1-6. Point of Entry.

2 episodes. Approx. 126 minutes. Written by: Barbara Clegg, Marc Platt. Directed by: John Ainsworth. Produced by: David Richardson.


THE PLOT

The TARDIS is drawn to 16th Century England. Queen Elizabeth I sits on the throne, and her advisor, Sir Francis Walsingham (Ian Brooker) delights in England's rising influence even as he employs spies to thwart any threats to that influence. But those threats are closer to home than he realizes...

Playwright Christopher "Kit" Marlowe (Matt Addis) has struck a deal with the devil: A sinister Spaniard named Velez (Luis Soto). Marlowe is struggling to convey the darkness needed to bring life to his play, The Tragical History of the Life and Death of Doctor Faustus. Velez tantalizes him with the promise of black magic and forbidden knowledge, all his if he can help Velez to recover an artifact of the Aztecs: a stone blade, the match for a stone hilt already in his possession. A blade now making its way to England in the hold of a privateer.

Marlowe eagerly agrees, not realizing the true source of Velez's powers. The Spaniard is working with the alien Omnim, who plan to restore themselves to power by recreating the Aztec sacrifices in Elizabethan England. And their planned victims include Queen Elizabeth Herself!


CHARACTERS

The Doctor: Colin Baker gets some fun scenes as the Doctor makes deals with first Walsingham (Ian Brooker), and then with the Omnim. He fully intends to keep his bargains, but both of the devils with whom he deals have other plans. His strong moral sense is on display when he and Peri find "Mad Jack" (Alex Mallinson) in the stocks. He is grim about how such treatment was hardly reserved for criminals in this time period, and is determined to release the man even before realizing that his tongue has been removed. He is protective of Peri, and blames himself when she is captured by Velez during his absence.

Peri: Just as the Doctor is protective of her, she is protective of Jack. We can hear her tending to him in the background as the Doctor talks with Marlowe and Marlowe's friend, Tom (Tom Williams), in the foreground. When Jack is captured by Velez, Peri puts herself in harm's way to try to free him. Throughout the story, we see that she has faith in the Doctor to know what to do. The first episode sees her continually urging other characters to "wait for the Doctor" before acting. On the lighter side, Peri gets a rather amusing bit in Part Two, impersonating Queen Elizabeth as part of a ploy to recover the stone dagger. When she encounters a mob of frightened townspeople, she employs that ruse again in deadly earnest - and, with a little help from an ally, manages to pull it off.


THOUGHTS

Point of Entry was one of several pitches writer Barbara Clegg made to the Doctor Who production office after the success of her first story, Enlightenment. Like all of those pitches, it was summarily rejected by script editor Eric Saward, who was interesting in focusing on the more purely action/adventure elements of the show.

Given that its television progress never got past the level of a basic pitch, this audio story is effectively a Marc Platt script based on Clegg's synopsis. This is no bad thing. Platt is among Big Finish's best regular writers, and his creative voice is well-suited to Clegg's ideas. Listening to this story, I find myself hoping that Big Finish might prevail on him to flesh out more of her rejected pitches.

Big Finish have always done particularly good work with historically-based stories. Having a real and known backdrop seems to lend an extra layer of atmosphere. The sound designers work to bring the filthy, ragged streets of Elizabethan England to life, and an early scene in which the Doctor and Peri walk through the streets with vendors calling to them from all sides is so well-done that you can almost smell the surroundings.

The use of Christopher Marlowe in this story is a masterstroke. Yet another layer is added by making Marlowe, at the time he is writing Doctor Faustus, into a Faust figure himself. Like Faust, Marlowe has struck a deal with the devil - Velez, who promises the dark knowledge that will bring Marlowe's play to life. There is even a moment that parallels the scene in Faustus in which Mephistophilis tries to dissuade Faust from completing his bargain. Late in Part One, Velez tries to urge Marlowe to leave his house, urging the playwright not to become damned as he is. Like Faustus, Marlowe ignores the warning, becoming ever more obsessive in his thirst for dark knowledge.

Point of Entry is a dark story, with some horrific moments and images. Velez is a corpse-like figure, rasping almost despairingly that "death shuns (him)." He feasts like a parasite on the blood of others, with a human sacrifice being portrayed at one point. He lives in a darkened house that Tom and Marlowe remark would require scores of torches to light, with a library of grimoires. He tempts Marlowe with the promise of black magic and shows him an obsidian mirror which takes them to an astral plane. Of course, the story takes pains to let us know that this isn't actual black magic but some form of alien influence... but in all plot terms, Velez is basically an evil wizard, surrounded by all the trappings, and that imagery is compelling.

As was true in Paradise 5 (and how fitting that two stories dealing with demons should follow on from each other), that which opposes evil is not necessarily good. The man most determined to stop Velez is Sir Francis Walsingham, Queen Elizabeth's real-life "spymaster." This story's Walsingham is almost as dark a figure as Velez, who refers to him (not inaccurately) as "the queen's high priest of sacrifice." Most of his scenes show him lurking like a spider at the heart of the Tower of London. He is surrounded by implements of torture, and a metronome counts off time like a mechanical heart beating in the background. He recognizes the Doctor as somebody dangerous, and orders him brought to the Tower so that he can "learn his truths, or tear them out of him one by one."

The atmosphere, dialogue, and performances are splendid across the board, making this a ghoulish treat to listen to. Things do get a little silly at the climax, when Velez suddenly transforms into the Aztec god Quetzacoatl (only to be very easily defeated thereafter), which keeps the full piece from being quite as strong as Paradise 5 was. But if the final stretch doesn't quite come off, then it's still a terrific ride getting there.

Definitely one of the stronger Lost Stories, and yet another case in which a rejected story idea ends up making for better entertainment than the ones that were actually in pre-production!


Overall Rating: 8/10.

Previous Story: Paradise 5
Next Story: The Song of Megaptera


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