Now that's how you do Daleks! (Review: 'Doctor Who: Lucie Miller/To The Death', 2011)

The Daleks have definitely been the most prolific villains in the history of Doctor Who, with at least 37 appearances in the main run of the show and countless EU encounters with the evil pepper pots. Indeed, the first seriously planned spinoff series would have starred them, but Terry Nation's plans for the US show fell through before it had even gotten to pilot stage.

As a result of their frequent appearances, the Daleks have become susceptible to what TV Tropes calls Villain Decay; sometimes they can be truly hard to beat... and sometimes you just have to shoot one in the eyestalk to blow it up. Generally speaking, one Dalek is a huge threat and a fleet is surprisingly easy to destroy. Even Terry Nation forgot that they're not robots, they're essentially tanks with a mutated Nazi inside.

So, it's good to know, as my Twelve Faces series moves to the era of the Eighth Doctor, that sometimes you can do a brilliant story with them.

****

If you haven't seen The Night of the Doctor, I strongly suggest you do so now. Note in particular the five names the Doctor gives about 5:36; these are all companions who have featured in the audio adventures starring Paul McGann in Big Finish since 2001.

This story in fact features no less than three of the Big Finish companions (one not named in the five there)... and what happens here is a major reason why the Doctor does what he does in "The Night of the Doctor".

Summary

Earth in the late 2190s; former companion Lucie Miller is travelling in Thailand with the Doctor's great grandson Alex Campbell when a deadly plague devastates humanity... and then the Daleks launch their second invasion of Earth. The Doctor will be needed... and in in this case, the battle will be to the death... in some cases literally.

The plot

Most of the opening episode is from the POV of Lucie as she records a space-time distress signal to the Doctor; he doesn't even appear himself until about 40 minutes into the first episode. Lucie relates the plague and the subsequent Dalek takeover, followed by the efforts of a resistance movement led by the Doctor's granddaughter Susan Foreman as they cross the Atlantic in an attempt to destroy a mining project by the Daleks, who want to turn the planet into a giant time machine. It's a superbly bleak opener, followed up by a spot of derring-do in the later bits of the episode. Lucie is not a happy bunny at the late arrival of the Doctor, that's for sure.

In the second episode, we follow the Doctor and his companions as they try to stop the Dalek plan, dealing with the meddling Time Lord known as the Monk, who was allied himself with the Daleks for typically selfish reasons. The climax is truly dramatic; I can't really say too much here, but it makes "Bad Wolf" look tame in overall character impact.

Things get occasionally a bit confusing and the second episode is a bit talky; having listened to previous audios here might have helped.

The regulars

Paul McGann has had a considerable time since the television movie to develop his portrayal of the character and it shows here; his Doctor is commanding (it helps that he's got a great voice) but also a clearly weary man. He also demonstrates a considerable deal of anger at times; his incarnation is now finally getting the plaudits it deserves.

I'm familiar with Lucie Miller from the first series of the New Eighth Doctor adventures when it was broadcast on BBC7 (as was) in 2006/7; in fact it got a radio airing before release. In addition, I have listened to "Max Warp" also featuring her; it contains a rather good parody of Top Gear. Miller is definitely a headstrong and verbally aggressive companion (best line: her desire to introduce the Monk to the big picture by shoving his face into it) who gets a real slurry pit of a story - she ends up losing the sight in one eye and requiring calipers to walk after she gets the plague; that's just in the first episode. This is her final story for BF and it's no spoiler to say it's a spectacular finale. Sherdian Smith, an increasing presence in British television since Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps (she now has two Olivier Awards and a BAFTA), does a superb job and makes this original role her own.

Alex Campbell (played by McGann's RL son Jake) is a bit of a weak link here; he didn't stand out at all to me and I didn't even know he was an ex-companion of the Doctor's.

Tamsin Drew, a former actress and another companion of the Eighth Doctor, spends her time here in what is also her final story as a companion of the Monk - she eventually learns that he has been lying to her about his motives for working with the Daleks. Again, a moment I can't spoil proves rather shocking.

Susan Foreman, played by Carole Ann Ford, is of course of the first ever companions, who was left on Earth by her grandfather in "The Dalek Invasion of Earth" after she fell in love with David Campbell (now deceased). Ford plays a far more mature version of the original, rather irritating Susan (well for one thing, it's been almost fifty years since her TV role) and does it well - she's a commanding presence, although there are stronger performances in this.

The Daleks

Superb; they are ruthless, twisted and for most of this, brutally effective - they kill a lot of people and their plan is truly worthy of them. It takes an awful lot to stop them - and the Doctor will feel it for the rest of his current life. Nicholas Briggs does a great job with voicing them (he also wrote and directed this story), but one can't help thinking thinking the Dalek Time Controller is some ersatz Davros.

The Monk

Another character from the First Doctor's era (he only appears in two stories, one of which, "The Daleks' Master Plan" is incomplete in the archives), this renegade Time Lord is happy to do a deal with the Daleks for his personal reward - and in this case, he realises too late just what he has done. When the Doctor learns how much he caused the situation in the first place, he is justified in ordering him out of his site. Graeme Garden, one of the Goodies (a famous former British comedy trio, although a bit less known than the Pythons), does an excellent job as a manipulator; I can see how he got two former Doctor companions (Lucie and Tamsin) to travel with him.

Sound design

So good as usual, it's not really worth covering this in any more depth.

Conclusion

A superb drama from Big Finish; while it does slacken a bit in the second half, the strengths of this far outweigh the weaknesses - Nicholas Briggs has shown he is good for far more than monster voices.

9/10

You'll be dying to read it (Review: 'Doctor Who: Festival of Death', 2000)

BBC Books cover (2000 edition)

The “Eleven Faces” series continues with my second Fourth Doctor work and this time, it’s about time… and zombies.

As part of the 50^th anniversary celebrations, the BBC has done new editions of some of their novels, one for each Doctor. For the Fourth Doctor, they picked Festival of Death from 2000 – and I can see why. It’s a classic tale that could easily fit into the modern show.

Where we’re at

This is a Fourth Doctor, Romana II and K9 novel, set during the Williams era of the show (i.e. Season 17) and emulating its style considerably.

The plot

The Doctor and Romana arrive on the G-Lock space station in 3012, a former liner that got stuck in the exit from hyperspace – its crew and passengers mysteriously vanishing. This is home to “The Beautiful Death”, where people can experience what it is like to be dead… but something has gone wrong and its participants got turned into zombies… The time travellers arrive after the disaster and its containing, where they are thanked for saving the station. Which they haven’t done yet… They also learn that the Doctor died in the process…

Thus begins a tale of mad scientists, dimensional interfaces and timey-wimeyness…

What works

The main villain is utterly vile, but has a strong tragic streak to him.

• The regulars are captured excellently; their voices are authentic and you never feel they’re saying things they wouldn’t say.
• There are some superb supporting characters, including a suicidal computer that would not be out of place in a Douglas Adams novel. In fact, this owes a good deal to Adams.
• The timey-wimey plot is done very well indeed – it was planned with the aid of a big diagram for one thing.
• There are a couple of lovely little references to other works – including a mention of Murgatroyd (a cat-like creature from Murray Leinster’s Med Ship series, which I’ve read) and a planet from the Elite computer game.

What doesn’t

• There are some slight pacing issues here and there.
• I found some of the plot a little hard to follow and didn’t get one factor of the zombies.

Conclusion

An excellent novel that has received high praise from fans – and will also get high praise from me.

9/10

Genesis of Horror (Review: 'Doctor Who', "Spare Parts", 2002)

Big Finish Productions have produced literally hundreds of Doctor Who-based audios since 1999, featuring every one of the eight classic Doctors, multiple spin-offs and even some ‘alternative universe’ tales. More than one of these tales has influenced a story in the modern show, most notably this one.

In 2006, Tom MacRae used this Marc Platt story as a strong influence for his two-parter “The Rise of the Cybermen/The Age of Steel” (set in a parallel universe), giving Platt a credit for it. Listening to this four-part audio drama, you can see why he did so – “Spare Parts” is considered one of the classics of Big Finish.

Summary

The Doctor and Nyssa (this story falls in the gap between Season’s 19 and 20 when Tegan is on Earth) arrive on Mondas, Earth’s twin planet that has drifted out of its orbit into the coldness of interstellar space. To survive, its people now live underground. The planet is heading towards a nebula and to stop this, Mondasians are being ‘converted’ – being given new mechanical bodies to survive on the surface where the propulsion system is located. The Central Committee then logically reason that everyone needs to be converted…

The Cybermen are being created.

Plot

A Cyberman origin story had been proposed for TV during the Fifth Doctor’s era, but was ultimately not taken forward. The idea eventually made its way to Big Finish, who have done a great job with it.

Mondas is a dying world and “Spare Parts” provides an eerie, horrific portrayal of what people will do when faced with their own likely destruction, with a strong sense of inevitability knowing what happens in the rest of the show re the Cybermen. It starts off with a good deal of questions and nearly all of them get answered. There are some interesting communism references and a great use of Cybermats, plus a great parallel take on the Christmas tree.

This as mentioned is a deeply disturbing work, especially when it comes to the actual conversion of people into Cybermen – one scene with a character’s daughter chills in particular and was given a more-or-less straight lift into the TV story. The final climax is a bit rushed, although clever and at times it’s a bit hard to follow – also, this is close to two hours long (with half-hour episodes, not 25-minuters) and could have used mild trims in places.

There is a final twist – and it’s very good.

Sound design

The sound is brilliant throughout, with a great atmosphere of this underground city created as a result. In particular, Nick Briggs (the go-to-guy for monster voices in the 2005 run) does a great Cyberman voice, going for the sing-song version as heard in “The Tenth Planet” – although his voice for the Cyber Planner is a tad hard to follow at times.

One other minor gripe – the Derbyshire theme arrangement is used here when the Howell version would be the more ‘proper’ one.

The regulars

Only two regulars here – Peter Davison and Sarah Sutton.

<![if !supportLists]>·         <![endif]>The Fifth Doctor: Davison turns in a strong performance with a clear dread of what is going on – the Doctor is scared and reluctant to intervene at all to begin with. He is guilty of the occasional bit of over-acting, but not too much so.

<![if !supportLists]>·         <![endif]>Nyssa: Been a while since I watched a Nyssa episode, but Sutton delivers a strong, firm performance as the Trakenite scientist, demonstrating a caring side that is sometimes absent from the Doctor. Her horror when the Doctor is apparently [spoiler] is well done.

The guest cast

Not a massive guest cast here, but they’re generally very good. Sally Knyvette (best known for her role as Jenna in Blake’s 7, covered in our last newsletter) does a superb job as Doctorman Allen, especially when it becomes clear to her that things are going to hell in a handcart and she might as well resign herself to it. One character gets Cyber-converted and you really feel sorry for her, particularly when her dad finds her.

Conclusions

A very good audio, but there are enough small flaws to take it out of the “excellent” category. I can see why this is a classic BF tale and I look forward to covering two more of these in the series.

8/10

Psychic Convention (Book Review: 'Doctor Who: Instruments of Darkness')

As I continue through the “Eleven Faces” series, I’ve had to expand from stories I haven’t seen (as I’ve seen pretty much all the complete classic ones) into the expanded universe, which I’ll call EU from here on in, of Doctor Who. This review is of one of the original tie-in novels, published during the “wilderness years”, when the show was not on TV.

There are four essential groups of 1989-2005 original novels (and the odd novelisation of something else) starring the Doctor, all paperbacks:

• The New Adventures (NA): 61 novels published by Virgin Publishing from 1991 to 1997[1], nearly all starring the Seventh Doctor.
• The Missing Adventures (MA): Also by Virgin Publishing, these 33 novels released from 1994 to 1997 , plus the stand-alone Who Killed Kennedy? from 1996, which is generally counted among them. These cover the first six Doctors.
• Eighth Doctor Adventures (EDA): BBC Books’ 73 book series covering further adventures of Paul McGann’s Eighth Doctor, running from 1997 to 2005. 
• Past Doctor Adventures (PDA): BBC Books’ 1997-2005 series featuring the first seven Doctors (mostly). 75 novels were released.

The BBC ended their classic novel series when the current run of the show began to focus on novels in that setting, but have recently restarted it with a Second Doctor novel and a new novelisation of the not-transmitted Season 17 story “Shada”.

These novels, aimed at an adult audience, expand the continuity in many ways (some of them controversial, such as Time Lord reproduction). There is no official statement on canonicity of any EU work and fans are allowed to pick what bits they want from them, in essence[2]. They have also added a large number of additional companions who have become popular among the fandom and appeared in other EU works, such as the Big Finish audios – most notably companion to the Seventh Doctor archaeologist Bernice “Benny” Summerfield, who not only got her own novel series, but also her own audio one.

Acquisition notes

I acquired the Gary Russell[3] 2001 novel Instruments of Darkness, the 48^th PDA, in 2006 at a Doctor Who event in a London department store. Colin Baker (the Sixth Doctor) was there and I purchased a novel starring his Doctor for him to sign. Lovely gentleman, by the way.

I’ve finally gotten round to reading it…

Where we’re at

Instruments of Darkness is a Sixth Doctor tale set nearer to the end of the incarnation. The Doctor and Melanie “Mel” Bush (a fitness fanatic with a propensity to scream a lot) have been travelling together for a while. Before the Mel met the Doctor for the first time[4], he travelled with two other companions, one of whom, Evelyn Smythe makes her sole PDA appearance here – she had previously featured in Big Finish.

This tale is a sequel to The Scales of Injustice and Business Unusual, the latter by Russell as well, featuring a number of the same characters.

The plot  

I’ll quote the blurb in full. Seems best really.

The leaders on planet Earth think that the Magnate is a mysterious 'shadow Government' that controls the world. It isn't. The leaders believe the Network to be a ramshackle, paranoid outfit of European anarchists who will eventually blow themselves up. They won't. The leaders believe that if there are humans who can control things with their minds - ESPnets - they're few and far between, and not worth worrying about. They're wrong. The leaders believe that one minute after midnight on 31 December 1993, a new year, full of promise, will begin. They're wrong.

The Doctor and Mel arrive on Earth just days before New Year. An old friend has been kidnapped and taken to France. And two murderous enemies are setting up a new life in the Peak District. Which of these threats should the Doctor deal with first? And why is his old travelling companion Evelyn Smythe using her knowledge of the future to make a fortune from chocolate cake recipes?!

What works

• The opening of this novel, involving a mysterious albino turning up at various points in American history and with a few deaths along the way, sets up a nice air of mystery that slowly becomes clear along the course of the 287 pages. It’s clear from the get-go this is a grown-up tale (with an attempted rape in the first chapter).
• The Sixth Doctor (who just needs a decent script) shines in this tale, with his wordiness and general pomposity coming across nicely.
• In addition, so does Evelyn. Evelyn is a non-traditional companion, in that she’s an old lady and retired professor, who can operate with the Sixth Doctor as his intellectual equal, unlike Peri and Mel, the screamers of this era. She gets some brilliant stuff here and a wonderful bit on the problems of knowing the future.
• There’s a rather great James Bond reference in the book, as well as a general atmosphere of ‘heart attacks’ and spy action.
• You don’t need to have read the previous two novels to understood this one.

What doesn’t
 
This is a tale involving extrasensory perception (ESP) and mind stuff like that… I have a problem suspending my disbelief when it comes to things like that. Yes, I know this is a show with time travel and things bigger on the inside.

• Also this is a continuity-heavy novel, with lots of references to the previous books and other EU stuff like C19, a former British alien defence agency. One character is implied to be an old companion who oddly enough features in another work I’ll be reviewing. Not one for the casual fan this.
• It’s hard to follow the plot at times and to keep track of some of the characters. It also seems a bit oddly paced and the climax lacks tension. 
• There is more than one historical error – possibly deliberate – such as Eurostar operating in 1993, when in our world it opened in 1994. This irked me a little. 
• Finally, what’s this whole thing with albinos and mysterious powers? The only thing really special about them, as TV Tropes points out, is a greater risk of skin cancer.

Conclusion

Competent, but not brilliant. There are better – and arguably worse – PDAs out there.

6/10

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[1]The rights went to the BBC after the 1996 TV movie, but Virgin were allowed to publish the remaining ones in the series.

[2]Especially as one lot of EU can contradict another.

[3]Editor of Doctor Who Magazine from 1991-1995 and Big Finish producer until 2006, he is now a script editor on the main show, although that role is less prominent than it used to be. An actor as well as writer, he has done quite a lot of books.

[4]He met her for the first time in “Trial of a Time Lord”, but that was further ahead in her personal time stream.