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.

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.
  

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.