Doc Oho Reviews...

The Memory Cheats written by Simon Guerrier and directed by Lisa Bowerman

2012-02-05T16:12:00.000-08:00

What’s it about: Zoe Heriot remembers everything. But she remembers nothing. A genius with instant recall, Zoe’s mind has been purged of her memories of travelling with the Doctor and Jamie in the TARDIS. And years later she is in deep trouble – prosecuted by the mysterious company that has evidence that she has travelled in Space and Time. Except Zoe knows they’re wrong. Aren’t they? But if that’s the case, why is there proof that Zoe was in Uzbekistan in 1919. Can the memory cheat?

Brains’n’Beauty: Can Simon Guerrier – the champion of the Companion Chronicles – break the curse of poor Zoe stories? Firstly we had Fear of the Daleks that was schlocky pulp that lacked any depth or interest. Then even the otherwise untouchable John Dorney failed to bring to life Echoes of Grey which wanted so badly to be a thought provoking morality play but the theme got lost in too many pointless diversions and a slothenly pace. The Memory Cheats is basically the second part of a trilogy that began with Echoes and I am keeping my fingers crossed that Wendy Padbury finally gets some material that is worthy of her. I love Zoe as a character, she’s one third of one of my favourite TARDIS teams and Padbury is never anything less than enthusiastic and at her best riveting to watch. We learn a great deal about Zoe in this story and get snippets of a childhood that was devoid of love and based purely on functionality. It makes perfect sense that she would want to throw all the responsibility to the wind and run off with the Doctor.

She’s got 36 charges left including sedition, extortion and threats to personnel. Our Zoe? They know that Zoe has travelled in time with the Doctor but she only remembers wanting to and thinking about stowing away on his ship but not having the guts to see it through. She dreams of where they might have gone – being chased through fog by Romans and sitting on the roof of a skyscraper – but they are only dreams. Oddly she has totally recall but also huge gaps in her memory which seems to make her a complete contradiction. When memories start to surface Zoe is furious and wants to know who has done this to her memory, blaming the Company. Telling the story helps to bring back more detail and memory. At points Zoe tries to live up to the character profile the Company have on her of being calculating and sinister but Jen isn’t convinced. She was on the Elite programme and taught how to look after herself. She dreams of adventures with the Doctor because she regrets the decision not to go with him and that has made her fight. She knows the Elite programme has to be stopped and that is why they are trying to silence her.

The adventure that we get to experience sees Zoe back in time and baulking at the inefficiency at everything! Box like cares with no consideration for aerodynamic design! Zoe picks up that the term alien doesn’t mean from outer space but from different countries. Zoe sees the children as wild and uncontrollable especially compared to the regulated childhood she and her friends growing up had and they frighten her. No matter how bad things got Zoe always felt with the Doctor around that they would solve the problems they faced. Zoe thinks of her mother hugging her one last time before her she handed her over to the programme. She thinks she dreamed of monsters even then and wonders if what she witnessed that day planted itself in her head. She’s described as good Russian stock and when one of the men tries to slap her bottom she grabs his arm and twists it behind his back. Our Zoe can be quite the fighter when she wants to be. Its shocking to here what sort of world Chebrakov wants to build – one where there can be no war, where children are brought up to be useful and logical, a state that provided and was constantly vigilant so that there was only minimal crime. It reminds Zoe of the world that she left behind. She chooses to let the creature leave with the children so they could have a life free from superstition and prejudice.

Oh My Giddy Aunt: I love the idea of the pixie like second Doctor stepping into somebody’s home and attempting to uncover the mystery of their missing child. Something about his child like approach to such tragedy makes him seem almost magical. Fox and Yason seem to want to accentuate that effect with their lullaby like music as he investigates. Zoe describes herself trying to wake the Doctor but he only rubs his hands over his face like a sleepy puppy – oh he’s so cute! The Doctor was furious that Zoe could make a decision that would affect so many peoples lives on her own.

Standout Performance: Wendy Padbury’s reading of The Memory Cheats is beautiful, a stunning, dramatic reading. Gorgeous to learn that Charlie is Wendy's daughter - they have great chemistry and I'm really happy to learn there will be a third installment.

Sparkling Dialogue: ‘I didn’t travel in time!’ ‘Your only valuable to the Company if you did…’ ‘Then I’m dead!’
‘I joined up the dots for you and when I got stuck you added more details.’
‘I played you…’

Great Ideas: Zoe is shown evidence that she was present in certain periods of history and she cannot deny the facts but she has absolutely no memory of it. What a great idea it is to bring more history to the second Doctor’s era. As strong as his run was there is a distinct lack of variety in the stories (especially compared to the first Doctor tales) and I enjoy as many spin off excursion into history as possible with Troughton’s Doctor. Uzbekistan, 1919 and there is something hanging in the air like grieving, a force so powerful Zoe felt as though she could touch it. Missing children vanishing from their beds at night whilst their families slept in the same room. There’s a real atmosphere of a community under siege as the creature reveals itself and the people attack with flaming torches. The cliffhanger of Zoe admitting that she killed the Chebrakov’s comes out of nowhere and quite took my breath away. The massive advantage that The Memory Cheats has over Echoes of Grey is that no matter how immersive the central historical storyline is there is plenty time given over to exploring Zoe’s relationship with Jen. Jamie and Zoe are shocked to discover a burnt out town, Elizabeth explains that it was burnt down during the war and that there were far worse sights for hundreds of miles around. Whole towns pummelled to the ground, millions dead and millions more wounded and facing famine and sickness. The alien ship was observing during the war when it was accidentally shot down. Fleshy webbing holds the children to the wall as they dream contented dreams. It had rescued them and wanted to offer them a better life on its own planet. Zoe killed the Lancings by waking the creature, it woke with a start and lashed out immediately thinking that the children it had rescued were in danger. Why are the Company so keen to discredit Zoe? I guess we’ll find out in the third story… Would Zoe really have let the creature take the children away…or should that be did she?

Audio Landscape: A screaming opening, a keypad, growling cars, water babbling, a honking horn, birdsong, biting wind, footsteps on stone, a child crying, crackling fire, cheers, wolves screaming, growling, mumbling, the sonic screwdriver, the purring, breathing creature, its harsh scream as Zoe pulls the webbing from the wall.

Musical Cues: Awesome, Fox and Yason are back and you know that regardless of the quality of the script that the music is going to be emotional and really suck you into what is happening to the characters. The match of a Guerrier script with Lisa Bowerman directing and Fox and Yason providing the score is usually a recipe for companion chronicles gold. The music that greets the travellers in the restaurant is enchanting.

Standout Scene: Its not really a story with standout moments and more one that envelops you with its unsettling atmosphere and never lets go. On that basis the whole story is standout. However the ending really makes an impact as we learn from her brief glimpses at a journal has made the entire story up from the fragments of information she gleamed – it’s a real Kaiser Soze moment for the young brainbox who has completely outwitted her captors. Then the story subverts even that as Jen starts producing evidence that the story that Zoe has made up really did take place – photos of her, Jamie and the Doctor in Uzbekistan. Who would have thought that the end of The War Games, so gripping at the time, would have had such glorious dramatic consequences?

Result: Simon Guerrier seems to excel at these quietly powerful stories that keep me shivering with anticipation throughout. He’s a prolific writer for this range but he always manages to deliver something unexpected and get under the skin. It might be exploring the psychology of a companion or it might be the location he has chosen to set the adventure and in The Memory Cheats he wins on both counts and with sympathetic direction from Lisa Bowerman and a sensitive musical score the resulting piece is very potent. Wendy Padbury delivers a stunning performance, treating the dialogue with the respect and compassion it deserves and she makes the story unfold with a disquieting, spellbinding effect. As usual a historical setting gives the tale a real sense of realism and Bowerman uses this to create moments of fantastic atmosphere. The ending is so clever it made me want to go back and listen to the whole story all over again to see how Zoe has managed to pull of such a feat. It’s the same sort of giddy thrill I get when a Jonathan Creek episode reveals its secrets and I have to replay the whole thing to see where I have been hoodwinked. A great slice of audio drama and Guerrier has finally broken the curse of unsatisfying Zoe companion chronicles with this gem: 10/10

The Many Deaths of Jo Grant written by Cavan Scott & Mark Wright and directed by Lisa Bowerman

2012-02-02T22:09:00.000-08:00

What’s it about:"I wasn’t going to let this happen. After all we’d been through, the Doctor wasn’t going to die like this, on his knees, in the mud." When Jo Grant was very young, her grandmother told her that there was a time for everything. A time to laugh and a time to cry. A time to live and a time to die. Since meeting the Doctor, Jo has laughed till she thought she might burst. She has also shed a few tears along the way, but has lived more than she ever thought possible. But now, as a strange spaceship materialises over UNIT HQ and a heavily injured Doctor returns to Earth, it is Jo's time to die. Again, and again, and again…

Dippy Agent: You know I wonder if I haven’t misunderstood Jo Grant all these years. She was never one of my favourites growing up because I always found her a bit useless and constantly under the protection of the Doctor’s flapping coat. But my last couple of marathons (I finished watching the Pertwee era about four weeks ago) have revealed a very different character then the one I remember with a very charismatic performance from Katy Manning and some genuine development from an awkward rookie in her first year to a confident and capable young woman in her last. Her re-appearance in the Sarah Jane Adventures was a joy and Jo’s characterisation in gems such as Find and Replace reveals that there is much more to say about the character than was on screen at the time. Interviewing Katy Manning reveals a real passion for that period of her life and a sense of gratitude to have been able to work with such fine actors and production staff so early in her career. I think the fact that she preceded by Sarah Jane doesn’t do Jo any favours at all because Elisabeth Sladen’s lands on her feet and is a much stronger performer but for these three years that Jo was around the show saw a consistent, comfortable atmosphere the likes of which we would never see again (all other companions that have lasted three seasons or more have seen a change in Doctor at some point – Sarah, Tegan, Peri). Yes, I think there is a lot more to Jo than I ever gave the character credit for and Big Finish seem determined to prove that.

Jo refuses to believe that the Doctor would abandon them because the Earth is his home these days but the Brigadier knows that that isn’t true. Something that has always been a memorable characteristic of Jo’s is her willingness to sacrifice herself so that the Doctor can live and Scott & Wright have cleverly woven that into a narrative over and over to prove that it is almost a suicide complex! You get the sense that Jo genuinely loves this man and couldn’t bear the thought of losing him or going on living without having done everything in her power to save him. She realises that even when she has the choice to get away that she cannot just leave him to suffer on his own. After everything they have been through together Jo refuses to let the Doctor die on his own, bleeding in mud. There’s a lovely moment when Jo blinks away tears at the thought of the Doctor sacrificing his life to save a whole planet and she has so much to say and thinks that so much has gone unsaid between them. It makes you realise that this is no ordinary friendship, that this girl that tripped into his laboratory had become not just a good friend of the Doctor’s but there was something much deeper than that going on. Jo is disgusted when she realises that her mind has been mucked about with to discover her most intimate thoughts. Jo knows the Doctor is so strong and so inhuman but that would never stop her throwing herself in front of an alien weapon for him. She wonders what her life would be like if the Doctor ever chose to leave the Earth and she her life went on without him.

Reverse the Polarity: The Doctor has been forgiven by the Time Lords and cannot wait to take the TARDIS on a test ride as soon as possible. Whilst he is undoubtedly a gentleman he’s the only the Doctor who could get away with something as blatantly sexist as writing a note to Jo that says ‘be a dear and put the kettle on!’ Who else but protective Pertwee could be found struggling from the TARDIS filthy and bloody clutching an alien in his arms that he has saved from a dictatorship. Its almost the perfect representation of the Terrance Dicks script edited Pertwee era to think of the third Doctor working desperately to stop a planet from destruction encapsulated in his fiddling in some wires in the sonic screwdriver! Jo describes her hands a brushing against ‘comforting, familiar maroon velvet’ and you get the sense that she always considers herself safe as the Doctor holds her close. Like his appalled reaction to the Miniscope in Carnival of Monsters, Jo can see the disgust on his face when talking about mindscapes. The Doctor believes (probably rightly so) that the way with bullies is that all it takes is for one victim to make a stand for them to crumble.

Chap With Wings: The Brigadier’s moustache is said to ‘twitch with frustration’ when he talks about the Doctor! The Brigadier knew that it was only a matter of time before the wanderlust got the better of him once the Time Lords had forgiven him. I would have loved to have seen Nicholas Courtney blasting away inside the Doctor’s laboratory with casual abandon! Trips to alien worlds had been so scarce since he was exiled to Earth that missions for the Time Lords felt like holidays regardless of how inhospitable the planet was!

Standout Performance: I always look forward to the Katy Manning companion chronicles because she is spot on when she says there are many different voices in her. Whilst the Doctor and the Brigadier don’t sound like the originals she manages to capture the flavour and personality of both characters in a way that only somebody who was there at the time could. She definitely has that wonderfully optimistic, squeaky voice of Jo Grant locked inside her still too.

Great Ideas: There’s some nasty fungus growing on the side of Big Ben and the chap who was sent to examine has been infected! The way the story keeps cutting to another location and a new jeopardy is very intriguing and the fact that there are no answers in the first episodes means we are kept guessing until the conclusion. A colony on the verge of extinction with people going missing and a leader called Rowe…that sounds awfully familiar to a season eight story. Lets do a Terrance Dicks and call it an homage! Rowe turning up in each of the tales as a different character is a lovely linking mystery with the truth being snatched away from Jo every time she managed to get close. My favourite story is the one that sees Jo and the Doctor in a cavern that turns out to be a giant alien maw, thrashing and spitting from the floor! Like Jonathan Morris’ Tales From the Vault there is a lovely sense that Scott & Wright have had the chance to use lots of unused creative ideas in a story that requires lots of mini tales. The cliffhanger that features Jo slipping and sliding towards the rancid breath of the hungry cavern creature would have been joyous to see realised in the seventies! An Armageddon barge converted from a cargo freighter packed with another destructive force to destroy a whole planet! Jo has been held for some time in a mindscape generator, an abhorrent form of mental manipulation to create artificial scenarios within the mind. Rowe is the scientist torturing Jo within these environments. When the Xoanthrax vanguard came to Earth and Jo threw herself in front of its weapon that action intrigued them because the concept of self sacrifice is alien to them. Jo has faced death in 412 scenarios and in all of them Jo gave up her life for the Doctor. Oh damn - after going on about how I am always one step ahead of the ‘reality fuck’ episodes of science fiction shows and am able to predict that there will always be one last ‘phew we’re back to reality…oh no wait we’re not’ before the end credits I was completely hoodwinked in this story when Jo woke up one final time! Rowe never was evil, it was just one last mindscape scenario. The Doctor offered to enter the mindscape generator to save Jo and experienced many scenarios of his own and in each one of them he sacrificed himself for his companions. Rowe is a scientist, not a murderer and he is not unsympathetic to the revolutionaries.

Audio Landscape: The TARDIS materialisation noise, a gurgling, coughing alien, a spaceship grinding into orbit sounding like a hundred jet engines firing at once, the fluidic voices of the Xoanthrax, deafening gunfire in the lab, Jo’s heartbeat beating in her chest, life support machine, lightning, biting winds, the hungry maw of the cavern creatures, footsteps on metal grating, banks of computers whirring and clicking, banging on glass, door hissing open, exploding doors and hissing smoke, marching boots, the ticking, burbling mindscape device.

Musical Cues: Daniel Brett provides a memorable score and one that manages to convey the many different tones of the story. I loved his xylophone madness as the alien ship attacks UNIT HQ and there’s a heroic tune at the beginning of episode two as the Doctor and Jo rush into action.

Isn’t it Odd: I did wonder that Scott and Wright might have been trying to grind out their plot too quickly when all hell breaks loose within five minutes of the story but then the real premise started unfolding throughout the first episode and I realised that the pace was economic to fit in a number of vignettes rather than just trying to squeeze in as much of one plot as possible.

Standout Scene: I loved how Jo screamed with defiance that she will stop the Armageddon barge that you believe absolutely that she is firm in that intent and sense of triumph when she succeeds. Feisty, resourceful, naïve and a little bit stupid. That’s our Jo.

Result: Jo Grant, the suicide Queen, gets a story of her own to prove just how many times she would be willing to give up her life for the Doctor. I really enjoyed The Many Deaths of Jo Grant for its unusual storytelling techniques and snatches of storylines that feel as though they were genuinely scripted edited by Terrance Dicks. Katy Manning is as wonderful as ever and with each story I get the impression that she is pouring more and more of her love for the late, great Jon Pertwee into her stories. The dialogue isn’t always as memorable as it could be but the pace is relentless and if one storyline doesn’t float your boat another will be along in a few minutes that might be more to your tastes. As somebody who enjoys the comforting familiarity of the Pertwee era it was agreeably disconcerting to have reality playfully abandoned for a more schizophrenic piece and throughout all the myriad of locations there is the constant remind of the bond between the Doctor and Jo. I initially thought the conclusion was a bit pat but that was when I thought the ‘Rowe is evil’ reveal was for real…I laughed my head off when I realised I had been hoodwinked one last time! The journey is great fun and for a chance to listen to Manning show off her talent it is another excellent showcase. If I ever need reminding that the Pertwee era was a time of great comfort I will stick on Find and Replace and Many Deaths back to back: 8/10

The Rocket Men written by John Dorney and directed by Lisa Bowerman

2012-01-27T23:37:00.000-08:00

What’s it about: The TARDIS has landed on Platform Five, a floating city in the sky of the planet Jobis, and for a time the Doctor, Ian, Barbara and Vicki get the chance to enjoy this idyllic place. And then the Rocket Men arrive, led by the sadistic Ashman. When the only other option to certain death is suicide, Ian Chesterton takes the gamble of his life

Schoolteachers in Love: Finally, marvellously, somebody has written the tale where Ian confesses his love for Barbara. Its an entirely original concept because the books touched upon the subject several times (notably in David A. McIntee’s The Eleventh Tiger and Simon Guerrier’s The Time Travellers – both excellent books so check them out) but there is something spellbinding about William Russell actually saying the words that makes it less than a possibility and more of a certainty. They were our guides through the first two wonderful years of Doctor Who and it was glorious to watch these friends go from scared, unwilling adventurers to falling in love with both the lifestyle and each other. Its around The Rescue/The Romans where its clear that the two teachers are more involved with each other than they were before, particularly the latter story as they lounge about in Roman apparel, blissed out on wine, playing jokes and flirting madly. By the time they leave the Doctor of course they leave together, seduced by the idea of going home, having a rest and being together. As we see them larking about in London and embracing each other in their last shot there is no doubt in my mind that these two went on to enjoy a fantastic marriage and life together. Massive kudos to John Dorney for taking the idea of the two of them in love and bringing it to life so vividly in his story. This is the point where Ian realises that he has strong feelings for Barbara and as is typical to human nature it only dawns upon him when he might lose her forever…

Ian ponders on when you realise that you have fallen in love. Is it the shy smile or the furtive glance of first meeting or later when the roots have grown down and far beyond the giddy joys of the early days. There’s a wonderful moment where Ian says that he backs Barbara up – its almost as if the Doctor feels as though he can combat the opinion of one of them but cannot take on their combined strength of will. One thing that seemed to fall by the wayside in the second season of Doctor Who was that Ian was a scientist, by that point he was used in a far more active, protective role. Dorney corrects this by having Ian put out that the Doctor should be allowed to study the research institute of the Jovis. It had been so long since he had been able to study even the most basic science and he would love to have the chance to examine the flora and fauna of a different world. When Ian leaps from the ship and finds himself at the mercy of a battering, screaming wind he focuses on nothing but Barbara, saving her makes a mockery of the punishment from the elements. How triumphant is the scene when Ian realise he has gotten the hang of flying the rocket pack and Barbara is getting closer? Russell performs that scenes as if Ian’s very life depends on it. Ian gets to prove what an action hero he is by tussling with Ashman in the air, awkwardly at first but viciously attempting to bring down the man who tried to kill Barbara. He fears that the last words that he’ll hear from her are her screaming out his name in alarm.

Diplomatic as ever, Barbara steps in when things get heated between Ian and the Doctor and calms her friend down and tells him not to spoil their time in such a beautiful place. Ian finds Barbara all heart and so free with her emotions. He often wished he could be the same as her. Ian finds that when Barbara’s eyes light up in wonder her face contains a beatific joy. She had such enthusiasm that you couldn’t help but warn for her. Barbara refuses to let Vicki shoulder the blame for her association with the Doctor and puts herself into danger as soon as her friend makes the decision. Its when she chooses to top out of the tour that Ian realises it is deeply dull experiencing these wonders without her sense of joy. Barbara genuinely thought she was going to die when she was tossed from the airlock and clutches hold of Ian once he has saved her as if she would never let him go. She is genuinely traumatised by these events and Ian wants to give her time to recover before knocking her over with his confession that he loves her.

Hmm: The Doctor attempts to convince his friends that for once he was able to direct the TARDIS and bring them to Jovis deliberately but nobody is buying it. He revels in Ian’s jealousy and feels compelled to mention his superior scientific qualifications when it comes to his invite to the research institute! He shows his keen scientific knowledge by concocting a forcefield on the spot that keeps Ashman and his Rocket Men out of the research institute. He gave the scientists ‘a little nudge’ so they could protect themselves. He comforts Ian at the climax and Ian ponders to think that they had been enemies when they first met. I love the description of his chuckles as ‘faintly evil.’

Alien Orphan: Its astonishing that it is Vicki who steps forward as a sacrificial lamb when somebody else’s life is in danger, without a thought for her own safety she cannot let somebody else die for her. Just like in The Romans, Vicki is restless and wants to explore new things and meet new people.

Standout Performance: By all accounts a modest man, William Russell is one of our few links back to the original conception of Doctor Who and a superb actor to boot. The fact that he is willing to perform these Big Finish audio plays is a marvel in itself and he attacks every script with passion and skill. Clearly older but still carrying that same Ian Chesterton charm, he makes all these innovations seem like the most natural thing in the world and with Russell so committed these events really did take place in the 60s. The Doctor, Ian, Barbara and Vicki did visit Jovis and Ian did realise his feelings for Barbara in a moment of jeopardy. William Russell makes it happen.

Sparkling Dialogue: ‘Billowing gaseous forms bloomed around us, huge and dominating pastel shaded in pink and purple. Dotted throughout little pin pricks of light glistened and dazzled, reflecting their luminescence back at us like stars’ – audible poetry.
‘You see it torn from your hands when its never coming back. That’s when you know. The moment you risk losing it forever, you know.’
‘I don’t think I’ll ever get used to travelling with you, Doctor. There’s always some remarkable new thing to see’ ‘The moment when you get used to it is the moment to stop.’
‘Don’t wait too long, my boy. These things can fade. We all have opportunities we let slide. You don’t want to live your life regretting chances missed’ – the Doctor says this soulfully as though he is talking through experience. What a magical moment.

Great Ideas: As well as being a stunning character drama Dorney also employs an unusual technique of setting the story in two different points in the story as well as the narrated moments which allows him all manner of clever moments of tension, revealing things that would happen later and then explaining how we got to that point. It took me a little while to get used to this technique (at first I thought it spoilt the shock value of experiencing the moments ‘at the time’ but I soon realised it allowed him to create more suspense because I was constantly thinking ‘how do we get there?’) but ultimately it made the audio a more interesting experience than a linear narrative would have and it really worked in such an exciting tale. The story initially hops between Ian recalling their landing on Jovis and hours later when they are all being held hostage and the Doctor is being hunted down – what could possibly gulf these two disparate events? He also uses the intriguing trick of similar phrases to bridge the gap between the two periods, ending one scene in the future with the same phrase as the one starting in the past. I love the idea of the TARDIS landing on Platform Five because it gives me images of when the ninth Doctor and Rose landed on Platform One in The End of the World, linking the classic and the new series. Plus…a floating city! How exciting is that? Its one of those gloriously over ambitious ideas that would never have stopped Verity Lambert from trying to pull off with a bit of shoestring and a few flats! On audio we can let our imaginations go wild but it feels utterly authentic to the era. Glass walls that look out on the beautiful atmosphere of the planet and tours with glass floors so you can look down on the spectacular scenery of the world. Vast undulating jelly fish and crystalline insects flying past the windows. Giant manta rays float through the atmosphere of myriad colours – what a vivid, emotive image. The very idea of Rocket Men with jet packs swarming onto the decks of a ship is deliriously enjoyable, retro to the point of nostalgia and yet a visual you could still get excited about today. Its beautifully depicted on the cover. The Rocket Men wish to ‘steal the jewels from the sky’, a frightening prospect of capturing the crystal insects and trying to get them to breed. They are worth five times their weight in gold. They are an elite bunch of space pirates that have been raiding the space lanes for years. Ian being saved by one of the manta’s has a certain poetic beauty to it, swooping down and catching him as he falls. Ashman is finally killed by the wildlife his greed threatened.

Audio Landscape: The TARDIS dematerialisation noise, the cry of the manta, footsteps on metal grating, the people jostling and cooing at the views, Ashman on the intercom, the ship rocking as gunshots are fired, people screaming and panicking, buffeting cold air, Ashman’s shots, the crying victims.

Musical Cues: I still get a shiver every time I hear the original theme music, you know. Especially in 2012 when it’s a brand new story featuring one of the original cast. I bet Billy Hartnell would be thrilled to know that his legacy still lives on. Howard Carter’s score is extremely strong, especially in the moments of excitement but he also manages to score moments of real beauty too, especially the first sighting of the mantra. Ian gliding through the air is greeted with a triumphant theme that makes you want to punch the air with delight.

Standout Scene: The cliffhanger is a moment of astonishing emotion as Barbara is thrown from the airlock to her death with a horrible scream and Ian realises in moment gut wrenching, anxious terror how much he loves her. In a moment of reckless abandon Ian dives out of the airlock after her, determined to save her. It’s an exceptional cliffhanger because it plays wonderful games with the listener, a moment of extreme shock followed by the elating feeling that nothing will stop Ian from protecting the woman he loves. My other favourite moment came at the conclusion when the Doctor in that quiet, understated way of his tells Ian to let Barbara know how he really feels. It reminds me of The Dalek Invasion of Earth, he’s all bluster until it comes to real emotion where he is far more observant than people give him credit.

Result: This is an example of the companion chronicles at their very best. John Dorney seems to have the Midas touch, his script for this story is bursting with romantic ideas, gorgeous character development, a superbly sketched setting and an authentic tone for the period. His descriptions of the regulars shows that he has made some great observations watching the actors in their televised stories as he gets all their quirks and characteristics spot on. The dialogue is memorable and dramatic and the unconventional story structure gives the story another boost. Lisa Bowerman steps in with some of her best ever direction (those who know how good she can be will know that is high praise indeed) and she fills the exciting story with some real moments of triumph and beauty. I hope we get another sixties story from this writer/director team because they clearly both have an authentic flair for the era and for an hour this morning I was whisked away to the most exciting time in Doctor Who’s long run. I never thought we would get a story where Ian confesses his love for Barbara but it is something I have always wanted to happen and thanks to The Rocket Men I am left blissfully happy at their romance. Performed with real passion by William Russell who makes these companion chronicles come alive so vibrantly, The Rocket Men is a standout adventure that manages to capture its era and do something innovative with it: 10/10

Tales from the Vault written by Jonathan Morris and directed by Lisa Bowerman

2012-01-25T22:20:00.000-08:00

What’s it about: Welcome to The Vault – jokingly known as 'The Museum of Terrors' – a high security establishment where UNIT keeps all of its alien artefacts. New recruit Warrant Officer Charlie Sato is given a guided tour by Captain Ruth Matheson, and the archive reveals some dark secrets. An army jacket, a painting, crystal and a wax cylinder all hold a grave significance, and their stories are told by the Doctor's companions: Steven Taylor, Zoe Heriot, Jo Grant and Romana…

UNIT Officers: Whilst I do find it quite sweet that Big Finish have kindly made Daphne Ashbrook and Yee Jee Tso still feel part of the Doctor Who family it does us well to remember that they were part of a blind alley second chance for the show that never really went anywhere. Despite having already cast both of them in different parts (The Next Life, Excelis Decays) this is easily the best ‘story’ that either of them has been in and despite some mild mannered performances they do a reasonable job convincing as UNIT operatives. Just as a side note I have no problem with the TV Movie at all as others seem to, I find the film entertaining, the direction fluid and exciting and the performances (in particular McGann and Ashbrook) extremely good. I just don’t understand the purpose in recasting them in different roles for anything other than an anniversary story. Including makes it seems as if Big Finish are offering something they cannot deliver – a continuation of the TV Movie story.

Charlie has a choice to join UNIT secret ops or forget everything that Ruth has told him. The water she gave him to drink contained a powerful amnesiac drug and unless an antidote is given he will forget everything in the last 24 hours (perhaps UNIT and Torchwood aren’t that different after all). His job will involve not just making sure that nobody breaks in but the artefacts don’t break out!

The Doctors: We get to hear all about a chauvinistic third Doctor who has Venusian Akido at his disposal! The fourth Doctor trips into an adventure with Romana by checking a number of paintings to see if he had left himself any messages in the corner of any of them! We hear about the second Doctor posing as a seedy gangland boss who has recently arrived in the area with Jamie as his bodyguard and Zoe as his personal secretary – now that I would love to see! The first Doctor is described as an old gentleman with white hair who giggled a lot!

Dippy Agent: Jo Grant is something of a legend because she was the one who assisted the Doctor when he was exiled on Earth and helped him foil invasions on ‘practically a monthly basis!’ Listening to Katy Manning play dippy Jo trying to get to grips with a recording device peels away the years and its like we are back in the seventies again. She’s tried telling the Brig that its hard to keep up with paperwork when you’re being chased about by Axons and Sea Devils and the like! Brilliantly we cut to Jo Grant actually making the grumpy Doctor a cup of tea – I’m not saying that’s all she’s good for (and she rants that she is a liberated woman!) but its very funny! Jo has to stop doing the slowed down voice because she is afraid she is going to turn into Boris Karloff!

Brainy Beauty: There is a crystal that contains Zoe’s memories in the Vault and it is nice to know that whilst our Zoe is back on the Wheel with little knowledge of the Doctor that there is a repository of her adventures listed somewhere other than the DVD shelves of the fans! Perhaps the crystal and Zoe could be brought together…? I guess the ending puts paid to that idea. Its odd because the two Zoe companion chronicles I have heard so far (Fear of the Daleks & Echoes of Grey) have been my least favourites to date and yet I know it has nothing to do with Wendy Padbury’s delivery (she was superb in Legend of the Cybermen) and what Morris proves here is that with some strong writing the character can come alive in unexpected ways on audio. I would love a Morris commissioned Zoe story because he seems to have the feel of this trio down pat.

Aggressive Astronaut: Steven records a message during an adventure with the Doctor and Dodo in South Africa, 1900. Whilst many of the companions have a fair (and wonderfully compassionate) stab at trying to create their Doctors only Frazer Hines’ second Doctor comes anywhere near as close as Peter Purves’ superb take on William Hartnell’s first Doctor. The petulance, the sharp intelligent, the viciousness and good humour, they’re all there and despite the higher pitch he encapsulates everything I recognise in Hartnell’s extraordinary performance. Beyond bringing Steven back to life with such passion (and he hardly sounds as though he has aged a day) this homage to his mentor is Purves’ greatest gift to Doctor Who fans because it really feels as though we are getting new first Doctor stories.

Snooty Fox: Romana is a brilliantly aloof as ever trying to remind the Doctor that they had an urgent quest to be getting along with when he tries diverting them towards something more irreverent!

Sparkling Dialogue: ‘To maintain public order. People aren’t ready for the truth.’
‘Follow me, I’ll show you the Security Kitchen…’ – cheeky!
‘Younger with a lined face and a great big hooter!’ – Tommy Watkins describes the third Doctor!

Great Ideas: We get to learn all the security procedures UNIT operatives have to go through when they begin their work at the Vault (DNA scans, decontamination). They figure that anything from foreign governments to terrorist organisations would be after their secrets and so they guard them diligently. They also have fears that aliens and androids might try and infiltrate. I love the idea that within UNIT there are legends and myths of ‘the old days’ with the Doctor and the ‘Vault of Terror’ containing all the alien artefacts that has been collected over the years during alien incursions. I would give my right arm to be able to explore the area myself but thanks to Jonny Morris now I can! UNIT doesn’t just wait for the Doctor to turn up and protect the Earth these days and so they occasionally have to try and hoodwink him in order to procure alien technology to help with the defence of the planet. Stuff that has been dug from beneath the ground or fallen to the Earth or any number of other ways a Doctor Who plot gets going can be found here. The base here is located underground the Angel of the North in London (where else? Although Ruth does seem to imply that there are bases elsewhere!). Whenever there is a classified incident with extraterrestrials or classified technology (such as the Loch Ness monster rearing his head out of the Thames and gobbling down a few passers by in Terror of the Zygons) their job is to tidy up afterwards. They hypnotise of convince the people involved that it was all part of a publicity stunt! They come across a Terrovore and Ruth talks about how they swarm across London ‘last year’ (The Crimes of Thomas Brewster if anybody wants to check it out and I suggest that you do because its top notch entertainment!). Also Krynoid husks (‘We keep them frozen just in case…’) and part of a Sontaran scout ship (or possibly just a lump of metal!). Jo’s story features a jacket that when worn possesses the wearer with the tortured soul of a soldier from the battle of Spion Kop (‘A haunted military costume? That’s absurd!’). A painting that was stolen from the Braxiatel Collection centuries ago and that has caused more suffering than any other work of art in history ‘including everything by Tracey Emin!’ The Kistador Molari was designed to reveal to the observer the circumstances of their own death. What a great, great idea for a story that is – thrown away on a five minute except in Tales from the Vault! That’s the one idea I wished Morris had kept for a longer tale because I could well imagine a frightening 50 minute story centring on that concept. A mind wiping crystal being used by the criminal element to wipe the memories of ex employees! Morris cleverly weaves his last tale into his first with Steven Taylor meeting with the real Tommy Watkins that was haunting the jacket worn by the friend of Jo Grant. Kali Korash planned to find himself in the UNIT vault – the Doctor revealed his true nature and Tommy Watkins sacrificed his life attempting to kill him so he allowed Thornicroft to die to convince the Doctor that he had been eliminated. Instead he transferred his consciousness into the fabric of Tommy’s uniform ready to occupy the next person to come into contact with it. He plans to use the artefacts to enslave the human race and manipulate them into developing technology to travel on to more worlds, transferring his spirit into new bodies. In the event of any vault personnel being compromised their life is to be considered disposable. We here about more artefacts still to be discovered…plastic daffodils (Terror of the Autons, a chess set (Curse of Fenric) or a grandfather clock (The Keeper of Traken?).

Audio Landscape: Decontamination, bubbling water cooler, automatic doors, clicking on a torch, fast forwarding Jo making the tea.

Standout Scene: The climactic scene where Morris links together his stories is a beaut. Kali Korash having used Tommy Watkins’ jacket to get into the UNIT vault and Ruth using the mirror to discover how Korash dies and then using the crystal to absorb his consciousness! Genius.

That Man Morris: I once referred to Morris as my modern day Robert Holmes and the more I hear his work the more impressed that I get. He has the ability to conjure up creative plots at the drop of a hat but also has a terrific grasp of character, can write with real pace, inject very funny humour and his dialogue is top notch too. Its hard not to turn reviews of his stories into love fests because he sets the bar high and very rarely disappoints. What impresses me with this releases is the versatility of the mans work because often with the strongest writers for this company you know what to expect and they deliver in spades (Rob Shearman is going to write something blackly funny, Nick Briggs a terrific action adventure, Simon Guerrier something creepy and atmospheric) but let’s take a look at the many styles and genres that Morris has turned his hand to very successfully. Nostalgia trips (Bloodtide & Hothouse), puzzles (Flip Flop, Cobwebs), companion introductions (The Haunting of Thomas Brewster), morality tales (The Cannibalists), comedy (Max Warp, The Beautiful People), dark fairy tales (The Eternal Summer), modern day entertainment (The Crimes of Thomas Brewster), character tales and historicals (The Glorious Revolution, The Curse of Davros), action adventure (Deimos/Ressurection of Mars), Lost Stories (The Guardians of Prophecy) and atmospheric chillers (The Spirit Trap, The Theatre of Dreams). He’s a superb writer that still gets me excited when his name turns up in the schedules because I find it synonymous with a high quality adventure. Big Finish are lucky to have him and I am glad they are exploiting his talent to the full.

Notes: There’s a lovely reference to the plot of the TV Movie at the millennium!

Result: I know they say that the imagination is limitless but it seems that Jonathan Morris is trying to prove that as a fact because no matter how many times Big Finish book him to write a story he always delivers something fresh, exciting and hugely inventive. The umbrella theme of visiting the UNIT archive and telling stories through the various artefacts we discover is memorable and exhilarating – who wouldn’t want the chance to explore this place? It’s a great premise to include as many different companions as possible and rather than looking at one tale in depth (which usually works very well for the companion chronicles but can sometimes be a little laboured) we get lots of little quirky vignettes that show off the various actors (Manning, Padbury, Tamm and Purves all excel themselves) but also allow Morris to include a manifest of wonderfully eccentric story ideas. In fact this would make a fantastic introduction to the companion chronicles if you wanted to test the waters because it features the best of the range - classic companion actors returning and pulling off their old roles superbly, character building narration, a fresh, modern take on some of their lives adding new depths and strong direction with great sound effects and music. The only thing that confuses me is the use of Daphne Ashbrook and Yee Jee Tso but they fulfil their roles with some relish so I can’t complain too much but I’m not sure what the reason for casting two TV Movie cast offs is beyond providing the story with some spectacle that it can’t really deliver (it would have been exquisite has Grace become a UNIT operative after her experiences with the eighth Doctor). Tales from the Vault is an impressive one off that isn’t trying to dig too deep but provide a massively entertaining ride which it does splendidly. With its anthology of succulent titbits and exposure of UNIT procedure I was bewitched by this unique tale and would certainly welcome a second visit to the vault at some point: 8/10

The Last of the Titans written and directed by Nicholas Briggs

2012-01-22T23:45:00.000-08:00

What’s it about: The Doctor is separated from the TARDIS in the bowels of gigantic spaceship. The ship has one humanoid inhabitant but is he really as friendly as he seems?

The Real McCoy: I think this the only time we have heard Sylvester McCoy narrating a story (correct me if I’m wrong) and he is more than up to the task. In fact he sounds far more comfortable literally telling a story than he sometimes does taking part in one, accentuating the menacing and the atmospheric with those gorgeous Scottish tones of his. Am I rude in suggesting that I find the seventh Doctor works at his absolute best when he isn’t encumbered with assistants? Either the quality of the writing goes up or McCoy feels he has to up his game because he is so exposed but there is something confident and charismatic about the solo seventh Doctor that really appeals. There’s none of this melodramatic ‘Haaaaaace!’ shrieking or agonised strangling (its audible gurning – go on, put The Rapture you can actually hear it!) – its just McCoy alone doing his damdest to entertain.

He’d been promising himself a holiday for some time and the planet Ormelia has always been a favourite haunt in his younger days. There seems to be the impression that because the Doctor is travelling alone this must be set in the seventh Doctor’s future not long before his death but that cannot be the case because we can still hear the old console noise and the McGann console was introduced in an Ace and Hex story. The Doctor has been at this game long enough now to know that if he contacts whoever is in authority he will be letting himself in for accusation, insinuations or even something a little more terminal. The Doctor manages to get the TARDIS back in record time – it’s a little like when they found the fourth second of the Key to Time in The Androids of Tara in about five minutes! He’s diffused a couple of bombs in his time but this one was a piece of piddle!

Standout Performance: As wells as providing a memorable score Nicholas Briggs gives a sympathetic performance as the simple but rather lovely Vilgreth. He reminded me a bit of D84 from Robots of the Death, that same dim manner and delivery that is very appealing. He’s as cute and appealing as the Grallians were annoying in The Davros Mission! I love the way that is subverted in the story as he turns out to be homicidal mainiac after offering the Doctor tea and shortcake acquired from the last place he massacred!

Sparkling Dialogue: ‘Officials? Spanners in works!’

Great Ideas: The TARDIS displays a penchant for the grimy, the odious and the dangerous over holiday destinations any day of the week. I do love the idea of a gigantic spaceship for the Doctor to explore – no wonder he experiences a Doctor Who adventure in microcosm on board! Centuries ago planet eater spaceships were built to devour planetoids and asteroid belts to clear the space lanes. The Doctor realises with some sadness that this planet eater was heading straight for Ormelia and that was why its furnaces were so vast. Titanthropes are an evolutionary blind alley, much larger and more intelligent than their contemporaries the Neanderthals. The Professor wanted to cure Vilgreth of his violent urges but he saw that as an act of aggression and murdered him and all his staff. The ship is destroyed in orbit and broke up before it reached the atmosphere…to the inhabitants it would have looked like a rather spectacular fireworks display. There is a moral here that people who are true to their nature aren’t evil…the unfolding of time does the rest.

Audio Landscape: A grumbling TARDIS console, the deck hatch opening, the Doctor whistling, the hissing, growling flames of the furnace, birds tweeting, ticking bomb, explosion, making a cup of tea.

Musical Cues: It has been so long since I started this Big Finish venture and so much has happened along the way – meeting new friends, getting to know the production staff a little – that I had forgotten about some of the early contributors to the range. Remember the exquisite musical stylings of Russell Stone and Alistair Lock? The majestic, romantic score for The Stones of Venice or the bombastic, cinematic approach to The Fires of Vulcan? This is Alistair Lock through and through; its classy, powerful and highly hummable!

Notes: As an updated Audio Visuals story this alerted me to the fact that they existed and I sought out more information on them. I still haven’t listened to any of them mind (and the wealth of Big Finish stories being releases I think it will be a while before I do!) but they sound intriguing and I look forward to them.

Result: Rather lovely as a Doctor Who story in microcosm complete with a villain reveal, a race against time to stop a bomb and a planet saved! The idea of giant planet crushing spaceships is a gorgeous one and one that has real legs beyond this mini Big Finish freebie. What really impressed me beyond the economy of the storytelling was Sylvester McCoy’s lovely performance – particularly when he was narrating. That’s an experiment that should be repeated at some point because he proves to be a very enjoyable storyteller. You couldn’t enthuse about this tale too much because it is very slight but as a taster of what Big Finish can do with some nifty sound effects, a great score and an example of how well they brought the 80s Doctor’s across from the screen to audio it is a worthy little piece. I judge it not on its merits as a standalone Doctor Who story but as a appetite whetter for more Big Finish productions and on those terms: 8/10

The Davros Mission written and directed by Nicholas Briggs

2012-01-22T00:48:00.000-08:00

What’s it about: After his capture on Necros, Davros, is destined to face the justice of the Daleks. He sits alone, isolated in his cell. His creations will no longer listen to him. But out of the darkness comes a voice... Davros is no longer alone in his torment. Before he faces trial on the planet Skaro, he must go through an ordeal that will force him to the very limits of his sanity. But where do his true loyalties lie? How will he face the future?

Scarred Scientist: After having his hand blown away by Bostock on Necros Davros has a robotic hand surgically added by the Daleks. He’s becoming more and more like them every day. He can’t believe that the Daleks could be so stupid as to let their arch enemy slip through their fingers simply because of a case of mistaken identity! The Daleks think that Davros is delusional when he starts ranting that he will take his place as the supreme rule of the Daleks but the truth is that Davros cannot wait to stand trial because it gives his ungrateful creations the chance to hear the wisdom of his words. This man really does have a God complex but then he has been stroking it for the past couple of centuries so that is understandable. Davros believes that Daleks have no need of inferior species even as slaves. He wonders if he has gone so mad that he has created a voice in his head to explain away all the bad things he has done. Lareen wasn’t sure what to expect when she met Davros and she found him…ugly. There was so much hatred so she figures there must be fear otherwise he is just completely insane. He has so much more to teach the Daleks and they would know that if they weren’t blinded by their arrogance. Surely if these children are arrogant then that is something they inherited from their ‘father?’ He finds the idea that Lareen is there to save him absolutely hysterical (but in that special brand of insane Davros hilarity!). The worst punishment Davros can imagine is to lose his intelligence…it’s the one thing that he has clung on to after all these years of pain and defeat. He finds his ego is the reasons for his survival rather than his downfall but Lareen sees a very different picture. His ego has led him to his downfall at the hands of the creatures that are the very embodiment of his faults. His ego was transplanted into the Daleks and that is why he cannot be allowed to survive. His ego is what ultimately will kill him. Lareen genuinely thinks there is a possibility of salvation for Davros if he lets go of all the bitterness and fear from the terrible war on Skaro and hardwired into the first Dalek brain, if he could let go of all the feelings of insecurity from the accident that crippled him what would be left? A fantastic intellect that could be a force for good in the universe! What a fascinating idea…but those are some frightening obstacles to overcome. The Molloy Davros gets a Genesis moment of his own (‘the tiny pressure of my thumb…) when Lareen offers him the chance to wipe out the Daleks on Skaro and be hailed as the saviour of the universe. His future is with the Daleks, he has saved them all and now demands their obedience. Is Davros beyond redemption? It would certainly appear so but Lareen knows there was one moment when he was tempted to break open the virus capsule and exterminate the Daleks forever. Even he can’t deny the fact.

Standout Performance: Terry Molloy seems like such a gentle, unassuming man when you hear him speaking in interviews and yet when he dons the Davros mask (figuratively speaking) he becomes the living embodiment of absolute madness. Whilst I enjoyed his stints on the telly (especially Revelation where he truly takes the spotlight in intriguing ways) it is his work on audio that has cemented him as my favourite incarnation of the Dalek’s creator. He’s starred in a good handful of main range adventures (Davros, Terror Firma and The Curse of Davros are all absolutely superb), his own range and now an intriguing extra on a DVD box set and throughout he has maintained real integrity in the part. Taking the character from emotion highs and chilling lows, exploring his past and delving into the depths of Davros’ madness – it has been a hell of a ride. He deserves much praise for his flawless portrayal of lunacy.

Sparkling Dialogue: ‘This is the justice of the Daleks!’
‘I could have destroyed you all…’

Great Ideas: Its interesting that this is the first time that we ever got experience a conversation between Davros and Thal after his near extermination of their people. That’s a conversation that has a lot to live up to. For a moment this episode reminded me of the DS9 episode Waltz where Gul Dukat is haunted by all the voices in his head feeding off his paranoia and madness – in some ways I think that might have made a more interesting story - all the doubters, critics and enemies coming back to haunt him. The suggestion that Davros cannot be put on trial by the Daleks because he has done no wrong to them whereas the Thals should have the opportunity because of his crimes against their people is a fascinating one. I hadn’t realised that Miranda Raison had taken part in this story and when I turned it on and recognised her voice that excited me. She’s a fantastic dramatic actress and really gives her all to the tense, trial scenes in Davros’ cell. The Daleks try and reduce Davros to a vegetative state until they can get him to trial. Lareen could be his executioner, his enlightenment or his freedom. The Thals have turned their genius to genocide to remove a cancer from the universe; they are now using the Movellan virus and could use it to destroy the entire Dalek central nervous system on Skaro. Lareen is described as one of those ‘Davros loving weirdoes’, which seems to suggest there is a mad cult of worshippers out there! The deaths of the Grallians was a supreme punch the air moment!

Audio Landscape: It opens on a bally big explosion, Dalek heartbeat, sucking noises, dripping chemicals, scraping metal restraints, the delicious sounds of the Dalek city from The Daleks and the ‘outer space’ planet soundscape, Dalek alarms.

Musical Cues: David Darlington enjoys laying on the striking vocals that reminded me strongly of Murray Gold’s music for the creatures in the new series.

Isn’t it Odd: I love the character that mentions that usually when there is an intrusive object approach from a distance the Daleks are usually screaming and shouting about it! But on the whole the Grallians are pretty annoying – mollusc style creatures with lisps that stop this from being a truly menacing Dalek story by taking the piss out of everything! When they start laughing their heads off as Davros is screaming for help I was really confused as to their function aside from proving utterly disposable. By the time you have listened to fifteen minutes or so of their inane dribble you are glad that the Daleks have gotten them addicted to a poisonous substance. I couldn’t believe the potential of this story was slipping away as the story spends more and more time with these creatures, even to the detriment of exploring Davros! When Lareen the Thal turns up I thought things get interesting and then we have to endure a five minute scene as she tries to convince Gus and Raz not to hand her in! I would have cut this back 25 minutes and removed them from the story altogether.

Standout Scene: Davros had the chance to truly reform his character and do something good but instead turns his back on such a notion and betrays Lareen to his creations. He gave the Daleks life once and instead of using the Movellan virus on them he chooses to give them life again.

Notes: There’s no doubt when this story is set – it is deliberately plugging a gap between Revelation and Remembrance of the Daleks. For once this isn’t a Gary Russell polyfiller dream liberally filling every singe gap in the shows history so there is no place for it to breathe any ambiguity, no it’s a point in Davros’ life that was never adequately explained and its screaming with dramatic potential. He goes from being the prisoner of the Renegade Daleks to the Emperor of the Imperials off screen and I for one can’t wait to see what has happened…

Result: A tale of two halves for sure but ultimately The Davros Mission isn’t what I thought it would be. Anybody expecting an examination of Davros akin to I, Davros or Dalek Empire style psychology will be extremely disappointed not because that style of material is absent (because it isn’t) but because this story spends so much time dawdling before getting to all the juicy stuff. Any of the scenes featuring Gus and Raz the Grallians are nothing but filler as irritating as pubic louse and I kept waiting for the story to get on with Davros’ trial at the hands of his greatest enemies. On the flip side Terry Molloy and Miranda Raison are both excellent and any of their two-hander scenes works a treat. Molloy automatically raises the quality of this mini adventure – I honestly think I could listen to Davros shopping for spares when played by this actor and by thoroughly gripped! The best scene comes when Lareen implores Davros to let go of his insecurities and become a force for good in the universe and for a moment you genuinely wonder if he is tempted by the idea. In the last half an hour the story really comes into its own with lots of intriguing possibilities (Davros wiping out his own creations in a parody of the Doctor’s dilemma in Genesis of the Daleks) and it comes to a dramatic conclusion to remember. The Davros Mission feels like it needs a few more drafts to sift out some of the nonsense but it still contains much that is worth listening to: 7/10

The Curse of Davros written by Jonathan Morris and directed by Nicholas Briggs

2012-01-19T18:22:00.000-08:00

SPOILERS...BE WARNED!

What’s it about: It's been a year since Philippa 'Flip' Jackson found herself transported by Tube train to battle robot mosquitoes on a bizarre alien planet in the company of a Time Lord known only as 'the Doctor'. Lightning never strikes twice, they say. Only now there's a flying saucer whooshing over the top of the night bus taking her home. Inside: the Doctor, with another extraterrestrial menace on his tail – the Daleks, and their twisted creator Davros! But while Flip and the fugitive Doctor struggle to beat back the Daleks' incursion into 21st century London, Davros's real plan is taking shape nearly 200 years in the past, on the other side of the English Channel. At the battle of Waterloo…

Softer Six: Doesn’t he just love making a big entrance, crashing into the Earth and emerging from an escape pod with amnesia! The Doctor is being hunted down by the Daleks who would have exterminated him already had he not been able to steal one of their ships and leg it. The Doctor talks with the oddest of speech patterns – he isn’t using contractions which is usually a massive sign that something is up in science fiction and he seems to know a bit too much about fooling the Daleks and nabbing their ship for my liking – he must be Davros! Even his concern for the Earth seems to be more artificial than usual. The way he doesn’t seem to mind that hostages are killed because they will die no matter what they do is callous even for Sixie – its Davros I tell you! When the Doctor says the Daleks consider him their greatest enemy that is a very clever line because it could mean him or Davros. When we finally meet the Doctor (ala Davros) he tells Flip about Evelyn meeting Rossiter and being very happy with him. He’s currently travelling alone. He knows now what it is like to be Davros, to have the mind of a genius trapped inside the mind of a corpse. If he knew he would be trapped in this desiccated body permanently he wouldn’t be able to endure it the way Davros does. If there was a switch to the life support that would bring an end to the agony he would have no qualms about flicking it. That’s a massive statement coming from the Doctor – he would kill himself if he were disabled and in constant pain. He wouldn’t have the willpower to resist it. He thought the mind swap was worth it even if he lost his body because it would rid the universe of Davros’ scourge. After describing the torment of being inside Davros’ body I felt something that I never thought I would ever feel for Davros when he is returned to his correct place – remorse. Chalk up another historical event that the Doctor is responsible for – the Battle of Waterloo! All thanks to shoving Napoleon in the cupboard. Sabotage comes naturally to him, he admits gleefully before enjoying another little tinker. Davros knows that the Doctor might win this battle but he will never win their war because to win you have to make sacrifices and that has always been his greatest weakness. The Doctor now considers killing Davros as an act of mercy for him rather than the universe. Astonishing stuff.

Flippin’ Marvellous: Perfect companion material, Flip is bored of the same old routine of clubbing late and catching the night bus home. When a spaceship crashes in front of them she wants to get out and explore whereas her fella Jared wants to take a picture of it on his mobile. That’s why she’ll get to travel in the TARDIS and he wont. She’s willing to protect the Doctor from the authorities simply because she thinks that is the best thing to do. Flip has perfected the ‘I’m really ill…’ voice when phoning in sick that takes years to master! She has no car because she never passed her test…and now she has no flat since Jared blew it up! Flip suddenly realises she has lost everything and she might have move back in with her mum and creepy Nigel. She works on the tills in a supermarket – no wonder she wants a change of pace! Her massively racist faux pas to the French had me in stitches (plus she considers it the mark of a good Frenchman to flirt first and interrogate later). She thinks that being able to walk into history and talk to people is marvellous. It’s a shame that Flip never finished that French GCSE because she might be able to recognise Napoleon Bonaparte when she sees him! Flip realises with some concern that she was never the Doctor’s assistant but actually Davros’ hostage. This battle marks the point where the future of mankind hangs in the balance – Davros wants to change things so the human race go from being an enemy to a potential ally of the Daleks. ‘You really have serious issue, you know that right?’ says Flip when Davros condemns her to a place in the Doctor’s cell where she will age and die before his eyes. Its not until she starts threatening Davros that he considers her a ‘charming girl.’ Flip was in counselling for a while after he previous encounter with the Doctor and thinks that she and Jared are only together because neither on them wants to be the one to split them up. Flip says she feels sorry for Davros because his hatred has brought him nothing but more pain. Thanks to the Daleks she doesn’t have a home or a job to go to. Making a brave decision she tosses Jared back into their time and chooses to try and find the Doctor. This is the change she desperately needs.

Standout Performance: Colin Baker and Terry Molloy deserve massive credit for trying to pull off the insane idea of playing each others roles. Baker’s mannered speech is more of a giveaway than Molloy’s beautifully judged Doctor but kudos to the pair of them for picking up on each others quirks. As soon as the twist is revealed I don’t think I have ever seen an actor take so much relish from playing a villain as Colin Baker and it was delightful to listen to. And can I say I was utterly spellbound by Terry Molloy’s turn as the Doctor. The things I love about Lisa Greenwood’s Flip is both the TV series and Big Finish have tried to employ the services of actors that sound as though they are just the every person on the street whisked up in the Doctor’s adventures. Usually this goes wrong because they wind up sounding like actors trying to act like cockney youths (Sophie Aldred but also Billie Piper to an extent). Greenwood’s ability to sound like a real person who has found herself in an impossible situation is astonishing – its almost as if they dragged her in from the streets and actually made her experience these things. Its great because with Flip you ca actually put yourself in her place – a pretty average life – and join the Doctor and have some great adventures. When Flip leaves with him at the end (with no special qualifications, no great experience behind her and no special powers) it could be you and that is a wonderful feeling. Molloy’s Davros on audio is still one of the scariest things ever…when that gurgling laughter screams in my ears he is without doubt the best Davros.

Sparkling Dialogue: ‘He blew up my cooker!’
I love how Flip calls the Daleks ‘dodgem things from space!’
‘I know that at Waterloo Napoleon did surrender’ ‘And how told you that may I ask?’ ‘ABBA’ ‘UBBER?’ ‘They made a song about it! About you coming second!’ – Flip hasn’t quite got the hang of this ‘not revealing future events to ruthless dictators’ business yet.
‘The Doctor rescued by the Daleks. Yes, there is a first time for everything…’
‘Such naiveté! To imagine he could reform the Daleks!’
‘I am Davros!’ – never has that line been so funny!

Great Ideas: You would wonder if you were the one that was cursed when a spaceship crashes on your way home, you rescue a survivor and take him home and then you boyfriend comes home and tries to kill him! The Daleks have developed the technology to swap their minds with other sentient beings – as soon as that was revealed I was certain that Colin Baker’s mannered performance meant that Davros was hiding inside his head! I love the idea of the Daleks murdering a bunch of shoppers in a supermarket – its so deliciously mundane it feels even more murderous than their usual activity. The Dalek making an announcement on the bing bong system is absolute genius – who but Jonathan Morris could ever think up such an insanely brilliant idea? ‘We have brought the human captives to the area known designated ‘Deli Counter!’ Even weirder is the humans transplanted into Dalek mutants and all talking like normal people but with Dalek modulation – its so nutty I love it! Ha – I knew it! I bloody knew it! When Davros has the chance to kill the Doctor and Flip he chooses not to! Because it’s the Doctor! They’ve swapped minds. Go on Morris…prove me wrong! The Daleks are determined to change the course of history by ensuring that Napoleon wins Waterloo – another of their typically madcap schemes to take over the universe. Napoleon Bonaparte controlled by Daleks learning that he will surrender at Waterloo – has Jonathan Morris taken all of his happy pills on one day. I have absolutely no idea where all this madness is going but this kneading and stretching of Doctor Who’s malleable formula is proving a delight. A French châteaux that has been constructed around a Dalek mothership, wouldn’t you just love to see that realised on screen? Davros considers his own body a withered husk of rotting flesh and never wants to return to it. He is quite happy inside the Doctor’s body, a fierce brain in an active body and for the first time he has no pain. The Daleks are so paranoid about the Doctor that they treat him suspiciously even when he claims to be Davros. I felt really sorry for the Dalek who realises he has been duped by the Doctor and is scolded by Davros for humiliating him – he asks if Davros wants to punish him, poor dear! He gets one to self destruct and the Supreme Dalek to torture itself, what a psychopath! We learn that was his hatred and desire for revenge that sustained Davros in his torturous body for so many years. The Doctor tells the story of how he swapped minds with Davros; he detected the Dalek mothership in this time period and managed to break inside and conceal himself. Davros chose this place because he wanted to test the mind exchange in the field of battle where he didn’t care who lived or died. Davros admires Bonaparte because he has a one track mind and he has a genius for war and when the war is won he will take that genius and plant it into every Dalek battle computer. The Doctor was skulking in the shadows that whole time all this malarkey is being discussed. He chose to exchange minds with Davros so the Daleks would obey him now and exterminate Davros in his body. The Doctor plans to use the technology to wipe the Daleks minds and to make them a force for good in the universe. Davros’ grand mistake is not killing the Doctor when he has the opportunity, instead he want him to suffer as he has over the years…forgotten in a cell and trapped in a withered, decaying body. Dalek mutants swimming screaming to be killed, filled with the minds of British and French soldiers. The Doctor’s plan to turn Davros into a Dalek in order for them to escape is so simple but makes perfect sense. I was giggling with glee as the Doctor and Davros both tried to convince the Daleks they were each other…and even the audience don’t know! Baffling brilliance! Napoleon agrees to lose the battle for the glory of France because he knows what will happen when the Daleks take over. Davros is pitiless in his revenge and kills all the Dalek infected soldiers so there are no bodies for the minds to be returned to. The Doctor manages to wipe the minds of all the Daleks on the mothership which leaves Davros the opportunity to teach them to hate all over again…

Oh yeah…I can still remember some years I ago when I was fresh to Doctor Who fandom and Outpost Gallifrey and I suggest on a Doctor Who forum that there should be a story where the Doctor and an important villain have mind swap and I remember being summarily executed by a barrage of insults and abuse by other fans. It was almost enough to make me never want to go back! Poor, terrified little Joe. To all of you who took the time to have a go this audio is a massive finger in the eye! Cheers Jonny!

Audio Landscape: Squeaking bus turning up, a flying saucer flying overhead, crashing and exploding, police radios, extermination noise, police siren, the echoing Dalek voices inside their operatives heads is harsh and glorious, the screams of the hostages as they are all gunned down, pursuit ship descending, rain lashing, landing in mud, explosions, birdsong, the echoing corridors of the châteaux, Dalek heartbeat, ugh – Dalek self destruction, a bubbling Dalek hatchery.

Musical Cues: Wilfredo Acosta is not a name I have read before but he certainly makes a strong first impression with a dramatic soundscape and musical score. Nicholas Briggs always manages to cherry pick the best of the sound designers for his stories and it’s a great thing he does because coupled with his strong direction these stories come to life with dazzling panache. I loved the music at the beginning of episode three especially – strong drum beats accompanying the sudden turn of events. Listen out for the fantastic score when Davros and Napoleon discuss the war as it plays out before them in episode four.

Standout Scene: Love, love, love the cliffhanger to episode two. Although I had guessed early on it was still glorious to hear Colin Baker reveal his true identity as he threatens to kill Flip. Cue chilling mad laughter and boastful Davros reveal! Awesome – who can say they get to introduce Davros to a story and then get to knockout the audience with a twist like that?

Notes: Morris brilliantly subverts the Doctor and Davros’ parting from Revelation of the Daleks ‘I shall return!’ ‘And I shall be waiting for you…’ with the same words coming from the wrong mouths.

Result: A playful Dalek story…who would have ever thought? It’s a great compliment to Jonathan Morris to admit that this is the sort of story I would have expected Douglas Adams to have written for the Daleks instead of bumf like Destiny of the Daleks (which was a tug of war between him and Nation). It manages to take a reasonably whacky premise and have real fun with it whilst telling us something very personal about the Doctor (lonely and trapped) and Davros (who exists in a world of pain). Along the way Morris tosses out so many creative notions (all of which would generate an entire story in other hands) its like a Catherine wheel of imagination is fizzing off in all directions and I was chuckling away with the madness of the scenario come episode four. I especially loved the fact that when the humdinger of a twist was revealed in episode two things did not revert back to normal and the story allowed both Colin Baker and Terry Molloy to stretch themselves far more than their roles would usually allow them to. I wasn’t sure what to think when they announced Phillipa Greenwood’s return as a new companion because she had a very minor part to play in The Crimes of Thomas Brewster but as written by Morris she is given a super introduction with plenty of witty and wonderful lines and Greenwood proves a surprise win. I can’t wait to hear more from her. You’ve got some history, original Dalek action (bing bong!), a fascinating role reversal, a new companion, character development (you’ll never feel such pity for Davros again), Jonathan Morris at his ingenious best (conjuring up a superb reason for this most unusual of settings) and an excellently realised production with great music and effects. What more could you possibly ask for? Wonderfully, blissfully brilliant: 10/10

The Children of Seth written by Marc Platt (from a story by Christopher Bailey) and directed by Ken Bentley

2012-01-18T21:19:00.000-08:00

What’s it about: During one of Nyssa’s experiments, the TARDIS’s temporal scanner picks up a message: ‘Idra’. Just one word, but enough to draw the Doctor to the Archipelago of Sirius. There, the Autarch is about to announce a new crusade. A mighty war against Seth, Prince of the Dark... But who is Seth? What is the secret of Queen Anahita, Mistress of the Poisons? And what terror awaits on Level 14?

An English Gentleman: Its been 43 years since the Doctor last saw Idra and since then her face has been scarred by an accident on Ragnarok and imperfectly patched. He gets younger everyday and finds it quite alarming. The Doctor meant to get around to reading the book that Idra gave her – it was banned and would have explained a great deal about what is going on now had he taken the time. Here’s your chance to hear the Doctor being broken down into the binary language of numbers – I bet the director was horrified to learn that he had to try and actualise that on audio! Its fascinating to see that when the Doctor wants to find Nyssa so badly the numbers converge and bring the image of her before him, its almost as if they have read his subconscious and given him what he most desires. As the system dissects the Doctor so he exploits the system and before long he has mastered this new way of looking at things and can access the defence systems. He walks the streets with wanted posters bearing his image as the Prince of Evil! He still gets funny looks even after the android rebellion is over and he wonders if he was that convincing as the Prince of Darkness.

Alien Orphan: Nyssa has always loved probability with lines of chance crossing and diverging but theory is as far as she ever got. Unfortunately Tegan doesn’t have a clue what she is talking about and it highlights that these two whilst good friends would never be able to spend a great deal of social time together! When she makes a joke (Tegan is shocked!) the Doctor wonders what the odds are on that. Upon hearing that they have landed in war zone Nyssa cries ‘another war?’ – to be fair the wonders of the universe that she has explored thus far all seem to be tearing lumps out of each other. After being brainwashed in The Elite and put up for a mind wipe in this it’s a surprise that Nyssa can remember anything of her past! Imagine if she did lose her memory altogether, she is the last surviving remnant of Traken and that would be lost forever. Nyssa is held captive on level 14 or what people around here call Hell and as she wonders about the demonic environment she has lost all sense of who she is. As her mind slips away she giggles and talks in a sing song voice as though she is drunk – its quite frightening to see the normally composed Nyssa so out of control. Nyssa did think about leaving the Doctor after Florana but she considered one planet or the whole universe and found that the choice was made for her,.

Mouth of Legs: Like the most irritating kid in the car you just know that Tegan would be the one to moan ‘are we there yet?’ There’s a lovely moment where the Doctor is trying integrate into this society and Tegan just bustles up to the first person they meet and asks them about the distress call in the TARDIS. ‘Why does she always do this?’ asks the Doctor but you’ve got to admit her sledgehammer approach gets results! Tegan is no monarchist, she’s a fully paid up Aussie republican and she doesn’t think spirited is enough to describe her, the word she goes for is bolshie! Listen to Janet Fielding’s cheeky performance as she flirts with the guard to get information about the Doctor and tries to free him. I would have loved her to have had this kind of material during the eighties because it reveals a frivolous side to the character that is very appealing. Mind you a lot of the audios with Tegan lately are revealing that the character would have been far more attractive had they injected a little humour into her. Even the Doctor has to admit he is astonished that Tegan could be so resourceful (I think he’s shocked because he’s never seen that flirty side of her before). Nudging is too subtle for Tegan, she would rather shout to get noticed! The Doctor describes her as a bit mouthy he considers her one of his most resourceful companions because when she puts her mind to something she will damn well get it done. She’s so gentle in the last episode, calming people, helping the sick – this is the Tegan we deserved on the telly.

Standout Performance: The top drawer casts Big Finish manage to assemble never ceases to amaze me and returning to Doctor Who here is Honor Blackman who is as good an actress as the show is ever likely to attract. Naturally she sounds a lot older than when she last appeared but that is an advantage, he gorgeous, throaty voice oozes class as she brings the role of the Queen Consort to life. David Warner has played a number of roles in Big Finish Productions over the years and has always been 100% committed to making each character a fully realised person. Here he tackles a pampered ruler who is trading off the reputation of past glories and as ever Warner can make the simplest of put downs sound like ego crushing insults (‘I’m the Doctor…’ ‘I had a check up last week!’). Thje relationship between these two characters is fascinating, often seen as a marriage of convenience but when her life is in danger he suddenly drops away all the domestic anger and shows that he really cares. Their parting scene is beautiful, the two of them back together but still winding each other up. I could have happily have spent more time with both of them.

Sparkling Dialogue: ‘The only question left will be who inherits the ruins?’
‘Numbers. Like an endless cascading grid, shifting, bombarding me with information. Here or there they cluster or thin out and I think I see shapes but I can’t reads or making sense of them yet! But I’m still here in the other world, our world, I can still smell it and touch it. I’m still here’ – poetry as written by Christopher H Bidmead! Kudos to Marc Platt for taking on such an imaginative idea and trying to verbalise it.
‘Seth is the demon that every government needs.’
‘The enemy was within not without!’ – that’s a great moral and one we should be reminded of.
‘I am the World Breaker! The Soul Eater! I raise up the Dead!’
‘If there had to be a deus ex machina it might as well be us.’

Great Ideas: One of the great strengths of the Christopher Bailey scripts was that he managed to make both Deva Loka and Manussa feel like real places before the Doctor arrived. So often in stories it feels like the Doctor is the catalyst of events wherever they visit and not a lot happened before or after they visited. The Children of Seth opens in a similar way to Bailey’s previous stories with real characters going about their lives before the Doctor shows up. A low level intelligence drone infiltrates the TARDIS as part of a defence system to analyse their defences as a threat and the TARDISes infinite co-ordinates fry its tiny brain! This is far more exciting than a dull old console room scene! Was it just me or did episode one have a real sense of momentum to it? Like we were skating down a precipice to a very important event. The scene setting is almost irrelevant (as strong as it is) compared to the impetus of the piece. The fanatics of Seth are a canker infesting the Empire and now they are planning to strike at this cause of evil – the Fortress of the Dark lord Seth which has been located in the worlds beyond the Rim. The palace is built on the spoils of war, its civic level a warren of cut throats and intriguers. Warriors stood together on the plains of Ragnarok and fought for glory and honour but there is precious little left of it now. The Queen Consort is Idra and she directed the message at the TARDIS because she knows that without the Doctor the whole Empire from its hub to its shattered rim will fall into ruin. There is such an emphasis on the glorious Empire that once ruled that I felt I could see that as vividly as the decaying civilisation that it has become. I didn’t have a clue what was going on at the end of episode two once the Doctor had plugged himself into the net but it was bloody exciting and realised in a similar way to the cliffhanger of The Face of Evil episode three – absolute surreal madness! It is a mark of their decadence that Byzan has been allowed to rise so high and of Idra’s blindness that she saw it too late. Hell is populated by enemies of Byzan, purged of their memories and left to rot – it’s a whole derelict city of the damned. Scaring the people witless is how to take control and they use the Doctor’s face to represent Seth and become the peoples new bogeyman. Byzan is building up a private army of androids under Albis, the autonomous logical binary intelligence system that has outgrown its master. The androids have been planning their coup of a while and talk of a culling of those humanoids that resist them. They want a world wiped clean of humans, a simple mechanical world. Idra invented Seth in her book, the bogeyman that every administration needs to scare children and adults alike, to keep them in order. Byzan stole her idea and didn’t even change the name – they have been living in fear of a lie. The real enemy, the children of Seth are the androids. When they are stopped they freeze like statues and all over the city random people just stopped, guards, businessmen and workers…they will never know how deep the android infiltration went. I love the little mention that Byzan was poisoned in his cell and Idra only visited him the evening before…

Audio Landscape: The TARDIS bleeps and boinks like she is singing a song, the drone cutting through the console, screams in hell, the Doctor broken down by numbers and put back together again, a binary world of zeros and ones, a frothing fountain.

Musical Cues: Fox and Yason can always be relied on to conjure up some impressive music and here they channel Paddy Kingsland at his best but also managed to give the story a sense of gravity. The last two episodes feature an insistent score which gives the story an astonishing sense of drama – you are never in any doubt that serious things are happening. The simple percussion instruments that sound in the last episode remind us of the clashing steel of the androids as they make their move.

Isn’t it Odd: I couldn’t quite figure out why Nyssa thought that she was the Doctor, it made little sense in story terms.

Standout Scene: The image of the Doctor stumbling blinding through a derelict city of the walking dead, falling to his knees and drawing in the sand is a very powerful one. Follow this up with the cliffhanging trick of the Doctor is taking over the reins of government and you have a very strong showing for the fifth Doctor.

Result: Not your typical Big Finish story, The Children of Seth will probably take you two or three listens to fully understand it and appreciate all of its riches. Like Kinda and Snakedance the scripts are extremely wordy, full of juicy dialogue, excellent world building and intriguing characters. As an audio experience this is far more denser than we are used to, rather than an action adventure this is an exploration of ideas and concepts in a very mythical way but like Bailey’s TV stories if you are willing to put the effort in and look at its roots you will get a lot out of it. The main difference between this and the other Lost Stories is that it is that creates worlds out of ideas rather than visuals and as such it is most like classic Doctor on television that I recognise. Ken Bentley deserves a lot of credit for making this marbled story come to life so hypnotically, the actors are extremely good (any story being played by actors with the calibre of Honor Blackman and David Warner deserves your attention) and there is a real pace and momentum to the piece, aided no end by Yason and Fox’s blissful musical score. Whilst there are some nice moments for Tegan and Nyssa it’s a story that puts the Doctor centre stage which is a relief because since his TARDIS became overcrowded in the main range again the fifth Doctor has felt a little sidelined. Here Davison gets the chance to take centre stage again and engage with some truly bizarre science fiction concepts. On a basic level this is Doctor Who exploring a society and sifting through its layers until it exposes the rotten core at its heart but with Marc Platt fleshing out the characters and the culture it is much more than that. The scant explanations and sophisticated layering might leave you a little bemused but take care unwrapping this one and you might be surprised at what lies inside. Beguiling: 9/10

Destination Nerva written and directed by Nicholas Briggs

2012-01-14T23:20:00.000-08:00

What’s it about: After saying their goodbyes to Professor Litefoot and Henry Gordon Jago, the Doctor and Leela respond to an alien distress call beamed direct from Victorian England. It is the beginning of a journey that will take them to the newly built Space Dock Nerva… where a long overdue homecoming is expected. A homecoming that could bring about the end of the human race.

Teeth and Curls: I had to be the only curmudgeon in the pack but I really wasn’t terribly excited about Tom Baker joining the fold of audio Doctor’s a getting a range all of his own. When he threw scripts back in Gary Russell’s face and savagely took the piss out of being asked to do some Big Finish adventures and then had to be charmed by Nick Briggs and David Richardson into coming into the fold where the others were happy to do it without such ego stroking my respect for the man went right out the window. Not only that but with the advent of the Paul Magrs BBC audios that were available it didn’t even feel like a special event because the fourth Doctor had already been brought to life on audio. I have to say I went into Destination Nerva with a heavy heart and whilst I would say he captures the spirit of his era with far more success here than in the Hornets/Serpent/etc series’ that the fourth Doctor has never been one of my favourite Doctor’s anyway so even the thought of just having the character back I greeted with little more than a shrug. So whilst I’m sure I will get over my initial disdain for the actor (watching him swearing and bullying everybody in the behind the scenes snippets of his last couple of season of Who didn’t help) I hope the rest of you get far more out of having him back than I do. I am far more excited about Colin Baker’s return with a new companion and Davros this month. Saying all this I’m not actually sure that Tom Baker is a natural audio performer in the same way that Davison, Baker and McGann are anyway…there is something a little stilted about his performance here where he tries to annunciate a word to the nth degree in every sentence. You might say that the Doctor isn’t supposed to be naturalistic and the fourth is the most alien of the lot but I counter that by saying the dialogue has to at least flow – what else have you got on audio? I was also a little confused by how kindly he seemed to be to Leela because the fourth Doctor I remember at this point (and certainly Tom Baker’s performance) was quite vicious towards the character whereas here they really seem to be a team in progress. Are Big Finish going for a ‘this is 1977’ feel or like Colin Baker’s Doctor are they offering us a ‘this is what it could have been like…’

I’m not sure I like the idea of this picking up directly where Talons of Weng-Chiang left off either. Big Finish seems to be determined to fill in any gap in continuity even to the point now of finishing sentences that started at the end of televised adventures! He’s always had a soft spot for Butlers…in fact he once knew a Butler whose name was Butler – the dialogue needs to be smarter than that to capture the 4th Doctor’s acid tongue wit from the 70s. He often finds the mark of a good theory is that it doesn’t make sense. Can you ever imagine this incarnation of the Doctor walking in on an authority figure and saying ‘I’m sorry to interrupt your day…’ No, me neither. He’s said it before but human beings are quite his favourite species…yawn. It was interesting for the Doctor to see Nerva again for the first time so at least somebody enjoyed the story. He could travel in the TARDIS for a billion, billion years and still scratch the surface of eternity.

Noble Savage: Now Louise Jameson on the other hand is a different kettle of fish. She’s a fascinating actress who always has me mesmerised whether she is playing a part (go and listen to her in Pulling Faces, she’s magnificent) or talking about her craft and always seems very humble when discussing her career and glad to have been a part of such a television phenomenon. Louise picked up the character of Leela in the Gallifrey series (and now the Jago & Litefoot series) and ran with it and provided some of the best moments of drama for that spin off and increased the range of the character tenfold (her reaction to the fact that Andred is not dead and has tricked her is still one of my favourite ever audio scenes). Whilst I would have given my right arm to hear Tom Baker and Elisabeth Sladen back together again (but fate has a cruel way of getting in the way) Jameson’s Leela was probably the most interesting companion to have travelled with him so it is a fair compromise.

Leela understands that her words might sound strange but points to the Doctor as the man with the explanations because he is the ‘man of wisdom.’ Leela gets to experience space walking for the first time and her head cannot tell which way is up or down. It’s always nice to see Leela whipping up a revolution and she is determined to take on the entire planet with one ship if she has to. She wants to know why the TARDIS travels through time as well as space and nobody has ever asked that question before.

Great Ideas: The transformation scenes are pretty nasty and are easy to visualise despite this being on audio.

Audio Landscape: Cocking weapons, kudos for getting the TARDIS console noises so spot on, lightning cracking the sky, rain falling and slapping an umbrella, sonic screwdriver, crackly radio, the Nerva Beacon scanning noises are peerlessly genuine, walking on the hull.

Musical Cues: Massive kudos to Jamie Robertson for ditching his usual cinematic style of music and going for something that sounds authentically Dudley Simpson. I have heard people try and pull off his style of music before with disastrous results (remember that dreadful Keff McCulloch score for Shada that was supposed to be aping Simpson?) but this is an orchestral delight with some lovely melodramatic stings. Its enough to make you feel as if you have been transported back to the seventies and are watching this tale in your front room whilst your mam is pouring gravy over your mash and the rain is lashing outside. I could have sworn I heard a xylophone in there somewhere – woohoo! All we needed was a glockenspiel and it would been the perfect synthesis of The Ark in Space and Revenge of the Cybermen! Love the up beat piano theme at the conclusion.

Isn’t it Odd: So let me see…the Doctor and Leela walk into a house where they meet a Butler and can see the carnage of a pitched battle between people and aliens and a star drive suddenly activates and almost disintegrates them and then find themselves on Nerva Beacon. No I’m sorry but I’m not following this at all. Is this being made up as it goes along? It bugs me that we are supposed to understand what Nerva Beacon is without any real explanation from the Doctor or the guest characters – anybody new to classic Doctor Who would come to this story thoroughly confused as to the setting. Is Nick Briggs expecting the audience to be entirely Who fanboys? Possession of a character, space station Nerva and a base under siege – this is more like a greatest hits of the Tom Baker years than a story in its own right. I would have rather they had trusted their audience and gone with something completely revolutionary for their first story rather than all this easing the audience in gently nonsense. What Big Finish should remember is that its the bold, intelligent, unusual stories such as The Holy Terror, The Kingmaker, A Death in the Family and Chimes of Midnight that score highly in the popularity polls and certainly far more than workmanlike stories that are spliced together from elements of classic stories like Destination: Nerva. Episode two progresses and soon you have both Tom Baker and Louise Jameson screaming hysterically – this really isn’t drama you know, its just shouting. What ever happened to the exploration of ideas on audio? There is a fantastic story waiting to be written about the effects of possession (or it might already be called Spare Parts) but in this case it all about reacting rather then discussing and that is the least intelligent approach you can take. Is it simply the case that nobody else wants to write for the fourth Doctor because the first line up seems to consist entirely of the producer and the script editor of the main range and new golden boy John Dorney and BBC Books creative editor Justin Richards? Is this just playing it safe again or did they all want a couple of goes first before letting anybody else play with him? Aside from Dorney whose name always excites me in the schedules it’s a pretty predictable line up. I would have liked to see some new names in there to re-energise the company on this new venture.

Standout Scene: There was a moment at the end of the story where the Doctor and Leela banter for a moment and he promises to teach her some more and leap off into a universe of unpredictable adventures. It’s optimistic and full of potential and almost succeeded in whipping me up in a frenzy. After the workmanlike adventure that has played out it offers a glimmer of hope for The Renaissance Man.

Result: I was shocked at what a non event this was. After a decade of bringing us top-notch audio adventures I was appalled that Big Finish could introduce their supposedly greatest coup (stroking Tom Baker’s ego enough to get him to agree to make a trip to the studios) in such a slapdash story. Destination Nerva fails on practically every count as far as I can see – it’s a confused narrative that is spliced together from other, better stories, the guest characters are one dimensional and vacant, the dialogue lacks sparkle and the jeopardy angle lacks any excitement. Even worse the one reason people will pick this story up so eagerly is the reason it bombs so spectacularly – Tom Baker gives the least convincing performance I have ever heard from him. People might bemoan that the Hornet’s Nest Doctor is a far cry from what we saw on the television but at least that was Baker giving a hearty, menacing performance. The way that Tom Baker inflects some of his dialogue you would think that he was the one that was possessed at the end of part one – some lines fast, some lines slow, some injected with madness, some deep and menacing. It is literally all over the place and needs a much stricter director to whip him into shape. I don’t think even McCoy who was until now the most inconsistent performer has ever been this incoherently schizophrenic in a story. When your main man can’t even say ‘Run!’ convincingly at the cliffhanger you are in trouble. He does settle down a bit in the second episode and at the conclusion seems a lot calmer so lets hope this is first story jitters. Louise Jameson tries gamely to salvage something and she is the one person who escapes this madness with her dignity intact. I think the advent of fourth Doctor’s return will be enough for everybody to give this a pass but if anybody can objectively say this is to the usual standards of Big Finish…well I would say they were wrong: 3/10

Legend of the Cybermen written by Mike Maddox and directed by Nicholas Briggs

2012-01-09T16:49:00.001-08:00

What’s it about: The Cybermen are on the march through the Hundred Realms, killing and converting as they go. Resistance is useless. Trapped on the outermost fringes of the battle, the Doctor and Jamie are astonished to encounter an old friend: astrophysicist Zoe Heriot. It's the happiest of reunions. But what hope is there of a happy ending against the unstoppable Cybermen?

Softer Six: He keeps forgetting that Jamie and he have technically just met and the Highlander doesn’t understand what he means when he says run… He’s not a what he’s a Who! He is a Time Lord and he doesn’t need to be lectured on temporal solecisms by some penny dreadful pedant! Zoe asks the Doctor how he came to look so different and the Doctor begins his explanation by saying it all happened the day they last saw him – if he’s going to tell the entire story of Doctor Who from 1969 through to 1985 I think there should be the audio equivalent of asterisks to show that some time has past! Or better still you can use this as a Wheel in Space style thought scanner excuse to watch all the stories between The War Games and The Twin Dilemma! Getting into the fictional spirit the Doctor says his life is an open book of the Prydonian Chapter. Because he is usually so charming it is easy to forget how one track minded the Doctor can be and he develops an instant dislike of Dracula based on no more than the words that Bram Stoker wrote. There is a history between the Time Lords and Vampires – bad blood you might say but you would think he might be able to put all that aside for what is essentially a fictional creation! Jamie calls the Doctor on how they got the original Master of the Land of Fiction home and he cannot give a satisfactory answer – I’m really glad they didn’t explain that because its ambiguity was what made that story such a fascinating tale. I cannot believe the story tries to sell that the Doctor, Jamie and Zoe had never escaped the Land of Fiction and that everything since has been a dream. Its such an alarming, absurd idea that had they tried to suggest it was real I wouldn’t have known what to think but as it is it is a one minute moment of glorious madness before an even bigger twist crowbars its way in. The Doctor admits that he is no longer running away from the Time Lords, these days it is borderm mostly. Jamie asks what Sarah asked in School Reunion and Jo asked in Death of the Doctor…why did the Doctor not return for him and Zoe? Jamie wonders if the Doctor moves on and forgets about those who have travelled with him but he denies that vehemently. He tries to say sorry but words aren’t appropriate for how the real Jamie McCrimmon was violated.

Who’s the Yahoos: The Doctor tells Jamie that this world is made out of the imagination but not their imaginations but that doesn’t stop Jamie trying to conjure up a bottle of whiskey and a lassie with a cheeky smile! Zoe tries to unlock his memories by given him a data retrieval node but he initially refuses saying that he has read the bible and knows all about young men being tempted by lassies with apples. This whole trilogy has been leading up to the point where Jamie gets his memories back and learns about his previous life with the Doctor and the sequence doesn’t disappoint. The listener is assaulted with a barrage of spine tingling sounds effects from Jamie’s adventures in the TARDIS – Quarks, White Robots firing, the Yeti activation noise… It’s a nostalgia fest! He remembers the horrors but also that he had good friends…Sailor Ben, bean poll Polly, Victoria who was precious like china and Zoe, the clever one. The Doctor was small and scruffy with a funny little gleam in his eye. Its only been a month for Zoe but he has lived a full and fruitful life since they last saw each other and it has been a good life. Making Jamie a fictional character was probably not an result that any of us wanted but its still a hell of a shock. All of a sudden you have to question everything that has happened since this trilogy began and of course Jamie first met the Doctor in Scotland which was part of the Land of Fiction so it all makes perfect sense. But I so wanted them to go off travelling together again at the end. Still even a fictional Jamie is still a great character and he has developed a fine chemistry with the Doctor in this run of stories and it has been great to catch up with Frazer Hines again who gives his all whether the character is real or not. Jamie is violently angry about this revelation because he is finding it hard to accept so many different version of his life – firstly his life with the Doctor and then the fact that he isn’t real. It is rather a lot to take in to be fair. Zoe created this version of Jamie and took away his memories so the Doctor had a mystery to solve so he would stick with him. All those pieces are coming together nicely. The Doctor offers him the post as the Laird of the Land of Fiction but Jamie knows that all he is good for is fighting. They embrace warmly and even though he knows he isn’t the Jamie he knew there is still a connection there.

Brainy Beauty: I got crazy excited when Zoe turned up to save Jamie – listening to this pair together again, one of my personal favourites of the classic series, is an absolute joy. I loved the reference that Jamie has gotten old when its clear that Wendy Padbury’s voice has…matured too. She’s appalled that Jamie thinks he has conjured her up out of his imagination and she certainly doesn’t have any Whiskey secreted about her person thank you very much! Zoe confuses the Doctor for the Artful Dodger and gives him a massive hug. The second big twist is the unshrouding of the Mistress – its Zoe, our Zoe and the one we have been travelling with is an avatar. She has been trying to hold the Cybermen off with stories from her childhood and waiting for the Doctor to find her. It was years later on the Wheel and Zoe was remembering how they had fought the Cybermen together and she went for a medical scan and learnt that she was a two years older than she was a few days ago. She worked it out for herself that she had travelled with the Doctor and had her memories wiped. The Cybermen captured her and decided she would make a good Cyberplanner and when they probed her mind something snapped the mental blocks the Time Lords imposed fell away. With her super brain Zoe conquered the Cybercomputer and brought them somewhere she knew they could do no harm – the Land of Fiction. She plugged her subconscious into the Master Brain and she has been fighting the Cybermen ever since. She gave the characters freewill, made them cunning and unpredictable. The Doctor knows that as soon as she leaves The Land of Fiction Zoe’s memories will shut down again and he lays her back on the Wheel.

Standout Performance: It’s the sort of story where you have to commend actors for throwing themselves wholeheartedly into something truly out of the ordinary and there is no better example than Ian Gelder’s superb Count Dracula. As well as making the speeches about his backstory sound like poetry he also manages to play the part with a great deal of pathos and by the end you are cheering his character on. Listen the way he says Cybermen – its delicious. His conversion is a tragic end for his character but his strength of will invades the Cyberplanners consciousness.

Sparkling Dialogue: ‘How did you do that?’ ‘Magic, obviously.’
‘I’m sure its much easier to send your troops to their deaths when they look like toys!’
‘You’re standing in an enchanted forest looking through a magic window made of fairy dust and you’re telling me something’s odd!’
‘Remember when Grendel’s mother attacked the Cyber Controller…?’
‘None of this is real. It’s all a wonderful children’s adventure which adults adore.’
‘The Cybermen have converted mermaids!’ ‘Oh, that’s just wrong’ – thanks for saying it for me!
‘I think you’ve complicated your plot quite enough!’
‘You’ll never beat McCrimmon yet,
Jamie bellowed at the silver threat,
And once more with battle met,
And vigour undefeated his muscles stretched, his sinews keen,
He slew the half man-half machine!’
‘And I was lost to her again…’

Great Ideas: The White Robots are look a bit more sophisticated since the Doctor last met them and he suspects that the Master of the Land of Fiction has been upgraded too. Odd that because they are exactly the same as The Mind Robber on the inside sleeve! There are some kisses to The Mind Robber as you would expect such scenes of the Doctor and Jamie wandering around the void, lost, and screaming out each others names. It’s a chance for the writer to enjoy bringing to life some of the best fictional characters ever written and the first one the Doctor stumbles across is the Artful Dodger! The Doctor has read Oliver Twist half a dozen times but he doesn’t recall the Dodger saying ‘We may be following a by and large linear narrative but out here continuity is distinctly malleable!’ There’s a magic forest where the fairies live which they use a safe hiding place where you can find the land of Camelot. How awesome is it that the Cyberplanner is located at Dracula’s castle? Every time we cut back to him there is a gothic organ playing and lightning striking like he is some mad scientist plotting for the Cybermen! Apparently Sherlock Holmes was a General but he had his own demons to face. The Cybermen don’t want control of the Land of Fiction, they want the power of the Master Brain which can adjust the thoughts of all mankind and make them like them. At first I wondered how on Earth Mike Maddox was going to pull off such an insane concept as the Cybermen in this imaginative realm but that is actually a rock sold motive to back up all this madness. Bravo! They seek to destroy the human imagination because once that is destroyed humanity itself is destroyed. They would be robbing humanity of the ability to tell stories, to lie or even to exaggerate. The Cybermen had the fortune to convert werewolves…what a horrifying idea! This opened their minds to new kinds of Cyber conversion and they started with the fairies. Oh this is great stuff, absolutely barking.The catacombs have been turned into refinery to extract the blood of the land, ink. Just like the factories in the Scottish landscape and the hold of the Nautilus. The ink is being collected and used the way it would be on the page, to create more fictional characters – bloody genius! Cheekily the Doctor hums Ride of the Valkeries as spirit maidens but the Cybermen have converted their wings and turned them into jet engines. Giant behemoth Cybermen stomp forward to attack. Characters in the Land of Fiction literally bleed blood. It couldn’t have been long before the great white whale Moby Dick reared its head except it has been fitted with portholes and torpedo tubes by the Cybermen! The Nautilus makes a spectacular return with Nemo and Rob Roy on board tying the three stories together even tighter. Zoe describes the Doctor’s adventure to her as ‘psuedo historical to base under siege!’ Cyber fairies attack! The space leeches from City of Spires were the Karkus’ enemies from the Hourly Telepress brought to life. Zoe tried to bring the Doctor to life fictionally by novelising all of their adventures together and she shows the real Doctor her library featuring Doctor Who and the Dominators and Doctor Who and the Krotons. If this story parodies anything else I know to be true I’m going to start wondering if I am real. I love how Jamie and Rob Roy vanquishing the Cybermen is narrated in the form of a good old fashioned Scottish poem and joyfully reality shifts halfway through a stanza and Jamie is left without a rhyme to finish! All the fictional Cybermen are made to disappear when Dracula convinces the Cyberplanner that they never existed in the first place. With the stain of the Cybermen wiped from its pages the Land of Fiction began to grow again becoming something quite different – a wonderland with Alice as its mistress.

Audio Landscape: Prepare yourselves for the audio experience of a lifetime as Nicholas Briggs and Jamie Robertson take you on a surreal adventure through The Land of Fiction! The mechanical grinding of the White Robots, that fantastic alien hum of the void, clockwork ticking, squeaky door, Jamie falling a great height lured on by Zoe’s voice, dripping tap, mechanical Cyber footsteps, the White Robot firing noise, thunder rumbling, the bubbling voice of the Cyber planner, birdsong, fairies tinkling around Jamie, dog barking, unicorn whinnying, trees swaying, bubbling ink making a person, siren, Dracula vanishing in a puff of smoke, bombing raids, spitting, crackling flames, Zoe trapped under rubble, bomb whistling to the ground, explosions, flintlock going off, a spindle radio dish, wolves baying in the distance, running water, crossing a rope bridge, a Cyberman falling down a chasm, ooh an old fashioned internet connection noise, storybook noise, biting wind, knocking on a glass booth, a sea shanty, Karkus teleportation noise, the gigglingly childish Cyber fairies, Cyber mermaids squeaking on the hull of the Nautilus.

Musical Cues: The clockwork soldiers are accompanied by a jaunty marching band tune this time around, a handy audio sign that they are close by. Once all the cards are on the table we are treated to some fantastic music in the second episode – exciting beats when the Cybermen attack, a rousingly heroic theme in Camelot and a dashing fun as Jamie heads on a horse!

Standout Scene: Only Doctor Who could get away with something as utterly bizarre and chilling as the end of episode one. Putting aside the fact that we are walking around in a world where fictional characters can come to life there is the additional threat of the Cybermen who are revealed here as Oliver Twist steps from the mist half converted asking in an electronic buzz ‘please sir, I want some more…’ Its funny, macabre and shocking. I love it.

The story takes a wonderful diversion into bedtime storytelling as each of the characters narrates a little piece of the action in a unique way. Dracula reads the spine chilling words of Bram Stoker’s classic, intersped with scenes of magic fantasy read by Alice – the two stories colliding with the young girl almost murdered when the white rabbit (the Doctor) pops up to tell them both that the Cybermen are playing with their perception of reality! Zoe reads The Secret Fairies, asking if you have a responsible adult to make you a nice glass of synthymilk and giving you the special noise to indicate when to turn the page. Jamie winds up in a audio recording booth at Big Finish Productions with director Nick Briggs giving him instructions on how to proceed with his reading. The Doctor starts talking from the very next booth and prevents Jamie from being taken over by Briggs/the Cyberman! All of this goes somewhere beyond epistemological post modernism and meta fiction into a spiralling descent of unreality but I love it. Its such an imaginative and clever way to tell the story, I was grinning gleefully throughout.

Result: Prepare yourself for the greatest mindfuck fan fiction experience of the century! Every time I thought Legend of the Cybermen couldn’t throw anything more insane at me it always managed to find some other little creative titbit in the darkest recesses of its twisted imagination. Where else will you find Dracula telling to Little Lord Fauntleroy to try and hold Atlantis back from Cyberman invasion? We’ve got gothic Cyberplanners, Moby Dick with torpedo tubes, bedtime storytelling, fictional characters bleeding ink, Cyber converted fairies, and even Nick Briggs making a cameo as himself! Underneath all the creative bluster there is a touching character tale taking place dealing with the aftermath of The War Games and the tragic circumstances surrounding Jamie and Zoe’s departure. We learn that Jamie isn’t real but that isn’t enough, Zoe is revealed as the Mistress of the Land of Fiction and that isn’t enough, characters from the first two stories of the trilogy join the fight and that still isn’t enough…this is a story that keeps giving, twisting, evolving, subverting until I was left tied up in fictional knots and laughing manically all the way. For the chance to hear Colin Baker, Frazer Hines and Wendy Padbury working together it is a treasurable on its own but Legend of the Cybermen also features a cinematic array of audio landscapes, moments that will make you laugh and cry at the same time and a stirring musical score. Its everything this climatic final instalment needed to be and it answers the stack of mysteries very satisfactorily and has a tearjerking final scene. Its completely, mind bogglingly, escaped from an asylum madness and I loved every second of it: 10/10

The Wreck of the Titan written and directed by Barnaby Edwards

2012-01-08T10:17:00.000-08:00

What’s it about: 'It's the biggest ship the world has known – and in just twenty minutes' time it's going to hit an iceberg the size of Ben Nevis!' The North Atlantic is a treacherous place at the best of times. 14 April 1912 is the very worst of times. The Doctor and Jamie find themselves trapped aboard the RMS Titanic, 400 miles off Newfoundland and heading towards a conclusive appointment with destiny. But the iceberg isn't their only problem. Down in the inky depths, something is hunting: something huge, hostile and hungry. This should certainly be A Night To Remember

Softer Six: How sweet that when the Doctor takes Jamie for what appears to be his first proper trip in the TARDIS he wants to make an event out of it and blindfolds him. The Doctor declares that in this time America is quite civilised (and then I’m sure he thinks of Peri when he says ‘for the most part…’). He’s quick to realise that this Titanic is a fake and is quite acidic about assigning the blame. I love how much fastidious detail he can conjour up to blow the charade, he is clearly and extremely well read Time Lord. When his theme park ride theory goes out the window the Doctor admits he is out of ideas. Its rare to hear him say that and even rarer for the sixth Doctor to admit it! The Doctor is convinced that Jamie is resourceful enough to escape the sinking of the Titan but comes to realise that he must be dead. Its uncomfortable to see the sixth Doctor so distraught as he quietly admits that this was supposed to be a treat for him. His admittance that he wanted it to be like the good old days is heartbreaking and in a moment that mixes grief and beauty to profound effect he quotes Hie Away by Sir Walter Scott for his dead friend. Things look bleak as he is hunted by polar bears but the Doctor insists that where there is beauty (the stunning ice landscape) there is hope. His dialogue really is superb in this adventure; he thinks there is no point in being a homo sapient if you aren’t going to exercise the sapient bit! When facing two hungry polar bears the Doctor tries to confuse them with a blood soaked hanky and a jacket. There’s another touching reunion between the Doctor and Jamie where he laughs heartily at the sight of his friend – there is real dramatic mileage in this pairing and it’s a shame it will be over with in the next story. The Doctor claims that TARDIS is impervious to attack by giant squid and says he came close to proving it on one of the moons of Delta Magna. He starts reading some rather florid prose but has to stop before his stomach turned (‘When was this banausic drivel published?’).

Who’s the Yahoos: Jamie wont believe that the TARDIS can travel through time and space until he can see it with his own eyes. With no pretty wee lassie in the TARDIS for Jamie to protect it doesn’t take him five minutes to team up with the prettiest girl around. His Jamieisms are getting better – he mistakes a metaphor for a metal floor and calls the Nautilus a naughty lass! He’s clearly been taking notes from the Doctor in the circumstance of weak women refusing to push themselves hard enough to survive because he goads Myra saying she is a pathetic young girl in order to give her the anger and strength to survive the sinking ship. ‘Oh my goodness! A big sea beastie!’ he cries when he sees the Nautilus.

Standout Performance: I didn’t realise that Tess was being played by Miranda Raison until she transformed into Myra and adopted the same American accent as she used for Tallulah in Daleks in Manhattan! Fortunately I loved her in that story and she is similarly charming and funny in this. Its probably the only instance where I have enjoyed a fake accent more than a real one! I’m a massive fan of Star Trek Deep Space Nine so when I heard that Alexander Siddig was going to take part in this story it only whetted my appetite further. He's quietly menacing and I'm glad we get to hear more of him in the next story.

Sparkling Dialogue: ‘Jamie this is the Titanic. Forty six thousand tons of steel, wood and glass, nine storeys of art noveau splendour, nearly nine hundred feet long and ninety feet wide with a capacity for three and a half thousand passengers and crew! It’s the biggest ship the world has ever known and in just twenty minutes time its going to hit an iceberg the size of Ben Nevis and sink!’ – Colin Baker’s sixth Doctor is made for rousingly descriptive speeches like that.
‘I don’t know how Father Christmas manages it!’ says the Doctor as he shoves derriere up and out of an ice chimney!
‘This is rapidly turning into an episode of The Waltons!’

Great Ideas: The Doctor thinks he has landed on the Queen Mary in May 1946 (indeed he is delighted to inform Jamie of the fact) but his companion can see with his own eyes that it is April 1912 and they are on the Titanic. I’ve always fancied a Doctor Who version of the Titanic tale and this is the closest we are ever going to get. The Doctor thinks this must be some kind of tragedy tourists style of entertainment, re-enactments of famous disasters for paying customers to witness. The first episode works a treat because everything is a little bit askew – you aren’t sure what is going on, who is who or even where the Doctor and Jamie have arrived. Nothing is fixed and that is quite an exciting feeling to have. Barnaby Edwards cleverly shifts the cliffhanger to the first episode from the point of view of a completely different character at the beginning of the second – its so seamlessly done you might not even notice it but it is gorgeous little touch. The Doctor’s next big guess is that they are stuck in a time fissure where time divides into two distinct paths – that would explain the existence of the two ships and their similar fates. You’ve got to give the man a round of applause for trying to give this a plausible explanation – the real one is just out of his grasp and back in his long history. The beginning of episode three sees another neat narrative trick, popping back in time to show how we reach the end of episode two from Jamie’s point of view. That’s really neat. I would love to be able to look out of the observation bubble of the Nautilus and see the underwater world lit up in all its marine glory. The Doctor’s third attempt at a guess is that they are in some kind of mad computer game! Credit for persistent theories, Doc! But then considering the wealth of insane genres he has tiptoed through in his adventures anything is possible!

Audio Landscape: We open with a trumpeting horn from a ship and a stirring score – a sure sign that this is going to be one of the most immersive Big Finish productions. Squeaky doors, the swaying ocean, the party atmosphere aboard the ship, polite clapping, screaming. The ship undergoing a metamorphosis sounds like panel breaking free, wood snapping, glass breaking…absolute chaos. Did they literally cause an iceberg to hit a ship because it sounds absolutely authentic – you can hear the hull of the ship scraping along the ice, windows smashing and huge chunks of ice breaking free and the mast hitting the deck. The ship groans terribly as it turns on its side, Jamie and Myra sliding down the deck, the portholes blowing up, the engine room exploding, the echoing emptiness of the hold, the freezing wind screaming, screaming polar bears, snowy footsteps, an echoing ice chimney. There’s a glorious moment that works so well on audio where John realises that there are two sets of footprints and they stop talking to hear the padding of polar bear footprints very close to them. The bears can be heard growling in your ears as their padded feet run at the travellers. A submarine breaks the water sounding its fog horn and you can hear the ship grinding under the water, causing showers of bubbles. Sonar, wading through water, a champagne cork popping from a bottle, water trickling from the ceiling, banging morse code, sparks spitting from metal as the wall is cut down, bubbling test tubes in the laboratory. You hear the Professor’s escape craft being crushed by the giant squid as he has made off with the ink. Pages flapping in the wind lead to the reveal of where the Doctor has always been. The final terrifying sound is the grinding of the White Robots coming out of the mist!

Musical Cues: Howard Carter is on fire with so many wonderful audio landscapes to score and it might just be the most epic, cinematic soundtrack yet. I love the crashing drama as the Doctor describes the beauty and the fate of the Titanic. As the Doctor scales a mountain of ice you could be forgiven for thinking you are listening to a biblical epic as the music suggests a sweeping ariel shot of his struggles. Nemo couldn’t have asked for a more dramatic entrance, playing some mad gothic theme on a church organ.

Standout Scene: I was riveted throughout the entire sequence with the attacking squid which was twice the size of the Nautilus. As the begin to surface one of squid tentacles can be heard penetrating the hull and flailing wildly in the submarine. Even worse you can hear its tentacles sliding and sucking against the glass in the viewing port before it cracks like an egg and worms its way into the ship. The last scene is fantastic too – it gave me goosebumps the first time I heard it and gave me goosebumps today.

Clues: For part two of this trilogy there are even more clues to lead up the final revelation that kick starts the concluding story. The story opens with a great deal of factual confusion – the Doctor believes they are on board the Queen Mary but they are in fact on the Titanic before a sudden shift in circumstances and then they are on the Titan! Clearly somebody in the Land of Fiction has got their maritime disaster stories jumbled up! Even small details such as the First Officer is wrong at least until the ships change. All the doors on the lower deck open on to nothing almost as if whoever imagined this world didn’t think they would need them. The music and the audience reactions to it plays over and over again as if one song would be enough to convince there were passengers on board. The Nautilus from 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea shows up to rescue the Doctor and that is another whopping great clue as to where they are. Nemo speaks to an unnamed person about ‘the target’ which we know to be the Doctor (as he was rescued by Nemo at the end of episode two) – he must be talking to Zoe, the Mistress of the Land of Fiction. He is intrigued to get a glimpse at the ‘great Doctor’ so Zoe must have spoken very fondly of him. It takes Jamie to ponder whether somebody has read some books and built their own copies of the things in them. That’s one up for the Highlander! Nemo doesn’t want the Doctor to get suspicious as his First Mate has spilt some black ink on his tunic – if the Doctor sees that he would be able to link together that the Highlands from City of Spires and everything that has occurred in this story are taking place in the same location. The Doctor learns that the black liquid is ink milked from the Architeuthidae squid. Come on Doc, put it all together…what could they possibly need all this ink for? The Professor chooses to betray Nemo and his mysterious masters for their enemies who have offered him his freedom – the Cybermen have offered him a way out of the Land of Fiction. Its very satisfying to see the Doctor put everything together – novels that mirror the events that have taken place, anachronistic characters from books…everything that has taken place has been fictional. The Doctor is considered their only hope for survival in this conflict and Jamie is expendable and that gives you a massive clue as to the reality of the Highlander that is revealed in the next story. Interlopers, outsiders who wish to control and own their world – that is how the enemies are described here. Books and ink…the Doctor declares with some horror that they are once again trapped in the Land of Fiction!

Result: Barnaby Edwards has always been an extremely intelligent writer and a cinematic director for Big Finish and here he combines the two to dazzling effect. There are set pieces in this story that are so convincing you don’t even have to shut your eyes to imagine you are there – ships are hitting icebergs and sinking beneath the waves, polar bears are attacking and giant squids are wrapping their oily tentacles around you. To call his direction polished is to do it a disservice, it is avant garde. The script is a powerhouse of literary and factual detail but it also plays some quirky narrative tricks to keep the audience alert and I really like how the story takes time to explore its nautical theme both through intelligent detail and via the senses. Looking at this story in hindsight it takes the hints and whispers from City of Spires and starts playing about with its own unique style of clues and guides you in the right direction ready for the knockout final ten minutes where their location is finally revealed. The Doctor is beautifully characterised throughout with some marvellous dialogue - I didn’t need to hear in the extras that Colin Baker enjoyed this loquacious script because it shines from every word he utters. The Doctor spouts so many theories you can tell he is a seasoned adventurer until the truth finally dawns on him. Its one of those stories I suggest you listen to cuddled up in bed with the lights out and let Edwards take you on a fully immersive adventure on dangerous seas. There are lots of questions to be answered but for now this is an exciting, unpredictable tale with an ending that will leave you desperate to hear the conclusion: 9/10

City of Spires written by Simon Bovey and directed by Nicholas Briggs

2012-01-02T07:18:00.000-08:00

What’s it about: Arriving in a hail of musket fire, the Doctor unexpectedly finds himself in the highlands of Scotland, where the ruthless Black Donald and his band of rebels are fighting the Redcoats. But the highland warriors no longer fight for the Jacobite cause and the English officers answer only to the mysterious Overlord. What has happened to Scotland and why are its moors littered with advanced, oil-pumping technology? Reunited with his faithful companion Jamie McCrimmon, the Doctor must venture into the sinister City of Spires to find the answers. But standing in his way is the deadly Red Cap…

Softer Six: Its rare for the sixth Doctor to be travelling without an assistant, unlike the seventh he seems to only be alone during adventures when he eventually picks up an assistants (The Marian Conspiracy, The Girl Who Waited). Of all the Doctor’s he is the one that needs company the most and enjoys boasting about his many talents! Lonely forays are rare and see him at his most subdued (The Wormery, Davros). Will Guthrie describes him as a French dandy with an English accent! This Doctor calls a spade a spade and when a Jacobite guns down an Englishman in cold blood he reacts angrily to his murder. The Doctor is rather like a Doctor Who companion twofold when he first claps eyes on Jamie. Not only does he remember that the Time Lords stole away his memory and that he has regenerated several times since they last met but he is also giddily excited to see his old friend again. There was a special connection that the Doctor had with Jamie where they knew exactly how the other would react and embraced their companionship – I’m sure the Doctor has missed that. He drinks in the Scottish sunset, having forgotten how beautiful the landscape was. I love how the Doctor claims that the assembled Hordes of Genghis Khan couldn’t breach the TARDIS just as the ninth Doctor does in Rose – I like to think that he keeps that description on standby for every occasion the TARDIS is threatened. He’s become something of a gentleman on audio and leaps to Alice’s defence like a Jane Austen hero but still has time to taunt Redcap as though he is a playground bully. Jamie has a life to lead here now and the Doctor understands that and when he thinks the danger is too great he sends him on his way in a very selfless act. Jamie seriously thinks that the Doctor has a death wish the way he continually throws himself into danger. His hokey northern accent that seems to shift from region to region is great fun – his Geordie is especially gigglesome because I thought I had been transported back to The Mark of the Rani!

Who’s the Yahoos: Isn’t it lovely to hear Frazer Hines’ dulcet tones back in Doctor Who? His faux Scottish accent has a gentle lilt that makes him an easy listen and the return of this incredibly popular character from sixties Who was always going to be a cause for celebration. Re-introducing him as the villainous Black Donald is a fascinating new development since who is to say without the Doctor’s friendship he wouldn’t have gone on to become an infamous murderer. He was certainly quite feral and violent in their first encounter, a loyal protector of Colin McClaren at Culloden. The Doctor remembers his friend as being one of the most alive people he had ever met, full hope and now, despite his protestations, Jamie does trust the Doctor. It seems no matter how much time passes Jamie will always be afraid of the Phantom Piper! Alice suggests that kinship such as that expressed by the Doctor and Jamie takes more than a few days to develop. Giving his track record at falling into trouble Jamie is surprised that they ever managed to get out dangerous situations in the past. He decided a long time ago that he was ready to die for Scotland. It looks like Frazer Hines had the chance to add some of his famous Jamieisms throughout the course of the story – its usually Jamie trying to pronounce the name of something anachronistic very badly. When the Doctor is shot Jamie clucks after him like a mother hen. He had always hoped that when his time came he would go out with a claymore in one hand and a jar of whiskey in the other! I had no doubt that Jamie would jump into the TARDIS at the end of the story. After he had been given so many hints and whispers about his old life with the Doctor how could he resist?

Wee Lassie: Not such a gentle lassie after all as she tackles Will Guthrie after he insults her and aids the Doctor and Jamie’s escape. Jamie tries to be chivalrous when heading back to the Doctor and insists that Alice stays behind but showing her real teeth she refuses to be left behind like some useless girl. She has a journey of her own take as we learn that her husband is a collaborator, an engineer working for the Overlord. The Doctor touchingly suggests the fact the Scotland has become such an industrial landscape proves his love for his wife because their very existence is what keeps her alive.

Standout Performance: I was distinctly unimpressed by Georgia Moffatt’s turn in The Doctor’s Daughter because I was hoping for something a bit more intellectual and sophisticated and instead we got GI Jane, Time Lord style and frankly I think Moffatt would have played the former with much more aplomb. There was something very stiff about her performance there which is strange because her turn as Alice in City of Spires is really rather wonderful. She develops a fantastic rapport with Colin Baker and Frazer Hines and the character is extremely appealing. As the story progressed I kept secretly hoping she would climb into the TARDIS with the two of them even though I knew that wasn’t the case. I just thought my willpower could stretch back through time and influence Bovey and have a run of adventure with this three. Go back and listen to this story again and really focus on the chemistry between the three leads – it could have been great. Kudos to Moffatt for tossing away any resentment I had about The Doctor’s Daughter and giving a genuinely sunny performance.

Sparkling Dialogue: ‘Hello? Whom do I have the dubious pleasure of addressing?’ ‘Oh please don’t say it is going to be one of those sort of calls!’
‘Well well, we meet again, Doctor!’ ‘Oh Major Haywood forced bonhomie I can live with but please spare me that cliché!’

Great Ideas: The villainous Overlord lives in a castle over yonder and has Redcoats and English soldiers as sentries. The Doctor mistakenly thinks that he is an oil baron and sucking the substance from the land. Its like Texas with pump jacks as far you can see and factories greedily guzzling up the black water of the land. The City of Spires is like a future nightmare version of New York, an industrial compound the size of a minor metropolis. Putting aside the consequences for the environment, the damage to the timeline on such a scale is precedented.

Audio Landscape: Horses whinnying, wagons overturned, a screaming crowd, a piercing gunshot, screaming highland winds, it literally sounds like Nicholas Briggs has placed a microphone next to a pitched battle and sneaked away with the recording – its that convincing, a cockerel crowing, screaming cavalry, Redcoat drums sounding as Redcaps soldiers march past, the squeaking pump jacks, Redcaps clomping footsteps, dripping water, Redcap falling over a cliff, fighting in the distance, horse and cart, crackling fire, the bubbling filtration plant, coughing, rebellious cries, the leeches swarming from their host into the Major, the sibilant alien voice of the Hiridin, the Doctor jumping into the black water and swimming away, the Doctor washed down into the overflow pipe, pump jacks burning in the distance.

Musical Cues: The opening cues are highly atmospheric and Andy Hardwick makes gorgeous use of the violin throughout. Playing out on the Scottish Highlands there is a chance for some rowdy bagpipe playing too and the enter the fray poignantly as the Doctor tries to remind Jamie of their first encounter.

Isn’t it Odd: It’s a good thing that the performances, characterisation and direction are so good because not a great deal happens in the first two episodes between the Doctor, Jamie and Alice meeting and the three of them discover the factories. The end of episode tries to relive the first Androzani cliffhanger but doesn’t quite have the same ring of doom to it.

Standout Scene: I’m a soppy sod for nostalgia at times and when the Doctor and Jamie are reunited in episode four and he gave him a massive bear hug I felt as if somebody was giving me a massive fanboy cuddle.

Notes: The Doctor names checks Polly and Ben.

Clues: I’m looking at these adventures in hindsight, having already listened to all three (four if you include Nights Black Agents) and so this time I am on the lookout for the clues that suggest the Doctor has stumbled back into the Land of Fiction. I’ll save the actual discussion of the return to that most illusory of lands for the story in which it is most relevant – Legend of the Cybermen. The Doctor is shocked to discover that he has found himself in the time of the Highlanders because he didn’t think he was anywhere near this time or place. The Doctor mentions the Cybermen which links in with the final story. Redcaps machines suck the blood from the land, the black water which Jamie thinks is the blood of Scotland but rather wonderfully turns out to be ink (the life blood of the Land of Fiction). ‘The Redcoats have finished all of my kind. The blood, the essence, the wellspring of all things is being drained. All we are. All we have become…’ Fake mythic monsters, fake spooks and also Rob Roy! The Doctor’s reaction to what appears to be the perversion of the timeline makes for good drama and the writers doesn’t even need to ‘get out of that one’ because we simply aren’t where the Doctor thinks we are. Anything could happen here, as will be explored in The Wreck of the Titan. Its 1784 in the Highlands but 1884 where the factories, sky scrapers and monorails are. The Doctor slowly starts to figure out how this place works – just as he was seeking to discover what sort of species might want to suck the mineral blood of worlds and the alien reveals that he is working for the Hiridin Corporation. It’s a world that appears to throw together anachronistic elements but will give you a explanation when you try and seek one. Hirudinea are a type of blood sucking leech which the Doctor has heard of and their agent declares that he is well read. Almost as if they had extracted that information from a book and brought it to life. Once he has jumped into the black water the Doctor is perturbed that it doesn’t taste, feel or smell like oil… Jamie wonders where Alice has got to and she turns up immediately – which the Doctor suspiciously thinks is an uncanny co-incidence. They had the Doctor pegged as one of the heroes that had sabotaged many of their corporate divisions in the past – heroes such as we would meet in Legend of the Cybermen. ‘Did she send you?’ asks the corporate leech, suggesting that the Doctor knows who he is talking about because he arrived beyond this land just like her (he’s talking about Zoe, the Mistress of the Land of Fiction). As the salt burns through the leeches the Doctor is still asking questions about the black water, what is in it and who buys it. All in good time, Doc.

Result: An odd story for sure because not a lot seems to take place and yet in hindsight there is an awful lot of building up of the central arc of this trilogy. Which makes this the rarest of stories, one that might seem inconsequential and even a little dull on your first listen but becomes more enjoyable once you know where this story leads. Colin Baker seems more gentle than ever in the title role but I think that has more to do with the return of one of his best friends rather than a weakening of the character itself and I was always very pleased that the Doctor doesn’t know what is going on until very late in the day and even then he doesn’t have all the answers. Mysteries can be held in check as long as satisfying answers turn up eventually. Frazer Hines excels as an older and gruffer Jamie but he still has that touch of Highland charm that made him such a joy in the sixties and he is ably supported by Georgia Moffatt’s marvellous turn as Alice. I really wish she had gone with them at the end. It’s a story that scores highly on atmosphere and the chemistry between the actors but you might find yourself drifting off somewhere in the middle episodes because the story doesn’t want to spill its secrets until episode four which means a great deal of running on the spot (otherwise known as escape/capture/escape). City of Spires is a entertaining piece but perhaps better listened as the first part of a trilogy rather than a story in its own right. Because each story relies on what follows if you take the fourteen parts of the ‘Jamie trilogy’ as a whole Trial of a Time Lord style epic it is far more satisfying than judging the individual elements. As such its probably the best trilogy because it tells a truly ambitious novel with the weakest individual chapters. If that makes sense: 7/10

Deep Space Nine Series One

2011-12-31T01:11:00.000-08:00

Emissary written by Michael Piller and directed by David Carson

What’s it about: Phew that’s a toughie. The Cardassians are out, the Federation is in and a disparate bunch of rejects from a dozen races become our new crew.

Single Father: Watching Sisko desperately trying to get Jennifer free from the rubble in their quarters is heartbreaking. You would think that introducing a character failing to rescue to his wife would be detrimental to the show but it is devastating to watch and makes you feel for Sisko from the off. Thinking forward to Image in the Sand at the beginning of season seven (and I know they made things up as they went along but its astonishing how it all fits together so deliciously) we learn that Sisko’s mum was part prophet so when Opaka says that looking of the Celestial Temple was the journey he was always meant to take its not just a throwaway line. His whole life has been leading to this point. As well as providing an enthralling glimpse at the Prophets the scenes in the wormhole between Sisko and his mothers people these scenes are vital for the character. As he teaches them about humanity’s values they in turn show him how he is not moving on with his life and trapped in the past at the moment of his wife’s death. Its awesome character development for the first episode of the show, we get to see the first time Ben and Jennifer met, when they decided to have children, the birth and her death whilst also exploring his life as a single father afterwards. If all the other wonderful elements hadn’t already convinced me the moment Sisko breaks down finally convinced me I was going to love this show. Its raw emotion and its beautiful to watch.

Tasty Terrorist: Probably my favourite Star Trek character along with Odo and the one who is afforded the most exceptional character growth throughout the series. Even in season one Kira evolves from a woman who cannot leave her past behind to a woman who is looking to the future. Anybody bemoaning that Ensign Ro didn’t make it from TNG (she was a lovely touch of grumpiness in that show) should relax because Nana Visitor brings such presence and charisma to the role of Kira that even at the end of Emissary you’ll be thinking ‘Ensign who?’ It’s so refreshing to hear characters criticising the arrogant and luxurious Federation, Kira is literally appalled that as soon as the Cardassian have been driven out the Federation arrives. It’s an opinion that we would see change over the years as her character develops. Don’t you just want to cheer when Kira plays Russian roulette with Jasad (quoted in full below because it is so awesome). She has some guts and (forgive me) shits all over Troi and Crusher as strong female lead.

Unknown Sample: Despite the fact that in these early episodes he looks like his head has been beaten to a pulp with a mallet, Odo is the series most fascinating character and brought to life by the extremely talented Rene Auberjonois. A man who can change his shape into anything he wants, he doesn’t know where he comes from, who is an outsider and who runs security with an iron fist – what’s not to like? He’s gruff, rude, insulting and rather wonderful. ‘All my life I have been forced to pass myself as one of you, never knowing who I am or wear I came from. Well the answers to some of those questions might be on the other side of that wormhole.’ Be careful what you wish for Odo.

Everyday O’Brien: Colm Meaney is one of the strongest performers on TNG and O’Brien the one character with the most untapped potential so it was a stroke of genius to transfer him to the station. Suddenly O’Brien gains real focus and throughout the seven years on DS9 we get to see the ebb and flow of his marriage as he juggles his personal life and the struggles on the station. In any other show that would be expected but it is so rare to see that sort of character progression in Star Trek and whilst there will be highs (Accession) and lows (Fascination) it’s a very worthy and absorbing ride, adding more depth and realism to the show. Imagine how dull it must have been standing around in that transporter room day after day…transferring to DS9 must be like a slap in the face to O’Brien! Somehow he makes all that technobabble bearable because he has such entertaining bitch fights with the bossy computer! Their fractious relationship starts here… ‘Computer…you and I need to have a little talk…’

Rules of Acquisition: Another gift to the Star Trek universe is the depth that Deep Space Nine gave to the Ferengi. What had we seen of them before this? A really bad attempt to make them the new big bad and then hideously unfunny comedy stooges (Captain’s Holiday). With Armin Shimerman, Max Grodenchik and Aron Eisenberg on board you have three actors committed to making this race work within this setting. It’s astonishing what they achieve together and their chemistry is extremely palatable and it doesn’t take long (I would say by season three) before they are the most likable and lovable family in the Star Trek universe. Quark is a brilliant character – they get him about as right as Voyager got Neelix wrong. He’s devious, selfish, perverse and hugely critical of anybody who isn’t a Ferengi and Shimerman always plays him with a twinkle in his eye and a smile in his heart. He gets the best moment at the end of the episode when he slyly puts his hand on Kira’s thigh and nearly gets it bitten off!

Eight Lifetimes: Considering she would become such a vital character from the next season onwards it is Dax that I find the hardest to get a handle on in the pilot. As far as I remember Terry Farrell was the last of the regular cast to be offered the job and some of the pilot was already shot at that point. It shows because she clearly is trying to grasp at anything at this early stage and seems remarkably restrained compared the good time girl in later years. It’s wonderful to be able to see the transference of the symbiont from Curzon to Jadzia. It’s a relationship that will be explored in some depth later in the series.

GE Doctor: Bless Bashir in these first few seasons. In all honesty they didn’t quite get his character right until season three but in retrospect when you learn his big secret it kind of makes sense of his bumbling attitude at first. His chief characteristic this season seems to be to bed Dax so at least he’s not completely daft. Kira’s admonishment of his dewey eyed Federation superiority is lovely.

Young Sisko: Like a lot of things in Deep Space Nine the creators looked at the mistakes they had made in the past and decided to have another shot and get it right. Jake works because of the strength of the chemistry between Cirroc Lofton and Avery Brooks and thanks to some strong writing he is a very likable child character. In Star Trek terms that is what we call a miracle. When he gets too whiny about the state of the station his father takes the piss out of him which is exactly what everybody should have done with Wesley all the time.

Sparkling Dialogue: ‘I thought I’d say hello first and then take the office’ ‘Hello’
‘When governments fall people like me are lined up and shot.’
‘D’you know at first I didn’t think I was going to like him.’
‘My mother warned me to watch out for junior officers’ ‘You mother is going to adore me!’
‘I love the Bajorans, such a deeply spiritual people…but they make a dreadful ale.’
‘You can make yourself useful by bringing your Federation medicine to the natives. Oh you’ll find them a friendly, simply folk.’
‘You exist here.’
‘You’re probably right Jasad and if you were dealing with a Starfleet officer they would probably admit we have a hopeless cause here. But I am just a Bajoran whose been fighting a hopeless cause against the Cardassians all her life so if you want a war, I’ll give you one.’
‘Bloody Cardassians! I’ve just got the damn things fixed!’
‘If you don’t take that hand of my hip you’ll never be able to raise a glass with it again.’

The Good: Can we say getting off on the right foot? I think so! The pre titles sequence is like nothing we have ever seen in Star Trek before. Well I say that of course we have seen the results of Wolf 359 but this takes us right into the thick of the action that we were denied in The Best of Both Worlds Part II. What jumps out about this series straight away is how close it allows us to get to its characters and how dark the tone is. Whilst the teaser sports some incredible special effects (I fainted when I heard what the budget was for this premiere) what’s really important is that it makes this fight scene personal. A man desperately tries to save his wife but fails and just about gets his son to safety before the ship blows up and Jake loses his mother. That turns out to be our new protagonist for the show and straight away we feel for the man and there is a fascinating backstory to exploit. Its still one of the best openings to any Star Trek episode, a violent upheaval from the lily-white tone of The Next Generation. And its great to see Locutus again. By giving depth to Wolf 359 Deep Space Nine finds its groove and its mission statement – giving some depth to the Star Trek universe. The shot of the ship blowing up reflecting against the glass of Sisko staring out at it is one of the most emotive special effects in the pilot. Much more so than the Enterprise Deep Space Nine feels like a character in itself with its distinctive, functional and yet somehow beautiful exterior and the gorgeous array of sets inside. Visually this is the most original and idiosyncratic of Star Trek shows and everything from the multi level Operations (under lit to give it some atmosphere), Quarks Bar (which is teeming with life) and the Promenade (which is my all time favourite Star Trek set) give the show a real visual hook. But more on that as we progress with the series. The comparison with the shiny handed-on-a-plate-luxury of the Enterprise the station is grim, broken, rubble strewn with weary faces walking the Promenade. It makes the show something worth investing in because we get to see them pulling the place together. Head forward to season four/five and DS9 is a gorgeous way station and a hub of activity in the sector. Just as an example of how the characters develop in this show our very first scene sees Nog as a petty thief and his last scene in the series he is being put forward for the position of Lieutenant in Starfleet. The Bajoran matte painting complete with temples, gardens and pools is a stunning planetary surface. Love the gorgeous location work on the beach – those American shorelines shit all over our British ones! The Bajoran spiritualism gives Trek a whole new angle and more layers to unpeel about this fascinating society.
The idea that the Orbs that can take you back to a moment in your past allows for some nice visuals and emotive storytelling. Look at the amount of aliens on display when Quark’s Bar opens – Star Wars Cantina eat your heart out! Interesting that Deep Space Nine seems to consist of all the alien races that haven’t really been given the time of day by TNG – the Trill, Ferengi, Cardassians and the Bajorans! So many staples of the show are introduced in the first few episodes; Dukat, Garak, Nog, the Prophets, the Wormhole – it just goes to show how right they got it from the off. Marc Alaimo has such presence I can see why they kept bringing him back. What an insidious bunch, closing the bar and using Odo as a bag for winnings to sneak onto the Cardassian ship – I think this bunch are going to do fine. I’m glad they left it out of the titles sequence because the wormhole bursting open is a great shock. You have no idea what is happening when the landscape inside the wormhole switches from a rock face to an idyllic garden before the Orb flies at our heroes and the ground cracks up with light but it is gorgeously filmed and enchanting to watch unfold. Its not often that I will say a scene in Star Trek is like a work of art but the amount of time and effort that has gone into editing together the scenes in the Wormhole has to be acknowledged. The scenes flow beautifully, are visually stunning and reinforce the exploration of humanity that Star Trek exemplifies. It’s extraordinarily good. Wowza, they blow the shit out of the Promenade and we see screaming bloody victims – we have never seen anything like this before.

The Bad: The scene where Sisko and Picard meet reveals the one advantage TNG has over DS9: Patrick Stewart. He manages to convey with a simple look more than Avery Brooks does with the entire scene. One harmful aspect of the first two years is how pathetic those little runabouts are. The series kicked ass when the Defiant rocked up at the station. Dax only seems to speak technobabble and I need a translator.

Myth Building: The end of the Cardassian Occupation of Bajor leaves the planet in a precarious state and in steps the Federation to help to facilitate their problems. The Wormhole is introduced and contains the Prophets which the Bajoran people worship. Whilst it would fluctuate throughout the series the Cardassians are definitely the biggest badasses of the first series (later it would be the Klingons, the Dominion…and then the Cardassians again!).

Orchestra: I love the piano score as Sisko explains about linear time through baseball.

Foreboding: Kira talks about the government falling and the planet falling into civil war and it’s nice to see that followed up in the opening three parter of series two.

Result: Exciting, unpredictable with a highly engaging new cast of characters and a welcome touch of dirt to the Star Trek universe, Emissary barely gets a step wrong. Visually the story is a feast for the eyes with some atmospheric new sets, exciting action sequences and a masterpiece of editing for the astonishing sequences set inside the wormhole. I remember when I first watched Emissary and I was completely blown away by the scale of the story, the rawness of the emotion and the gorgeous look of the piece. I had never seen anything like it in Star Trek before and it felt like someone had taken all my complaints about TNG and ironed them out into a much darker, classier show. Plus the show gets to have its cake and eating it by having Sisko and Dax discover the wormhole to the Gamma Quadrant this series gets to enjoy a stationary space opera and a whole new area of space to explore! This is a show that isn’t afraid to pull a mirror on humanity’s weaknesses, that handles religion and space opera with equal aplomb and Emissary kick starts seven incredible years of mythos building and outstanding character drama: 10/10

Past Prologue written by Katharyn Powers and directed by Winrich Kolbe

What’s it about: A Bajoran terrorist seeks asylum on DS9 and has a plan up his sleeve to get rid of the Federation for good…

Single Father: Wowza, what fiery exchanges between Sisko and Kira in this story. This is one relationship that is going to take a while to settle down. Its nice to see that Sisko can chew out his staff with the best of them – I certainly would not want to get on the wrong side of this guy. The look between Kira and Sisko at the end of the episode speaks volumes and shows how strong these characters already are that we can get inside their heads so vividly.

Tasty Terrorist: The wounds of the Occupation are still very much open and she spits out her disgust at the Cardassian ship firing at Tahna’s scout ship. Everything about Kira is severe in this episode; her attitude, her dialogue, even down to aesthetics like her uniform and hair. As soon as Kira goes over Sisko’s head and contacts Starfleet I was thinking ‘you’re in big trouble now…’ Kira sees the Federation as a means to an end, nothing more and that’s a refreshing viewpoint. To be fair to Tahna when he tells Kira that once she gets into her comfortable bed with the Federation she wont be able to get out he is right. Its great to see the character so conflicted between what she perceives to be her duty to her world and her allegiance to their new allies. It wont be the last time this season Kira is placed in an uncomfortable situation like this. Even though she has had nightmares about some of the terrible things she did as a terrorist at least she new who her enemy was then.

Unknown Sample: Odo’s gruff exterior makes his tenderness with Kira all the more touching. They share a quiet conversation about all her doubts and then he makes her mind up for you. Its lovely character moments like this that really elevates this show.

GE Doctor: Poor Bashir, he hops around Ops with his exciting news about Garak and nobody seems to give a damn! He’s hopelessly naïve at this point but its rather fun and this pairing would mine a rich seam of characterisation. O’Brien can barely look at him when he starts gabbling about Federation medical secrets. He’s not very good at this subterfuge lark, actually trying out the suit jacket!

Plain and Simple: Garak makes an immediate impression and would continue to thrive as the series goes through its many phases of development. A simple tailor who (possibly) used to work for the Cardassian Obsidian Order and is (potentially) stationed on DS9 as a spy for his people. That’s a golden character spec. His first scene with Bashir is unforgettable, he is so charmingly camp it seems as though he is almost coming on to the poor chap and later only Garak would dare to offer silk lingerie to a Klingon woman! What’s interesting about the scenes between Garak and the Duras sisters is how much more appealing this fresh Cardassian character is compared to the old TNG stalwarts. It shows great promise for future semi-regular roles in the series.

Sparkling Dialogue: ‘I’m so glad to have made such an interesting new friend today.’
‘Go over my head again and I’ll have yours on a platter!’

The Good: There is something about the fixed location of DS9 that means I don’t really mind when they have bottle shows. When TNG and VOY do all on the ship shows it feels like an exercise in budget saving because their mission statements are to constantly move on and see what’s out there but with DS9 a station bound story feels like a bonus. Its an instant example that Sisko and his Federation officers cannot simply walk away from the problems they face in Bajoran space like the spaceship set series can. The Bajoran/Cardassian conflict is here to stay and its wonderful to see a Star Trek show tackle that sort of long term problem. It’s great to see a franchise that is seen as bland and as toothless as Star Trek handling a weighty theme like repatriating terrorists. Clearly this show means business. O’Brien’s quiet exchange about the Cardassians with Sisko in Ops shows the benefit of having such distinct personalities on board. I love all the nonsense about Bashir buying a new suit, its exactly Garak’s style to lure the young Doctor into his shop with such an obvious and irreverent cover story. The plotlines dovetail beautifully towards the climax with the reason for the Cardassians pursuing Tahna and the purpose of the Duras sisters coming together to form a gripping terror plot to destroy the wormhole and ensure Bajoran independence. Nice to see there is plenty of room in a Runabout for a good punch up (although I don’t like seeing a woman getting smacked in the face so violently!).

The Bad: Whilst it isn’t unpleasant to see Lursa and B’tor on DS9, it still feels like a ploy to bring TNG fans over to give the new show a chance. With Q, Vash and Mrs Troi still to turn up in season one DS9 is playing it safe before forging its own unique identity. How comes Odo can change himself into something as small as a rat? Where does the rest of him go?

Myth Building: The Kohn’ma are an extremist Bajoran terrorist group that even the Provisional Government were refusing to repatriate.

Result: Highlighting Kira’s character proves that she is one to watch and considering the little screen time she has had the character is already developing significantly. Past Prologue is a strong episode on two counts, introducing Garak and for exploring meatier themes than they would usually touch on TNG. Andrew Robinson is a delight as the Cardassian tailor, like no character we have ever seen before and it came as a surprise that it took an entire year before we saw him again. The uneasy alliance between the Bajorans and the Federation is encapsulated in Kira and Sisko and their tasty conflict makes for a refreshing change from the usual touchy feely relationships seen on Trek shows. Whilst there are a fair few stumbles in the first season of DS9 this gripping little thriller shows no signs of a show in its infancy. Engaging political drama would turn out to be one of the series strengths: 8/10

A Man Alone written by Gerald Sanford & Michael Piller and directed by Paul Lynch

What’s it about: Odo is framed for murder by a criminal he once put away…

Single Father: This episode juggles a plethora of subplots that make the overall experience more palatable. Sisko’s new friendship with Dax is spoken about and his awkward dinnertime conversation with Bashir puts to rest any fears that he might have feelings about her. This is a very different Sisko to the one who has to juggle up a hundred problems in later season – he preaches to Odo about playing by the rules but in later seasons he goes on a manhunt, frames an entire species and starts a full scale war. Nice to see Sisko taking a different lead from Picard and happily socialising with his crew.

Unknown Sample: Odo has never seen the need to ‘couple’ but by the end of the seven-year run he would be quite the expert. I would love to be able to argue with his disparaging assessment of a night in with the other half but anybody in a relationship would recognise what he is saying. His creed is laws change depending on the administration but justice is justice. Whilst Sisko would come to admire and respect Odo’s unique approach to law enforcement his unwillingness to be a team player would be brought up several times in later episodes. Its here that we learn that Odo hangs out in a pail at the back of his office when regenerating. There is something tragic about Odo feeling so detached from humanoid life and makes his eventual integration all the more satisfying.

Community Leader: Business is doing well and he’s (almost) making an honest living. Quark practically salivates at the sight of Dax so her number of admirers is growing by the day. When told he is Odo’s worst enemy he bites back with that is the closest thing Odo has to a friend. I love this partnership and there are so many touches of loyalty and (dare I say it) friendship between the two rivals throughout the seven years. It’s an engaging love hate relationship played by two actors that adore each other. Quark’s reaction when Odo asks if he needs a shape shifter in his organisation is priceless; he doesn’t know which way to jump!

GE Doctor: Bashir is persistently trying to sneak his way into Dax’s knickers (and to give him his credit by the end of the season he would succeed albeit in a product of his own imagination).

Nine Lives: Dax seems to suggest that Trill’s are above sexual needs but that really jars with the good time girl that beds the most frigid Klingon in town of later years!

The O’Briens: Our first glimpse at the problems besetting Miles and Keiko and their move from the gleaming corridors of the Enterprise to the Station. Keiko does whine a little too much but anybody who has suffered a massive upheaval in their life and had to try and find a way to settle in will recognise what she is going through. I really like the scene with Keiko trying to convince Rom to send Nog to the school (and succeeding), its great to see another neglected TNG character given rare focus.

Young Friends: Another fine pairing is set up in this episode although perhaps not in the smartest of ways. Jake & Nog would turn out to be one of the most vital explorations of opposing cultures in the series, a Ferengi and human that share a bond of friendship that transcends their race.

The Good: The school is a great idea, seeing this environment turning into a community and giving Keiko a solid role in the series. I love how nothing is forgotten in this series. In the first episode Kira suggested civil war was inevitable and it is followed up in The Homecoming. In A Man Alone Sisko mentions that Keiko opening the school will be a challenge because the children all come from different cultures which is dealt with superbly in the series finale. Hana Hatae is the cutest thing on two legs as Molly.

The Bad: The murder scene itself isn’t very excitingly directed – Alfred Hitchcock would be appalled by the lack of atmospherics (plus I cannot think of anything more skin crawling than having a massage by the web fingered alien). The sequence with the Bolites is a rare example of DS9 going for the comic jugular and failing. DS9 is exactly the sort of place where a mob could easily gather but these scenes fail to convince mostly because the Bajorans are portrayed as weak willed bullies and Sisko’s touchy feeling approach to breaking it up lacks any kind of punch. I’d have had the whole lot of them confined to a security cell for a week. The solution to the mystery is a mouthful of technobabble and nobody acts terribly surprised. In true Scooby Doo fashion that killer is hiding under a rubber mask.

Result: A murder mystery without any mystery, A Man Alone is a tired episode which only comes alive when focusing on the developing dynamics between the characters. Odo is so clearly the target of Ibudan’s murder and the effortless way hatred is stirred up against him forces the plot to ignore the idea that there could be any other suspects and then the wrap up is as contrived as it comes with a twist that hasn’t even been hinted at. Fortunately there are an abundance of scenes that see character pairings come together (Jake & Nog, Sisko & Dax, Odo & Quark) and an enjoyable subplot that sees Keiko finding her place on the station. DS9 has a higher hit rate than most in providing an enjoyable b plot when the main storyline fails to engage (especially in series two and three) but that still doesn’t excuse the bulk of the episode falling below par. You expect a few stumbles when a show begins and this one is average but not too offensive: 5/10

Babel written by Michael McGreevey & Naren Shankar and directed by Paul Lynch

What’s it about: A virus that makes the station personnel talk nonsense. No seriously.

Single Father: Sisko’s quiet approach to command is pretty dull in this episode and he only registers when he shows concern towards his son being infected. Compare him to the firecracker in season four and you can see how this subdued approach wasn’t the best way to kick off the show for Sisko.

Everyday Engineer: In a couple of minutes footage we get to see just how hard O’Brien is working his butt off to try and keep the Station running. I wonder if he has daydreams about hanging out in the transporter room back on the Enterprise? What I love about his character is that even when he is in a grumpy bastard of a mood he is still written and played with a great deal of humour. Colm Meaney is a likable guy and as such so is O’Brien. His first slip of aphasic language is an odd moment. He tells Sisko that Keiko is fond of Jake but because Sisko questions this it almost seems as if he has said something improper. I’d love to know what O’Brien said to Kira when she joked about the broken turbolift (I bet it was full of swear words!)

Unknown Sample: Quark is such a crafty character its no surprise that Odo sees through his sudden luck at having his replicator fixed. Its interesting to see that once he is taken out of comfort zone of security and has a station full of lives on his hands he almost falls to pieces.

Community Leader: In the space of one episode Quark has gone from doing fantastic business to it being practically non-existent with Odo commenting on both. I guess that’s the way it goes in the hospitality industry. Security verification never seems to be a problem for this Ferengi; he just pulls out his isolinear rods and gets snooping. He lures Dax through his door with a double whipped Idanian spiced pudding. The scene where he is making sure his less fortunate customers aren’t faking the illness to prevent paying their bar bills is hilarious – Quark really is a wonderful scene stealing character. Look at him swaggering into Ops and offering his help to Odo, he is loving this (and his ‘I must have witnessed the procedure hundreds of times’ is great).

Sparkling Dialogue: ‘Rom’s an idiot, he couldn’t fix a straw if it was bent.’
‘You. Gold. Owe. Me!’
‘Bread the arrive seen earlier!’

Dreadful Dialogue: ‘I’m holding you personally responsible if anything turns up missing’ – Odo developing his use of the oxymoron.

The Good: Straight off we visit a cargo bay, Ops, a science laboratory and a corridor – this really does feel like a large, working area teeming with activity. It’s only a small detail but I love the shot of the fluids running through the circuitry. DS9 really knows how to stage action and the gripping final set pieces is all flames, smoke and explosions.

The Bad: Colm Meaney gives all he’s got to make his nonsense speak as funny as possible (and I did laugh at ‘Simple hesitation!’) but really, this script and premise would be thrown in the trash in a few seasons time. Its one of the early DS9 episodes that is trying out a TNG premise to see if this sort of thing will work. There will be a couple of other examples as we work our way through the first season (Move Along Home, If Wishes Were Horses & Dramatis Personae) but they would soon peter off as DS9 develops its own identity. The fella playing Jarheel is able to send you to sleep with his relaxed delivery. Even DS9 isn’t above having a duff punchline at the end of the episode but at least Colm Meaney has the guts to look embarrassed by it!

Moment To Watch Out For: There is a pan across the Promenade that ends on Jake where you can see that the upper level is unfinished. The producers did not have the budget to have a two storey set like this in the shows first season and it is interesting to see it displayed here so bold facedly. In the next season both sides of the Promenade are walkways with shops and lifts and lots of activity.

Orchestra: The music is really exciting in the finale as Odo struggles to explode the mooring clamps in a race against time sequence.

Result: Imagine if the crew had been wiped out by the aphasic virus? What an embarrassing way to end the series! Babel proves again that DS9 has better luck at dishing out these naff Star Trek premises because its core of characters is strong enough to provide some entertainment when the plot fails to do so. You’ve got Odo panicking when the Station is his responsibility, Quark causing a whole lot of trouble but redeeming himself by coming through when the crisis needs him and Kira providing her own unique solution to curing the virus by infecting the man who created it. So now we’ve done the virus and the murder mystery plots, can we get on with something more interesting now? Disposable but fairly watchable especially in the thrilling final ten minutes: 5/10

Captive Pursuit written by Jill Sherman Donner & Michael Piller and directed by Corey Allen

What’s it about: O'Brien befriends an alien involved in a deadly hunt…

Single Father: Nice to see Sisko bearing his teeth again after a couple of episodes of fannying about. He tears into the alien hunter with real gusto and then chews out O’Brien in the sparkling final scene that shows that he can at least think outside of the dull Starfleet box. ‘Another stunt like that and your wife wont have to complain about the conditions here anymore!’ – phew, go Sisko!

Everyday Engineer: Frankly even if O’Brien wasn’t the engineer I would still send him on his own to go an meet the first new species from the Gamma Quadrant, he’s so damn down to Earth! When he walks along the Promenade O’Brien thinks he is living in the flea market of the sector. It’s in his nature to take the piss out of people and Tosk is the most natural straight man he has met in ages so it is doubly irresistible. I love how O’Brien talks right over Bashir when he tries to help, their relationship would be very different when they get to know each other. O’Briens dilemma is touching played by Colm Meaney and its all the more convincing because he clearly has a great respect for the Prime Directive but his feelings towards Tosk are even stronger. The way he bends the rules to allow him to free Tosk and satisfy Starfleet conduct of non-interference is inspired. I have to admit when the smoking bodies started piling up I was thinking how the hell is O’Brien going to talk his way out of this one?

Community Leader: Quark continues to be the black sheep of the Star Trek universe, this time demanding sexual favours from his employees! He offers Tosk an adventure in the holosuite full of excitement and sex! The scene between O’Brien and Quark once again shows what a bright idea it was to place so emphasis on the bar and its Ferengi owner, it gives the show some real colour.

Sparkling Dialogue: ‘Piece of cake. Ram Scoop. Abernauts.’
‘You sleep a full third of your rotation, you rest and relax when you are awake…Alpha Quadrant has far too much down time.’
‘Die with honour, O’Brien.’

The Good: This is the first of two very impressive alien characters that Scott McDonald would play in DS9 (the second being in the superior Rocks & Shoals from series six). His performance is wonderfully nuanced with tiny movements of the head and body to suggest his dissociation from his natural habitat and his wonder at the new environment he has found himself in. There are lots of little moments like how he recoils when the computer talks to him, looks in awe at Quark and stares agog into the drink put in front of him. The make up is phenomenal too with his reptilian features stretching down his neck and into his costume with lots of tiny segmented pieces adding to overall effect of the mask. Everything about these new aliens feels fresh from their ability to turn invisible, their striking scanning beams and their incredibly destructive weaponry (and they can catch phaser beams in their arms and redistribute the energy, how awesome is that?).
To show just how alien these creatures are the most humiliating thing that could possibly happen to Tosk is that he can be captured and taken home alive. The episode skilfully builds Tosk up as a potential threat and before revealing he is the ultimate victim. How embarrassing to be dragged through a public place wearing a collar! Odo’s gentle stroll back to the security office to stop Tosk is a lovely touch that only DS9 could pull off this well. You’ve got aliens flying off the top level of the Promenade, scanners tearing through bulkheads, explosions and slaughter in the corridors – it’s a very satisfying conclusion.

The Bad: This might feel like a random observation but it is something about Star Trek that gets on my nerves. I hate it when the direction of a show points to a plot twist before it has even happened and there is an example in Captive Pursuit that happens all the time across all of the Star Trek shows. Whenever there is a camera angle that features a character to one side of the screen and there is a huge amount of space to the other side of them you know that something is about to appear. It happened in Encounter at Farpoint when Q appeared behind Picard and it happens here when Tosh appears behind O’Brien. I know it’s a small thing to complain about but stories should not be this visually predictable.

Moment To Watch Out For: As DS9 was pitched as something like a western town in space with a Sheriff’s office (the Security office), bar (Quark’s) and church (the Temple) its great to see a proper western stand off in this episode where the Federation and the aliens walk towards each other on the dusty streets (the Promenade). To add to the feel the gunplay is genuinely impressive and the security doors are literally blown to pieces!

Myth Building: 300 people live on the station, more or less. In the future passage through the wormhole will be considered out of bounds for the hunt.

Orchestra: The music in the early seasons of DS9 is adequate with only a few episodes with standout examples. It would from series four onwards that the various composer really up their game and provide some very memorable music. I do like the quirky score as Tosk explores the station and the action scenes are giving some weight with a pulse pounding score in this episode.

Result: Something unknown, mysterious and exciting comes through the wormhole – this is more like it! Captive Pursuit is a fine piece of writing which offers an intriguing mystery and an exciting resolution with plenty opportunities for action and a touching spotlight on O’Brien. The first half of the episode slowly builds up the relationship between O’Brien and Tosk before the rest of his people arrive to hunt him down and the pyrotechnics begin! Corey Allen provides some fine action sequences that really have some punch and yet still keeps the focus on the central relationship climaxing in a very sweet ending that sees O’Brien defy authority to help his friend escape. I really love that the tear jerking conclusion works through nothing but retrained performances and that Tosk manages to remain an alien character throughout (had this been TNG he would have been happily humanised by the conclusion). Well paced with some dynamic sequences and DS9’s own brand of exceptional character work, Captive Pursuit gets two thumbs up from me: 9/10

Q-Less written by Robert Hewitt Wolfe and directed by Paul Lynch

What’s it about: Vash returns from the Gamma Quadrant and she has a certain omnipotent lifeform in tow…

To Baldly Go: Q asks Sisko in one of many hilarious scenes ‘is Starfleet penalising you or did you actually request such a dismal command?’ He was hoping for a little witty repartee but obviously he has come to the wrong place. Sisko is absolutely terrifying when he realises his crew have all been whisked away; I hope we see more of this anger as the show progresses. ‘I’m not Picard!’ Sisko cries. Indeed not, he doesn’t look half as hot in wrestling gear. Looks like Q has hit a sore point when he pokes a finger in the wound by criticising the fact that Sisko isn’t running a Starship.

Community Leader: So far Quark has slipped a sly hand on Kira’s thigh, tempted Dax through his door with a double whipped Idanian Spice Pudding and demanded sexual favours from one of his employees and now he is enjoying a good wank from Vash! Is this the horniest character in all of Star Trek? When Q bids the impossible amount of a million bars of gold pressed platinum Quark begins masturbating himself! Quarks ‘select clientele’ are all ridiculously wealthy and not too bright. When Vash starts lecturing the bidders on the historical context of each artefact it gives Quark a chance to step in and do what he does best, whip up an atmosphere of profit.

GE Doctor: And Bashir is just a heartbeat away from Quark, attempting to woo Vash and romancing a cute Bajoran woman with stories of his Starfleet medical finals! He surely has the sleaziest one-liners in the history of Trek trying everything from ‘its sure to be a bestseller round here’ to ‘your excellent health has robbed me of any excuses to drop by.’ Q appears behind Bashir as he tries to charm Vash and starts making faces which is pretty much what we would all like to do! ‘My God you’re impertinent waiter!’ says Bashir in what is probably the most demeaning line spoken by any Star Trek character. Q gives the female population of DS9 time to rest by sending Bashir to sleep for a few days.

Sparkling Dialogue: ‘And they weren’t exactly thrilled to see you on Brax. What did they call you, the God of Lies?’ ‘They meant it affectionately.’
‘The galaxy can be a dangerous place when you’re on your own.’
‘Picard and his lackeys would have solved all this technobabble hours ago!’
‘I’d keep my eye on this one, chances are she’s after your job.’
‘Quark, you obsequious toad!’

The Good: If you are going to bring in characters from TNG you may as well have some fun with continuity. We never hear anything particularly pleasant about the Daystrome Institute, do we? It sounds like a bunch of petty bureaucrats rather than scientists and archaeologists. Captain Picard’s dirty laundry gets aired in public (‘the Captain likes a good challenge, sir.’). It’s great to have some follow up to the frankly dismal TNG episode Q-Pid and for Jennifer Hetrick and John de Lancie to have some fun sparking off each other. The make up team once again prove they are the best in the business when Q forces the stages of a degenerating disease to show Vash that she would be dead without him. The shot of the hand with six fingers is delightfully silly. There’s something very sweet about Q telling Vash that through her eyes he was able to see the universe with a sense of wonder.

The Bad: What a shame that we have to keep cutting back to Ops and the dull subplot about the station being sucked into the wormhole. The ending is precisely like that of Encounter at Farpoint but at least we don’t have counsellor Troi driving home the appalling sentiment of the moment.

Moment To Watch Out For: Q turns Quarks into a rowdy boxing ring in a very funny sequence that sees Sisko knock two tons of shit out of him. The outtakes of this sequence are as riotous as the scene itself.

Myth Building: Vash has been exploring the Gamma Quadrant with Q for a couple of years but decided enough was enough.

Foreboding: Q mentions that there is still the Delta Quadrant to explore and sooner or later he would be hounding Janeway’s footsteps when she is lost in that region of space.

Result: It’s not in the league of best Q episodes (the honours go to Q Who, Deja Q, Tapestry and Death Wish) and it certainly isn’t amongst the worst (Hide & Q, Q-Pid, The Q and the Grey and Q2), Q-Less is a disposable but occasionally very funny and enjoyable episode. John de Lancie is a delight as ever poking fun at all the foibles of the newly staffed station and its nice to finally see Jennifer Hatrick in a halfway decent episode that doesn’t involve Sherwood Forest or ridiculously characterised Ferengi’s. What I really enjoy about this episode is how it reaffirms this show as being the black sheep of the family with characters allowed to be sleazy and sex obsessed and revel in naked avarice. Its so refreshing after all the pompous do gooders on TNG to see some real people propping up the 24th Century. The main plot echoes Encounter at Farpoint in all the worst ways and really should have been dropped in favour of more throwaway antics because the stress here is on continuing and improving TNG continuity which it does very well: 7/10

Dax written by D.C Fontana and directed by David Carson

What’s it about: Jadzia is accused of a murder committed in another lifetime.

Single Father: By having an episode that focuses on a misdemeanour on Curzon’s part you have a story that says more about Sisko than Dax no matter whose name grabs the title. Sisko talks about Curzon with such affection it’s a shame that we never got to see the relationship at its height and it sounds to me like he had a lot of character with his crazy cavalier attitude towards life. Just what a young Federation officer needs to stop him becoming as arrogant as Picard! Sisko’s attempts to save his new friends life is very touching and would see the foundations built for an equally strong friendship with Jadzia. Until the moment of her death it would be another very strong character pairing that this show flaunts. Sisko makes an extremely strong public speaker during the courtroom scenes and it is great to see Avery Brooks attacking the material with such passion. Curzon took a raw young ensign under his wing and taught him to appreciate life in ways he had never thought about – whatever sense of honour Sisko has Curzon nurtured.

Nine Lives: At this stage in her development Dax is still walking around with her hands behind her back like a serene holy woman. By the end of the next season you simply wouldn’t recognise her from this episode anymore. Although it takes you the entire episode to realise the truth Dax’s silence initially makes you want to shake her and force some kind of admission of innocence. Dax’s quarters are full of some truly wonderful items – the set designers have really gone to town! Curzon drank too much and had an eye for the ladies and it wouldn’t be long before Jadzia followed suit! There is a gorgeously nuanced scene between Sisko and Dax that sees him confronting her for not defending herself and develops into the two of them laughing together, her stroking his face and him holding her hand – why can’t all Trek series be this well played? The revelation of why she hasn’t defended herself is a lovely spot of development for this character; she is so protective of her past lives and honours her mistakes to the point that she will risk dying for them.

Tasty Terrorist: Kira is so much fun in this episode. I love her cheeky dialogue with Tandro in Sisko’s office and she makes a surprisingly good investigator. Odo should be headhunting!

GE: Bashir is trying to get into Dax’s knickers once again and laying on the sleazy chat up lines. He can think of ways of keeping her up all night apparently and they have nothing to do with drinking Klingon coffee! Thanks goodness he is such a slime ball and starts stalking her on her way to her quarters otherwise they wouldn’t have found out Dax was kidnapped until it was too late.

Sparkling Dialogue: ‘Fugitive Dax is charged with treason…and the murder of my father.’
‘Which not only compromises Bajoran security but also…annoys us.’
‘No its just business…and business is business.’
‘I intend to be here until supper not senility, understood?’
‘When one of my kind stumbles it is a shame that lasts forever.’
‘I know where Curzon was at the exact time that that transmission was sent. He was in my bed.’
‘Live, Jadzia Dax. Live a long, fresh and wonderful life.’

The Good: The first five minutes sees an impressive cat and mouse game between the Klystrons and Ops which allows both sides to appear competent and out manoeuvre the other.
Odo slams shut the airlocks (but they have an override), Kira erects force fields (again they have the correct codes to get through them) before Sisko finally activates the tractor beam that snatches hold of their departing ship and drags them back to make an account for themselves. Its such a little thing but I love the framing of the moment when Dax realises why they have tried to kidnap her - as the camera pans in on her Sisko turns to face her and then Odo. Gregory Itzin is a fine American character actor who turns up in all sorts of shows (he has just had a guest spot in Desperate Housewives) and he brings Tandro alive with some real fury. Can we have a Judge Renora spin off series please? She’s just marvellous and treats Tandro like a naughty schoolboy and Sisko like a minor inconvenience (her ‘the penalty for these crimes on your planet is death and that is rather permanent’ made me howl with laughter). Its great to have a character this cynical in Star Trek, we should arrange a sitcom with her and Mullibok from Progress and they can candidly discuss all the issues with the Star Trek universe. The courtroom scenes that discuss the nature of the Trill are well written and interesting and utilises an old Trek standby, the metaphor (this time salt and water standing in for host and symbiont). Klystron is gorgeously brought to life with some superb matte paintings and subtle lighting to suggest day and night in Enina’s quarters. Unlike a good handful of the episodes I have seen so far across the various Trek series the revelation that puts this episode to rest that Curzon and Enina were having an affair springs naturally from the characters and that makes it a very satisfying conclusion. It gives a new dimension to Curzon and Jadzia (who kept her silence) and allows us to view the situation from a completely different angle (the General himself was responsible for the transmission).

The Bad: Whilst it gives the courtroom scenes a memorable look you would have thought there would be a place on the station where they could have held this courtroom other than the local saloon!

Teaser-tastic: Not bad actually. Bashir beaten up and Dax kidnapped…that should get most people interested fairly early on.

Moment To Watch Out For: The final scene is beautiful and caps off a delicately handled episode very sensitively.

Only DS9: A new section of the reviews to highlight those moments that DS9 dared to tread where there other series failed to do so. Maybe Meaney was off doing a film or maybe O’Brien simply wasn’t needed in this episode – either way a simple line of dialogue excuses his absence from the episode nicely instead of a pointless cameo. When people are hit in DS9 they like to show that it really hurts and Bashir gets several frightening punches in the teaser. I particularly like is the question of sexuality that the Trill species throws into the Trek mix. Because a host can skip from male to female it leaves a balanced individual that can find either sex attractive and whilst this isn’t dealt with in this episode (although the expert who admits his first host was a woman has a touch of the feminine about him) DS9 would take the brave step towards exploring homosexuality in episodes such as Rejoined and Let He Who is Without Sin both of which see Dax clearly attracted towards women. Whilst you shouldn’t need an excuse for gay characters in Star Trek (and Bashir and O’Brien are the closest we will ever get to a male romance – they clearly dig each other in later seasons) it is great to see this series tapping into this subject in a way that TNG deliberately (some might say insultingly) shied away from.

Myth Building: D.C Fontana is the only writer to have contributed scripts to three Star Trek series (four if you include the Animated Series) and it is great to see her depart on such a memorable piece.

Result: Its wonderful to see the character dynamics on this show coming together so effectively and quickly and even if Dax didn’t have a rock solid plot at its heart (which it does) it would be bolstered by some fantastic individual moments. Kira is feisty and fun, Odo blackmails Quark, Sisko builds a firm friendship with Dax, Bashir shows some depth and Odo proves what he is made of plus you also get some fascinating insight into Trill society. Both Tandro and (the wonderful) Judge Renora stand out and despite very few scenes even Enina Tandro makes a great impression. The story has a real drive to it and paints a strong picture of Klystron society and the major players in its most dramatic days without ever actually showing us the events. With outstanding performances all round, superb dialogue and characterisation and an ending that hits all the right notes this is one of the strongest Trek courtroom episodes and another huge win for director David Carson: 9/10

The Passenger written by Morgan Grendel, Robert Hewitt Wolfe & Michael Piller and directed by Paul Lynch

What’s it about: Bashir turned psycho killer…well Duridium shipment hijacker at the very least.

Single Father: When Sisko tells Primmon you have to forget what you learnt at the Academy and not to throw it in anyone’s face I could have kissed him. Academy rules work well on Earth but seem to fall short of being effective as soon as you leave orbit and its only the characters on DS9 who seem to realise that. Sisko likes Odo because he likes to know where he stands and (without a shadow of a doubt) there is no question of that with him.

GE Doctor: Bashir’s arrogance is unbelievable as he sits there telling Kira just how fabulous he is at his job. ‘Faith has granted me a gift Major. A gift to be a healer.’ No wonder she feels privileged to be in his presence! I read something in a David A. McIntee review once which has stuck with me ever since – whenever actors are asked to act possessed they suddenly forget how to act entirely. Whilst there are a few exceptions to that rule it is for the most part entirely accurate including Siddig’s unfortunate turn as Vantika in this episode. I have absolutely no idea who he is supposed to be channelling but his camp, monotonous delivery is inexcusably bad and lacks even a shred of menace. Its one of the few times I would say DS9 is actually embarrassing to watch (see also Fascination and Let He Who is Without Sin).

Unknown Sample: Dax seems to like spending most of her time alone which Quark suggests makes her the perfect woman for Odo! Primmon is so instantly unlikable our sympathies are completely with Odo. Anybody who comes onto the station and starts throwing their weight around isn’t going to get anywhere. Wonderfully flawed, Odo strops into Sisko’s office like a grumpy child to ask who is in charge out of him and Primmon. He needs clear jurisdiction on DS9 or he is out.

Sparkling Dialogue: ‘Make…me…live…’

Dreadful Dialogue: ‘No more middlemen Sisko! No more delays!’

The Good: Its another strong premise with a criminal who is obsessed with death ensuring that he can survive any attempt to kill him. Kajada stabbing Vantika’s corpse is deliciously gruesome. Trust Quark to be rummaging around on the floor after hours looking for dropped coins!

The Bad: Later seasons are interconnected so that every story impacts on the overall story arc of the series. If you have what appears to be a standalone episode it usually adds depth to one of the major players be it the Bajorans, Cardassians, Federation or Dominion. To watch these early episodes where the standalone episodes feature alien races that we never hear from again seems…odd. In a hilarious moment of overdone theatrics Kajada turns up randomly at the end of a scene to tell everyone that Vantika is up to his old tricks. What a shame that Primmon turns out to be effective in this episode – I really wanted him to be shown up by Odo at every angle. The Duridium shipment crew seem to have no sense of self preservation. They just stand there looking shocked and get shot down.

Moment To Watch Out For: If the plot hadn’t made it obvious enough that Bashir has taken on the conscience of Vantika the scene where a mysteriously gloved man with a whispery British accent should make spell it out even further. That and the split second close up on Bashir’s face when he throws Quark to the ground. Oddly despite all these pointers they still dress up the possession as a revelation towards the climax.

Only DS9: Quark is actively working against the task of the station personnel in a way that we would never see in another series. Whilst he only considers himself the middle man, he is employing criminals to steal something the Federation has pledged to protect. When characters on, say, Voyager act against the interest of the ship it is because they want to avoid having Janeway break the prime directive (Tuvok) or to continue their usefulness (Neelix). To be fair Seska is exposed as a traitor but she is kicked off as soon as they realise. Quark is simply too useful not to have around. He’s a profit monger and proud of it!

Teaser-tastic: Once we get past Bashir basking in his own hubris its not a bad hook into the episode, especially how creepy Vantika’s dying words are.

Result: Such a ridiculously predictable episode I am surprised they bothered to set it up as a mystery. The Passenger features the oddest performance ever seen in a Deep Space Nine episode in Siddig El Fadil’s take on Ray O’Vantika which is more likely to provoke laughter than chills. Paul Lynch tries to make this as dark as possible but the script is fighting him lacking the scares of a horror or the intensity of a good psychological thriller. Ruining things further is the inclusion of Primmon who annoys from the offset and is so ineffective he only lasts for two episodes. Odd that the first Bashir episode should be such a flop because most of his later episodes would turn out to be absolute gems. Easily the weakest episode so far and exactly the sort of camp old nonsense that was dropped when the series found its stride: 4/10

Move Along Home written by Frederick Rappaport, Lisa Rich & Jeanne Carrigan-Fauci (three writers – really?) and directed by David Carson

What’s it about: A new species from the Gamma Quadrant visits the Station and they have a little game they want to play…

Single Father: Sisko is the first person who has ever looked pretty damn hot in his dress uniform – Picard used to look like he was wearing a dress! There are some more wonderful moments between Sisko and Jake and the inevitable moment in every parents life when they have to discuss sex but it turns out that Nog got their first! If there is one thing Avery Brooks always acts passionately about in the first couple of years it is the father/son scenes, both he and Cirroc Lofton nail them and they have a very natural chemistry.

Community Leader: The look in Quark’s eyes when he realises he can exploit the first new race through the Gamma Quadrant is priceless. Armin Shimmerman reveals his comic timing as Quark looks distinctly unimpressed by the sticks and almost spits out the alpha currant nectar as wagers for a game of Dabo. Quark is forced into the very uncomfortable position of having to choose one of the players to be sacrificed which Shimmerman has no choice but to overact because the scene is written so over the top.

Tasty Terrorist: Has somebody told Nana Visitor that her bum looks big in her costume or something because Kira is far more argumentative and fiery than usual in Move Along Home. I do love the scene where she tells Sisko that she didn’t sign up for Federation adventures of exploration – a bit like Neelix’s complaints in season one of Voyager but more convincing. As they start working their way through the Shaps you can tell that Kira is getting a taste of the explorers life. Kira has a major (geddit) strop during the laughter sequence, pretty much as hysterically angry as we will ever see her.

GE Doctor: Bashir really is an annoying squirt in the first season isn’t he? Siddig is clearly still settling into the role and his mincing scream attack against the wall is another head in hands moment for the audience. ‘Madam this is no laughing matter!’ – they are still trying to write Bashir as an upper class British toff. How camp does Bashir look when he flattens himself against the wall as the spheres consume him?

Sparkling Dialogue: ‘One mans priceless is another mans worthless!’
‘Dad I’m fourteen!’ ‘I’m glad we agree on something.’
‘Oh is that Starfleet policy?’ ‘That’s right!’ ‘Well I’m not in Starfleet!’ – I love Odo!
‘That’s not what you said when you were grovelling on the floor…’ ‘Oh that’s right you were there for the grovelling.’

The Good: The Wadi might be another humanoid species with only a tattoo on the forehead to distinguish them from any standard race in the Alpha Quadrant but at least their game offers something uniquely alien an imaginative. I was pretty much sold on the idea of the game because of the incredible pull back of Sisko on the geometrically patterned floor – it’s a hypnotically well executed scene. Nice to see the Doctor Who method of walking down the same corridor and using the same room redressed is still in place in television. Actually to give director David Carson his credit he does manage to convince through some careful camerawork that the corridors are a maze. I love the spheres that attack, the episode should have had far more surprises of this nature. There’s a nice slow motion shot of Sisko, Dax and Kira falling from a cliff edge.

The Bad: Primmon once again is about as appealing as genital warts. Imagine if you will that you first tuned into DS9 during the Allermaraine sequence that sees four of the senior officers dancing and saluting across the screen. The smoky room test is trying a bit too hard to be weird and none of the actors manage a coughing fit very convincingly.

Moment to Watch Out For: The look on Avery Brooks’ face when he has to perform the ‘Allermaraine’ rhyme and hopscotch dance! It might be Nana Visitor who says this is not what I signed up for but the feeling behind that sentiment is exemplified in Brooks’ pained expression!

Teaser-tastic: A charming scene in the Sisko quarters followed by an alien race asking to go to Quark’s – not the most inspiring of beginnings.

Only DS9: I cannot imagine a character in any other Trek show daring to try and bribe an alien species with some nookie: ‘Do you know what a holosuite is? Do you have sex on your world?’

Myth Building: The first formal reception for a species from the Gamma Quadrant.

Result: Move Along Home doesn’t quite work but it exemplifies DS9’s willingness to experiment with some pretty quirky episodes. Visually the story is quite distinctive but none of the tests that the crew are put through would test a five year old so the risk that is suggested is never really felt. Once again the alien characters on this show impress with Odo and Quark providing some great moments and Avery Brooks continues to lighten up as Sisko. The last act descends into a mundanely shot trek through some standard cave sets but you have to admire the sheer cheek of the ‘its only a game’ line that proves that nobody was ever in any danger in the first place! It’s a really odd piece, sporadically very good, occasionally risible and incomparable with anything else this series has delivered. Again this is precisely the sort of thing they dropped when the series expanded its mythology: 6/10

The Nagus written by Ira Steven Behr and directed by David Livingston

What’s it about: The Grand Nagus visits DS9 and passes his sceptre to Quark…

Single Father: Sisko realises to his dismay that his son is growing up and he just can’t excite him with the things that he used to. The conclusion of the b plot where Sisko realises how responsible his son is becoming is very touching.

Young Sisko: Jake would rather hang about in a cargo bay with Nog than visit the Bajoran fire caves with his old man! Jake shows a great sense of maturity by listening to his fathers opinion that sometimes friendships end and still chooses to hold on to his relationship with Nog and to help him to read. Hilariously Jake is hypnotised by the sight of a Vulcan woman’s ass – if only Wesley Crusher had moments like this to convince us he had blood pumping to the appropriate organs!

Ferengi Family: Clearly there is a hierarchy in this Ferengi family with Quark dishing out punishment to Rom who in turn dishes it out to Nog! Knowing where his character ends up it is priceless to see these early episodes with Nog – here he is lying to his teacher, dirtying his friends name and failing to produce his homework. If you were to tell me at this point that he would wind up as the first Ferengi in Starfleet I would have laughed in your face. What’s important is that Nog is likable despite his failings (or you might say because of them) since he wants to do well at school but his family is working against his best interests and he wants to better himself and allows Jake to teach him to read properly. O’Brien is Nog’s teacher and slating his character in this episode but come series four he is packing him off to the Academy with a gift and come series seven Nog is his superior officer! Astonishing that even after Rom tries to kill Quark your sympathies are still with him because of how badly Quark treats him. His road to independence is another rich character thread in this series.

Community Leader: Quark fears that the Grand Nagus is there to buy the bar for a fraction of what it is worth. He had the instinct, the lobes to make the smart move and set up a bar so close to a stable wormhole. For Quark this is the ultimate prize for all of his years of avarice and despite assassination attempts he will always go for the profit jugular and bask in his own success. He walks down the Promenade in royal robs, holding his head and sceptre high and waving to all and sundry! Quark is simply overcome with grief over the Nagus’ death, laughing hysterically at Rom’s suggestion that he could run the bar. He is the richest man in the Ferengi Alliance and yet when he sees a coin running across the floor he still cannot resist nabbing it. Brilliantly Quark isn’t cross with his brother for trying to kill him, instead he promotes him for such wonderful treachery!

Sparkling Dialogue: ‘So the Andorian says…your brother? I thought it was your wife!’ – we never hear the whole joke but Quark is telling it so I’m certain its filthy!
‘Now go to your room…and no studying!’ – that really tickles me!
‘If in doubt…be ruthless.’
‘Sorry Quark but you’ve just been voted out of office!’
‘Its like talking to a Klingon!’

The Good: Everything about the Nagus is chucklesome from his voracious sexual appetite, his wonderful wizened Ferengi make up (love the furry ears!) and Wallace Shawn’s brilliantly memorable performance (complete with that terrific laugh). When this show gets it right it really gets it right. Ugh – the Nagus chows down on wriggling worms and Rom bites a giant beetle in half! Its hilarious how every Ferengi in that meeting thinks that they are going to be chosen as the next Nagus! Zek has a difficult choice ahead of him…soothing tides that cause stimulating hallucinations or voluptuous Risian females! Zek’s clawed hands when he goes into the sleeping trance gets me every time and me and Simon (who also adores DS9) does this funny little movement when attempting to ignore a rant from yours truly. There’s a great camera angle from inside the hole blasted in the wall by the locater bomb. I cannot believe they staged the Godfather sequence with Quark stroking that hilariously awful puppet and with Venetian blinds at the window! Cheesy, yes. Funny, oh yes. Dax grabs a massive scoopful of aubergine stew as soon as Sisko is out of sight which is exactly what I would have done!

The Bad: The bombing sequence is poorly edited and makes it confusing to figure out what has happened.

Moment to Watch Out For: Given how often it is mentioned it is nice to see somebody almost tossed out of the nearest airlock!

Teaser-tastic: A quirky teaser for a quirky episode and my first sight of the Nagus will never be forgotten.

Myth Building: So many wonderful things going on in this episode it is hard to keep track of them all. Firstly this episode re-states Ira Behr’s intention to rectify past mistakes concerning the Ferengi and giving the culture some real depth and likeability. To his credit he succeeds admirably not just by making this episode such a gem but by giving the culture an awesome figurehead in the Nagus and by writing in some menacing as well as funny Ferengi characters. At the same time the family chemistry between Quark, Rom and Nog continues to sparkle and gives us a real insight into the politics and rivalry that takes place within their family. You’ve also got the reappearance of Morn who is clearly going to propping up the bar at Quark’s for ever more and he’s always a welcome sight. How funny is his massive silhouette in the door when the meeting is about to begin and his hurt face when Quark shoves him out of the door! Jake and Nog’s friendship continues to deepen and its great to see the school again. Fantastic to see DS9 laying down so many staples that would continue to be explored throughout the seven seasons. The idea of the Ferengi freeze drying their dead and selling them off as prize collectables makes perfect sense.

Orchestra: Maybe because it is a comedy episode I don’t know but the music feels more noticeable than usual. I love the epic sting when we focus on Zek’s portrait and the piano grumblings at the end as Quark is lead to his death really stand out.

Result: Proof if it was needed that episodes set solely on DS9 shit all over the bottle shows on TNG or Voyager, The Nagus is a delightfully funny and universe expanding piece that is bolstered by many superb performances. The chemistry between the Ferengi actors on Deep Space Nine is so delightful I love spending time with them. Focussing an episode entirely on Ferengi culture might fill you with dread given how badly they have been treated in TNG but fear not since this is a gorgeously funny Godfather parody that introduces us to one of the greatest ever Star Trek characters – Wallace Shawn’s Grand Nagus Zek. He’s lecherous, greedy, slightly psychotic and utterly lovable. We’ve never seen anything like this before and it confirms that Deep Space Nine is forging its own unique path through the Star Trek universe: 9/10

Vortex written by Sam Rolfe and directed by Winrich Kolbe

What’s it about: A visitor from the Gamma Quadrant claims he has met a Changeling before…

Unknown Sample: Restating his place as the most compelling mystery on the show Odo gets some gorgeous development in this episode and it forges a path ahead to him finding his people in later seasons. The carrot that Kroden dangles in front of Odo (‘feed me and maybe I’ll tell you when I met someone just like you…’) makes for some interesting conflict between his search for the truth about his people and his sense of justice. His desperation when interrogating is frantic and he tries so hard to keep his poker face up the whole time he is questioning Kroden but he is desperate for any snippet of information. Rene Auberjonois plays the scene when Bashir examines the sample with a sense of awe and wonder making even the dull technobabble moments count. It shows his strength of character that he wants so badly to discover more about his people but his adherence to the law means he will take Kroden back to his people regardless. Odo is smart enough to hand over control of the ship to his prisoner in a crisis and the scene where he shoves Kroden against the wall and demands to know the truth is blisteringly good. He proves his worth as a strategist when he plays cat and mouse with the Miradorn and uses the pockets of explosive gas to his advantage and blow them away. A smile from Odo is a rare gift, its worth a hundred of anybody else’s.

Community Leader: The Miradorn ship and its crew’s reputation has probably been tarnished just like Quark’s. Once again Quark is blissfully taking the piss out of Starfleet protocol – this time on their stuffy, bureaucratic first contact procedure! He’s such a wonderful crook, only Quark would set up a business deal and arrange for the buyer to murdered so they could steal the money and keep the object d’art! Star Trek has been waiting for a character like this for a long time.

Sparkling Dialogue: ‘You think the whole galaxy’s plotting around you, don’t you? Paranoia must run in your species Odo! Maybe that’s why nobody’s ever seen another shape shifter…they’re all hiding!’ – from what I have seen of this season so far rather belies the fact that Odo and Quark only share a handful of moments together in each season as Armin Shimerman would have you believe. They are often seen together and that’s a very good thing because the actors spark of wonderfully against each other and the dialogue is often sizzling.
‘Five glasses for four people!?’ – made all the funnier by Rom staring in confusion at the glass in his hand.
‘How dare you suggest that my brother set up this robbery!’ – that line makes me howl with laughter every time I hear it. Go Rom!
‘Being what you are you can pour your square shape into a round hole but you don’t really fit, do you?’ – that idea would be explored and developed right up into season sevens Chimera.
‘Do you expect me to believe this appalling tale?’ - given Kroden has just laid his heart on the line Odo’s deadpan reaction is very funny!
‘Computer what was that?’ ‘A temporary loss of stability due to the concentrated impact of a plasma charge’ ‘We’re being attacked?’ ‘Affirmative.’
‘Don’t thank me I already regret it!’
‘Home? Where is it? One day we’ll know…cousin.’

The Good: Vortex knows how to make a quick impression with an intriguing twinned species, an illegal transaction, a murder and Odo shattering into pieces in the first five minutes! It would be specious of me to suggest that Kroden is the best guest character of the season (in a season that features Dukat, Garak, Tosk, Judge Renora, Mullibok, Maritza and Winn) but he certainly makes an impression and his marbled and ever changing backstory makes him a fascinating foil for Odo. Look at Morn’s face when Odo grasses him up! Look at the lighting in the bar when the Odo tries to get information out of Quark, its really moody and dark. The sequences within the Vortex feature some gorgeous special effects and even the stock Star Trek cave sets look smoky and atmospherically lit.

Moment to Watch Out For: The shot of the Miradorn vessel slide into the Vortex behind the runabout. An extremely menacing effects shot.

Teaser-tastic: Odo is covertly monitoring Quark’s nefarious activities in the shape of a glass!

Only DS9: Homicide as a means of opening relations with a new species? DS9 continues to find new ways to deal with old ideas. Its great to finally visit a planet that honestly couldn’t give a toss about the Federation or anybody in the Alpha Quadrant.

Result: When it comes to atmosphere DS9 is in a league of its own. Vortex has a gorgeous script with a humdinger of a line every few seconds and I have had to restrain myself from quoting half the episode! To have a Star Trek episode as unpredictable as this one is a very rare thing and the way it offers gasps of hope to Odo is almost cruel. It’s a blissfully executed piece which has been atmospherically lit to provide an evocative feast for the eyes and the director shows a flair for both action sequences and the tastier character driven moments of dialogue. The episode builds to the catch-your-breath moment when Odo is out cold and you are unsure whether Kroden will help him or use the chance to escape which in turn leads to a stirring decision by Odo to release them. A phaser fight, wonderful Odo and Quark scenes, a space battle, meaty ideas and a touching ending between Odo and his ‘cousin’ – Vortex practically is another awesome episode: 9/10

Battle Lines written by Hilary J. Bader, Richard Danus & Evan Carlos Somers and directed by Paul Lynch

What’s it about: Taking the Kai for her first trip through the wormhole turns out to be her last…

Single Father: Sisko’s eyes light up at the news that the Kai has arrived. He might find the role of the Emissary uncomfortable at this stage but he clearly already has great respect for the Kai. It would not last long. When telling Kira off doesn’t work Sisko has a rant at Bashir instead telling him he doesn’t need to have the prime directive lectured to him. He’s so much more real than Picard, he can think outside the box.

Tasty Terrorist: Another important step in Kira’s road to forgiving herself for her previous lifestyle, Battle Lines features some seminal Kira moments. It all starts quite light-heartedly with Kira suggesting she is a big girl and can take anything that the Cardassians thought of her as a terrorist (‘a minor operative whose activities were limited to running errands for the terrorist leaders’) but failing miserably. Its great to see Kira on such good behaviour around the Kai – I love how the episode shows how religious icons can be treated as more than people. Kira almost feels too humble to share moments with somebody this important. Her breakdown over the Kai’s corpse with Nana Visitor crying and praying with such an intensity is not the sort of passionate characterisation we are used to in Star Trek and it is astonishingly raw and beautiful. The thirst for action still burns in Kira and when the Nol-Ennis first attack she looks almost gleeful as she picks up and gun and starts shooting.The fiery tension between Sisko and Kira returns when she tries to advise on the best forms of defence and warfare. He really bites at her but she is strong enough to bite back and it takes the involvement of the Kai to make her stop and realise what she is doing. The sequence where the Kai asks Kira if she recognises herself in these people is vital to understand Kira’s character. Her old life was brutal and ugly but she did it to stay alive and fight for independence but crucially she thinks she has left it all behind by working on DS9. The Kai makes her realise that the violence exists inside her and it is vital that she forgives herself for her past misdeeds if she is to move on with her life. Nana Visitor’s performance in this scene is devastating. I don’t understand how anybody can not love her character after it has been laid this bare. Kira is afraid the prophets wont forgive her but they are just waiting for her to forgive herself. She was brought to this planet to begin her healing process.

GE Doctor: At first I wasn’t sure if I bought Bashir’s involvement in this episode simply because ‘it’s a bit slow’ in the Infirmary but the more I thought about it he is exactly the sort to want to go off and have adventures with the most revered religious icon on Bajor. Think how many Bajoran girls he could impress with that story? Bashir’s scenes with Kira are his best to date and reveal a much more sensitive, less conceited side to his personality. I’m really glad that the episode spared a moment to show Bashir conflicted between his oath as a Doctor and his wish to end of the suffering of these people and euthanise them.

Sparkling Dialogue: ‘Please Commander, I don’t get out often.’
‘When you cease to fear death the rules of war change.’
‘Don’t deny the violent inside yourself Kira. Only when you accept it can you move beyond it.’
‘I’ve discovered that we can’t afford to die here…not even once!’

Dreadful Dialogue: ‘But your pagh and mine will cross again…’ – they really should have followed this up!

The Good: Everything about the crash is spectacular from the views out of the runabout window of the planet approaching to the camera sliding up from behind the rock face to the crashed ship and the cut to the exploding door. It’s a carefully executed version of a scene that we will see over and again in Voyager. There’s a great shot from Dax’s POV as the turbolift descends of Odo at his wits end over lack of news of the Kai. This episode is really nasty in places with a close up on the Kai’s dead face (she literally died terrified), Kira’s brutal injuries and the scars and lesions caused by the fighting on this world. Not to mention the brutal fight scenes featuring decapitation, people being sliced across the face by rusty blades and swords thrusting through peoples stomachs. I wouldn’t want every episode to be as graphic as this but it does up the tension greatly and once again DS9 pushes the boundaries about as far as they dare to go for episodic television (see Past Tense Part II, Way of the Warrior, The Siege of AR-558 also). The idea of trapping two warring factions on a godawful moon with no way of escape and letting them fight with no chance of dying is impossibly pitiless punishment.

The Bad: Whilst it is clearly foreshadowing the Kai’s departure, her giving O’Brien her earring for Molly is an odd moment that is never touched on again. It would have been very awesome had they worked that earring into the final ten part epic at the end of the series. Unfortunately the Kai being dragged from the runabout looks a bit like a podgy rag doll! I love the idea of O’Brien making up technobabble as he goes along but in reality the majority of that scene went straight over my head. Oddly for DS9 the decision to leave the Kai behind is never followed up on.

Moment to Watch Out For: The Kai appearing in the firelight like a ghostly spectre is a fantastic surprise and suddenly drives home the brutality of the situation on this planet.

Orchestra: There is a sweeping, epic splash of music as the Kai gets to experience the wonder of going through the wormhole.

Result: The death of a semi-regular character, graphic fight scenes, an impossible situation and the redemption of a violent terrorist, Battle Lines is a very strong episode that picks up many of the seasons threads and does some impossibly cruel things with them. It’s the first of three extraordinary Kira episodes that see her character take an incredible journey through the first season and Nana Visitor once again proves why she is such an incredible asset to this show. Once again the episode has the atmosphere to bolster the drama and this is by far one of the most impressive studio planetary surfaces. DS9 has delivered three knockouts in a row but this is still a Star Trek series - surely this cannot continue. The closing shot of the Kai listening to the sounds of battle getting closer is a wonderfully ambiguous note to leave her character on: 9/10

The Storyteller written by Kurt Michael-Bensmiller & Ira Steven Behr and directed by David Livingston

What’s it about: Chief O’Brien is used as a pawn to reaffirm the identity of the new Sirrah…

Single Father: Sisko is swaggeringly confident about his dealings with the Nevat and the Paku which proves entirely unfounded when he realises that he is going to be handling a stroppy little madam! I’m almost willing to bet that Ben has done plenty of silly things to impress girls when he was younger, probably with Curzon in tow! He seems very proud to hear that Jake speaks so fondly of him.

Starfleet Ferengi: As much as I hate to promote anarchy over order I find Jake and Nog hanging out on the Promenade, flicking peas at the passing aliens and flirting with girls far more believable than that swot Wesley Crusher making intercom announcements out of Picard’s speeches. Nog is good at spotting opportunities and offers that gift to the girl that he fancies. When he gets a little kiss as a reward for his troubles and Nog is glowing with joy it is a charming moment.

Everyday Engineer: O’Brien tries very hard to keep his poker face on but this is a hearty Irishman who isn’t used to disguising his feelings and a trip alone with Bashir is about as appealing as having his pubic hairs extracted one by one with a pair of tweezers. The runabout scene early on that sees two characters who are extremely awkward in each others company is very funny considering they are practically lovers by the last season. Watching O’Brien blessing a child is really funny and his discomfort at being such a recognised figure is very in keeping with his character. He likes to slip into the background and do the dirty work.

GE Doctor: When Bashir asks O’Brien to call him by his first name it sounds like he is flirting with him – no wonder he finds it uncomfortable to get his mouth around it!

Sparkling Dialogue: ‘I’m not a little lady!’
‘Opportunity plus instinct equals profit!’
‘Where the bloody hell are those lights?’
‘Lets get out of here before they change their minds’ – at least O’Brien can see how fickle these Bajorans are!

The Good: It’s the reaction shots in the first scene that make it work so well with Sisko not comprehending why O’Brien doesn’t want to go on this mission before Bashir comes strolling in with his usual youthful exuberance. The caught-with-a-hand-in-the-cookie-jar look from O’Brien and the pained anger from Sisko make me laugh my head off whilst Bashir is grinning away and happily oblivious! Bajor is always so bright and sunny, it makes for a visually delightful planet to visit whenever we get the opportunity. The sequences with Jake, Nog and Varis Sul see DS9 entering sitcom territory with comic play fights between the boys outside her quarters, Nog getting tongue tied in her presence and the wonderfully silly moment with Odo’s bucket and oatmeal in security. It should be painful to watch but the performances are delightful and the tone is pitched just right. Just when I was thinking that Jake seriously needs to get some trendier clothes Nog throws ‘Odo’ all over him!

The Bad: The whole Sirrah plotline lacks punch, especially after the drama of the last two episodes. Dramatically it is well plotted and the characters all act in natural ways but it feels too lightweight and disposable to be of consequence. You get the feeling whilst watching that you will never hear from this colony of Bajorans ever again and low and behold we don’t. The Dalrock cloud is quite a menacing sight but unfortunately the actors are rather unconvincingly plastered against the effect. Frightening away a monster with good vibrations – what an odd premise! The handheld cameras come out for the sequence where Hovath attacks O’Brien (to be fair it is such a limited space David Livingston had no real choice but to film an action scene this way) and while the execution is dramatic the tone of the actors is vaguely comic and it jars.

Moment to Watch Out For: O’Brien atop a cliff face wearing robes that make him look like Father Christmas and crying out: ‘Once there was a Dalrock! And its here!’ Proof that DS9 could, on occasion, be as daft as all other Trek shows.

Teaser-tastic: Odo is a glass! The Kai is on the station! The leader of a group of Bajorans is a young girl! I’m not sure at this stage if DS9 has quite grasped the idea of hooking the audience in with its teasers.

Foreboding: Once again there is talk of civil war on Bajor…the pieces are moving into place for the impressive three part opener to season two.

Result: I really don’t understand why Voyager and TNG don’t highlight their subplots in the same way that DS9 does because it is the delightful Nog/Jake mischief that saves The Storyteller from being a dud. There is some fun watching the odd couple O’Brien and Bashir dancing around each other but the main plot of the episode belongs in a fairytale book and not a Star Trek episode. Its neither entirely comic or satisfyingly dramatic and falls between several stools and as the middle of three Bajoran episodes in a row it falls way short of the greatness of the two surrounding it. However with the negotiation subplot on the station this episode remains amiable enough and the Jake and Nog interaction continues to be one of this series’ most delightful surprises: 6/10

Progress written by Peter Allan Fields and directed by Les Landau

What’s it about: Kira is torn between her newfound friendship with a Bajoran farmer and her duty…

Single Father: Highlighting Sisko and Kira’s growing relationship in some unexpected ways, Progress is an episode all about character and pushes them into revealing how they really feel about each other. Sisko has to reign in Kira’s fiery temper when she lunges an insult at the Minister and takes the very revealing step of beaming down to talk his first officer out of making a mistake that will ruin her life. He tells her that when he first met her he thought she was hostile and arrogant but he was wrong and that Bajor needs her and more importantly he likes her.

Tasty Terrorist: Here’s another episode that stretches both Nana Visitor as an actress and Kira as a character but in a very different way to the psychological nightmare in Battle Lines. The relationship between Kira and Mullibok is beautifully written and performed so that both characters are instantly likable despite their differences and as a viewer it is easy to invest a lot of emotional weight in the friendship. Kira doesn’t like uniforms but they come with the job. She can see through Mullibok’s manipulations straight away even when he tries to get her mad by point how fabulous her butt is! As soon as Mullibok makes Kira realise that he is in exactly the same situation being forced to leave the moon as she was during the Occupation, that oppression is just a matter of interpretation, the episode suddenly gets a whole lot more interesting. When he tells Kira she is backwards for not just sweeping them all out of there it is almost as if she took the phaser blast. The most crucial moment comes when Sisko tells her that she is on the other side of being oppressed now and that she has to make uncomfortable decisions and she hates it. Kira’s final decision to destroy Mullibok’s life to save it is deeply affecting for her and just as Battle Lines showed her that she still had anger inside of her this episode reveals that she has stepped over a line now and accepts her new life. All she needs to do is realise that Cardassians aren’t all evil (Duet) and we will see some of the strongest character growth over a season for any Trek regular.

Starfleet Ferengi: I have to get this little confession out of the way but I just find Nog the cutest thing on the planet! I don’t know if it is the cheeky way that Aron Eisenberg plays him or if it’s the delicately humorous writing or even just the adorable freckles and little ears (at least in comparison to his father and uncles) he has but every time he is on screen I find it a delight! He’s still in the money grabbing stage of his youth her and when his lobes start tingling it can mean only one thing…opp-or-tun-ity!

Sparkling Dialogue: ‘You know those seven or eight little wiry hairs that come out of his forehead? They make him look kind of cute’ – one of the most charming facets of Jadzia’s personality is her willingness to see past surface appearances and fancy the most outrageous of people, starting here with Morn! Her taste does not improve with age, she also has a thing about Captain Boday (with his transparent skull), Ferengi’s and most heinous of all she even jumps Worf’s bones!

‘If I leave here I’ll die so I’d rather die here.’
‘The Cardassians probably told you that you didn’t stand a chance either, did you surrender?’ ‘No’ ‘Why do you expect me to act any different from you?’
‘You know you’re causing a lot of trouble’ ‘I can’t tell you how delighted I am to hear that!’
‘You have to realise something Major…you’re on the other side now.’
‘Last one…’

The Good: It might have one of the worst backdrops ever seen in Star Trek but the studio set for Mullibok’s house and garden charmingly designed and lit (I love how the sunlight stretches through the front door like one of those perfect lazy afternoons). I wouldn’t want to leave such a lovely place either. I remember reading that Mullibok was supposed to be a much more unlikable character, vicious and unsympathetic but it would have gutted the episode of its emotional worth had they played it that way. Brian Keith gives a very strong performance as the stubborn farmer who simply wants to be left alone to get on with his life. You genuinely believe that this man has rebuilt his life from nothing and tamed the harsh land of the moon on his own and fully support his decision to stay even though it will cause so many more people to suffer. Mullibok proves to be the master of diversion and tells all manner of wonderful (and probably wildly exaggerated) stories – I have no idea what a two headed Malgorian is but its one hell of story! The subplot that sees Jake and Nog venturing on their first business deal has absolutely nothing to do with the main plot whatsoever but dovetails with it beautifully so that the episode never feels slow or unappealing. I love how they are always a gnats hair away from actually earning some latinum and up their merchandise with each successive deal. I have a big grin on my face every time I watch the ‘what do you want?’ ‘I’m here to see Major Kira’ ‘Well she doesn’t want to see you and neither do I!’ exchange and then he goes on to take the piss out of Kira’s tree story (she looks so hilariously embarrassed!). This is character gold.

The Bad: It’s a shame that they had to include an action sequence in the middle of the episode because we were getting on perfectly well without it – I probably would have had Mullibok suffer a heart attack of some other reason for making it easy to be able to get him off the moon.

Moment to Watch Out For: The last scene which is quietly one of the most devastating scenes the show ever gave us. I am so glad we never heard from Mullibok again because it would have cheapened this terrifically ambiguous ending.

Only DS9: How comes DS9 can get these cute little touches of character so right that bolster the episodes whether the other shows fail? How cool is the scene where Sisko orders Bashir to give him a recommendation that Kira stays on the planet and says he will ‘take it under advisement.’

Myth Building: Tapping the core of one of Bajor’s moons will provide power for thousands of homes. Perhaps they should have reminded Minister Jaro of that when he tried to boot them off the station. Mullibok’s two friends don’t talk at all and when he says ‘the Cardassians took care of that’ it brings home the horrors of the Occupation more than a thousand descriptions of torture and bodies.

Orchestra: The music in the last scene is genuinely beautiful. Go and listen to it again, its emotional and builds to a superb climax.

Result: Oddly for a show that flaunts such impressive technical ability, DS9 is often at its best when it scales right down and tells a powerful story between two people. This is probably the sort of episode that people bemoaned about in the first few seasons for being boring but for me it is anything but and both the writing and the performances are so sensitively handled I was captivated from the first second to the last. DS9 doesn’t need to juggle empires to be great television, two of the best episodes of the first season feature nothing but Kira spending a whole episode chatting to a Bajoran and a Cardassian and makes outstanding character out of them. Progress adds a lot of depth to the shows Bajoran setting and to Kira and Sisko and there is even a highly engaging subplot to break up the intensity of the character scenes: 9/10

If Wishes Were Horses written by Neil McCue Crawford, William L. Crawford & Michael Piller and directed by Robert Legato

What’s it about: Fantasies start to come true…

Single Father: Seems like Sisko has little time for his imagination but still takes a moment to tell Buck Bokai that he was the greatest baseball player of all time. Is this the first time we see the famous baseball from Sisko’s office?

GE Doctor: Bashir is still trying to part the red sea otherwise known as Dax but she is keeping him at arms length which probably a good thing considering all the ladies she lists that he has been intimate with lately! He’s probably had to order in extra STD medication given his outrageously out of control libido. How embarrassing for Bashir to have his lurid fantasy sex life outed in front of everybody in Ops!

Everyday Engineer: Lovely to see a Star Trek character doing something as simple as reading a bedtime story to his little girl. What a shame that Rumplestiltskin couldn’t have stuck around for a bit because he and O’Brien have some hilarious scenes together. They could have shoved him in a uniform and forced him to work on the engineering crew! He would be perfect for crawling into all the little crawlspaces! Imagine…every time O’Brien needs him to do something he could try and bargain his firstborn! When his figment tells him he is frightened of the unknowable things that is actually a very succinct point, not only would an engineer (someone who looks at the world technically) have an issue with something this intangible and inexplicable but he is also uncomfortable with the whole idea of the changelings too over the year which are similarly enigmatic.

Nine Lives: Its interesting that it is pretty much after this episode that Dax comes out of her shell and starts embodying the sexuality of eight lives worth of experiences. Maybe she saw what Bashir liked in her and decided to give it a try, no matter how much she argues that her doppleganger is so submissive. If you skip forward four or five years you really wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between Bashir’s fantasy Dax and the real one! Especially not when she jumps on Worf and starts romping him in the holosuite!

Unknown Sample: Odo gets in exactly the right mood for this episode with his own wonderfully cynical view on fantasies and imagination – that it is a complete waste of time! However when given the chance to flirt with his imagination and actualise it he has some cheeky fun throwing Quark in a jail cell and losing him a fortune at the Dabo table (well I’m sure those playing did most of that but I bet Odo gave it a little push).

Community Leader: When Quark suggests creating a holographic shape shifter for Odo to intermingle he declares the Ferengi disgusting to which Quark replies ‘it’s a living!’ He is expanding to try and appeal to all the hew-mons and has a vision of Ferengi selling family entertainment and fleecing them all rotten. He thinks that a Federation experiment has gone wrong and they’ve turned the station giant holosuite and naturally he conjures up a pair of buxom and scantily clad babes, one for each arm. When the Station is being destroyed around him Quark still has one of his ladies clutched to him whilst reaching for a bar of gold pressed latinum – faithful to the last!

Sparkling Dialogue: ‘Now you didn’t think that that would make me break in two and disappear, did you?’
‘Why are you fighting this?’ ‘Why am I fighting this? Why…am I fighting this?’

‘Oh fine! Now everyone knows my name!’
‘Its snowing on the Promenade!’
‘Yellow alert? Against our own imaginations?’ – trust Kira to point out the craziness of the situation!
‘I’m going to have ask you to refrain from using your imaginations!’
‘I’ve spend all my time chasing incarnations of the prophets, long dead lovers, Gunji jackdaws, blizzards…trollops!’

The Good: Don’t deny it, you find the baby Molly the cutest thing in the world too! The shot of her in her pyjamas gazing up at her folks and saying ‘Rumplestiltskin’ just makes me melt. The fantasies are of a childhood monster coming true, of a teenager wishing his hero was real, of a horny Doctor who wants to get his jollies with the frigid science officer and of a terrorist who conjures a horrific burning victim – whilst this episode is basically a bit of fun each of the fantasies whipped up is rooted in character. Bashir’s reaction to Dax salivating over him is hilarious. Odo gets some very funny moments on the Promenade coping with six centimetres of snow and trying to be gentlemanly with that crazy looking bird! The scene where all the figments sit around bitching about their creators is unusual but I love the idea of peoples imaginations confusing the hell out of them – that we wish for things that we don’t actually want in reality. The ending is very pat but I do like the way Sisko manipulates his crew into whisking away the danger.

The Bad: Its such a shame that they even bothered to tether on a boring technobabble plot to explain all of this but then I suppose it is Star Trek. There’s a hilarious sequence where all the regulars stare in horror at the subspace fracture on the view screen that goes on forever. I think it was supposed to reveal that when they are in danger their imaginations (since they are watching them watch the fracture) are forgotten but it loses something in its execution. As they defeat the fracture the audience is swamped with a tsunami of technobabble (but at least Kira has the nerve to say ‘What the hell does that mean?’ at her own technobabble!). One odd thing about the first season of DS9 is that it keeps throwing out ideas that scream of being followed up in later seasons (Kai Opaka) and in this episode the entity even says ‘maybe next year.’ For a show that has a brilliant hit rate at following things up there are some remarkable oversights.

Moment to Watch Out For: Kira’s pyro nightmare is terrifying – imagine a man on fire running towards you like that?

Teaser-tastic: As soon as we meet Rumplestiltskin in the flesh you know this going to be one of those TNG premise that DS9 tries out every now and again (see also Rivals, Meridian, Children of Time, One Little Ship).

Only DS9: The Quark/Odo scenes are so good I could just imagine a great sitcom with the two of them hanging out in the bar (ala the Coffee Shop in Friends) and bitching at each other. Frankly given the loose sexuality that goes on on this station I’m surprised they didn’t call the show Deep Throat Nine! Its very refreshing to have a Star Trek show that doesn’t like dull old strictures like duty get in the way of having a good time. Even Worf gets his jollies when he joins!

Result: If Wishes Were Horses is basically a load of old tat with a plot that is barely worth mentioning and yet the episode is full of insightful character moments, funny scenes, fantastic dialogue and some very interesting fantasies being brought to life. It shows the huge gulf between when DS9 tries something this nonsensical and when TNG and VOY do (which would just be dreadful in both cases – what would Harry Kim wish for, to sit in the Captain’s chair?). The three episodes that have gone down the light-hearted route this year have all tried to end on a moment of danger (and only The Nagus got away with it) and especially in this case I wouldn’t have bothered. There is clearly a terrific amount of comic mileage to be had out of the idea of peoples imaginations running out of control without having to resort to the usual dreary old technobabble. A disposable episode that just so happens to be an enormous amount of fun for two thirds of its running time: 7/10

The Forsaken written by Don Carlos Dunaway & Michael Piller and directed by Les Landau

What’s it about: Mrs Troi visits the station and falls for a most unusual man…

Single Father: The look on Sisko’s face when he turns away from the Ambassadors who have just invaded Ops is priceless. Somehow from deep inside he manages to conjure up a smile but you can see it is painful for him. Curzon used to delight in giving Sisko some dreadful assignments when he was a junior office and so now he enjoys torturing Bashir in the same way!

Unknown Sample: Poor Odo doesn’t quite know how to react when Lwaxana visits him in his office in her sexiest hair (and her sexiest ever outfit) and literally starts climbing the furniture to paw at him! ‘Odo…it rolls of the tongue!’ His take on procreation is typically unique (it doesn’t require changing how you smell or sacrificing various plant life to serve as tokens of affection!). Odo understands thieves and killers but doesn’t have a clue how to handle women. He doesn’t handle delicacy very well. The look on his face when he realises he is stuck in a lift with Mrs Troi is one of sheer horror. When Mrs Troi starts going on about her lurid sex life with Ferengi’s Odo wonders wistfully how many volts are in the exposed circuit…whether to try and escape or commit suicide I’m not sure! Odo is so used to people accepting him for what he is but not understanding him that when Lwaxana starts asking him about how he made his hair and about his past he talks about it tentatively. He never grew up per se, it was merely a transition between what he used to be to what he chose to become. Mrs Troi is right, it does sound very lonely.

GE Doctor: How delicious that Bashir is lumbered with the ‘Ambassadors of Unhappy’. This bunch of complaining, opinionated, insulting and thoroughly miserable Federation representatives put him through the wringer and no mistake and its wonderful to see Sisko palming off this rotten assignment on the young Doctor.

Everyday Engineer: Remember when O’Brien was having a tiff with the computer in Emissary well that is nothing compared to the domestic he has with it here. He’s so pissed off with its constant opinions he insists on doing a root canal and digging out the guts of the thing and putting back together so it does what he says. Shouldn’t take any more than two or three years!

Mrs Troi: I love Mrs Troi! I know people found her tiresome on TNG but for me she was the complete opposite. Here was somebody who spoke her mind, who insulting the crass, middle class lot of them (even her daughter with the spectacularly insightful ‘Deanna dear I love you dearly but you do turn everything into an epitaph.’). So naturally she fits in perfectly with all the misfits and exiles on DS9, gambling and flirting generally having a great time. She turns Oo’max into some serious pain for Quark when he refuses to compensate for her missing hair brooch (‘I know where it hurts the most you little troll!’) and then falls for the enigmatic Constable Odo when she sees how unique a man he is. The chemistry between Rene Auberjonois and Majel Barrett is very natural and their quick fire exchanges have the witty repartee of a good Noel Coward film. Lwaxana heads off down memory lane and recounts the events of Ménage a Troi. The scene where Lwaxana tries to comfort Odo as he tries to resist regenerating is like none we have ever seen for her before, it completely redefines what the character is capable of beyond being a comic caricature. When she takes off her wig and offers Odo a rare glimpse into how ordinary she really looks your heart melts with the intimacy between the two characters at that moment. The writing is so sensitive and has taken two of the strongest willed Trek characters and broken them right down to their barest state and the result is that we understand them both so much more and invest a great deal in their relationship. Who saw any of that coming?

Sparkling Dialogue: ‘You are the thin beige line between order and chaos!’
‘Every sixteen hours I turn into a liquid!’ ‘I can swim.’
‘Even we non shape shifters have to change who were are every now and again’ ‘You are not at all what I expected’ ‘No-one has ever paid me a greater compliment.’
‘When it comes to picnics the only thing that really matters is the company.’

Dreadful Dialogue: ‘That’s it?’ says the Bolian Ambassador ‘I was expecting more somehow.’ You really want to punch this guy in the face!

The Good: Why is it when there are explosions and fires on DS9 they feel so much more dramatic than on other Trek shows? Even afterwards the corridor is a wreck and screaming with sparks and filled with smoke. O’Briens computer/puppy metaphor is one of the cutest (‘keep it off the furniture’).

The Bad: Sisko schedules a briefing at 0400. In the morning? Is that the same corridor explosion from If Wishes Were Horses?

Moment to Watch Out For: The scene where Odo melts into Mrs Troi’s lap. My mum watched this with me on its first transmission and she was reaching for the tissues.

Only DS9: ‘Are you actually suggesting that we indulge in one of those disgusting Ferengi sex programmes?’ – this show is obsessed with sex! Every episode seems to have a reference! ‘I’ve never been with a shape shifter’ ‘Been with?’ The scene where Odo visits Sisko to complain about Mrs Troi’s voracious sexual appetite could only happen on DS9 (and not just because its these characters). It’s a delightful scene that sees Sisko loving Odo’s discomfort at being sought after ‘like a Wanoni tracehound!’

Myth Building: One thing I have noticed is that nine times out of ten if Michael Piller is involved with a script he literally brings the best out of the characters on this show…and if Les Landau is extremely good at directing intimate dramas like this (see also Progress).

Result: Not content with having a gorgeous A story that sees Mrs Troi set her sights on Odo, The Forsaken also chooses to torture Bashir in an amusing B story and even feature a C story that uses technobabble in a really fun way! I’m not sure how they manage to pack it all in but none of these narratives feels undersold and they weave around each other effortlessly. Every scene is imbued with character that skips through everything from romantic comedy to intimate drama and the performances are sublime. Because it has so much going on it doesn’t quite have the focus of the best episodes of the season but it is still ridiculously entertaining and has some really moving scenes between Odo and Lwaxana. Both Vortex and The Forsaken offer tantalising glimpses into a softer Odo without diminishing the character in the slightest and have provided some of the most touching moments of the season: 8/10

Dramatis Personae written by Joe Menosky and directed by Cliff Bole

What’s it about: The crew become infected by a telepathic race who destroyed themselves…

Single Father: Considering he can be such a scary bloke I find it even more unnerving to find Sisko sitting reflectively in his office designing a clock (what the hell was that all about?) with only occasional sudden bursts anger and violence. The way he whispers his dialogue like singing to a child is enough to give me nightmares! My favourite scene in this episode comes when Sisko starts his new clock in the last scene, it’s the one touch of thoughtfulness in all the sci-fi melodrama. I’m really glad the baseball from If Wishes Were Horses and the clock from this episode stick around – they might be two of the most disposable episodes of the season but they do have an impact on the series.

Tasty Terrorist: It does seem a little odd that we should return to the feisty tension between Kira and Sisko that was highlighted in Past Prologue but at least we have got to the stage where she will concede to ‘try things his way.’ At least until the Klingon energy sphere invades her mind and makes her try to murder him horribly! Once she is taken over Kira is so ridiculously butch and aggressive it is hard to take her seriously. Firstly she tries to manipulate Odo by going for the heavy seduction approach and then she manages to bring Dax around by sensitively flirting with her too!

Everyday Engineer: Amazing how unlikable Colm Meaney can make O’Brien by twisting a few of his normal characteristics out of joint (his casual racism and general opinionated nature both of which are oddly charming usually). Meaney seems to enjoy the chance to the chew the scenery in Sisko’s Office, channelling his performance from TNG’s Power Play.

Unknown Sample: Odo tries the softly softly method with Quark by gossiping with him about the Klingons but as soon as that doesn’t work (or Quark tries to bribe him) he turns on the bad cop which proves much more effective. When his face starts playing pat-a-cake it looks really excruciating, Auberjonois is great at playing those moments of sudden pain. Whilst the kinky dominatrix approach doesn’t work on Odo I bet her talk of giving him free reign on the station and banging up whoever he likes made him think for just a second. He’s such a craft character, manipulating O’Brien, Kira, Bashir and Sisko all at the same time.

Community Leader: Trust Quark to try and wangle some compensation out of this whole sorry situation, putting on a fake neck brace and crying out ‘I want satisfaction!’

Nine Lives: Looks bored with the whole episode. Its easy to sympathise.

Sparkling Dialogue: ‘She must have spies everywhere!’ – O’Brien on Kira!
‘Never get me a phaser, I’ll get rid of Kira!’ – scaaaary!

The Good: Even though the writing is pretty vacuous the direction tries to make up for it by suggesting a state of wrongness in every scene. Even Odo waking up on a bed in Infirmary is filmed in a very odd way. As something of a horologist myself I adore Sisko’s clock – it is so beautiful and unusual. Even though the regulars on this show are more at odds than you usually see on Star Trek when they finally turn on each other in this episode it is spectacularly nasty with Sisko literally kicking the shit out of a Bajoran officer who is trying to put him to sleep, O’Brien slapping Dax around the face and Kira coming at everything guns blazing. The last ten minutes are the best of this episode in that respect with Odo trying to get everybody where he needs them whilst convincing them he is on their side.

The Bad: Dax is looking vacant immediately after the teaser – I probably would have let the audience think things were normal for a little longer. As soon a somebody starts acting out of character you know that more is to come. The constant cuts to the Klingon log does explain what is going on but there are far too many scenes of people sitting around watching it. The conclusion is spectacularly daft with Odo opening a vacuum to space as everybody hangs onto consoles.

Moment to Watch Out For: Watch out for the scene where Kira picks up Quark and throws him across the bar and so hard he hits the wall and brings a ton of glasses crashing down.

Result: Dramatis Personae is basically all the ill feeling amongst the crew of DS9 turned up the nth degree. To someone who watches the odd episode you might not even distinguish between their behaviour here (Kira beating up Quark and arguing with Sisko, O’Brien’s strong opinions about everything, Bashir playing the field) and the last time you watched but anyone who has watched the entire season will have seen subtle changes in their behaviour as they have started to gel. This used to be my least favourite episode of the season because none of the characterisation on display is particularly subtle but the regulars certainly all give it their all and it results in an episode that is at least entertaining camp trash. If you ever wanted to see Kira flirt with Dax, Sisko kick the crap out of someone, Odo walk a fine line between two camps, O’Brien putting his tactical skills to good use and a cat and mouse hunt between the crew then this is the episode for you! Personally I prefer the more thoughtful brand of DS9 and this is nothing but a bad TNG episode given a little more spice. This is the case for all the Joe Menosky inspired DS9 episodes…he is definitely pitching for the wrong show. It doesn’t surprise me at all that he found a home on Voyager: 5/10

Duet written by Peter Allan Fields and directed by James L. Conway

What’s it about: A Cardassian war criminal falls into Kira’s clutches…

Single Father: What’s wonderful about this episode is that all of the regulars get wonderful scenes whilst it is highlighting Nana Visitor’s Kira. Its is such a beautifully simple situation where everybody wants possession of this man and Sisko is placed in the bureaucratic nightmare of trying to keep the Bajorans and the Cardassians happy whilst also sticking to Federation rules and pleasing his First Officer.

Tasty Terrorist: The episode that put Nana Visitor on the map. This is the last step of Kira’s phenomenal development throughout the first season (actually not quite, she still has a further realisation to make about the Federation in In the Hands of the Prophets) and the episode where her hatred for Cardassians is put uncomfortably under the microscope and she is forced to re-evaluate her opinion. Gene Roddenberry might have been against racist characters in Star Trek but it makes for great drama, especially as they come to realise that their stance might not be right. Always one to under react (yeah, right), Kira calls for Security as soon as she suspects Marritza is a war criminal. His assertion that she has hate in her eyes and wants to kill him might be ridiculous in any other situation but proves scarily accurate here. Kira is crafty enough to have contacted the Minister of State to ensure that Marritza is persecuted and released to Bajoran justice because she firmly believes that the Federation has no business telling them how to deal with their criminals. She promises Sisko that she will conduct herself accordingly even though she isn’t objective (clearly their conversation in Progress had an effect). Kira tries to silence the ranting Darheel by trying to pigeon hole him as insane but he refuses to let her label him that easily. Kira used to lie awake at night plotting the assassination of people like Darheel. The strongest realisation that Kira has during this season is that Marritza didn’t commit the crimes and that he was only one man…the fact that he is a Cardassian isn’t reason enough to persecute him. It’s a massive step for her and beautifully played by Visitor. Astonishing character growth for a Star Trek character.

Filing Clerk: A character so memorable, so brilliantly conceived, written and performed that he deserves a section of his own. He’s perfectly charming towards Sisko with a little acidic wit (‘Oh finally, the Federation to the rescue’). Marritza heads to DS9 with an agenda and he knows exactly what he is doing but its only at the climax that you realise this – throughout you are never sure who he is or what he is up to. He knows exactly how to play Kira, suggesting that it was the Bajorans that killed each other at the labour camp and the suggestion that Cardassians were responsible was made by them to provoke fear in their enemies. He even suggests that leaving Bajor was a political decision and that Bajorans achieved nothing by getting rid of them. And then once exposed as Darheel he stabs her in the gut emotionally by telling her she can kill him but it wont change anything about the murders he ordered. Marritza tries desperately to keep up his pretence, to rant and rave but he finally breaks down when his lies flood him with the same feelings of shame and guilt he felt at the time. He goes from being the most loathed character in Star Trek to the most sympathetic.

Nine Lives: Jadzia the Champion Window Breaker, proof that Miss Goody Two Shoes isn’t quite as innocent as she seems (‘I was deadly’).

Sparkling Dialogue: ‘If you’d seen the things I saw. All those Bajoran bodies, starved, brutalised. D’you know what Cardassian policy was…no I’m not even talking about murder, murder was just the end of the fun for them. First came the humiliation. Mothers raped in front of their children, husbands beaten until their wives couldn’t recognise them, old people buried alive because they couldn’t work anymore!’ Such is the ferocity of Nana Visitor’s performance with this one scene she exposes just how terrifying life under the Occupation must have been. Another hellish reminder of where she has come from.
‘Persecuting Cardassians goes far beyond your job Major, its your passion.’
‘Kill me! Torture me! You can never undo what I’ve accomplished…the dead will still be dead!’
‘Nothing justifies genocide!’ ‘What you call genocide I call a days work’ – how James L. Conway lingers on Kira’s face after that line gives it even more power.
‘Cardassia will only survive if it stands in front of Bajor and admits the truth. My trial will force Cardassia to acknowledge its guilt. And we’re guilty all of us! My death is necessary!’ ‘What you’re asking for is another murder. Enough good people have already died. I wont help kill another.’
‘He was a Cardassian, that’s reason enough!’ ‘No…its not.’

The Good: The way this story plots out its mystery storyline is beautiful, its almost Garak-like in its Russian Doll layers of truth and deception. Marritza is a war criminal, no he isn’t, he doesn’t have Kalla-Nohra, yes he does, he is a file clerk, no he’s the butcher of Gallitep…no he is a good man trying to embody the guilt of his people Marritza has a great point to make about making a race feel like victims and not having to lift a finger once you have achieved that. The psychological angle is often far more effective than the physical one. The sequence where they clear up an image of Gallitep and discover Marritza’s true identity is a masterpiece of scene construction – it is beautifully put together to up the tension and suspense without a single person raising their voice. Wonderful that an episode that is so focused on Cardassian atrocities ends on a Bajoran one. It seems there is still a long way to go. The last shot is one of the most beautifully framed endings of any Star Trek episode.

The Bad: The Bajoran drunk seems like a superfluous character…until the last scene where even his involvement is blissfully made necessary.

Moment to Watch Out For: The scene where Kira finally gets Marritza to reveal his true identity is my favourite moment in Star Trek. It’s the only scene that manages to give me goosebumps and reduce me to tears in the same scene and the performances of Visitor and Yulin and beyond exceptional. Its drama at its finest and it brings this episode to a devastating conclusion. Both characters undergo astonishing transformations in this scene and you realise this man is willing to sacrifice his dignity and his life to get his people to face up to their horrors.

Only DS9: Duet pushes Star Trek levels into new areas of discomfort. When Tasha Yar talked about rape gangs it felt tasteless and ridiculous but when Kira talks of children witnessing their mothers being raped the very idea just fills you with horror. Maybe it’s the serious tone but the issues dealt with in this episode feel devastatingly real.

Teaser-tastic: All records show that the only you could have contracted Kalla-Nohra were at a Bajoran labour camp and their injured party is a Cardassian. Ouch.

Myth Building: The only cases of Kalla-Nohra are from the Bajoran forced labour camp, Gallitep.

Orchestra: Even the music is exceptional in this story – a particular feat given I cannot remember a single piece of music that has stood out in the first season to this point. This is quietly scored episode to allow the performances to dominate but the music creeps in during some strong moments (the revelation of Marritza in the photograph, after the ‘genocide’ line, when Kira finally breaks him).

Foreboding: Neela is introduced as one of O’Brien’s engineering crew and she would take on a much greater role in the next story. Its done with all the subtlety of the Durst/Seska examples – and it came first.

Result: The most effective psychological drama in Star Trek bar none. Haris Yulin, character actor extraordinaire takes on a truly challenging part that could so easily have been nothing but a ranting villain and he embodies the role with such realism and terror you forget all about the make up and simply concentrate on the riveting drama between him and Kira. The script is a beautifully crafted thing literally stuffed with memorable dialogue (I had to carefully cherry pick my favourites above but pretty much the entire script sparkles) and featuring a mystery that will leave you desperate to know the truth by the climax. Add to this precise and subtle direction that teases the drama from the situation, more exceptional work done with Kira and a conclusion that rips out your heart and stamps on it repeatedly and you have a rare thing. An episode that fires on all cylinders all the time. Exceptional in every single way and whilst hardly spending a penny: 10/10

In the Hands of the Prophets written by Robert Hewitt Wolfe and directed by David Livingston

What’s it about: Religious fundamentalism and science battle it out in a game of politics…

Single Father: Sisko knew a conflict of human and Bajoran ideologies was inevitable and he refuses to start separating their interests. He’s not comfortable in the role of the Emissary and tries to get Winn to call him Benjamin. The scene between Sisko and Jake about the matter of interpretation is a very powerful one, I really like how he forcefully tells his son that the Bajoran spiritual faith isn’t something to scoffed at even if you don’t believe in it. This is a turning point for Sisko’s character where he gets to reaffirm his mission statement and evolve the themes that were laid down in Emissary. His speech to Winn and her followers kicks more ass than any amount of ships he can blow up with the Defiant because it shows him as a considered leader offering hope to both sides of this faction and despite Winn’s most insidious efforts he still comes out looking as though he is right. His acknowledgment that he and Kira have some damn good fights but they always come away with a better understanding of each other is terrific.

Tasty Terrorist: Interesting to see Kira showing her support for Winn in this episode. It wont last long. Her assertion that teaching pure science without a spiritual context being another kind of philosophy is a potent view, its not one that I share but it does make you think. Kira awkwardly tries to excuse the absence of several Bajoran crewmen and continues to be a firm presence in Ops as the situation is crumbling around them. The last scene of the episode where Kira admits that Sisko’s speech struck a chord in her and that she is happy working with him ends the season on a positive note.

The O’Briens: With a cheeky grin Keiko teases O’Brien about his amazing new young female engineering crewmember. ‘Just keeping you on your toes, O’Brien.’ Its great to actually see Keiko at work in the school and she does seem like quite a naturally teacher and I am pleased that she doesn’t let a Bajoran spiritual leader waltz in and dictate what can and cannot be taught in her classroom. Whilst she might be a little too forceful in her defiance of spiritual teachings this is the healthiest development Keiko has ever had. I love O’Brien because he is such a fantastically flawed character with many vices from swearing too much, being a little too friendly with his Bajoran engineers (perfectly innocently I might add but it is easy to interpret otherwise) and eating too many sweet things. We have heard O’Brien say some casually racist things about Cardassians this season (and we would do so again) and it is interesting to see that he doesn’t like when Bajorans give him the same treatment. Neela likes O’Brien because he doesn’t put on any airs and I couldn’t put it better myself.

Sparkling Dialogue: ‘My philosophy is that there is room for all philosophies on this station!’
‘Some fear you as a symbol of the Federation that they view as Godless. Some fear you as the Emissary who walked with the Prophets. And some fear you because Vedek Winn told them to.’
‘The Prophets teach us patience’ ‘It appears they also teach you politics.’
‘The Prophets spoke! I answered their call!’
‘Maybe we have made some progress after all.’

The Good: Over its seven years DS9 would continually add to its arsenal of acting talent and each innovation would turn out to be for the better of the show. Louise Fletcher is an superb actress and the role of Winn is a perfect match for her talents and both the character and the actress bring the best out in each other. Winn is insidious, a political mastermind who craves power and is all the time smiling at you whilst plunging a knife into your back. Some of the best ever DS9 scenes belong to this character. Look at the way she whips up the parents into a religious frenzy and hilariously appears to be offering an olive branch to Keiko. She’s so deviously polite you have to admire her ability to lie through her teeth. Its great to finally visit the Bajoran temple on the Promenade, its an exquisitely designed and lit set. Whilst there is far too much technobabble flowing I really enjoyed the murder mystery subplot that rumbles through this episode and how it beautifully ties into the main story. The thing about Star Trek is it doesn’t venture out on location very often (I point that has driven me insane in the TNG episodes with a new planet each week that looks exactly the same each time) but when they do the result is some of the most gorgeous photography you will ever see outside of a movie. The monastery gardens scenes in Prophets are stunning, the sun is shining through the tall trees, the birds sing and the water flows down the river. Its somewhere I would love to visit myself. There’s another brilliant Odo/Quark moment (‘Those spiritual types love those Dabo girls!’).The fire that rages from the school bombing is an outstanding physical effect and it takes the episode onto a whole new level dramatically. The school is left in ruins afterwards and its as potent an image of religious extremism as I have ever seen. I love that the revelation about Neela isn’t packaged as a massively melodramatic moment but revealed as a silenced look between her and Winn after Sisko’s speech. Winn is such a wonderful bitch that she is not only willing to let Neela sacrifice her life in order to further her political career but she also packages it as a religious decree. Look at the last shot of this episode, a stunning ariel view of Ops.

Moment to Watch Out For: Aside from the wonderfully funny moment when Sisko leaps through the air I cannot think of a better staged sequence in Star Trek than Neela attempting to assassinate Bariel. Its brilliantly captured in slow motion, precisely lit and performed and still takes my breath away today after seeing it more times than is probably healthy even for a show of this series. The way Neela slips effortlessly from the crowd into shot with her gun and the look on Bariel’s face as the shot goes wide and explodes behind his head are both blisteringly powerful moments.

Only DS9: We have never seen political manoeuvring in Star Trek on this level before and its gripping.

Fashion Statement: Vedek Bariel is the hottest religious leaders I have ever clapped my eyes on.

Myth Building: Winn is from an orthodox order and has some support to become the next Kai but probably not enough. Vedek Bariel’s Since this is our first visit to the Bajoran capital since Emissary it is nice to see that the rebuilding is complete since the Cardassians left and the planet looks as serenely and stunning as ever.

Orchestra: Wonderfully subtle music during the assassination sequence.

Foreboding: This episode is superbly structure – Neela is seen realigning the isolinear co-processor in the first scene after the titles which looks like a throwaway moment but proves to be the lynchpin of the entire episode.

Result: In the Hands of the Prophets starts out really well and just gets better and better and better. You have two equally interesting plots that run separately and blissfully come together in a powerful and dramatic climax. There is room for political manoeuvring, a murder mystery, character development, two outstanding action sequences and the introduction of two perfectly pitched and performed new guest characters in Winn and Bariel. It brings the season to a climactic end on a real high, showing the bold new direction that the show is beginning to take and leaves you with nothing but positive feelings about leaping into the second year. Star Trek has never been like this before and its better than ever: 9/10

An Earthly Child written by Marc Platt and directed by Nicholas Briggs

2011-12-22T08:43:00.000-08:00

What’s it about: Thirty years on from the Daleks' invasion of Earth, the scars still haven't healed. The survivors inhabit a world thrown back two hundred years, a world of crop shortages and civil unrest. A world where the brightest and best of its young people are drawn to the xenophobic Earth United group. A world sliding into a new Dark Age, believes Susan Campbell, widow of one of the heroes of the Occupation. A world in need of alien intervention. A world in need of hope. But as Susan takes drastic action to secure the planet's future, she's oblivious to the fact that her student son, Alex, ensnared by Earth United, is in need of alien intervention too. Or so Alex's great-grandfather thinks.

Breathless Romantic: I can see why Susan was brought back for more adventures with Paul McGann’s eighth Doctor because they have a very relaxed way together that is blissful to listen to. The Doctor is desperate to learn about his grandson and ask one of his tutors if he is popular and doing well. He tries to reach out to him without telling him precisely who he is but it just seems like an interfering old man. I love the way that the Doctor says the Susan was always rash (mirroring his behaviour towards her in The Sensorites) but this time she is talking a lot of good sense. These days he has a more youthful disposition and every time Susan calls him grandfather the centuries pile on. The Doctor came because he heard Susan’s distress call – proof that it was worth her sending it out. As well as an explorer, a traveller and the Doctor he has a personal interest in the planet Earth.

Simply Susan: I love the idea of visiting Susan thirty years after the Dalek invasion to see how she built a life for herself on Earth and whether the Doctor made the right decision for her. Susan’s radical ideals are to contact other worlds for help as the Earth seems to be sliding into depravity. She wants better for her son and isn’t afraid to say so. She is playing a very dangerous game by contacting another world without permission – if she can seek consent to get aid from an alien race then she might just pull this off but the story suggests that if the human race doesn’t want the help being offered it will be forced upon them. And that is the last thing they need. David and Alex used to call her Genghis Khan and she would get into a strop and say they had it all wrong! The Doctor describes Susan as wilful and somebody who needed to be rescued a lot! She refuses to call him ‘Doctor’ because she’s not like everybody else. She explains to Alex that the TARDIS is their home and when she expresses her shock at how gothic it is the Doctor says they all go through phases. She outgrew the Doctor, met David and settled down. Her family is part of Earth’s future and she can’t duck out in the middle of all the developments even if he can get her back before they left. Her hearts are on the Earth now and she has music to face after causing all this drama. Susan never thought she would see the Doctor again but is so happy that she had the opportunity.

Young Apprentice: Alex is uncomfortable that his mother is so embarrassing in public; he doesn’t understand why she can’t keep all her propaganda at home. He doesn’t know what his lineage is; Susan always thought he deserved a normal upbringing especially in the wake of the Dalek invasion and the xenophobia that would have struck him. He only has one heart on his father’s side. Now she wants him to enjoy a proper education on Gallifrey, the sort that she could never have although I have to wonder what the Doctor might think of that considering his love of the planet. I really like the way the Doctor shows Alex how wrong his leanings have been – to express xenophobic views is almost like self-hatred because he is an alien. He refuses to be packed off to college halfway across the galaxy – he belongs on the Earth and that is his choice to make. Reminds me of another precocious youth we met in a junkyard in 1963.

Standout Performance: This might be the best performance Carole Ann Ford has ever given in Doctor Who and with a substantial meaty role and some well-written speeches to give she really shows what she is made of. She is certainly a far cry from the whimpering non-entity that caused nothing but problems during the first season and a bit. Jake McGann is an odd one for sure because when he is called to speak naturally he aces the scenes but it is when he has to show some real emotion that he seems a little…bland. Its something that he works on because come Relative Dimensions he is much, much better but he doesn’t have the naturalism to pull of the argument scenes in this story.

Sparkling Dialogue: ‘David would be shocked at what we’re doing! And the Daleks would be laughing…’
‘Eight? How did you manage that? That’s just throwing them away!’
‘A world in a traumatic shock. A cry for help. Its always the circling vultures who are the first to arrive.’
‘How blissful to slip the moorings and drift away’ – one of the most poetic attempts to describe suicide that I have ever heard.
‘I thought you’d wander out there forever’ ‘That’s where my hearts are…’

Great Ideas: Its almost astonishing that nobody has sought to reap the rewards of as post Dalek invasion setting because it is bleeding with possibilities after such a cataclysmic shift to the Earth. Marc Platt has created a suspicious, paranoid Earth with a populace that has had its wind knocked out of them and is waiting for the next invasion force to arrive. Everybody is angry with how they were treated and is making up for it by fighting whatever cause comes along because they need to feel strong again. He cleverly uses elements of The Dalek Invasion of Earth to prove how the invasion has integrated into normal vernacular – kids call each other ‘Robo Heads’ and there is mentions of the Slythers as though they are the Bogeymen. Landmarks were totally destroyed but the rebuilding of the planet has been impressive. The Moon colonists have been trapped on Earth’s satellite for thirty years sending out SOS signals in morse code. The human race has developed a fear of technology and the rise of Earth United, a xenophobic watch group, has seen the young corrupted into their bigoted ideals. Under the Occupation two thirds of the Earth’s people died, technology was thrown back 200 years and since then crops have failed and civil unrest is growing. It’s been ages since anybody did the job that they wanted to do. Both the Doctor and Susan remember the Earth’s future because they visited it – a thousand world Empire of trade and exploration across space. The Galdreezi are an intriguing vampiric species that exploit the resources of invaded worlds. They offer a gift of the moon colonists to make it appear as though they are benevolent and in return they ask for token gifts, cheap labour tantamount to the slave camps the Daleks were running. Workers servicing their military machines and as sitting targets for their enemies. As they are defeated by the Doctor the out him and Susan as the other aliens in their midst which opens a whole new can of worms – especially as Alex finds out where he really comes from.

Audio Landscape: Screaming students bellowing about higher grants, polite applause for Susan’s speech, doorbell, cameras snapping away, a mobile communicator crackling, a typewriter suggested how technology has taken a step backwards, phone ringing (again quite primitive sounding), a spaceship lowering into the atmosphere, police sirens, helicopter landing and fierce blades rotating, screaming gulls, waves lapping on the shore.

Musical Cues: The use of the original theme tune is a lovely touch. I used to think the original was the slowest and least interesting of the lot when I was younger especially compared to the exciting electric guitar version from the 80s! Another reasons why I was such an idiotic, precocious youth. Tastes change as you get older and usually for the better and now it is my favourite of all the themes (perhaps tied with the Tom Baker theme). Its atmospheric, mysterious and alien and all those things they were trying to promote about the show in the sixties. I could listen to it again and again as it is one of the most organic music experiences and it plays about with my spine wonderfully.

Isn't it Odd: The Doctor should never say lines like ‘I set your parents up’ because it sounds as though he has walked from the set of Hollyoaks! It’s almost as odd as the Doctor asking Susan how she managed to produce Alex! I thought I had strayed into the Sex Education Show for a moment!

Standout Scene: The reunion scene between the Doctor and Susan is delightfully done with Paul McGann underplaying and Carole Ann Ford overplaying – he’s testing the waters and she is simply enchanted to see him! It’s the one scene that Doctor Who fans have been waiting for for such a long time and McGann and Ford share some magical chemistry that marks this a special moment. I love the way she cannot stop hugging him.

Notes: This story completely contradicts the novel Legacy of the Daleks which oddly enough also seeks to reunite the eighth Doctor with Susan in a post Dalek Invasion Earth but the novel is a steaming pile of dung so I wont shed too many tears. This is the official continuity as far as I am concerned because it stars Carole Ann Ford and Paul McGann.

Result: A paranoid, xenophobic Earth is the setting for the long overdue reunion between the Doctor and Susan and the introduction of her son. In reality this is less of a story in its own right and more a prelude to the stories Relative Dimensions and the climactic two part finale in season four of the Eighth Doctor Adventures but there is so much of interest going on here that it is a little mean spirited to dismiss this as such. Marc Platt has long been one of my favourite Big Finish writers because he has a talent for whisking up an evocative location, interesting characters and extremely quotable dialogue and all three are in action here. I found the world building to be particularly impressive with lots of imaginative and realistic detail and was pleased that somebody had finally sought to play about with the Earth left battered after the Dalek invasion. Jake McGann needs a little more practice before he gets a hang of this audio lark (he is much better in his second appearance) but Alex is still an intriguing character in the possibilities he offers (the idea of him taking up the reins from the Doctor is explored in later adventures). But the real joy to be found is the chemistry between Paul McGann and Carole Ann Ford. It’s so good you might find yourself championing a trilogy or two with the Doctor and Susan travelling together again. Big Finish never cease to amaze me with the quality of the freebies they give away, An Earthly Child is a great deal better than some of the releases that you have to pay full whack for. Very enjoyable: 8/10

Plague of the Daleks written by Mark Morris and directed by Barnaby Edwards

2011-12-19T03:18:00.000-08:00

What’s it about: Stockbridge used to be such a lovely place. The loveliest village in all England, according to the guide books. But hardly anyone visits Stockbridge now: a few tourists, a couple of Trust guides, the odd beady-eyed raven. But something is coming to Stockbridge. Something which turns village cricketers into ravening zombies – a plague such as the Earth has never seen, falling through history from a time when humanity's greatest enemy was a race known as the Daleks. The Doctor and Nyssa visit Stockbridge for the final time, to confront the terrible secret buried at its heart. The storm clouds are gathering…

An English Gentleman: He solves a few mysteries and insults a few Daleks but ultimately this proves that Davison is only ever as good as the opportunities a script gives him. And in this case it is very little.

Alien Orphan: Nyssa thought churches were supposed to be joyous places full of worship and singing but perhaps that’s just how they are on Traken. In Doctor Who they seem to breed the most terrible things. She knows how much the Doctor loves Stockbridge but after their recent perilous adventures she cannot wait to get back to the TARDIS and get out of here. Nyssa knows what it is like to have somewhere that you love destroyed and so she can sympathise with his loss of Stockbridge.

Standout Performance: Richard Cordery seems to be the only guest star that is trying to offer something a little different and his wibbly wobbly exuberance as Professor Jabbery at least makes his scenes enjoyable to listen to. Much of the rest of the cast wander the story as though they are bored by the whole thing. Astonishingly both Liza Tarbuck and Keith Baron fail to make any kind of impact. Peter Davison’s monosyllabic Dalek impression in the final episode leaves a lot to be desired.

Sparkling Dialogue: ‘Don’t let their lack of numbers lull you into a false sense of security.’

Great Ideas: A pub that has been mysteriously evacuated in a hurry during Christmas, the food is rotten and mouldy and the landlady doesn’t seem to recognise that anything is wrong. Crows are massing for attack and you can walk from blistering winter in one room to calming spring in another. A woman from the 1960s, weather altering technology and spaceships – is this all just random weirdness or is there a mind behind all this? The Critical Age – by the 45th century solar flare activity was so extreme that over 95% of the Earth’s surface became uninhabitable. Turns out that there is a Stockbridge experience where you can enjoy the long lost delights of a beautiful English village. Both a viable historical resource and a beautiful place to visit. The villagers are nth generation clones and most of them can barely function as human beings anymore, life spans get shorted with each generation. All the birds and animals are Artifical Lifeforms. Episode two wanders into The Walking Dead territory with the clones wandering the rain lashed streets of Stockbridge murderously and I can almost imagine that being the starting point for the writer. The CES is the Central Environment Station is in the middle of Wells Wood. The Daleks have long been considered extinct by most civilised races. They have been waiting beneath Stockbridge in a state of suspended animation waiting to be revived, knowing that the Doctor keeps returning to Stockbridge and leaving a squad behind to deal with him. They have been there for over 17 centuries and three of the Daleks have survived. One thing about the Daleks is that they do seem to create weapons of devastating simplicity.

Audio Landscape: Nyssa lands with a bump, whistling wind, crackling pub fire, walking through the crunchy snow, crows cawing, birdsong, a cricket match with the ball hitting a bat and polite cheering and clapping, a spaceship screaming into the atmosphere, rain lashing down, zombies gurgling and groaning and banging on the doors, rain hitting a roof, the Dalek heartbeat, the Cushing movie control room hum, extermination blasts, alarm, rubble falling, explosions.

Musical Cues: Whilst apparently confused whether he is writing a Christmas special full of carols and festive tunes or to remain silent as the exposition approaches like a torrent, Steve Foxon finally settles down to right and out and out zombie feature in episode two.

Isn’t it Odd: The first episode reminded me very strongly of the incoherent awkwardness of Renaissance of the Daleks blended in with a stockpile of mysteries introduced in the same manner as The Eternal Summer (but not dealt with as skilfully). There was plenty of randomness thrown in but it didn’t feel as though it was being explained adequately as we moved on to yet more puzzles and the characters all seemed to take everything in their stride. You can be a little too relaxed in your storytelling if you’re not careful, assuming that the audience understands everything that you do. Stockbridge being turned into a heritage site was a clever idea but it is dealt with in a very undramatic fashion – the characters just wander about carefree and so the episode fails to build up any momentum. The Daleks don’t even turn up before the end of the first cliffhanger which is usually a given in a story where they feature in the title. The first cliffhanger is anomalous because we have no idea why the acid rain should be in effect where no outside influences have been suggested. It just feels like a random event there to provide a cliffhanger. It also has that peculiar Death to the Daleks episode three feel (you know, the designer flooring of death) where it just abruptly stops rather than leading to a satisfactory climax – it feels like sloppy direction which is unthinkable from Barnaby Edwards who usually crafts the cliffhangers with such care. The characters have a bad habit of describing the action as though this is an audio descriptive televised story for the blind (‘Look at the way he’s moving all strange and jerky like a sort of puppet!’) – it’s a sign of a freshman writing full length audios that dissipates over time. Certainly Morris’ House of the Blue Fire was far less guilty of the crime. How strange that we intercut between the streets packed with slavering zombies to the bitching blandness between the visitors to Stockbridge in the second episode – talk about undercutting the tension! The mention of Phillip dying at seven years from The Eternal Summer feels less clever than some of the other linking moments in this trilogy because it is a remarkable co-incidence that of all the graves he could have come across it was one from a character in the previous story? Mrs Linfoot really is the most butt crack itchingly infuriating character to have stepped from a Big Finish adventure since Caitriona from The Rapture or Monica Lewis from Land of the Dead! She is there for no other purpose but to get in the way and complain (‘Get those filthy tentacles away from me you purple freak!’), and no personality or function beyond the confines of what Plague of the Daleks demands of her. Richenda Carey’s performance isn’t the most subtle or naturalistic either (‘Get away you vile little creature!’) and by the end of episode two you will be so sick of hearing about ‘her Vincent’ you might just want her torn limb from limb by dribbling zombies to remove her from the story. When the Daleks do finally turn up it feels as though the story is adding another element to complicate things – it reminded me of their inclusion in Daleks in Manhattan when there was so many other elements vying for attention. When the Daleks appear it should always be an exciting moment and this is one of the rare times I sighed, perhaps from Dalek fatigue in Big Finish stories or perhaps because it was stacking up another disjointed plot element to be dealt with when so little of the story had been explained already. This story just cannot seem to settle down and decide what its tone should be – Professor Jabbery starts ranting at a Dales, refusing to be intimidated by its threats in a baffling scene that I am not sure is supposed to be funny or frightening but doesn’t achieve either. Halfway through the third episode and you could be forgiven for giving up on this story altogether – the Daleks are back and appear to be entirely unconnected from the main story and enjoying their own little scenes screeching away at each other. The climax of episode three features a couple of over excitable Daleks jabbering on about the Doctor becoming one them and reining supreme – its almost as if they are trying to live up to their own hype because we still don’t have a Scooby Doo why they are there! They say these things because it is what the audience expect them to say rather than because it makes any kind of dramatic sense. It would appear the only reason the Doctor meets up with them is because he wanders into their little nest! This is three of the most ineffective Daleks we have ever met – everybody seems to take the piss out them and their long forgotten Empire! They fail to do anything remotely terrifying and then everybody starts doing Dalek impressions like kids in a playground! Even this isn’t original – it was explored in a much funnier and scarier way in Evil of the Daleks. Daleks usually manage to avoid the Cybermen trap of appearing just because they are a popular monster – there is usually a new twist on the Daleks or their storyline is pushed in a new direction but in Plague it feels as though they have turned up because Big Finish thought it might sell a few more copies. There is no reason why this has to be a Dalek story and when that is the case they shouldn’t be used. Lysette and Issac are Dalek agents – just like Stein in Ressurection of the Daleks! The Doctor tries to battle with Issac psychologically to drive the Daleks out of his mind – just like Stein from Ressurection of the Daleks! The plot grinds to a halt whilst Issac tells a heartrending tale of his past…get a script editor in here now! Since the Doctor turns up an awful lot in London does that mean that there are Dalek squads waiting in select locations around the capital too? ‘Using your TARDIS we will travel back to the dawn of the Dalek Empire. With your knowledge the Daleks will conquer all of time and space!’ Yaaaaawn. Is that what we have waiting four episodes to discover? The conclusion features Lysette deactivating the bubble around Stockbridge and destroying the village to bring the Daleks down – what an unsatisfying end to a great location. It feels like the writer has written himself into a corner and because there is nothing especially intelligent to conclude he just destroys the place in a great big bally explosion! Its an unsatisfactory end to both the story and the trilogy. Ultimately none of the story ties together, it literally is just a number of random elements shoved together to hope if they blend well. They don’t.

Result: The Daleks are in this story why exactly? One of the most sloppily written Big Finish stories for an age, Plague of the Daleks will strain your patience until it is worn away and you are left with angry frown lines etched into your face. Episode one is an irritating composite of unanswered questions, episode two is a zombie tale interlaced with some surreal moments of melodrama, episode three introduces the Daleks but fails to integrate them into the plot and the last episode has to catch up and try and explain everything that has been introduced in the story so far and fails spectacularly to bring the story to satisfying close. If you listen to the interviews on the disc you realise that the writer and the script editor both came to this story with different ideas (Barnes: the heritage Stockbridge and the Daleks, Morris: the zombies turned by rain) and the resulting story feels like a discordant clash of concepts that don’t belong together. What this story needs is a script editor who can tie all the disparate strands together into a satisfyingly coherent whole but what we are left with is a slapdash first draft. Proof that even the best of directors can have their off days because Plague of the Daleks feels as though it has been assembled without much care almost as if Edwards knows he is onto a stinker. Even the performances lack the usual conviction of a solid Big Finish cast with Liza Tarbuck and Keith Baron failing to make any impression at all. Forgettable roles for both the Doctor and Nyssa means Davison and Sutton’s contributions are pretty workmanlike too which is unthinkable after the last two scripts afforded them such luxurious opportunities. I considered turning this story off at the end of episode three and coming back to it later but I knew that if I did that I would never listen to the end so I forced myself to endure the conclusion. That is never a good a sign: 2/10

The Eternal Summer written by Jonathan Morris and directed by Barnaby Edwards

2011-12-16T07:43:00.000-08:00

What’s it about: It's been a long, hot summer in Stockbridge. Longer than the villagers can remember. Summer's lease is never-ending – and all thanks to the Lord and Lady of the Manor! One man alone knows that something's wrong: Maxwell Edison, Stockbridge's unofficial ambassador to the Universe. Or 'flying saucer nut', as the locals have it. He'll need help proving it: from the local postmistress Miss Nyssa, perhaps; or the village Doctor, the fellow that's been living at the Green Dragon Inn these last 30 years. They'd better hope that autumn never comes to Stockbridge. When autumn comes, the world is doomed…

An English Gentleman: Like Black Orchid and The Awakening there is something very right about the fifth Doctor visiting a quaint picturesque old English village – he’s so quintessentially English himself he seems to fit Stockbridge like a glove. Whilst some might think of living the highlights of your life a joy the Doctor considers it an abomination. Wonderfully he describes the collective hypnotised villagers ‘stark raving bonkers’ which is a very funny description whoever it is being pointed at. The Doctor comes face to face with himself from the future scarred by the infinite ravages of time, decomposing and rotten, over a million years hence. The decrepit Doctor remembers that his real name wasn’t Doctor but cannot remember what it actually was. Deferring explanations is a habit he really must learn to stop. The Doctor calls the Lord and Lady a remote possibility of a future, a shadow place maintained by the nightmare of what is happening in Stockbridge. The Hyperspatial warp must have splintered off alternative selves and as they were sent into the future another Doctor and Nyssa were summoned into being in the past – that’s the technobabble explanation but there are still a possibility and that’s pretty chilling.

Alien Orphan: Nyssa takes on the surname of Jones which added to the Doctor’s alias makes them Smith and Jones! It has been so long for the older Nyssa that she doesn’t remember Tegan, Adric, the Master of the Cybermen. The time before the village is too distant now. Nyssa is frustrated at being treated like a simpleton and comments that she is more than capable of understanding anything that Lizzie might consider complicated! There is an astonishing sequence as we slip back through Nyssa’s memories of her entire Big Finish run and we realise just how far she has come in the audio adventures.

Village Geek: An expert in all thing abnormal, supernatural and extra terrestrial, basically if it is anything to do with the unknown he thinks he knows everything about it. He’s such a lovable character because everybody else in the village thinks he is a still a crackpot child looking for space monsters. He’s a bit shy and useless around girls and talks too much when it comes to thinking through problems because he is so excited to have the Doctor back in his life. Max is a helpful reminder that it is not just the bad stuff, they get to relive the good moments in their lives too. ‘Who would want to spend their life with an obese, ugly failiure like you?’ – how could you not love a man who is battered down with insults like that by the people who are supposed to love him. Max tries to do the thing where suggests something stupid which enables the clever guy to think up the solution – he’s such a sweetie. Its rather lovely that Lizzie and Max get along so well after everybody else is so mean to him and the offer to join the PIG is clearly the highlight of his life. The way she asks in him (in such a gloriously upper class way) if he wants to go for coffee and a bun together made my heart melt. Coffee and a bun sounds fantastic, indeed. He’s sick of working on the sidelines and leaps back into the danger that waits in Stockbridge to help his friends but gives Lizzie a snog before he goes. The force inside tries to assault him with all the insults and jeers he has had but he knows what happened the night that stars fell on Stockbridge and he refuses to give in to his own insecurities. He’s the one person who was never part of the village, the one person with a mind of his own and the only person who can fight against the power of Veridios. The real hero of the piece. Max died in a bike accident in the real time but pleasingly those events have been wiped out once he saves the day.

Standout Performance: Its not easy to suggest age through your voice alone without the back up of make up to pull the effect off but Peter Davison and Sarah Sutton do an outstanding job as the ravaged versions of the Doctor and Nyssa. With faltering croaky voices and an air of slowness about them they genuinely convince that they have aged 10,000 centuries. The scene where Sutton and Davison cackle orgasmically as feeding from the villagers memories is hauntingly done, they really are nothing like the originals.

Sparkling Dialogue: ‘It reminds me of a town I once visited but that was entirely artificial, a space time trap brought into existence by a madman’ ‘What Milton Keynes?’
‘Its like that film Groundhog Day! I loved that film. I must have seen it a hundred times. Which is a bit ironic come to think about it.’
‘We have our whole lives over again every time that sun comes up. Every joy, every heartbreak, every love, every loss.’
‘What happens to all bubbles in the end? Pop!’
‘The Eternal Summer is ending. Autumn is approaching.’
‘Without the girl Nyssa my existence is founded upon a paradox! I am an edifice built upon shifting sands!’

Great Ideas: I love the way the story opens with the Doctor waking up at a Bed and Breakfast in Stockbridge and being told that he has been staying there for as long as the owners can remember, living under the alias of Dr Smith. What on Earth has happened? He tries to piece together the mystery of his situation – Harold and Alice remember the Doctor being there at their wedding anniversary 30 years ago which would make him 50 but nobody questions that he looks about two decades younger than that. Nyssa woke up in the same way with everybody in Stockbridge thinking she was the post mistress, as though someone has found roles for them and is trying to make them fit into the village. There’s a wonderful observation that this isn’t the 2000s but the 50s or 60s, the gag being that a country village is set in time whilst the rest of the world changes around it. The Doctor and Nyssa seem to be bleeding through time to various events in the past 60 years and the Doctor picks up the phone in a police telephone box and hears himself at the other end of the line. He then picks it up again and has the same conversation from the other side – immediately after! Harold and Alice get married and are buried on the same day. Something has happened in Stockbridge to link all these wibbly wobbly fabulously Morrisesque events! Max explains that the same day keeps occurring but with all the things that have happened in the last 60 years, all the births and deaths jumbled up. Always the same day of later summer, over and over. You can’t leave Stockbridge, every time you try you find yourself back by the village green and duck pond. It’s a very clever way of giving characters a life beyond the confines of this story by revealing all the most important events in their lives and by experiencing the moment Dudley proposed to Jane and she refused, falling to her death, Harold and Alice’s wedding, the death of their son and their gravestones we get a broad strokes painting of their whole lives. Brilliantly as we get used to how the story starts jumping about the characters start to acknowledge the scattered approached to the storytelling – Dudley stating as he pulls the Doctor a pint of ginger beer that losing Jane was the saddest day of his life, experienced just seconds before. Jane then reappears as we head into the past with the glorious line ‘I know, I know, I fell of the old bridge to my death but I’m alive again now.’ The Doctor starts to notice inconsistencies in the history of Stockbridge being relived, first Alice was at Harold’s funeral and then Harold is at Alice’s bedside as she slips away. It transpires that they like to take turns, him there at her death and then her there at his. He doesn’t understand if they have been living the same day over and over why they haven’t gotten used to it but he is reminded that these people are their family and friends – no matter how many times they die it will always affect them. The torture of losing their son so young over and over makes this one of the cruellest Doctor Who stories, fancy having to relive that moment every single day. Whenever the pain of remembering the past becomes too much the Lord and Lady of the manner help the village folk to take it away (although the Doctor wonders if that is just so they can experience it again afresh). The older Doctor and Nyssa are scared that their younger versions might leave and his future self might never have existed – that is why they wont let him leave Stockbridge. They have ruled of Stockbridge for so long but they stopped counting after the first 10,000 centuries. PIG – The Psychic Investigation Group are investigating the lost village of Stockbridge. Max never knew that they existed because they are top secret organisation (did I detect a little dig at UNIT there? And with so many paranormal organisations around during the 20th Century I’m surprised they didn’t trip on each others toes at every supernatural occurrence the Doctor was involved in!). They said that the village was destroyed by a V1 at the end of World War II but there is no evidence of that. People kept claiming they could see a village shrouded in mist, a ghost village. I really like how we get to see this phenomenon from both sides, initially Edison claiming that those on the outside are ghosts. The reason why the two sides can now see each other is because the time bubble is collapsing allowing both a glimpse and then to be able to pass from one side to the other. Tying into Castle of Fear, the older versions of the Doctor and Nyssa have built the manor house out of the ruins of the Rutan spaceship. The warp core didn’t ignite because the Doctor activated the failsafe, the engines were caught in a stasis field and the bubble engulfed the village and the past 60 years. If it explodes those 60 years of temporal energy will be released. The people of Stockbridge are held in the moment of their death, suspended in the moment. The older Doctor and Nyssa have been savouring the emotions and memories of the villagers like a fine wine. When the Doctor leaves the village for a few minutes to them he has been away for a hundred years. The villagers want their purgatory of immortality to be other because they have lived their lives a millions time over – death would be a welcome release. In a top grisly moment His Lordship eats the Lady Nyssa after she extracted our Nyssa’s memories. Veridios is a figure from human folklore suggesting rebirth – Wells Wood woke to an eternal summer and has taken control.

Audio Landscape: Morris is such a confident writer and Edwards a certain director that the opening episode is a brilliant scene setter pulling off the quaint English village better than any other story I can remember. I love the way that as the characters are introduced we quickly cut to a sudden moment of tension that would occur later in the tale to prove that things aren’t quite as picturesque as they might appear on the surface. There was a moment that really made me jump – the cut from the Doctor pronouncing Phillip dead to Harold’s funeral. Birdsong, ducks quacking, church singers, a bicycle bell, the Doctor falling into the duck pond much to the birds’ consternation, post office bell, wedding bells, the village school of fire, the fire alarm, crows in the sky, trampling through the woods, the river bubbling and flowing, pouring a nice frothy pint of ginger beer, smashing a window, the roof breaking and caving in, Alice’s last breath, a fountain, crackling fire, mobile ring tone, storm clouds breaking with thunder, the aperture tearing open, window smashing, rain lashing, the awful sucking noises as the rotten Nyssa extracts the life out of the villagers.

Musical Cues: Smooth tinklings on the piano in the early scenes introduce the story; it gives the tale a lightness of touch which is practically effervescent. Listen to the confident playing as Nyssa discovers the graves of everybody in the village.

Isn’t it Odd: Its heartbreaking that Max and Lizzie never got to share a coffee and a bun together, the only unhappy part of the conclusion.

Standout Scene: Just as I was starting to tire of Nyssa’s continued absence from the story along comes the end of episode two which somehow after two episodes of temporal high jinks pulling the rug from under me managed to completely floor me. The Doctor and Nyssa are revealed as the Lord and Lady of the Manor, thousands of years old and faces as grey as dust. The Doctor is horrified to take a glance into his own future… Morris is so good at using the concept of time to shock and this cliffhanger is exquisitely timed to give the second half of the story a brand new direction.

Notes: ‘He stumbled into the TARDIS once the night that stars fell on Stockbridge’ You couldn’t possibly have a Stockbridge trilogy of adventures without featuring Maxwell Edison, the lovable UFO spotter that helped the Doctor during his comic strip adventures and here he is right in the heart of the stories. Rather wonderfully the stories brings to life several moments from the comic strips that will no doubt have the fans frothing at the mouth! Its lovely to see the strips being acknowledged and realised in such a generous way and Mark Williams plays an adorable Max Edison (‘I thought it looked a bit Venusian’).

Result: Spellbinding, a story that continually evolves as it continues but feels skilfully structured throughout, juggles all manner of clever plot devices but ties everything together satisfactorily at the end. Scripts of this quality don’t come along every day and we’re fortunate that Barnaby Edwards was the director chosen to bring it to life because it has the same glorious mixture of genuine sentiment and splintered plot games that made his earlier masterpiece, The Chimes of Midnight, such a success. Edwards puts the puzzle together with real dexterity, capitalising on the choking moments of emotion whilst ensuring the mystery keeps you guessing and excited. There is an energy to the piece that is easy to be swept up in and the atmospherics of an English village make this adventure easy to conjure before your eyes. My favourite scenes where with the rancid old Doctor and Nyssa as they greedily fed on the villagers pain and love – it was such a gloriously macabre spin on the characters we know I was lapping it up. Jonathan Morris deserves a huge round of applause for continually coming up with the goods for Big Finish – his work has been of such a consistent high standard I fail to understand why the new series hasn’t snapped him up. I’ve always been fond of conundrum tales like this and enjoy working at solving a complicated plot and when it reaps rewards as much as The Eternal Summer I couldn’t be happier. A top notch fifth Doctor release of the type that is quite a rarity these days – this really was a phenomenal year of Big Finish adventures: 9/10

Castle of Fear written by Alan Barnes and directed by Barnaby Edwards

2011-12-12T15:29:00.001-08:00

What’s it about: 1199: Returning from the Crusade, Hubert, the new Earl of Mummerset, comes to take possession of Stockbridge Castle, his ancestral home. The only trouble is, in his absence, demons took possession of his Castle... 1899: The Stockbridge mummers’ play takes a wholly unexpected turn, when the Dragon slays St George. These events are not unconnected, the Doctor and Nyssa discover. There's an alien presence squatting in Stockbridge Castle, and it's their job to expose it. If Turkish knights, killer boars and a gang of rogue paladins don't stop them first…

An English Gentleman: ‘There is a Doctor near at hand, ready to make the champion stand. Not another poultry mime but an Earl of Space and a Lord of Time!’ ‘What if I promise to doom myself just as soon as I’m out of the pit?’ the Doctor says, getting into the Monty Python spirit of the story. He wants to be saved from certain death so he can go and save certain death, naturally! I love the way Maud digs at the Doctor’s feeble strength by calling him Sir Runt! The Doctor has puns coming out of his backside as he faces up to the Rutan on the rack and when he meets up with Nyssa again he compliments her on her resourcefulness. What sort of knight wears a wegetable upon his breast? One inspired by JNT of course. I was astonished listening to the Doctor and Nyssa pooling their information when they meet up, finishing each other’s sentences so smoothly in an extremely fluidic exchange. They compliment each other beautifully and later when the Doctor believes Nyssa to be dead he drops his guard for a moment and says that he was fond of her – very fond in fact. If there was ever a moment where the Doctor had come close to admitting romantic feelings for one of his companions this must surely qualify.

Alien Orphan: I love Nyssa being able to travel alone with the Doctor and completely agree with Peter Davison that she compliments his Doctor better than his other companions. When written well Nyssa can be very surprising character and Sarah Sutton a surprising actress and plonking somebody as regal as Nyssa in the middle of a Pythonesque farce might seem like a contradiction in itself. However it works a treat because Nyssa gets to be a fabulous bossy boots when it comes to dealing with the inept Hubert, Earl of Dorkdom and unexpectedly she really gets into the spirit of the adventure and proves a warm presence. By the end of this story it has surely been the kindest adventure yet to her character as she has a hand in all the best moments.

When the Doctor suggested spending Christmas in Stockbridge, Nyssa was desperate to escape the confines of the 20th Century that they always seem to find themselves in. However 1899 proves too primitive for her with all its debauchery and jeering but even she can’t resist pointing out her Doctor when they call out for a medical man to join in the theatrical madness. In fact once they start participating she rather gets into it, pointing the Doctor towards his lines and improvising some herself! I love the way she calls herself the Lady Nyssa of Traken and she is smart enough to take her shoes off when she realises that is why the boar are pursuing them. A quick thinker, she can immediately see that the enemy are using electricity to bring down the knights in their suits of armour and orders their retreat. Then she marches into action with a plan to short-circuit the drone army! No wonder she was so trigger happy in Arc of Infinity, she’s had plenty of practice developing a fighting spirit with Big Finish. Come episode three she is ordering Roland to strip before her, the dirty mare! She laughs when he attempts to frighten her by waving his sword around and all he is wearing is long johns! She’s such a clever one that she double crosses the Rutans by tricking the Doctor into thinking she has given them everything they wanted…and then reveals that she did give them everything they wanted – unlimited power! Power without limit. How destructive does that sound?

Standout Performance: You know you are going to be in for a good time when Joe Thomas turns up on the cast list and his turn as Hubert, Earl of Mummerset is a delight to listen to for exactly the same reason Simon is such a treat in The Inbetweeners – he’s not afraid to throw away any sense of image and play an absolute prat! ‘Oh you fibber!’ He turns out to be a right big girls blouse and reminds me an awful lot of Captain Emanuel Swan from Dr Who and the Pirates thanks to his upper class twittitude and he is just as fun to listen to (also the director Barnaby Edwards played swan which creates a nice symmetry). Susan Brown also deserves kudos for really throwing herself into Maud the Withered (not the strumpet!) and having great fun with her horrifically over the top accent. John Sessions gets his tongue around a particularly quotable cod French twang as Roland of Berkhampsire! I really don’t have anything bad to say about any of the performances though, as usual Big Finish has assembled a top-drawer cast.

Sparkling Dialogue: ‘This is stretching the point too far, don’t you think?’ – the Doctor on the rack!
‘I suppose middle age counts as a good innings in the Middle Ages’ – I love a bad pun, me and it reminds me of The Time Warrior which this story alludes to.
‘Its not too late to consider a collectivist alternative!’ – all the confab about serfs only being serfs when they have someone to serve is very funny! ‘We aint peasants! We’re serfs!’
‘Nyssa don’t patronise them’ says the Doctor as she gives them some peasantry explanation as to why the demons are leaving. He then continues with a full on Star Trek Voyager technobabble description of his own and naturally they comprehend the former.
‘And what if we aren’t lucky?’ ‘I recommend you don’t start any long sentences!’

Great Ideas: Somewhere along the line a ‘Doctor’ has visited Stockbridge with the ability to bring the dead back to life and his skills have passed into folklore and are being worked into the local mummery. An event involving the Doctor, a green dragon and a Turkish knight! The plot hiccups back 500 odd years to the 12th Century to explain how this peculiar myth began. Nyssa steps in shite and the Doctor in a boar trap – I didn’t think this was particularly sophisticated comedy until Barnes dovetailed the two to make a great boar hunting action sequence. The tone of the piece is distinctly Pythonesque and the Doctor confirms its influences when he runs away from a fight suggesting he is ‘off to find the Holy Grail!’ A great hellish fireball came shooting over the battlements and that night the old Earl was found dead in his bathtub. There was the sound of lightning and demons about their terrible, infernal business. It’s only in hindsight that the appearance of the Rutan is well sign posted with the Earl mentioning a mist thickening and the mention of the fish stock dying the night it landed – both elements used to great effect in Horror of Fang Rock. The mist has been concocted to lower the local temperature. The Doctor guesses incorrectly that the Rutans are here on the trail of a Sontaran that has landed in the 12th century – Linx from The Time Warrior when it was the other way around. Linx was following the Rutans that were plotting here, looking to find a way to clone themselves the way their enemies do. The process has eluded them in the past but if they clone themselves whilst in human form they will end up with armies of obedient canon fodder ideally suited to hand to hand combat to throw at the enemy. The reveal that Roland of Brittany is in fact a mercenary with a bad accent is beautifully done and I was cracking up as the Earl’s scoffing retorts. The Earl returned home to claim his Kingdom in the first episode and had to suffer the indignity of proving who he says he is to a rowdy rabble in the first episode and its that Barnes being a clever sod again, setting us up for a twist in the third episode where he reveals that he isn’t who he claims to be. He’s little more than an Apprentices apothecary caught up in a messy tale of death, imprisonment and making the best of a bad situation. Is anybody who they seem to be? After illusions to The Time Warrior and Horror of Fang Rock it is natural to automatically assume this is another lone scout and the reveal of a second Rutan is another clever twist. Barnes seems to be really getting off on subverting Who clichés – the two Rutans seem absolutely delighted that their plan seems to be working at the climax almost as though they expected to be foiled. The dragon turns out to be the Rutan spacecraft aflame as it leaves the area and Nyssa quotes the play as the ‘demon’ is vanquished to ensure that the tradition is in place for when they hear it in 600 years time. George becomes St George who slayed the dragon and the rest you know as mythology.

Audio Landscape: I have heard complaints that the electronic monotone of the Rutan sounds an awful lot like the Daleks from the Hartnell era and there is some truth in that statement – only so much as the Rutan from Horror of Fang Rock also sounded and awful lot like the Daleks from the Hartnell era. It’s a harsh, memorable shriek and I rather enjoyed it for all its lack of subtlety. Rowdy theatrical crowd, birdsong, a horse whinnying, a cock crowing, Nyssa steps in horse muck, wild boar on a hunt, trees swaying, knights stomping along on horseback, the Doctor falling down the steps in true comedy fashion, a crackling torch, bubbling wine, Maud electrocuted, the fabulous Rutan transformation noise, sparking (the equivalent of foaming at the mouth!), ashes inside armour, Roland kicking in the water and drowning, the Rutan ship ascending.

Musical Cues: If I weren’t in a good enough Christmas cheer already the opening theme of Castle of Fear made me jollier than Santa Claus noshing on a mice pie in the warm glow of a Christmas tree. Fox and Yason are some of my favourite Big Finish composers (along with Jamie Robertson, Alistair Lock & Russell Stone) and they understand the tone that Barnes’ insane script is aiming for and play plenty of heroic, jolly music to give the tale a shot of magic. Listen to the superb music as Nyssa tries to figure out how events will unfold using the plot of the play in episode three, it really is fantastic.

Isn’t it Odd: For all the uproarious performances and solid production the first episode is an absolute mess being far too confined, failing to move the plot on in any great hurry and lacking any tension whatsoever. Bawdiness is fun but it need to be attached to a dramatic story in order to work, the first episode of Castle of Fear feels like a Saturday night down the local after a few too many drinks and makes about as much sense. It strays quite close to Unbound: Exile for me tastes and that is an experiment that should never be repeated. Nyssa tries to inject a little drama into the situation by reacting in horror to Osbert jumping off the battlements but the comedy music robs it of any drama. It didn’t help that the script seemed to repeating the same information again and again without telling us why it is relevant or come to think of it explaining what is actually going on. The answers come and the repeated information is of course vital to the story but for that initial thirty minutes you could be forgiven for thinking you were in for a long ride. Alan Barnes has a bit of problem with his opening instalments when he is writing comedy episodes. Heroes of Sontar suffered the same fate. Androidisation? Even by my standards (it has been noted that I make up my own words whilst writing these reviews) that is a duff science fiction term! Nyssa loses her wits for a moment and fails to spot that Osbert is clearly a Rutan in disguise.

Standout Scene: I really enjoyed how Barnes tried to convince the audience that the demon of Stockbridge was a Sontaran by mimicking dialogue from the Sontaran experiment before turning 180 degrees and revealing that it is a Rutan. Mind you a clever Doctor Who fan would have guessed by all the clues littered about in the first two episodes. It’s still a great cliffhanger though, given some climactic pizzazz by the director. The last episode is one of those rare Doctor Who stories where everything slides into place satisfactorily and watching this jigsaw be completed is a joy.

Notes: Having a trilogy set around the village of Stockbridge is a novel idea and a wonderful gift for the fans of the comic strips. It took me a long time to be convinced to give the comic strip a try in Doctor Who magazine because that medium has never appealed to me before and I have to admit I greedily gobbled up 12 or so graphic novels full of new stories. There was a whole new era for the sixth Doctor, a great new companion for the tenth and the eighth Doctor had a massive lease of life in the comics that was denied to him on screen it was a delight to be able to see visuals of him in action. The fifth Doctor Stockbridge adventures were exquisite to read and the return to the village every couple of regenerations is a lovely touch of linking continuity – it’s a bit like UNIT turning up in the TV series, you know it wont be too long before we end up in Stockbridge again. Its an intriguing approach to a trilogy to have it based around a location because one of the joys of this format is in linking adventures but showing how diverse Doctor Who can be. Can they tell three stories of varying tones all set in one village? Only time will tell…

Result: Castle of Fear is massively enjoyable but I beg of you not to give up on this story on the evidence of the first episode because it is a plotless half an hour of inexplicable mummery and setting up clues and the plot doesn't kick in until the second episode has begun and then story gets better and better and better. Big Finish have this uncanny ability of adding detail to televised stories without touching the continuity established on screen and this 12th century escapade offers a great explanation for why Linx was trapped on medieval Britain in The Time Warrior. I really appreciate the continuing use of Nyssa in the audios because they are giving more weight to Peter Davison’s assertion that she would have been an ideal solo companion for his Doctor and Sarah Sutton is blazes with vim and vigour throughout. Davison is no slouch either, clearly delighted to be back in cahoots with his favourite. I love the idea of a Rutan story where all of the characters aren’t who they claim to be but aren’t the Rutan either, it’s a deceptive concept that gives the third episode a real boost (everybody is putting on a duff accents because the characters are putting on a duff accents!). The comic tone of the piece is so unlike anything we have had from the main range for a while it has to be commended and once I had cleared the hurdle of the introductory episode I had a oodles of fun as the story uncoiled and all the characters dropped their masks. There are some great gags in there and the performances are all sublime and I desperately want to mark this story higher. A terrifically energetic start to the Stockbridge trilogy and like authentic mid eighties Who ends on an explosive cliffhanger: 8/10

Hexagora written by Paul Finch (from a story by Peter Ling & Hazel Adair) and directed by Ken Bentley

2011-12-11T02:14:00.000-08:00

What’s it about: When a newspaper reporter goes missing, the Doctor, Tegan and Nyssa uncover a case of alien abduction. The trail leads them to the planet Luparis, and a city that appears to be a replica of Tudor London. What are the monsters that lurk in the shadows? And what is the terrible secret at the heart of Luparis? To save a world, the Doctor must try to defeat the evil plans of Queen Zafira. And one of her plans is to marry him…

An English Gentleman: The Empress suggests that the Doctor has the bearing of a warrior and he is certainly chivalrous enough to step and prevent Tegan from being accosted by horny peasants! There is a slight but mildly amusing subplot where the Doctor inadvertently gets engaged to the Queen at her bidding but its all a bit reminiscent of The Aztecs and Davison’s mild mannered reaction is nowhere near as funny as Hartnell’s spluttering. He seems unusually naïve too, being led into a trap like a mouse sniffing cheese on a trap. The marriage between the first Doctor and Cameca was an accident and he grew to have a deep affection for her so it was an easy relationship to invest in. The marriage between the fifth Doctor and Zathira is one of scientific necessity where neither party particularly wants to go through with the act and there is little chemistry between the characters. It doesn’t quite have the same ring to unfortunately so the climactic wedding feels like just another plot point rather than the dramatic highlight it should have been. And boy doesn’t Peter Davison sound embarrassed during the sequence where he objects to the wedding?

Alien Orphan: Nyssa is still dreaming about the Elite and while the Doctor wishes he could help her more she understands that they all have to find a way to deal with bad experiences and she has to handle it on her own. That’s one of the reasons I love Nyssa so much, she’s just so damn practical and refuses to assign blame. Traken is said to have been destroyed in a cosmic disaster. The gag about Tegan being deliberately ignored in favour of Nyssa is even funnier because it is usually the reverse – it is nice to see somebody with Nyssa’s noble bearing being given some attention. She fights for herself and her friends but Jezevar sees much more than a homeless traveller in her, someone who should be the ruler of a mighty monarchy. She doesn’t believe that any monarch should rule in complete isolation and one should always be open to advice. Oddly this subplot about Nyssa taking the throne completely disappears by the end of episode two and she’s…you’ve guessed it…a bloody bystander again! This time to make way for Tegan flirting with a bloody bug!

Mouth of Legs: There is a vein of good humour with regards to mocking Tegan in this story that I heartily approve of but what I don’t like is the sense of Janet Fielding phoning in her performance and reacting to everything with a shrill tone. After the business on Florana (are we ever going to get to visit that most elusive of planets?) the Doctor decided they all needed a rest and has brought Tegan back to her hometown of Brisbane to visit her family. Just when they all thought they were going to get a nice relaxing holiday Tegan comes panicking back to the villa afraid for her friend Mike who has gone missing. What with her aunt, cousin and grandfather making an appearance on screen and now her hometown and friends visited does this mean Tegan is the most fleshed out companion of the classic series? I love her assertion that she knew Mike must have been abducted by aliens! Just a year or so back the very idea would have made her boggle! ‘That’s all I get?’ Tegan cries when the Empress pays compliments to the Doctor and Nyssa and looks at her and says ‘no doubt you are hungry.’ Tegan asks why she is always wearing heels at the most inappropriate of times and you have to wonder if this was inserted at Janet Fielding’s request. Mike and Tegan were taught physics and chemistry by Miss Anderson and they both her inspirational. At fifteen she broke her toe during track and field and he carried her school bags home for her. Nyssa understands that Tegan often lets her emotions get the better of her and apologises for her when she is resting – I wonder if she does that wherever they visit? Can you honestly imagine Tegan saying the line ‘If you wont help me then just don’t hinder me!’ Turns out Mike was always in love with Tegan and he knows she always felt the same but it’s a shame they had to wait until he was a chittering insect to reveal these feelings! Their parting doesn’t have the ring of empathy it is hoping for because the two actors have no chemistry – in fact they sound a little bored at this point.

Standout Performance: Being a massive fan of The Two Doctors, of Servelan and of Jackie Pearce in general (‘daaaaah-ling!’) I was delighted to see she would be taking part in this story – rather wonderfully this would have been about the right time she would have taken part in a Davison story too with Blakes’ 7 just coming to an end a year or so earlier. Even her role isn’t particularly well written but she is pretty much acting royalty and can rise beyond a duff script to bring something to the story. She was given a much better role to play in The Fearmonger.

Great Ideas: Why does the planet Luparis resemble Tudor London complete with an iced over river Thames with people skating on it? And why does Tegan’s friend Mike think he is a member of the City Watch? Segara Nine was a Paradise, uninhabited and fruitful with warm winds rippling across endless fertile meadows. It flourished as an ideal environment for their next generation. There was an insectoid race, the Hexagora from the mountain ranges, that they had to conquer in order to colonise. Only fragments of their original technology remains. The Hexagora are itinerant, travelling the cosmos under the power of the Queen. When they visit other planets they have the power to move amongst the natives unnoticed and it was during the 16th Century when they moved amongst the human race on Earth. They had only been on Luparis a short time when the climate began to change and their natural instinct was to move on but it takes time for Hexagoran young to reach full maturity and they had several generations that could never survive another migration through space. Hexion is the raw stuff of their original world, it usually provides sustenance but in times of war, famine and plague they use it to drain the mind essences of Hexagoran husks into their genetic pool. The Hexagorans then kidnapped people from Earth and brought them to Luparis and siphoned off their memories into their genetic pool. Hybrids make better hosts for the Hexagora than humans and could stave of the cold of the coming Ice Age on Luparis.

Audio Landscape: Something tearing through the atmosphere, insectoid mandibles, horse clip clopping on the cobbles, a punch up, birdsong, bubbling vats, crackling fire, swords clashing.

Musical Cues: I’m not sure if I could call it stylish by any means but the electronic period music for the initial Luparis scenes is gloriously reminiscent of music during the Davison era, in particular the cod medieval score in The Kings’ Demons. It begs the question of how far you should go in order to make these Lost Stories authentic – do you deliberately write duff music because it fits in with the era? There’s an odd sting that sounds eerily like the opening bars to the Emmerdale theme tune.

Isn’t it Odd: You know when you try and convince people that televised Doctor Who is the most wonderful thing ever and they dismiss it as being an alien invasion every week and then when they get around to watching an episode it seems to confirmed their fears? Well this story opens in a fashion that I imagine people would groan when I tell them that audio Doctor Who is the best thing – I could imagine them thinking it would be people talking to themselves, not bothering to describe what is going on and a load of inexplicable sound effects. A lot like the first scene of this story, in fact. It was a space eddy, a diminishing ion stream like a vapour trail from a space craft is what the Doctor follows to try and find Tegan’s friend Mike – not the most interesting of storytelling devices to move the plot on I have to say. It does worry me that in the first episode there is nothing that feels particularly fresh or original (beyond the concept of a period atmosphere on an alien planet) – in particular the characterisation and the dialogue feel very passé and ‘that’ll do.’ Coming after The Elite with its razor sharp script and production this was always going to be a problem. I’m not sure why transferring this tale of courtly romances and overthrowing the monarchy was brought to an alien planet because it could happily have played out on Earth. It all gets a bit embarrassing when the Doctor has to cross swords over a woman he doesn’t even want to marry and fight Zellenger, a man of the most melodramatic declarations in Doctor Who history. ‘Tegan do you know this insect?’ might be a strong contender for the most unintentionally funny line ever. Info dumps are the worst kind of writing and there is a great splurge of exposition in episode three that feels like it is trying to explain everything without the audience having to work any of it out for themselves. Go and read the Great Ideas section of this review and see if you agree with me that the explanations offered justify the idea of Tudor England on an alien world and Tegan’s friend randomly turning up as an insect. I really don’t think it does, it’s a tale of hackneyed ideas and lame co-incidences and the ailing explanations only really serve to reveal that the writers thought it would be a neat idea and then had to try and work some reasoning around it. There’s nothing especially surprising going on – the Queen is a ruthless leader, one of her subjects is unsure of her plan and reveals all to the Doctor, he acts as though it is the most monstrous thing he has ever heard, Tegan gets in a tizzy and Nyssa tries to calm everyone down. I could write this story in my sleep. Say what you will about season 20 (and I have said much over the years) there was nothing this predictable about it. Only Doctor Who could try and get away with a buzzing with a cod Australian accent is in love with the companion – it’s so awkward to listen to I think I actually winced. The climax is oddly placed because the Doctor could have made his suggestion that the Hexagora stop breeding with humans at some point during episode three – it appears that he waited for the moment of the wedding just for dramatic effect and because the story length demanded it.

Result: A weak story with little to recommend it beyond the glorious Jacqueline Pearce returning for another appearance in Doctor Who. Beyond that Hexagora is dreadfully dull and fighting against the unconventional storytelling of season 20 manages to be one of the most predictable, archetypal Doctor Who audios complete with a colonised race under threat, human being kidnapped by aliens and Tegan’s personal life suffering another blow. Beyond the conventional storytelling and unconvincing dialogue there is a real issue with pacing too with the music trying to suggest (in a very cod synthesised way) moments of tranquillity with the odd meaningless flash of jeopardy thrown in to try and keep things interesting. The characters fail to come to life and speak the most godawful melodrama and the regulars fulfil their functions but never stretch beyond them (the Doctor is passive, Tegan gets grumpy and Nyssa is trying to keep the peace). Its not the worst Lost Story that has been released (nothing could quite sink lower than the McCoy tetrology) and there is a basic competence to everything that unfolds in this story but it never rises to a level that I would even call average. Its one of those Doctor Who stories that is just sort of there, doing what’s been done before but not as well and we should be thankful that the TV series dodged the bullet with this one: 4/10

The Architects of History written by Steve Lyons and directed by John Ainsworth

2011-12-08T13:45:00.000-08:00

What’s it about: The year is 2044. Earth is enjoying a Golden Age of peace, prosperity and technological advancement… but somebody is plotting to destroy all that. The Selachians, shark-like alien monsters, launch a crippling attack on Earth’s Moonbase, using deadly weapons from the future. Help is at hand. A police telephone box appears in a Moonbase hangar. A time-travelling hero has returned in the hour of Earth’s greatest need. Now, Elizabeth Klein must fight to save not only the Galactic Reich but Time itself from the mysterious prisoner who has orchestrated these fateful events... the Doctor.

The Real McCoy: This trilogy has enjoyed revealing the potential of the seventh Doctor in different shades and The Architects of History is no different. A Thousand Tiny Wings saw him at his improvisational and sparring best, Survival of the Fittest focussed on a more cuddly, charming Time Lord that was trying his best for a dying alien civilisation and now in History he is back to being the master manipulator again, sitting in a dark cell pulling strings and bringing down a perverted timeline. After the Mousetrap/Daleks/Scutari trilogy and now the Klein trilogy Big Finish have revolutionised McCoy’s Doctor on audio to the point where he is potentially the most exciting incarnation to listen to because of the possibilities. Even better this prominent material has enticed some of the best ever performances out of Sylvester McCoy and I am including his television performances in that. There has been a consistency and dramatic strength to his performances in his last two trilogies that has put a lot of his earlier Big Finish performances to shame. Just listen to how commanding he is when he drops his bombshell at the end of episode two. There is none of that angst and melodrama that sunk stories like The Rapture – McCoy is completely focussed, word perfect and powerful. Exciting times for fans of the seventh Doctor.

As far as the Doctor is concerned he and Klein only met in this timeline a while back whilst he was held prisoner in this cell, he doesn’t remember travelling with her in the TARDIS because that timeline no longer exists. Its odd but I find that a more frightening prospect than many others – the Doctor has always been in control of the TARDIS and responsible for any shifts in the timeline and for somebody to alter his timeline against his will feels…wrong. The Doctor sees the Selachians as a disagreeable race but also as a product of an abused history. He doesn’t see a great deal of difference in them and the Nazi’s and ponders whether he should bother interfering because one race of ruffians will just take over from another. He’s a Time Lord with seven lifetimes worth of exposure to the vortex, she might have rewritten those timelines and placed him in a universe he doesn’t recognise but she cannot take his mind. The Doctor remembers his own past and then history reshaping over and over again. This is one time that the Doctor has to face up to a manipulating presence that even he would have trouble facing…himself! He has no idea what his own consciousness might have been about before he arrived and replaced his but it looks like he has had a hand in Selachian development. I cannot believe how frightening the Doctor is when he takes control of the situation, he really seems to fit into the role of a aggressive, snarling dictator. He visits Klein in what used to be his cell to remind her of the water dripping torture she tried to put him through, that every drop was a second ticking away imprisoned. The Doctor knew all along that no matter how many trips in the TARDIS she took, how many changes she made, she would never get back the timeline she lost. There are simply too many variables when it comes to changing time. You can take away his past but you can never changer who he is and I don’t think we have ever seen a greater affirmation of what the Doctor is all about when he tells Klein despite the odds, despite the role this timeline wants him to take he will still save as many lives as he can on both sides of this conflict. Very often when they have clashed he hasn’t been able to argue with Klein’s logic but that doesn’t mean that he has to like it.

It turns out that Rachel is an old companion of the Doctor that should exist in this timeline. The Doctor she knew always had a plan but he didn’t always tell what it was. He’s beaten Selachians, Sontarans, Autons and Daleks but this time even he said the stakes were the highest they have ever been and took her back to Earth to her old life. But he also fixes it so a few days later she gets her call up papers and a week after that she is working in the Moonbase. Its almost as if he knew he wouldn’t be around anymore and his alternative self would need her help and he put her exactly where she was needed, leaving her with a list of instructions. This is clever, mind bending stuff. In a story that refuses to conform to any stereotypes Rachel dies in the destruction of the Moonbase and the Doctor doesn’t even realise she was an old companion of his so he doesn’t know she exists to save her. She dies wondering if she has ever lived. That’s pretty tragic.

(Not So)Reformed Nazi: Since stealing the TARDIS Klein has managed to not only go back and restore her timeline but ensure that the Reich succeed at every turn and is calling herself Oberst Klein, Head of temporal affairs for the Galactic Reich! Only Klein and Richter remember how the timeline should have played out and she is starting to think that that might be a problem. Klein has rewritten history again and again until she likes what she reads. She considers the TARDIS her property now. Even she isn’t sure what is real and what is not anymore, whether she left a lover called Faber in 1965 or if that had never happened at all. It has been worrying Klein that at some point she might accidentally write herself out of the timeline and so others are being trained up to continue her work. The story is even brave enough to have a cliffhanger where Klein’s life is in danger as the TARDIS threatens to tear itself apart – considering she is the central protagonist at the beginning of this story it seems only fair that the jeopardy angle is reserved for her! Its almost with her teeth clenched that she has to ask the Doctor for his help in fixing the broken TARDIS but her desperation to have the one item that always gives her the advantage clearly overrides any sense of pride she might have. The Doctor seems to enjoy the moment Klein realises that there is no going back on the events that are taking place, that she will have to live with the consequences of her actions. Only Klein would consider boiling the Selachians in their water filled armour to be an acceptable strike against the enemy. When the Doctor turns facist Klein declares that they are a lot more alike than they seem which he refutes strongly. When she rewrote history she made herself a Lord of Time, everybody was afraid of her and she didn’t expect to feel so relieved once it was over. She’s almost sanguine about the thought of being executed. When you think that Klein might have turned a corner she tries to have Rachel murdered by the Selachians to get her out of her hair! She realises with some clarity that this was only ever going to end one way – the Doctor’s way. Executing Klein would never have been enough, she was always going to have to be taken out of existence because she is an anomaly, a refugee from a world that never should have been. Thanks to the Doctor Elisabeth Klein is born in England to German parents, raised in a time of war, gifted with an enquiring mind and prestigious intellect but also a need for order. And she is working for UNIT. Who ever saw that coming?

Standout Performance: I’m still astonished at how good McCoy is in this story. All of his detractors (which includes me) needs to listen to this story to see how good he can be. On the downside I wasn’t convinced by Lenora Crichlow who was mostly fine when she was spouting exposition but lack conviction when it came to the more emotional material.

Sparkling Dialogue: ‘I have become the architect of a better world! A golden age!’
‘This man could save our lives but he chooses not to. Its against his principles! Well good for you, Doctor. Now at least you can die with a smug look on your face.
‘I’m the Doctor. That’s what I do.’
‘You can’t punish a whole race for something we’ll never do!’
‘Push that button. End my life.’

Great Ideas: The Galactic Reich has ships powered by Dalek propulsion units – imagine the two great racial cleansers working together to exterminate the universe. Their ships have the finest technology of three galaxies incorporated. It’s a great scene setting set piece that shows you how much Klein has raped the timeline and twisted it to her design and she keeps returning to one particular moment where she has the Doctor trapped. The Reich cannot lose because as soon as they realise that there is a revolution they have all the time in the world to go back and wipe it out. In 2044 a unified Nazi government has ended famine and disease, averted wars before they could even begin, repelled invaders from a score of worlds – it’s a track record that is very impressive and sees a thriving world but there is only one problem. This world is hiding under the shadow of a swastika and free will is no longer an option. Knowing the future is a fascinating idea and encapsulated in a scene where Richter confronts the staff of the Moonbase knowing that there is a traitor on board because he has already seen the future where it plays out. The way he plays with them, teases them, threatens them…it is a teasingly sadistic way of exploiting foreknowledge to get your kicks. Klein using the TARDIS as a Nazi device causes another intriguing deviation from the norm, rather than being a simple conveyance for the Doctor it is now a weapon and one that is being targeted by the insurgents. In the other timeline the Selachians were the scourge of the galaxy and it took Klein many months to stop them from conquering this one. In 2044 they hadn’t even built their armoured suits that allow them off planet let alone developed space travel and Klein sees the Doctor’s hand in their rapid evolution of technology. Fantastic world bending imagery as the interior of the TARDIS becomes…just a box. The exterior dimensions of the TARDIS have been torn away from the interior. Sam transpires to be a spy from the future working for the Selachians and when he sleeps it uploads his memory to their flagship. The perfect spy. The story veers close to admitting that if Klein had never come to Colditz castle then the Nazi’s may have won the second world war which is a pretty bold statement to make. Very Steve Lyons. Then he sports the terrific notion that at the flick of a switch either the Doctor’s or Klein’s timeline will spring back into existence and either one would be preferable to the one they have experienced in this story. I thought the story might end on that indecision but we get a definitive answer.

Audio Landscape: Footsteps, squeaky prison door, dripping water, marching boots, bleeping deep space radar, the TARDIS having a choking fit whilst it refuses to take off, the cloister bell, setting a fire extinguisher on the flaming TARDIS, the bubbling water tanks of the Selachians and their gorgeous amphibian voices (how was that achieved?), gun shots, explosions, a Selachian drowning on his own tank, breaking through the Earth’s defences and bombarding the Earth.

Musical Cues: Listen to the score at the very beginning of the story which is full of bombast and striking the right note of furious fascism right into the heart of the listener. Jamie Robertson is back and I couldn’t be happier. I really like the approach of playing out a space battle sequence through some powerful performances describing the action and the dynamic music guiding us to all the right feelings of excitement. It’s a very different approach to the usual deluge of sound effects.

Isn’t it Odd: My only real trouble with this story was that I found the Doctor/Klein material so stirring that when the story concentrated on the guest cast I found my attention waning because I wanted to get back to where all the intelligent discussion was. But this only lasted for the first two episodes because this material suddenly gained sharp focus when Rachel admits she is working for the Doctor and it takes on a whole new emphasis. Perhaps Sam being a spy for the Selachians as well as Rachel being one for the Doctor was one twist too many. His ‘I have to sleep now’ is appalling clichéd for a death scene and I expect better of Lyons unless he was going for the clichéd wartime melodrama approach.

Standout Scene: The end of episode is an absolute stunner. The first two episodes have been toying with the idea of the Doctor being helpless against the Reich and then he has been slowly taking control of the situation. But he proves an imposing figure as he boldly declares ‘I gave your rulers the means to reach this Moonbase a hundred years in your past and I told them how to conquer it. I planned this invasion right down to the last detail. And that leader is why I am now taking command!’ It is one of those jaw droppingly magnificent cliffhangers that turns up once in a while that leaves you begging to listen to the next episode.

Notes: Its nice to see some continuity being shared between the novels and Big Finish. The Selachians featured in a number of Steve Lyons Past Doctor Adventures less successfully in The Murder Game (a light entertaining novel that turns into a disaster movie halfway through) and more prominently in The Final Sanction (where they were the central protagonists of a really nasty war which was pleasingly told from many points of view to give a fair and unbiased snapshot of the conflict). They are pleasingly brought to life here with very little subtlety, an aggressive, nonnegotiable armed force that considers everybody that isn’t a Selachian to be plankton beneath their feet! Its quite nice to have a stomping, violent, thoughtless alien race in Big Finish for a change because they do like humanising their monsters and giving them some depth. These guys are just nasty and there’s nothing wrong with that every now and again. Besides this is written by Steve Lyons so if there were any accusations of dumbing down the race this is their creators approach to writing for them on audio. Because this is an alternative Earth the Selachians get to be the biggest badasses the Earth has faced as they blast the planet to pieces with their battle fleet in reparation for the Doctor’s betrayal. Not many Doctor Who villains can said to have destroyed the entire human race. Many have tried but none have succeeded. ‘The only blood that will spilt today is warm blood.’

Result: There are a wealth of goodies to discover in The Architects of History and it is something of a miracle that after the quality of the previous adventures in this trilogy that this concluding blockbuster doesn’t disappoint. Steve Lyons has always been a dependable Big Finish writer (The Fires of Vulcan and The Son of the Dragon are two of my favourites) and his obsession with temporal shenanigans dovetails into this arc to create a fascinating ‘what if’ tale and then play with the audiences expectations with some surprising results. Klein manipulates herself into a position of power and learns to the true dangers of playing about with time. An alternative Doctor manages to pull strings within this timeline without even existing to see if it pans out as he planned. An enemy from the books makes a bold appearance in the audios and achieves where so many other Doctor Who monsters have failed, to destroy the Earth. We meet an ex companion of a non existent Doctor. Our seventh Doctor gets to bark orders like a mad Nazi commander. There is just so much to enjoy in this adventure which is also bursting at the seams with action and excitement to balance the intelligent dialogue. Considering where this adventures leaves Klein I sincerely hope that they pick up her character in the upcoming UNIT box set the seventh Doctor is going to have because there is clearly a whole new spin on the character to enjoy. I found this a very satisfying audio and when my head wasn’t spinning with the heady ideas I was engrossed in the action and spurred on by great cliffhangers. This is another accomplished audio from a fantastic year – let John Ainsworth script edit again because he clearly has the knack for it: 9/10

Survival of the Fittest written by Jonathan Clements and directed by John Ainsworth

2011-12-05T18:16:00.000-08:00

What’s it about: The hive of the Vrill bears the scars of a terrifying cataclysm. Only a handful remain alive, hatched after the holocaust of the mysterious Winterlack. The Vrill seek a new Authority. They find the Doctor, a two-legged creature who can lead them to survival. He must solve the mystery of the Carrion beast that haunts the lower chambers. He must face the Winterlack that still stalk the mountains. And he must find a path that does not lead to extinction…

The Real McCoy: Its such a Doctorish thing to do when faced with a cave to starts hollering just for the sheer joy of hearing his voice echoed back. He’s super cheeky this week and when the Vrill chants ‘someone is here’ over and over the Doctor suggests what it means is ‘someone is here!’ The scent of the Doctor’s name is one of helping, healing and giving information. He’s like a childish pied piper the way he excitedly tries to encourage the Vrill to leave the nest, it reminds me of just how cute the seventh Doctor can be when he is given the chance. He talks to them in a very soft, singsong voice that is almost hypnotic. When Ace called him an ageing hippy in The Greatest Show in the Galaxy she was not wrong as he gives the Vrill he meets names like Rose and Lily. He thinks they are incredible creatures with their memory hardwired into them, there before they are even born and is devastated when Butterfly is killed after protecting him. The Doctor refuses to listen to a lecture about taking the moral high ground from Klein of all people. He’s declared a condescending hypocrite because he thought he could change Klein’s philosophy by seeing the universe through his eyes. By jiminy these two make an exciting pair!

Reformed Nazi: Survival of the Fittest is unique in that it is the only story of the trilogy to actually see Klein travelling as a companion of the Doctor and enjoying an adventure in the tradition sense of the term. A Thousand Tiny Wings re-introduced the character, the aptly named Klein’s Story explains a great deal and Survival of the Fittest sees what happens to time after she half inches the TARDIS at the end of this story so this is the only peek into how she would turn out as an assistant had they taken her down this route for a longer period. Unfortunately for us, she’s rather impressive even on those terms.

When stepping from the TARDIS she is awe struck by the sight of the entire galaxy swirling around her, experiencing the wonder of the universe for the first time. She has always found it is best to negotiate with the highest possible power. The more time she spends with the Doctor the smarter she realises that he is but in her own unique way she only sees that as a missed opportunity for the Reich. She really is a woman after her fascistic political party. The Doctor jokes that Klein would like the Vrill because their mantra seems to be that they are just following orders but the difference is that they don’t have a choice or free will to do otherwise. She makes a massive mistake by realising that the Winterlack are human beings and voicing that she is one of them too, a snippet of information that sends the Vrill into a frenzy and is repeated over and over throughout the nest. The story takes the unusual approach of putting Klein very much in the sympathetic category, shoving one the humans in a headlock to make him realise that they are exterminating the native species on this planet. She doesn’t care who is the inferior race in this situation only that there is an alien race to be studied so she is still thinking like a scientist but seems to have dropped her Nazi morality for the time being. Klein hears another culture claim to be the Master Race and she is shocked, almost as if she can finally see the paucity of those words. Almost as astonished as she is that she is actually pleased to see the Doctor when they are finally reunited. Klein is extremely smug at having the knowledge that the Doctor’s incredible universe at large is small enough to contain its own fascists. She is willing to let Stefan die a horrible death by poetic justice, torn apart by a hundred Vrill. Klein believes the common good comes before the private good. Klein is smart enough to figure out that the Vrill consider the truth to be whatever they hear and they stay calm as long as they like the sound of it…so she convinces them she is the Doctor and with the TARDIS key whisks herself away with the power to gut the timeline and turn it back the way she remembers. She’s still furious with the Doctor for tricking her into obliterating her own timeline and she plans to put it back exactly as she remembers it.

Sparkling Dialogue: ‘It made the tunnel’ is not a great line on its own but it is repeated when Klein discovers a diamond drill head that has sliced through from the surface into the nest and that is how the Vrill have tries to justify its existence.
‘Oh Klein if you want fascists I’ll get you a date with a Dalek!’

Great Ideas: Languages that are composed entirely of scent markers you are hearing words that aren’t there and the residual smell is like an accent. A language made of scents, what an imaginative idea to base an alien species on. The Vrill have a caste system based on size with small ones to watch and warn, medium sized ones to work and build and large ones to fight and protect. Their language leaves them no room for things that aren’t true because their words are something physical. They hatch in the centre of their nest and right in the heart is the authority. Eggs sit in boiling nutrients until it is time to hatch and then they are taken from the shallows until the new Vrill emerge. They do not have names to tell each other apart, only jobs, different functions to tell themselves apart. Shout with a human voice and you can hear an echo but if your language is a scent you can be track very easily. Its like you are constantly saying ‘follow me.’ The Winterlack are an outside agency that have been trying to systematically destroy the nest, an agency of human beings. Without a new authority they cannot make a new one and no more eggs can be hatched, by destroying her the Winterlack have brought the Vrill to edge of extinction. The story the humans spin to Klein is that their homeworld is drastically overpopulated, the air dirty and the food getting more toxic by the day and they have decided to colonise the Vrill homeworld. There aren’t the resources to search further for another inhabited world. All the Vrill were murdered in one monstrous half hour and now the only Vrill that will be hatched are the ones that have already been laid. Vrill workers are female and they hatch from fertilised eggs. There are 4000 eggs left in the hatching yard and because they are to hatch unfertilised they will all be born as warriors. There is a fine line between exterminating and farming another species, isn’t there? Vrill nourish their eggs with super concentrated nutrients and grow to a huge size in a matter of days, it’s a super food that can be diluted to feed humans. Undiluted it could be used as a wonder drug or a hoer growth hormone and this is a fringe military smash and grab organisation after the nutrients. By leaving with the TARDIS Klein is denying the Vrill and the humans the ability to communicate with each other and the Doctor knows that it will mean further exploitation and murder.

Audio Landscape: John Ainsworth has done a phenomenal job in giving the Vrill a unique realisation on audio with their wings that beat so fast they sound like a motorbike engine, their repeated language and the gorgeous voice modulation. He’s basically been given a Web Planet style story to realise and it looks as though he has attacked the challenge with his usual vigour and enthusiasm. The different sized Vrills are given very different tones of voice and you can hear their mouth mandibles twitching. There’s a lovely sequence where we hear the overlapping voices (smells) of the Vrill crying out for the warriors and wondering why they are burning. Its such an imaginative way to tell a story credit has to go to both the writer and director for making the Vrill so instantly unlike any alien species we have met before and enjoyable. They discover bodies of dead Vrill blocking a passageway, burnt and choked by the Winterlack and the Doctor still being able to hear their distress by the smell of their burning corpses translated by the TARDIS. The bubbling hatching yard, firing a machine gun at the Vrill, creatures screaming in the jungle. tearing apart Stefan.

Musical Cues: The music is wonderfully odd and perfectly matches the unfamiliar tone of the story with discordant themes bridging the scenes and unusual sounds trickling into scenes and vworping out of them.

Standout Scene: How wonderful is it when the Doctor convinces Lily that he is an authority and can sanctioned the creation of a new Adam and Eve to create a new nest of Vrill – he sounds so giddy with excitement its impossible not to get whipped up into his frenzy.

Result: Completely different from the opening story of this trilogy (and a bit) of adventures but just as assured, Survival of the Fittest is a weird and wonderful foray into an alien culture that is brought to life with some skill. It reminds me of The Web Planet not only because of the unusual focus on an exotic alien race but also because it tells a traditional Doctor Who story in a very unconventional way suggesting a colonists versus natives tale and then twisting into a story of greed and genocide. Its worth mentioning here just how superb Sylvester McCoy has been in the last few years of Big Finish adventures and this trilogy sees him at his peak. Survival of the Fittest is a story that allows us to experience him at his best; desperately sweet with the Vrill, locking horns with Klein and trying to save as many lives as possible. Four episodes and this might have outstayed its welcome but at three it is fast paced and exciting (great editorial decision) and there is even a juicy cliffhanger ending that should be all the excuse you need to dive into the next story. Its our one chance to see Klein as a travelling companion rather than an enemy and it works so well its agonising to think that their adventures are almost over already. They make such a gripping, antagonistic pair the distinctive dialogue trips naturally from their tongues and the final face off before she steals the TARDIS is a fantastic moment. Unlike anything else and hugely enjoyable: 8/10