of course necessary, but this time instead of Colin Baker they opted for the season 24 Sylvester McCoy, and Gareth Roberts returned with Clayton Hickman to pen the script. It’s a shame, then, that rather than recapturing the old magic, they merely managed to deliver a smug, unfunny travesty of a play.
The primary appeal of The One Doctor was its satirization of the original television series — the concept of someone masquerading as the Doctor in order to pull confidence tricks on unsuspecting civilizations is brilliant — but obviously the same technique couldn’t have been used twice in a row. But rather than exploring a different comedic path, the authors decided to pen another satire, this time of American science fiction. While I agree that much of American scifi is unnecessarily bleak and cliche-ridden, I do not perceive it as deserving of mockery on this scale. I’m currently in the process of watching Babylon 5, and I’ve been blown away — and the idea of two *Doctor Who* writers thinking they’re entitled to the satiric high ground is patently ludicrous. Yes, B5 may have given us “Grail,” but Doctor Who gave us “The Monster of Peladon.”
Of course, there’s nothing wrong with satire on its face, but Bang-Bang-A-Boom! is shockingly mean-spirited. Virtually every character is an irredeemable idiot, and the writing makes them annoying rather than amusing. It can be funny to repeat a joke past the point of humor, but that presupposes the joke achieved humor to begin with — the “death sting” and the “I felt so.. helpless!” elements are painfully unfunny and draw the fingers to the fast-forward button. Ironically enough, this script, played (relatively) straight could have made an amusing Star Trek episode — but rather than letting the characters play it straight and allowing the humor to arise from the ridiculous situation, Roberts and Hickman fill the play with over-the-top cliches designed only to draw attention to themselves.
Wrapped up in all of this is Sylvester McCoy, whose attempt to return to his early characterization of the Doctor is a partial success. McCoy turns in one of the hurried, lazy line readings to which we’ve become accustomed, but fortunately the nature of his character is such that his manic stumbling over lines sounds appropriate rather than out of place. The scene in which he is seduced by Angvia is utterly cringeworthy, failing to provoke laughter but rather causing this listener to wonder “Is nothing sacred?!”
Bonnie Langford’s performance is somewhat better, which is interesting as it’s basically the same sort of thing we heard in season 24. I suspect that her acting has simply changed with age, as she’s actually quite likeable rather than grating despite the situation not really allowing for this shift. The competent-companion-with-bumbling-Doctor concept is amusing, certainly, but as with most everything else here it’s overplayed.
The supporting cast is monstrous, and there’s hardly a good performance to be found in the crowd. Graeme Garden was reportedly hilarious in the minds of his co-stars, but I fail to see why. Patricia Quinn’s turn as Angvia is grating on the ears, though not as annoying as Jane Goddard’s Geri Pakhar. Sabina Franklyn does well as Harcourt, though the material itself is the worst sort of cliche, while I have to say I found David Tughan hilarious as Logan, even if I’d never heard of the person he was supposedly impersonating.
Andy Hardwick and Gareth Jenkins provide mostly excellent sound design, replicating the typical sounds of US sci-fi space stations. The music, however, is poor — granted, it fits perfectly with the tone of the piece, but as that tone is overwrought, unsubtle, and unfunny, it’s hard to give it a good grade. It’s hard to comment on Nicholas Pegg’s direction, but it appears that the production aimed to wring every last possibility of humor from the script — and if you haven’t guessed from the tone of this review, I don’t think it succeeded. I do, however, like the inclusion of the McCoy theme, which fits with the mood of the play and is also more appropriate to the range in general than the ‘70s theme. The BBC-style continuity announcements are funny as well.
I qualify the preceding statements by pointing out that this play simply did not feature my preferred style of humor. For what it is, it’s done well, but this still rubbed me the wrong way and left me angry and annoyed at the conclusion. Some people will no doubt love this play, but, to me, The One Doctor was about as funny as this play wasn’t.
3/10
Bang-Bang-a-Boom!
Big Finish Productions, Main Range #39. 4 episodes. Written by: Gareth Roberts & Clayton Hickman. Directed by: Nicholas Pegg.
THE PLOT
Space Station Dark Space 8 is facing a time of abrupt transition. Its former commander has died, and its replacement commander – a captain of high repute – is on his way. But when the new commander’s ship is destroyed on its way in, Dark Space 8 beams the only life signs aboard just in time… and retrieves the Doctor and Mel!
Mistaken for the late captain, the Doctor assumes the role of station commander to investigate the ship’s destruction. When he discovers that Dark Space 8 is hosting the Intergalactic Song Contest, he finds that he has stepped into a diplomatic minefield. Two of the competitors represent species who are at war with each other, and the Doctor tries to keep them away from each other’s throats to avoid an incident that might disrupt peace talks on another station, far away.
A tricky situation is about to become a dangerous one, however. One of the contestants is murdered in her quarters – and she is not fated to be the final victim…
CHARACTERS
The Doctor: Sylvester McCoy seems completely at home in this story, and I do mean that in a good way. McCoy gives a performance that’s much more relaxed and confident than his televised performances that I’ve reviewed – likely an advantage of this being recorded decades later, long after he fully found his footing. The Doctor gets to balance being the clownish early 7th Doctor, mangling proverbs and doding amorous female suitors and even playing the spoons (on audio!), while at the same time being genuinely shrewd and observant.
Mel: Slotting their story in directly after Paradise Towers, writers Hickman and Roberts actually use the potential pitfalls of Mel’s characterization to good effect. Instead of giving us a subdued, perfectly competent Mel (the approach of David McIntee in Unregenerate!), we get a Mel who is genuinely overenthusiastic and prone to leaping to conclusions. She inadvertantly commits assault at one point, and equally accidentally propositions a pop star at another. She even gets to indulge her obsession with swimming! The only real difference between this Mel and Paradise Towers Mel is that this version works. All the “Mel traits” are here, but presented in such a way that she remains likable and compassionate.
THOUGHTS
I’m aware that Bang-Bang-a-Boom! is a divisive audio within Big Finish fandom. Some love it, others hate it. I fall, if not quite into the “love it” category, at least into the “like it very much” category.
It’s a comedy Who story, but it’s not an overplayed farce. The humor is constantly there, but it’s kept at a level where you’re left chuckling as the story weaves its way along, rather than aiming for direct belly laughs. This keeps the comedy from becoming too wearying, while at the same time giving just the right touch of lightness to a fairly traditional “Agatha Christie in Space” Who plot.
The setting and guest characters are clearly signposted to send up American science fiction series, notably Star Trek (particularly Next Generation and Deep Space 9, though I caught references to the other series too) and Babylon 5. As someone who loved Babylon 5 at its best, loves the 1960’s Star Trek, and has a certain residual fondness for some of the Trek spinoffs, I recognized the references and enjoyed the way the story played with the trappings.
I also appreciated how extremely well this story fits into Season 24. This is very much an “early McCoy” story. While more than one Season 24-set Big Finish McCoy story tries very hard to work against what that season was on television, this story actively embraces Season 24 for what it was – It just does it well, instead of doing it badly. At well over 2 hours, the result is a sort of epic of foolishness and whimsy. It may turn off those who like their Who to be dark and scary; alternatively, those who only like comedy Who when it completely “goes for it” may be turned off by this story’s being satisfied with merely striking a whimsical tone instead of going for all-out farce.
In the end, I can only speak for myself. I absolutely enjoyed Bang-Bang-a-Boom, from its opening moments through to its post-credits tag. Paradise Towers was a good script badly produced. This, by contrast, is a good script whose production is entirely in step with it, and the result was one that I found a joy to listen to.
Rating: 8/10.