Arrangements for War

An audio adventure featuring the Sixth Doctor and Evelyn

Written by Paul Sutton and directed by Gary Russell

Polarity Rating: 1 out of 5

The problem with randomly picking stories to review is that you obviously do not listen to them in order. Big Finish often releases three or four stories in an arc, and although they may be enjoyed independently, there are elements that overlap in consecutive stories (see my review of The Key 2 Time: The Destroyer of Delights as an example). Another issue is that you can pluck a story from Big Finish's library and learn something about a companion you're not very familiar with, which I think may have been part of my problem with this one.

The last story I listened to (and enjoyed) featuring Dr. Evelyn Smythe was her first appearance in The Marian Conspiracy. There she was presented as a hard-as-nails history lecturer capable of standing up to the Sixth Doctor's usual bravado. I liked her, and found it was refreshing to have an elderly companion, not to mention someone a little reminiscent of Tegan, albeit a bit less annoying. In the opening of Arrangements for War, Evelyn is recovering from a loss she suffered in the previous story, and she later falls in love with a gentleman who proposes to her. It was a sudden change from what I had perceived the character to be, and I suspect there has been a lot of character development since The Marian Conspiracy.

Hoping to give Evelyn's emotions a rest, the Doctor brings her to the planet Vilag, where two rival countries are about to celebrate the marriage of Princess Krisztina and Prince Victor. The marriage is an arranged one, as well as a political move to make peace between the two nations. Obviously there are some dissenters, the most prominent being Plenipotentiary Suskind, but the Doctor assures us all will be well again in a couple weeks time when the planet will be invaded by an alien race which will be defeated by all the nations on Vilag joining together. Their victory will solidify their alliance and peace will reign eternal.

I despise when I ask people how a film or television show was and their one-word review is something like "boring" or "stupid." But you cannot imagine how tempting it is to simply slap this CD with a "boring" sticker and call it a day. The first episode consists of the Doctor's consoling Evelyn and giving her the usual "I can't change the bad things that have happened" lecture, followed by talking about preparations for the upcoming wedding on Vilag. Then the Doctor puts his foot in it when he accidentally talks Krisztina out of marrying Victor and sticking with her true boyfriend, Corporal Reid. This means, of course, that the marriage that would mark the first step toward peace may be called off, so that means the Doctor has inadvertently changed their history. And that, my friends, is the stunning cliffhanger at the end of the first episode.

It didn't get better with the second episode. The aforementioned romance between Evelyn and Governor Rossiter continues, and the Doctor tries to dance around the fact that he's changed history by trying to get the wedding back on track. Which brings me to a interesting point: not long ago I was watching "Pyramids of Mars," in which the Doctor and Sarah are as nonchalant as ever to bring up the fact that they're time travelers to save the planet from Sutekh, yet in this story everything could have been averted if the Doctor had just come out and told the damn truth! I found this relentlessly irritating, which was doubled by the Doctor's postulations on love. Frankly I couldn't believe this was a Doctor Who story, not to mention a Sixth Doctor story. They even have the Doctor secretly passing love letters between Krisztina and Reid, as if he sits between them in study hall.

There are a number of other implausible happenings, including the imprisonment of the Doctor and Evelyn for reasons unknown (or perhaps I just wasn't paying attention, which was a task in and of itself). We are treated to voice overs of newscasters to explain the passing of time. Eventually the alien invaders arrive and the least impressive invasion in Doctor Who history ensues. The story concludes with the Doctor suddenly realizing that his actions do have consequences, and it's sort of the mirror image of that scene at the conclusion of "Waters of Mars."

Perhaps I'm not the right person to review this story. Perhaps I was just expecting something a little more exciting like the stuff Big Finish has been churning out lately. There was very little in this story that compelled me...heck, I don't think there was anything in it that compelled me. Mind you, the acting was fair. I have a feeling that there are people out there who are passionate about this story, and I'll bet anything they're the same folks who loathe "Love and Monsters," a story that's particularly close to my heart.

This is the first story I've heard by Paul Sutton. One of his other works, No More Lies, is currently sitting on my bookshelf, still in its plastic wrap. After listening to Arrangements for War, I suspect No More Lies will maintain its plastic status. I'm sorry, Paul Sutton, but I've read some of the other reviews out there and some fans seem to like this type of story. Obviously, I don't.

I like my Doctor Who to have a little more action, cliffhangers in which the characters are in danger, or some plot that doesn't seem to have been pulled from a soap opera set in a magical land of fairy tales. Even when the story did head in that direction (the alien invasion), it was so slapdash and quickly over that I hardly even noticed it. The conclusion of the story seems as long as The Return of the King, with the Doctor philosophizing on how his travels have changed so many lives, often for the worse, as Evelyn pats him on the hand with hollow reassurances. This is not something I can see the Doctor allowing himself to bring to the surface, particularly the Sixth Doctor. My Sixth Doctor is arrogant, funny, and sometimes a little too quick to open his mouth. This was not the same Doctor or the same Evelyn that I really enjoyed in The Marian Conspiracy.

I probably will not be listening to Arrangements for War ever again, although I will keep it for the sake of being a completest. I do have a friend I will recommend it to, though, and I truly hope that he gets more out of it than I did. It is not, I dare say, a complete waste.

Prime Time

A novel featuring the Seventh Doctor and Ace

Written by Mike Tucker

Polarity Rating: 4.5 out of 5

As Doctor Who fans, we all have a kind of checklist that every good story should adhere to. Of course, one person's treasure is also another person's trash, so the fan who is totally into Rose and the Doctor slash fiction may have a completely different checklist than, say, your atypical fan who would like to have a common law marriage with "Pyramids of Mars" whilst categorizing "Time and the Rani" as something equal to or less than pond scum.

That being said, Prime Time managed to tick of every item on my own proverbial checklist. It has everything. It's a story so unbelievably perfect for Doctor Who that I think Mike Tucker should immediately be commissioned to pen the script for the current series. I simply cannot understand how I've read so much of the BBC's literary canon that this one slipped by me unnoticed all these years.

To wax eloquent about a story is one thing, and it would probably make for a boring review simply to do so for several paragraphs, so back to that checklist I was talking about earlier. Let me share with you the items on my fanboy checklist, and explain how this story delivered each item in spades. (For the record, the list below is not exhaustive by any means.)

1. The Totalitarian Society

The Doctor and Ace find themselves on the futuristic planet Blinni Gaar, where all does not quite seem as it should. The inhabitants (a melting pot of races) are a little too engrossed in watching television. TV's are everywhere: installed at the foot of bed frames, into dinner tables, and even into the dashboards of automobiles. For this society, television is the opiate of the people.

The term "totalitarian" commonly conjures up visions of a ruthless government, usually with some greedy dictator pulling the strings. No mention is ever really made of Blinni Gaar's government, and it's not even clear that they even have a government. But who needs a government when the people are clearly hypnotized by lousy reality television? This is a totalitarian society of a different color, and it's obvious to the Doctor moments after stepping out of the TARDIS that things on this planet are just not normal.

2. The Ruthless Despot

Tobias Vaughn. Harrison Chase. The Marshal of Solos. Where would we be without them? Some of them command a small regiment of heavies, others entire armies. The best of them serve as figureheads for the stories they appear in. (Am I the only one who thinks of Tobias Vaughn as the main villain in "The Invasion" instead of the Cybermen?) On Blinni Gaar, they have Lukos Vogol, Director of Channel 400, which is responsible for transmitting many of the programs which are transforming the viewing audience into couch potato zombies.

Vogol is a maniacal megalomaniac, intent on getting the highest ratings by hook or by crook, including murdering every member of the geriatric board of directors. He occupies an office at the top of the Channel 400 studios, drinking scotch and watching television programs while manipulating everyone around him. This sounds like a typical villain, until about halfway through the story we learn this guy is hatching plans with as many layers as an Outback Steakhouse Blooming Onion.

3. The Brutal Heavy

Vogol is working with the Zzinbriizi, a barbarian race of wolf men who have been surgically augmented with superior intelligence. These guys can usually think for themselves thanks to their new abilities, but their hunger for blood and instinct to hunt is often overpowering. They find themselves stuck between obeying orders (from more than one master) and their need to eat flesh.

Had this been a mediocre story, the list of baddies would stop at the Zzinbriizi, but it's clear from the beginning that they're only pawns in a complicated power struggle between Vogol and...

4. The Terrifying New Alien Race

If I were to bring up the highlight of this book, it would have to be the Fleshsmiths. They are the stuff of nightmares, and if this story ever was televised, the Weeping Angels would probably take the back seat to these guys. Once a happy, normal race, the Fleshsmiths' planet suffered a natural disaster which forced them to kidnap members of other races and cannibalize their body parts to create new bodies of their own.

If one were to make a science fiction remake of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, the sets would be not unlike the Fleshsmiths' home planet. Author Mike Tucker goes into some detail into their flesh bank, where bodies are left mutilated, hanging, and still alive from hooks and chains. The Fleshsmiths themselves stay connected to their external resources via thick tubes that are grafted into their bodies. The tubes are filled with murky black liquid, and one could almost smell the stuff as it's described how it oozes from the pipes as they're connected and reconnected to their hosts' bodies.

The Fleshsmiths' prime directive is simply to survive, even if it means other races have to die - and suffer horribly - in the process. Their directive is a simple one that we've seen over and over, but their realization is unbelievably gruesome. Perhaps their cruelest scheme is to kidnap an innocent soul, surgically implant a camera into his skull (among other things), and force him to do any of a number of things against his human conscience. Tucker leaves the appearance of this creature to our imagination, and the most we get are the first impressions from anyone encountering this crime against nature.

5. A Great Realization of the Doctor

The Seventh Doctor is perhaps best known for being cunning and manipulative, even with his own companions. But how does he react when the shoe is on the other foot? Here the Doctor becomes a mouse inside a giant maze, forced to deal with one deadly reality after another. There even comes a point when his enemy gloats over the Doctor's inability to plan his way out of the situation.

Of course, without revealing any major spoilers, the Doctor turns the tables at the end. In Prime Time, though, we see him at both his most vulnerable and eventually his most manipulative.

6. A Vulnerable Companion

And speaking of vulnerability, Ace is not the bat-wielding force to be reckoned with that we've seen in the final episodes of the classic series. She comes off as expected as first (she befriends another young citizen of Blinni Garr who teaches her how to rock climb), but eventually she finds herself in the clutches of the enemy and is forced to endure torment about her past and her future.

I will not say more about what Ace does in this story, but Tucker bookends the story with an epilogue and prologue regarding Ace that are cryptic yet compelling. I'll be damned if I saw that coming.

7. A Recurring Villain

Recurring villains are not my favorite. Why read another Dalek story when we can get something fresh and interesting like the Fleshsmiths? It would probably ruin the first third of the story if I told you the identity of the villain here, but suffice it to say that it's the most shocking revelation of a returning enemy since Lawrence Miles' Alien Bodies.

And there you have it. Prime Time is a thing of beauty, a wonderful feast with all the perfect courses and ingredients. Perhaps its only problem (and the reason I didn't rate it a perfect 5) is that Mike Tucker's prose is a bit off when it comes to describing places and things; I found myself having to reread some passages, then forged on in slight confusion nevertheless because I couldn't get what he was trying to get across visually (the description of the Fleshsmiths notwithstanding).

If you're a Who fan with an internet connection and $15 in your bank account, there are far worse things you can spend it on. Undoubtedly one of the best Missing Adventures in recent memory.

Fun Facts:

• If the name Mike Tucker sounds familiar, you're not mistaken. Aside from writing a number of Doctor Who novels (most of them featuring the Seventh Doctor), Tucker is known for his effects work for some of the Ninth Doctor's televised stories.
• Prime Time is riddled with in-jokes regarding the history of Doctor Who. For instance, while promoting the idea of broadcasting a show featuring the Doctor, Vogol labels him a "cosmic hobo," a term often used to describe the Second Doctor.
  

Aliens of London/World War Three

A televised story featuring the Ninth Doctor, Rose, and Mickey

Written by Russell T. Davies and directed by Keith Boak

Polarity Rating: 3.5 out of 5

This year I had the pleasure of attending Gallifrey in Los Angeles and meeting some of my fellow Doctor Who fans, most notably those from the podcasting community. At dinner with my new friends, someone broached the subject of what our first impressions were when the series returned in 2005. Everyone more or less had something good to say with one exception: they all hated, hated, hated "Aliens of London" and "World War Three."

This sentiment is apparently shared by the majority of Doctor Who fans, and out of all of the Ninth Doctor's adventures it seems to be singled out as the worst. (Everyone seems to have forgotten "Rose," with the abominable plastic Mickey.) It had been quite a while since I had seen it, so after Gallifrey I decided to pop it into the DVD player and revisit it to find out if it deserves all these rotten tomatoes. And now I have to ask my fellow fans: Why?!

The first thing the critics like to point to is the farting. It's completely uncalled for and silly, they seem to say. Had this been an hour and a half of nothing but fart jokes, this would be a valid point, but the farting is just one rather amusing characteristic of the villains in the piece and it's only remotely touched upon in the story. Another object of ridicule seems to be the Slitheen themselves. This criticism, of course, comes from many people who think the Daleks (definitely the most overused villains in all of Doctor Who) are the ultimate foe. While I admit that the juxtaposition of the Slitheen as lumbering hulks with images of them dashing through the corridors of 10 Downing Street seems just a little mismatched, the concept of the Slitheen is pretty original. These are not creatures who are bent on ruling the universe; they simply want to blow the earth into tiny pieces and sell the remains for profit. Their plan for doing this is clever, albeit a little overcomplicated: murder various high officials in the British government and impersonate them by donning their skins. It's a classic ploy used often in horror movies like The Thing and Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Indeed, as the story progresses, the Doctor and his friends quickly learn that no one is to be trusted because anyone could either be under the influence of the Slitheen or a Slitheen themselves.

With the exception of a few head-scratching moments (and I'll get to those in a moment) the plot itself is a nice little treat. There are some wonderful moments, including a three-pronged cliffhanger at the conclusion of the first episode that remains one of the series' best (and I include the oft-lauded "The Time of Angels" in that mix). A tense encounter with a Slitheen in Mickey's kitchen concludes with the amusing realization amongst the protagonists that the creatures' weakness is vinegar, the result being bits and pieces of an exploding alien all over Mickey and Jackie. Russell T. Davies' writing, always the subject of criticism, is sharp as ever, particularly the dialogue between the Doctor, Rose, and Harriet Jones. There's even a little nod to the dodgy risks of time travel; the Doctor assures Rose he's brought her back to London just after she left, but it's almost a year later and Rose has gone missing all that time. For the most part, it's just great fun.

But this particular patch of petunias is not without its proverbial cat turd. Perhaps RTD should have watched Independence Day again before writing in that ridiculous conclusion involving Mickey hacking into the military's network and launching a missile from his computer. Granted, the Doctor provided him with the required security codes, but it still doesn't seem plausible. The possibility of three people surviving an explosion by crouching in a closet is rather contrived, especially since all of 10 Downing Street was incinerated save for that single closet door and its adjoining wall.

This story begins RTD's obsession with an alien menace popping up none-too-subtly in the middle of London, which was repeated in "The Christmas Invasion" and again in "Army of Ghosts" and again in "Runaway Bride" and again in "The End of Time." In RTD's world, the English must be a paranoid lot, always looking to the skies for fear of when the next alien menace will strike. I'm probably not the only one who would recommend that he review some of the Third Doctor's UNIT adventures, in which the alien invaders were dealt with discretely without sacrificing the adventurous elements of the story.

At the end of the day, I suppose that "Aliens of London" gets slightly higher marks than "World War Three" in light of the problems mentioned above, but the two episodes combined still make for some slightly above-average Doctor Who. Fans are, of course, entitled to their opinions, but I still say it's just a jolly fun romp.

Fun Facts:

• "Aliens of London/World War Three" was ranked 132 out of 200 in Doctor Who Magazine's 2010 poll. It beat out two other Ninth Doctor stories: its sequel "Boom Town" and "The Long Game."
• Just a couple episodes later, the Slitheen returned in "Boom Town." They have yet to make a reappearance on the show (to the relief of fans everywhere), but their relatives the Blathereen popped up in The Sarah Jane Adventures. Many people feel that this particular race is more suitable for that show, perhaps because younger viewers enjoy fart jokes more.
• Harriet Jones made an appearance in "The Christmas Invasion" before she was sadly exterminated by the Daleks in "Journey's End."
  

Memory Lane

An audio adventure featuring the Eighth Doctor, Charley, and C'rizz

Written by Eddie Robson and directed by Gary Russell

Polarity Rating: 4 out of 5

After listening to my somewhat scathing podcast review of "The Keeper of Traken," a friend suggested that I watch something that was more of a "romp," perhaps something with Daleks. I was inclined to be offended, but then I reviewed my recent writ-up of Infinite Requiem (see below), and now I can't help but think the time is ripe for such a "romp." Memory Lane turned out to be a happy respite.

The Doctor, Charley, and C'rizz (pronounced "care-rizz") dematerialize in a typical English urban neighborhood, but of course everything is not as it seems. Each one of the homes along the seemingly deserted street is occupied by the same elderly woman and her grandson Tom. Why does Tom look much older than he acts? Why does his nan not seem to blink an eye when the TARDIS materializes in her parlor? Why do the same programs play over and over again on the telly? And why does the ice cream man seem so sinister?

By the time the first episode of Memory Lane draws to a conclusion, there's an aftertaste of the confusing M.C. Escher staircases in "Castrovalva," except I'm happy to say that the confusion is eventually explained in this case and in a way that seems quite plausible within the parameters of a science fiction tale. (In case you couldn't tell, I'm not exactly a fan of the "magic" worked into some of the stories during John Nathan-Turner's time on the show.) Of course, this being a Doctor Who story, we know that there have to be sinister minds at work here (more on that later), but the silver lining of this play is the feeling that there's something wrong just beneath the surface, that the seemingly innocuous characters within this universe may not be hiding anything, but perhaps there's a greater force pulling the strings.

If you've read this far and haven't listened to the play, I recommend you stop here, as spoilers abound from here on in. Otherwise (or if you just don't care), please read on. Halfway through the story, we learn that the environment is like a terrarium constructed by alien forces for the purpose of imprisoning Tom, who is not really a six-year-old boy but an astronaut whose vessel crash-landed on the planet decades before. The environment has constructed itself around Tom's memories, using nano-technology to place him in a time and place which he has fond memories of (thus the title Memory Lane). As a result, Tom is inexplicably unaware that he's imprisoned, and has been living out decades playing with Legos in his nan's home.

Once all of this is more or less explained, the environment begins to affect both the Doctor and Charley, with amusing results: Charley believes she's at home with her mother in 1906 (conveniently adorned with 1920's amenities) and at the conclusion of the third episode the Doctor is stuck in a loop in which he believes to have solved the dilemma and explains it all to his companions.

Part of the charm of Memory Lane is that the Doctor and his friends aren't really up against some malevolent force hellbent on conquering the universe or having revenge against the Doctor; this time, it's just a pair of individuals with seemingly innocent intentions, albeit a little misplaced. The "villains" in this case are a pair of bumbling scientists named Argot and Mawvik who are in charge of entertainment on their planet. The problem here is that although their technology is so advanced that it can convince astronaut Tom he's six years old and in his nan's flat, they still have no inkling how to record video images. The Doctor saves the day by introducing them to recording technology, allowing them to record Tom's arrival for prosperity and, as a result, they free him into the Doctor's capable hands.

Eddie Robson is perhaps most popular for his work on Big Finish's Benny Summerfield adventures, although Memory Lane is one of a handful of Doctor Who stories he's written. In his notes on the story, he explains that he enjoys putting his characters in situations where there are odd juxtapositions, such as the phonograph in "The Time Meddler" or the spaceships disguised as Edwardian racing yachts in "Enlightenment." He delivers this eerie juxtaposition in spades with Memory Lane. Going back to my earlier comment about this play being a bit of a "romp" (oh, how I hate using that word in a review!), Robson admits that this is a story without any kind of literary metaphor: it just is what it is!

As with many Big Finish entries, the story seems to prattle on a bit; I found myself looking at my watch through the fourth episode. However, the first two episodes are solid gold, as this is where most of the story's mysterious flavor comes from. The score is also very well done, although I couldn't help but think it sounded almost a little too similar to American Beauty.

It may just be a romp in the form of an audio Rubik's cube, but this romp is just about worth the price of admission.

Fun Facts:

• In Charley's flashback sequence, her mother mentions Edith the kitchen maid. If she sounds familiar, that's because she was the catalyst for all the action in The Chimes of Midnight.
  

Infinite Requiem

A novel featuring the Seventh Doctor and Benny

Written by Daniel Blythe

Polarity Rating: 2 out of 5

The humans are at war with the Phractons on the planet Gadrell Major, where the conflict has razed the planet's cities to the ground. In the meantime, three strange and powerful people are exploring three different places in the universe, and all three are actually one omnipotent, powerful creature. All of this results in the Seventh Doctor and Benny finding themselves on Gadrell Major, amidst the conflict taking place and up against Shanstra, whose powers are culminating even as the war around her is coming to a bloody end.

Infinite Requiem is very well-written by Daniel Blythe, who was unfamiliar to me up until reading this book. The problem is that it brings nothing new or interesting to the table. Admittedly, I have been slacking off a little on posting these reviews, and I put this story down about a month ago, read another book and finished it, and picked up a third book before I sat down to write this review. I find myself in a fog, because there's little, if anything, memorable about this story.

The televised stories are rife with conflict between one alien race and another, or one colonized civilization and its unruly rebels. Sometimes it works, sometimes the story just fades into the woodwork. (Tell me what you can remember about "Colony in Space," for instance.) Infinite Requiem is a lot like that. We have a war between the human beings and the Phractons, a cyborg race who are all connected via a virtual electronic grid and house themselves in small flying pods; I was reminded of the Toclafanes in the contemporary Who stories "The Sounds of Drums" and "Last of the Time Lords." I liked the Phractons, and desperately wanted to learn more about them, but the story doesn't exactly pull us in that direction.

The antagonist is an ethereal being which has split into three separate entities, calling themselves Kelzen, Jirenal, and Shanstra. We see a lot of Shanstra, and learn that she can bend minds to make people do things against their will and pretty much do the standard stuff that any god-like omnipotent creature can do: you know, fly about, shoot energy bolts from her hands, that type of thing. Jirenal, definitely the most interesting of the group, makes his way to the Pridka Dream Centre, which is run by a race of psychic reptilians called, of course, the Pridka. The Dream Centre is another place I wanted to learn more about, but we are only treated to snippets of storyline from there in the first half of the book, and although the action culminates there in the end, the novelty has worn off and the Doctor's attempt to defeat Shanstra and prevent her from accomplishing the titular "infinite requiem" takes center stage.

I said earlier that this book had little, if anything, to remember it by, and I just remembered something. There's a glorious scene where Jirenal makes a young Pridka's head peel back and burst open before a white dove comes flying out of the corpse. Not that's the kind of cool powers I wanted to see more of. Also, the Seventh Doctor is up to his usual manipulative tricks, which gets him punched in the face in the end.

This sounds like a hated the book, but I didn't. I suppose the word "meh" would best summarize my feelings for it. Doctor Who seems to be saturated with stories about wars and villains who think they're gods. Naturally, it's all squared away by the Doctor in the end, and of course it's done in typical deus ex machina style. I find myself reading, listening, or watching stories that involve characters or concepts that are simply too complex for me to wrap my little mind around, like the Eternals in "Enlightenment" or the infamous "Ghost Light." Infinite Requiem was no exception. Perhaps it's just me, and if other fans enjoy this stuff, then more power to them!

Daniel Blythe began his writing career with Doctor Who and later moved on to better things. I wish him the best. He's obviously talented and can weave a good tale. I just hope he never comes near Doctor Who again.

Fun Facts:

• Although the TARDIS' zero room was allegedly jettisoned in "Castrovalva," it reappears here.
• Captain Cheynor appeared first in The Dimension Riders, also penned by Daniel Blythe. Blythe must not have liked him very much, as he pathetically kills Cheynor in the final pages.
• There's a brief mention of the time-space visualizer seen in "The Chase." Apparently it's been recording all of the Doctor's adventures since its installment.
  

The Power of the Daleks

A televised story featuring the Second Doctor, Ben, and Polly

Written by David Whitaker and directed by Christopher Barry

Polarity Rating: 4 out of 5

Hot on the heels of the Tenth Doctor's regeneration in "The End of Time," we come to probably the least-seen regeneration episode of all time, a foregone conclusion if there ever was one because the BBC elected to toss out all six episodes of the story long ago.

"The Power of the Daleks" was a huge crap shoot for the BBC. After three years in the role, William Hartnell's ailing health forced him to leave the show, and the producers found themselves with a conundrum: how could they possibly replace the lead actor after he had established himself and been received so well? From the outset, the producers and the BBC elected rather than casting someone else to step into Hartnell's shoes, they would completely revamp the character in looks and personality.

Perhaps to offset the audience's trepidation about the change in casting, the producers elected to bring back the Daleks, who hadn't made an appearance since "The Daleks' Master Plan." And so David Whitaker penned a Dalek story that left out any elements of the Doctor's personality and called it "The Destiny of Doctor Who." Dennis Spooner was later asked to make some changes after Patrick Troughton was cast in the role and the crew had some idea of what the new Doctor would be like. It was show creator Sydney Newman's idea to make the Second Doctor a kind of "cosmic hobo," who is better at listening than speaking, a stark change to the verbose Sherlock Holmes that David Whitaker originally had in mind.

Nowadays we've seen the Second Doctor in stories like "The Mind Robber," "Tomb of the Cybermen," and "The War Games," but his characterization there is far from Sydney Newman's original idea. However, in this story, Newman's decsription of the character is spot-on: the Doctor spends little or no time stammering in protest or talking excitedly, and seems to ignore the questions of his companions (or does he?). Although it's difficult to gauge without seeing the visuals, he seems to be thinking more than doing, and he spends much of his time thinking while playing a recorder. There are little bits of playfulness that shine out in Troughton's performance, such as when he's listening to a piece of fruit or confusing china plates with the country of China (listen for a reference to a classic Hartnell story there).

Fans must have loved the Daleks after their initially appearance in 1963, but nowadays fans have a bit of a love-hate relationship with the Doctor's most famous enemy. One has to admit that they're a big stagnant visually, the sound of their voices tends to get a bit too repetitive half an hour into the story, and the writers have evolved them over the years into miniature war machines that can fly through the vacuum of space. On the other hand, the Daleks are an institution in England, and even casual viewers can recognize them. If the current producers failed to include a Dalek story in every season, I think they would have a minor coup on their hands.

With that in mind, I have to admit I approached this story as "just another Dalek story," and was looking forward to the opening regeneration scene rather than the remaining five and a half episodes. However, Whitaker really delivers a smashing good Dalek story, and we get to see them in a light we've never seen before; they're no longer the ravaging killers we saw in "The Dalek Invasion of Earth," but suspicious characters that lurk in the background for much of the story, causing both the listener and the Doctor much vexation.

The setting of the story is pretty standard fare. The Doctor, Ben, and Polly arrive on the planet Vulcan amidst yet another colony of earthlings. Among them is Dr. Lesterson, the archetypal scientist who is focused on nothing but his work, that being opening some kind of capsule discovered in the planet's mercury swamp. There are also rebels in the midst of the colonists who wide like to use Lesterson's work for their own purposes, particular when the capsule is opened and a Dalek emerges.

For once, however, the Dalek is not bent on blasting everyone in its wake. It seems willing to serve the colonists and eerily keeps repeating "I am your servant," in monotone Dalek fashion. The Doctor, of course, knows there's more to it than meets the eye, as do we. Even Ben and Polly seem to be taken in, no doubt because this is their first encounter with the Daleks. Of course, by the story's conclusion, the Daleks' true intention of using the colonists' power supply to build new Daleks becomes all too apparent and many, many people die.

There are moments in "The Power of the Daleks" that stand out in one's mind (spoilers ahead!). For instance, at the first episode's cliffhanger, the Doctor is assaulted by a Dalek creature which has crawled out of its casing. Viewers got to see only a glimpse of a Dalek claw in their premiere story, but seeing this for the first time must have been thrilling. Imagine it: not only is the Doctor being played by a new actor, but we get to finally see what a Dalek looks like under all that metal! In another scene, Lesterson accidentally uncovers the Daleks' plan when he's exploring the interior of the capsule. He sees a literal Dalek assembly line, with machines placing the tentacled creatures into their robot casings.

As a fan, listening to these scenes is enjoyable on two levels: it's a visual leap for the history of the show, but also the shock and joy of hearing the Daleks' plan unfold is far better than any of the Dalek revelations served up to us in the current story. Pure gold. We all know that something is going on in that capsule we just don't know what, and we're as anxious as the Doctor to discover it.

If one would have to say anything bad about this story, it would perhaps be the length. At six episodes, there is a little bit of padding in the middle, much of it involving the rebels plan to usurp the colony's governor. There are also maybe one too many classic scenes involving running up and down corridors. Ben and Polly also seem to take a backseat to the action, and they've conveniently captured and held hostage by the rebels, perhaps so the actors could take a break (Polly is absent from the fourth episode and Ben is absent from the fifth).

As with "The Enemy of the World," perhaps the story is better without the visuals; I can only imagine how boring the colony hallways must have looked. Nevertheless, any Doctor Who fan would admit that it would still be a real treat to actually see "The Power of the Daleks."

Fun Facts:

• The BBC's account books, which still exist, say that this story cost a total of 17,065 pounds. What I find baffling is that the beeb actually threw out the films but elected to keep the books. There's bureaucracy for you.
• Although the story is now available on CD and presented by Anneke Wills, it was originally released on cassette in 1993 and presented by Tom Baker.
  

The Chimes of Midnight

An audio adventure featuring the Eighth Doctor and Charley

Written by Rob Shearman and directed by Barnaby Edwards

Polarity Rating: 3.5 out of 5

Imagine my festive frivolity when, randomly choosing my next Big Finish production to review in mid-December, a story presented itself that was set on Christmas Eve. Not only that, but the blurb on the back of the CD suggested it was some kind of Edwardian murder mystery. Sign me up, I said, and quickly went about listening to it so that I could post my review on this very day, Christmas Eve itself.

A quick word about Christmas stories and Doctor Who. When a story is set on Christmas, it never is about Christmas per se, but rather it involves some kind of an alien invasion set on Christmas Day (one obvious exception is the single episode aired on Christmas Day for "The Daleks' Master Plan," which I have not yet had the pleasure to listen to). There may be robot Santas wielding laser guns and a festive holiday party about to be torn to shreds by a tragedy a la The Poseidon Adventure, but I would love to see or hear a story that involves the concept of Christmas itself as a basis for the plot. (I would refer anyone seeking such a story to the recent Iris Wildthyme adventure, The Claws of Santa, which really hits the nail on the head in this department.) Such is the case with The Chimes of Midnight. There is a great deal of talk about Christmas pudding, one or two carols are sung in passing, but other than that the thing could have been set on Saint Swithen's Day and we would have had the same story.

Not that I have any huge gripes with most of the story. When the TARDIS materializes in the pantry of a country estate in 1906, the Doctor and Charley are involved with the comings and goings of five members of the household staff. Strangely, nothing is heard from the gentry having a Christmas party upstairs, and indeed when the Doctor tries to ascend to the upper levels of the house, he is deterred with unexplainable and uncharacteristic threats of violence from the staff. It's not long before a murder occurs and, in true Ten Little Indians fashion, the staff begin to be bumped off one by one, each at the grandfather clock's striking of the hour: the scullery maid, for instance, is found drowned in the washing basin, and the cook is found sprawled across the kitchen table, force-fed her infamous Christmas pudding to death. These events may seem like spoilers, except that the same characters inexplicably show up minutes later alive and well, oblivious to the fact that they were found murdered moments before. The Doctor and Charley and the listener, of course, are baffled.

This was the perfect setup for a wonderful cosmic mystery. Why are the characters admittedly unsure whether or not they could be the murderer? Why do the household duties of each of the characters change every time they return from the dead? Why do they recognize the Doctor as some kind of famous amateur sleuth? Through the first three episodes, I thought I had it all figured out: of course, I figured, the Doctor and Charley were stuck in some sort of land of fiction as in "The Mind Robber," where an author of whodunnits was constantly rewriting a draft of his latest murder mystery, never quite sure who the proper murderer should be in the end or even the right victim.

My solution, needless to say, was not the correct one. Unfortunately, the true solution to the mystery would have led me to give this story a 4.5 rather than a 3.5 if it didn't leave me scratching my head. I suppose there are fanboys and fangirls out there who love stories involving paradoxes and time folding in on itself, but these type of stories rarely work for me unless they're spelled out for me like I'm a nine-year-old (the old favorite "Blink" comes to mind). In all fairness, I could go back and listen to the last episode, but I just don't think that would be proper. Why go back and listen to a story and purposely look for the good things when the writer and/or director failed to get the point across the first time?

I rarely think this when listening to Big Finish stories, but this one would have been a wonderful televised story for Christmas Day. There were certain passages here that would have translated better on the screen, and the holiday element could have been used a bit more than it was. If Paul Cornell could translate his novel Human Nature so well on to the screen, I say let Rob Shearman have his pick of a few audio adventures, definitely including The Chimes of Midnight, and see what magic he can make of those. He is, after all, the writer who brought us Dalek, for some the epitome of the perfect Dalek episode in the new series.

If you're new to Big Finish (or to the Eighth Doctor adventures), I'm told by folks on the forums that The Chimes of Midnight is one of the best out there. I beg to differ. Pick up a copy of Sword of Orion or Storm Warning instead. Unless, of course, you're one of those fans who love to put the 10% of the missing pieces of a puzzle together yourself. In that case, perhaps you have a better imagination than I and more power to you.

Fun Facts:

• The character names for Shaughnessy, the butler, and Mrs. Baddely, the cook, were derived from the names of the script editor and the actress who played the cook in the classic British show Upstairs, Downstairs.
• These are not the only characters to glean inspiration from Upstairs, Downstairs; Edith, the scullery maid from The Chimes of Midnight, bears a striking resemblance to the feather-brained scullery maid Ruby in Upstairs, Downstairs.

The Romance of Crime

A novel featuring the Fourth Doctor, K9, and Romana II

Written by Gareth Roberts

Polarity Rating: 4 out of 5

Season 17 is arguably the worst period of the Fourth Doctor's era, what with the uninspired "Destiny of the Daleks" (did we really need to see Davros again?), the boring "Creature from the Pit," and Doctor Who's failed attempt at pantomime in "The Horns of Nimon." I imagine Gareth Roberts truly wanted to challenge himself by writing a novel set between those aforementioned stories, or perhaps he's a fan of season 17 and just wanted to celebrate it. In any case, The Romance of Crime somehow feels like a season 17 story, except it turns out to be much better than most of the stories in that very season.

The flavor is in the description of the characters, with guards that wear red frockcoats, a judge who, if he had been portrayed on television, would have chewed the scenery to bits, and villains that seem like hilarious caricatures of some of the more forgettable baddies in Doctor Who's long history. The flavor of this era of the program also can be read in the description of the setting, a space station with meandering corridors in which the characters inevitably run back and forth in. And, perhaps best of all, the portrayal of the Doctor and Romana is crafted straight from the late era of the Fourth Doctor, with the usual banter between the two of them. Take, for instance, this quote from the Doctor as he barges into a control room filled with villains:

"Hello everybody. It's nice to see you again, Xais, and you Mr. Pyerpoint, and you charming Ogron gentlemen, and, ah, you must be the Nisbett brothers. You don't know me, I'm the Doctor, this is my friend Romana, and that's Mr. Stokes, and do you know unless you listen to me I think we're all going die."

It's as if Gareth Roberts was actually channeling Tom Baker. Try having any one of the other ten actors that have played the Doctor say that line, and it wouldn't feel right at all, not even if David Tennant gave it his best.

Most of the story unfolds aboard the Rock of Judgment, a space station which cruises the galaxy and functions as both a kind of galactic courthouse and prison. The captain, for lack of a better word, is a judge named Pyerpoint, who spends the first half of the story trying to keep order in true bureaucratic fashion after the Doctor and Romana arrive. The Rock is home to a number of interesting characters, including security chief Margo, who seems to suffer from erratic bouts of possession from forces unknown, and Menlove Ereward Stokes, the resident artist and winner of this story's most eccentric name. (Stokes spends much of the story cowering behind corners, whining about every situation he finds himself in, and trying unsuccessfully to hit on Romana. He reminds me very much of a heterosexual version of Dr. Smith from Lost in Space.)

We soon learn that Margo is slowly being taken over by the spirit Xais, an evil female mutant who had been executed at the Rock years earlier for slaughtering dozens of non-mutants, whom she calls Normals. Xais can kill human just by looking at them, but they don't just drop dead; they literally fold in on themselves in a grisly display of flesh and bones. Xais has her own allies, the Nesbitt brothers, intergalactic gangsters who look like Drew Carey and act like Gordon Ramsey. Oh, and the Ogrons make an appearance as well, and Roberts handles them much better than they way they were portrayed in "Day of the Daleks" and "Frontier in Space." (No spoliers there -- there's a drawing of an Ogron on the front cover.)

What Xais has planned I will not tell you. What I can tell you, however, is that it involves a number of allies and a tangled web of deviousness that I relished reading. What results is a typical "base under siege" story, with characters being split up, reunited again, and split up again into different combinations. Of particular note is K9's role in the story as he accompanies a rough undercover police agent who ends up taking a shine to the tin dog.

Xais' evil plot aside, the main attraction is reading about these characters rather than the way the story moves. Perhaps the plot itself is the story's weakest link, as it's all pretty straightforward, but it's the tasty ingredients in the story itself -- namely, the characters -- that make this stew particularly good.

This was Gareth Roberts' fourth novel for Virgin's Missing Adventures series (the first three were Seventh Doctor New Adventures) and he went on to pen a handful more and wrote three scripts for the new series, namely "The Shakespeare Code," "The Unicorn and the Wasp," and "Planet of the Dead." All three of these scripts lack much of the humor and rib-poking that fills The Romance of Crime (with some exceptions, particularly in "The Unicorn and the Wasp"), and I'm hoping that his upcoming installment for the Eleventh Doctor brings some of this back. He was certainly an asset to the novels published by Virgin, and I look forward to reading more by him.

Fun Facts:

• Roberts brought the large, eccentric, and bald artist, Menlove Stokes, back in The Well-Mannered War and he later became a regular in the Benny New Adventures.
• For this first time (I think) we're told that the Ogrons are from the planet Braah, where drastic changes in the climate caused the Ogrons to undergo an evolutionary hiccup. As a result, they're not unlike a cross between an ape and a koala bear.

Revenge of the Cybermen

A televised adventure featuring the Fourth Doctor, Sarah Jane, and Harry

Written by Gerry Davis and directed by Michael E. Briant

Polarity Rating: 2 out of 5

Long before Star Trek: The Next Generation presented us with the Borg, two wily chaps named Kit Pedler and Gerry Davis sat down to create the race of alien villains for the First Doctor's final story, "The Tenth Planet." There's no record or citation for this, but I am willing to bet that they wanted something fairly less banal than Terry Nation's Daleks, which had taken the country by storm three years previously. Pedler and Davis' Cybermen could walk up and down stairs, perform tasks that required appendages, and withstand extreme climate changes without needing a special floor to provide static electricity. As the canon progressed, we learned that Cybermen are also allergic to gold dust and, perhaps creepiest of all, use unwilling human subjects to create more Cybermen. (This last feature was exploited in "The Tomb of the Cybermen" and rather disturbingly in Steve Lyons' novel Killing Ground, and totally eliminates the need for any Cyberwomen. Hear that, Torchwood?)

Prior to "Revenge of the Cybermen," the villains had made a handful of appearances during the Second Doctor's era but never lifted a silver-gloved finger to pester the Third Doctor. Season 12 presented the audience with a four-story arc involving the transmat system to and from Space Station Nerva: "The Ark in Space," "The Sontaran Experiment," "Genesis of the Daleks," and finally "Revenge of the Cybermen." Upon viewing, it's no surprise that "Revenge" rounded out the end of the season, when the production crew will look for ways to cut the budget wherever possible. The sets are borrowed from "The Ark in Space" (although not to the story's detriment), most of the costumes look like they were slapped together with tin foil, the special effects are laughable, and the alien effects are unconvincing. Suffice it to say that the actors all tend to pull it together at the end of the day, although I cannot say the same for those that penned the story.

Ah yes...the story. Although I will go on about that in a moment, I should add not all the blame must be laid on Gerry Davis; he thrilled us so well with "The Tomb of the Cybermen." I was shocked to learn that none other than Robert Holmes was responsible for many of the blemishes in the story; after reading Davis' story, as script editor Holmes made a number of changes, including adding the unbearable Vogans.

But let's not get ahead of ourselves. This is after all, a Cybermen story, so surely the creators gave the much-missed aliens something clever and cool to do after their long hiatus following "The Invasion." (A word of warning: As this story has yet to see the light of day on DVD, I'm a little hesitant to reveal a lot, but I simply cannot bring myself to criticize this episode without revealing a lot of details, so spoilers abound.) This time around, after recovering from their war with the Vogans, whose world is made up entirely of gold, a small crew of Cybermen are making their way towards the Nerva Beacon, which thousands of years later would become Space Station Nerva in "The Ark in Space." The Cybermen have spearheaded their visit with the help of a human ally, Professor Kellman, who has planted a number of adorable Cybermats on board the beacon; the Cybermats have bitten and killed 46 people aboard the beacon since their introduction (plus one more just after the Doctor and his friends arrive), and the crew has mistaken this for some sort of space plague.

So far so good. Once the Cybermen arrive, they plan to capture the three remaining humans left alive on the beacon (excluding Kellman), strap bombs to their bodies that look not unlike bowling balls, and then force them to transmat onto Voga where the bombs will "fragmentize" (the Cyber Leader's word, not mine) and destroy the gold-enriched planet. One assumes, therefore, that the Cybermen feel they'll be safe as houses because Voga is the primary source of gold in the galaxy, which is a contentious point but not particularly bothersome to me.

The Vogans, on the other hand, have their own plans. Kellman, it turns out, is really a double-agent working with the Guardians (a rebellious warrior faction of the Vogans), who have spent two years building a rocket ship (which, by the way, bears a strange resemblance to a NASA spacecraft, as well as the rocket in "Genesis of the Daleks") which will be aimed to strike Nerva Beacon at the precise moment all the Cybermen are aboard, thus ensuring the safety of Voga and proving the love of the Vogans for their children at long last.

So herein lies the problem that I couldn't get the fuck out of my mind while watching this story. The Cybermen have a space ship and bombs. The Vogans live on a big meteor made out of gold, and it appears that their only advances have been interior decorating, spelunking, and tram-building. Yet the Cybermen lack the technology to build a big goddam missile that will blow Voga to shit, and the Vogans have pulled this giant rocket out of their green asses, albeit they did it in two years. Hello, Robert Holmes, anyone home?

On top of it all, not unexpectedly the Doctor foils the Cybermen's plans, at which point they begin to execute their "alternative" plan: crash the Nerva Beacon into Voga, but not before escaping in their own ship. Why didn't they just show up, kill the remaining four humans, then nose-dive the beacon into Voga in the first place? Someone really needs to sit down with the Cybermen in the local IHOP and explain to them that complicated plans are not necessarily the best. This plot, compared to their Rube Goldberg plan in "The Moonbase," simply makes the mind boggle, although it apparently bears some credence to a Cybermind.

As for the design of the Cybermen themselves, I have no idea why the production team thinks it should be changed every time they make an appearance. This new design is not a vast improvement of that in "The Invasion," nor is it really any worse than the later appearance the Cybermen would make in "Earthshock." And the sound effects people simply lost the memo on how to make the Cybermen talk, since what we have here are some actors talking loudly inside their helmets; gone is the creepy computerized voice we hear in every other Cybermen story.

The design of the Vogans is a dismal failure. They look like William Hartnell mated with a Klingon, and the actors themselves fail to make the aliens plausible. The effects crew has done better in previous seasons with races such as the Draconians, and I saw no need to make the Vogans anything more than humanoid.

But it's not all bad. The chemistry between the Doctor and his companions is as fun as ever, particularly between him and Harry ("Harry Sullivan is an imbecile!"). It's a shame Harry left the TARDIS crew in the story after this one, as watching the banter between him and the Doctor would have been a joy to behold. Jeremy Wilkin as the sneering Professor Kellman also makes a good turn, and I was sorry to see him bludgeoned to death three-fourths into the story (killed by a rock fall accidentally caused by Harry, no less).

Another fun bit in this story, as is often the case, is Tom Baker's performance. After the Cyber Leader forces the Doctor to strap on a bomb and explains his plan to destroy Voga, Tom Baker lets loose with a monologue reflecting his utter disrespect for the Cybermen, most memorably calling them something like "silver-plated structures used by people to hang their hats on." Fun, fun stuff.

Where "City of Death" was a diamond placed in a season among a shitpile of abominations, "Revenge of the Cybermen" is just the opposite: a turd sitting in the fragrant garden in which the rest of season 12 seems to bloom forever.

Fun Facts: Look closely at what the Vogans are using for decoration in their gallery/control room. Doesn't that piece of art bear a striking resemblance to the seal of Gallifrey? Also, this story marks a point in Doctor Who history as the first one available on VHS (you can now purchase it on ebay for anywhere between $11.99 and $20.00). As of this writing, it has not been released on DVD, and I wouldn't hold my breath. Apparently, I am not alone in my lack of enthusiasm for this story; in October of 2009 the readers of Doctor Who Magazine ranked "Revenge of the Cybermen" 13o out of the 200 current stories.

Three's a Crowd

An audio adventure featuring the Fifth Doctor, Peri, and Erimem

Written by Colin Brake and directed by Gary Russell

Polarity Rating: 3.5 out of 5

After listening to this story, I really have to admit that there was nothing particularly extraordinary or original about it. There's a stranded colony of earthlings, a lot of people getting separated and running up and down corridors, and elements of the story seem to have lifted directly from films like Alien and The Island. All that being said, I still have to admit that it has everything that a halfway decent Doctor Who story has, and I have to laud it on that fact alone, as so many of the Big Finish stories seem to try to do something new and innovative and fall flat on their face (Minuet from Hell comes to mind).

The setting is space station Earth Colony Phoenix, stranded in space and cut off from the home planet, still attempting to terraform the unnamed planet below. The station itself is apparently huge, but houses a minimal number of colonists, and all of them are forced to live in solitary living quarters, never mingling with more than one other colonist at a time. The colony seems more like a prison ship, with the colonists suffering from severe agoraphobia (thus the title). Earth Colony Phoenix is headed by a woman named Auntie (perhaps hearkening back to Mother from Alien?), and she is played with steely coolness by Deborah Watling, whom most of us will know as Victoria during the Second Doctor's era. Ms. Watling has changed quite a bit over the years, and when I saw her hosting one the documentaries on missing episodes as part of the Lost in Time boxed set, I was taken aback at how stoic and somehow cruel she seemed, not unlike a poor man's Anne Robinson.

But I digress. The Doctor and his companions arrive as usual (with Erimem still feeling a bit of angst left over from their last adventure), and we learn that, unbeknownst to most of the colonists, Space Station Phoenix has been infested by a lizard-like alien race called the Khelllian (three L's, that's not a misspelling). The infestation becomes apparent when the TARDIS crew comes across a room filled with large slimy eggs; look closely at the CD cover art and you can see them. Again, inspiration from Alien looms.

I will not tell you what the Khelllian are up to and why they are being aided by Auntie, but the cliffhanger at the conclusion of the second episode is spine tingling; I really didn't see that one coming! There are three other colonists we meet: Bellip, Laroq, and Vidler, and they're pretty much indistinguishable except for the fact that Bellip is a high-strung female and Vidler seems to be a little more headstrong. The three characters were likely added to the mix to provide company to Peri and Erimem, who almost instantly break away from the Doctor and are involved in their own subplots. (There's also an insipid little romance between Bellip and Laroq, but this subplot seems a little forced and pads the story to its detriment, although it is helpful to understand the isolated lives the colonists are living.)

I have listened to about 25 Big Finish stories so far, and while Three's a Crowd doesn't stand out as one of the best, I really cannot say many bad things about it. Again, the lack of originality didn't seem to bother me, since this formula has worked so well in episodes like "The Ark in Space" and "The Macra Terror." I can say that the second half of the last episode was rushed and confusing, with all of the characters struggling to arrive at a fixed point while a time bomb counted down the seconds. How some of them survive eludes me (the story relies a little heavily on the convenience of transmat technology), and there's a final scene involving a hidden explosion that seems a little tacked on, but the resulting squishy sounds effects that were fun.

Deborah Watling is chillingly wonderful as Auntie, Peter Davison gives an adequate performance as the Doctor, and Nicola Bryant outshines her television performances as Peri. Caroline Morris as Erimem is a true joy, however, and I look forward to listening to more adventures with her. I've only listened to one Erimem adventure (The Eye of the Scorpion, her first one) and look forward to hearing more. She seems to be a carbon copy of Leela from the classic series, but it's fun to listen to her interact with Peri rather than just stick in her in the TARDIS to let the Doctor do his Professor Higgins magic again. Also, to my knowledge this is the only story in which the Doctor presents one of his companions with the option of staying behind to help the survivors and she turns him down, preferring a life in the TARDIS.

Kudos also goes to Gary Russell, who did a fine job recreating an eerie, desolate space station. Russell has come under fire from some fans for his lacklustre writing and his insistence on bringing back old villains, but I've enjoyed almost everything he's done for Doctor Who.

Three's a Crowd would be a great recommendation for Big Finish fans, and I am tempted to recommend it to fans who don't listen to the audio adventures because it hearkens back to the classic series so well. Just don't eat anything while you're listening to it.

The Eleventh Tiger

A novel featuring the First Doctor, Barbara, Ian, and Vicki

Written by David A. McIntee

Polarity Rating: 3 out of 5

I've never been a very big fan of the historical epics during the First Doctor's era, so it was with trepidation that I opened The Eleventh Tiger. However, my fears were quickly allayed: the prose is descriptive and the characters (particularly the four regulars) are well-realized. McIntee uses masterful brush strokes to recreate China in 1865, and I was almost instantly sucked in.

But first, a bit of history. In 1865 China was still recovering from the Opium Wars, in which they lost to the British and were forced to tolerate the British occupation as they traded freely in opium and other goods. Among other things, China also ceded Hong Kong to the British. In the background of all this was a league of bandits known as the Black Flag Army, whose primary ambition at the time was to oppose the British. It's the Black Flag Army that's the catalyst of this story, although we later learn that, as usual, there are otherworldly powers pulling the strings.

As colorful as the book was, it dragged out for a bit in the beginning after the main characters are introduced and we discover that there's a British soldier in the city of Guangzhou who bears an uncanny resemblance to Ian. Did Ian return in the future? And why does this soldier not remember anything about his own life? The mystery is pretty compelling, since we all know he and Barbara eventually returned to their own time. But more on that a bit later. The story appeared to be taking the turn that most of the historicals did, with the TARDIS crew involving themselves in some tumultuous past event. Until, that is, we meet the abbot who is gearing up to take over the Black Flag Army. And the guy literally plucks out the eyeball of a dead deer and pops it into his mouth like a grape, but not before he orders one of his henchmen to cut off the nose and tongue of an allegedly insolent minion. And with this passage, the story takes a turn for the better.

Well, not all that better. McIntee's writing style continues to shine, and there are some absolutely fabulous passages with descriptions of hand to hand combat; this guy would have been an awesome choice to write a novelization of Kill Bill. There are some creepy terracotta soldiers that are possessed by alien energy and run amok, and the celestial activity leading up to the villain's master plan cause energy stored in rock to create images of ghosts. (Female ghosts, it should be noted, with long black hair that weep for dead lovers. I see some influence from the film Ringu in there somewhere.)

And then, dear reader, after a climactic scene in which Ian is going to shoot his future self to save Barbara's life, the story just takes a complete nosedive. We learn the story behind Ian's body double, and it's one of the most contrived plot points in recent memory. After leading us down the garden path for pages and pages, making the reader wrack his brains to figure out why a future Ian is in China in 1865 and why he's suffering from amnesia, we learn (spoiler alert!) that the "future" Ian is actually the "real" Ian's great grandfather. And they look like twin brothers! This has absolutely nothing to do with the alien menace lurking throughout the rest of the story and served only to insult the intelligence of the reader.

I have no complaints about McIntee's portrayal of the First Doctor, which is spot-on; there's a wonderful scene in which he engages in hand to hand combat that I could easily play out in my head despite the Doctor's obvious frailty. This is also the first novel, to my knowledge, in which we get to read about the inevitable affection between Ian and Barbara, and they even snog at one point. It was a bit of a shock, but ultimately quite understandable (particularly since they eventually marry, as we learn in The Devil Goblins of Neptune). Vicki seems a little under-utilized, as she spends most of the story hanging about in the background and developing a crush of her own on a local boy.

At the end of the day, the alien menace is vanquished and our heroes leave in the TARDIS. Unfortunately, the ending just seems a tad bit forced, as the solution to the problem appears out of nowhere. I do forgive McIntee for that, as the rest of the novel (sans the bit with Ian's double) is quite good.

Great writing or not, The Eleventh Tiger is not McIntee's best; he thrilled the socks off of me years ago with The Dark Path and impressed me again with The Face of the Enemy. But, particularly if you're a fan of the historical stories, you can't really go that wrong with this book. It beats the hell out of Sick Building anyway.

The Enemy of the World

A televised adventure featuring the Second Doctor, Jamie, and Victoria

Written by David Whitaker and directed by Barry Letts

Polarity Rating: 4 out of 5

To the chagrin and frustration of Doctor Who fans everywhere, there lies a number of gaping holes in the canon, the most obvious being many of the episodes in the fourth and fifth series. At some point in the sixties or seventies, someone at the BBC (probably with a long-seated grudge against Patrick Troughton in particular) went on some kind of bender and elected to destroy a large handful of episodes from the First and Second Doctors' eras. Up until a few years ago, a few single episodes tended to pop up now and then, the most astonishing being the discovery of all four episodes of "Tomb of the Cyberman." "The Enemy of the World" contains six episodes, yet only one was recovered, and the story remains available solely on CD from the BBC (apart, of course, from telesnaps rendered by fans with an elementary understanding of editing with their VCR as well as a great deal of time to waste). Ironically, this very fact probably serves as something of a saving grace to the story.

"The Enemy of the World" uses one of those plot devices that always turns up in any adventure series: the evil-doer who just happens to be a dead ringer for the hero. Doctor Who used it previously in "The Reign of Terror," and it was used to a lesser extent in "The Chase" (ugh!) and "The Android Invasion." I've always thought this was silly and horribly contrived, but Patrick Troughton's performance here as the evil Mexican politician Salamander is top-notch and a joy to behold. The plot seems inspired by the James Bond movies that were rising in popularity in the sixties, with the Doctor and his companions landing sometime in humankind's future, where an ostensibly beneficial diplomat named Salamader is pulling the strings behind the scenes to secure his own rise to dictatorship. He delights in poisoning those who refuse to do his bidding, blames innocent lackies for circumstances beyond their control so he can replace them with evil stooges, and pretty much spends the first four episodes delighting in doing everything evil but twirling his moustache and tying Victoria to the tracks in the face of an oncoming train.

For much of the story, the Doctor plays second fiddle after Jamie and Victoria, who dive head-first as undercover employees in Salamander's operation; Jamie finds himself employed as a bodyguard while Victoria becomes an assistant to Chef Griffin (kudos to Reg Lye for a hilarious and memorable performance as Griffin). Just when all the cloak and dagger and double-dealings start getting tiresome (particulary when you know you have two more episodes to sit through), writer David Whitaker deals a surprise double-punch in the fifth and sixth episodes that made me almost clap my hands in delight like a giddy schoolgirl.

"The Enemy of the World" is the first "missing" televised story I've listened to in its entirety, so it was a treat to listen to a Second Doctor adventure after I thought I'd cashed my viewing list by seeing every available episode (I only learned recently that all the missing stories are available on CD). Six episodes can sometimes be quite a drudgery (hello, "The Time Monster"), but this story never loses its pacing.

As mentioned earlier, Patrick Troughton obviously has a blast playing the villain, and his usual portrayal of the Doctor seems to be overshadowed by Salamander, but one tends not to mind with the subplots involving Jamie and Victoria. In fact, the Doctor makes seems uncharacteristically hesitant to involve himself in the action in the first couple episodes, but this was probably so Troughton could showcase himself as Salamander first. Carmen Munroe as Fariah also gets an honorable mention and, as another reviewer mentioned, seeing a strong black woman in a position of power was something of a groundbreaker in 1967.

But there is a problem, and I feel almost guilty mentioning it. We can all hate the folks at the BBC for scrapping all those reels of film, but after listening to this story on audio and then reviewing the surviving third episode (available on the "Lost in Time" DVD boxed set), I was unbelievably disappointed by the shoddy production design, which looks like it was slapdashed together by the stage crew of a high school drama department. For instance, there's a slightly sad and disturbing scene in which one of Salamander's stormtroopers rampages a confused and scared citizen's home. The scene would have had more impact had the poor fellow had more in his home than, say, a cupboard of fragile dishes hanging right by the front door. And, of course, a lone portrait of Salamander on an otherwise blank wall which just begs the characters to comment on it.

I realize it's a bit uncharacteristic for fans to pick apart the production values of Doctor Who, but this story is a remarkable example of how the substance of the plot really rises over the wobbly sets, making it a testament to the quality of the show in its early years.

The CD release of "The Enemy of the World" is part of the BBC Radio Collection, and was presented with linking narration by Frazer Hines, who played Jamie. It doesn't sound like time has been kind to Mr. Hines, although that may just be the change in his accent, but he does a superb job, making both unobtrusive remarks about simple blocking points and passionate details about fistfights and action sequences.

Fun Facts: Patrick Troughton's son, David, played one of the guards in fifth and sixth episodes. Frazier Hines' cousin, Ian, also played a Central European guard in the second and third episodes. I was also a little surprised to learn that the readers of Doctor Who Magazine ranked this story 139 out of 200 in the October, 2009 poll. Would it have ranked higher if we were able to see all six episodes?

The Key 2 Time: The Destroyer of Delights

An audio adventure featuring the Fifth Doctor and Amy

Written by Jonathan Clements and directed by Lisa Bowerman

Polarity Rating: 2.5 out of 5

Big Finish's three-part "Key 2 Time" series is, in a way, a sequel to the six stories of the Fourth Doctor's era involving the Doctor's quest to recover the six missing segments of the Key to Time, reassemble them, and defeat the evil Black Guardian. On the 30th anniversary of the series, Big Finish has added three new stories involving the same premise, including a new companion, but this time with the Fifth Doctor.

The second installment, The Destroyer of Delights, is a standalone adventure in that you don't need to listen to the first installment, The Judgment of Isskar, to understand what is going on (I jumped full into it purposely knowing nothing about the first story). The Fifth Doctor has been joined by Amy, a new companion who has apparently been incarnated by forces unknown into a humanoid entity to help the Doctor in his quest. One of Amy's talents is that she can sense the presence of a segment by instinct alone, much like the contraption used by the Doctor and Romana in the classic series (you know, that plastic wand that sounded suspiciously like a radiation detector). Also, Amy adds an extra element to the narrative as a "newborn" entity: she doesn't understand emotional concepts like pain, enjoyment, or sadness. I have to admit that this does not add much to narrative structure or enjoyment of The Destroyer of Delights, and she simply reminded me of Lieutenant Commander Data from Star Trek: The Next Generation. Granted, of course, I have not yet heard her contributions to the first and third installment of the series.

Since The Destroyer of Delights was my first foray into this trilogy, I had a minor quibble right from the start: apparently the Doctor has already assembled the first four of the six segments in the very first story! To my knowledge, The Judgment of Isskar is a full four-part story (as opposed to four shorter stories), but I cannot understand why the producers chose to split the Key to Time into six segments for three stories when they could have split it into three segments (or, alternately, split it into six segments with six two-part stories). Then again, maybe I am jumping the gun here.

But back to the meat and potatoes. The story opens with the Doctor and Amy looking death in the face as the TARDIS is about to engulfed by the sun, when an unknown power freezes the TARDIS in space and time, saving their lives. Their knight in shining armor turns out to be the Black Guardian, whose powers have atrophied since the Key was broken up. He is willing to aid the Doctor in his quest, as the loss of the Key to Time would, in essence, mean the end of his existence and his possible domination of space and time.

I really enjoyed the surprise addition and handling of the Black Guardian in this story. When we last saw him in "Enlightenment," he was as evil and hellbent as the Daleks, but here we come to understand him not as the embodiement of all that is evil, but all that is rebellous and chaotic as well. The White Guardian, he explains, is the embodiement of all that is structured and lawful, like dinner with your mother-in-law or the legalization of marijuana (that second example is my own). The Black Guardian is played excellently by David Troughton, son of Patrick Troughton, and we saw David as early on as "The Curse of Peladon" and as recently as "Midnight." And yes, he sounds almost exactly like his father.

What with the Key to Time broken and dwindling in power, the Black Guardian is unable to locate the fifth segment: his intuitive powers seem to point him to three different locations in time and space (including 9th century Sudan), but he simply cannot pinpoint where or when it could be. Amy is in a similar quandary. This is the point when, through means and reasons I cannot understand after multiple listenings, the Doctor and Amy literally drop out of the sky in 9th Century Sudan.

Amy finds herself in the estate of Lord Cassim, who has been evading the taxman for the last two years by hoarding gold and giving it instead to an ominous-sounding alien who is hiding out in his crash-landed ship. It took me a while to realize that Cassim is actually the Black Guardian in human form; on a second listening, it occurred to me I was supposed to realize this immediately once Cassim was introduced, but Jonathan Clements tries to convey this by a single subtle line. I had initially gone almost three-quarters through the story before realizing the characters were one and the same. Again, maybe it's my own ignorance and short attention span that failed me here, but it really affected my enjoyment of the story the first time through.

The Doctor winds up in the desert, where he is helped by nomads and eventually takes refuge with the Legate of the Caliph, a tax collector who is none other than the White Guardian himself, also trapped in human form on Earth because his powers, like his counterpart's, have atrophied. Of course, the White Guardian is desperate for the Doctor to find all the segments of the Key to Time, as he is stuck in human form until it can be reassembled.



The Destroyer of Delights suffers from the problem that is evident in so many Big Finish productions: the first two or three episodes are all dragged out with exposition, introducing new characters with uninteresting subplots, while the fourth episode often tends to be a little anti-climactic by the time it's all wrapped up. The real villian in the story is the ominous Djinni, an alien stranded on Earth after his ship made a crash-landing. The Djinni is using the Black Guardian to collect gold to power the ship, but doesn't do much of anything throughout the entire story other than shout and provide an alien spacecraft for all the action in the end.

Unfortunately, I do not have a lot of positive things to say about this story other than the performances by David Troughton and Jason Watkins as the two Guardians are a joy to behold; the bits between them steal the show. Even Peter Davison seems to be just going through the moves, although since I'm not particularly a fan of the Fifth Doctor I'm a little biased. There's a cliched romance between a servant girl and a prince, and Amy spends much of the time acting bewildered and, in classic Doctor Who companion fashion, requires much of what is going on to be explained to her.

If one is looking for an excellenet science fiction adventure, my recommendation is to look elsewhere. One interesting point, though: the character of Lord Cassim, whom the Black Guardian is masquerading as, was an actual ruler in Sudan. He was made infamous in the history books for his mysterious hoarding of gold. I like the fact that Jonathan Clements nipped a tidbit of history to put in his story, but I wish he could have tried harder when delivering the goods.