Showing posts with label Lisa Bowerman. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Lisa Bowerman. Show all posts

Sunday, December 29, 2024

3-8. The Rosemariners.

CD cover for The Rosemariners.

4 episodes. Running Time: Approx. 118 minutes. Written by: Donald Tosh. Directed by: Lisa Bowerman. Produced by: David Richardson.


THE PLOT:

Earth Station 454 is a space station dedicated to scientific research that is overseen by Professor Arnold Biggs (David Warner). But when the Doctor, Jamie, and Zoe arrive, they find the station closed down. Only Biggs remains, carefully suspending his experiments so that they can be resumed later.

Commander Rugosa of the Rosemariners has requested Biggs's aid. The Rosemariners are a nonviolent species who deal with their criminals by subduing them with Rosedream, a serum derived from rosa toxicaera, a carnivorous flower from the planet Kembal. Rosedream puts its subjects into a trance that leaves them peaceful yet able to perform tasks as directed.

A small amount of Rosedream has gone missing, either through theft or carelessness. Given its properties, Rugosa fears a potential interstellar incident unless Biggs can create a cure.

All of which seems entirely reasonable. Except that Biggs's old friend Colbert, the CEO of the human station, is behaving very strangely, seemingly deferring to Rugosa in all things. In addition, Biggs is given no access to his staff. It's left to the Doctor to stall for time while he and his friends work out exactly what the Rosemariners are hiding...


CHARACTERS:

The Doctor: Bonds instantly with Professor Biggs, the two men chatting so intently about science that Jamie and Zoe actually leave the room without either man noticing. He senses something wrong about Colbert even before Biggs points out the man's out-of-character behavior. Most of his conversations with Rugosa amount to him stalling for time, promising progress and making just enough inquiries to keep the commander satisfied.

Jamie: Left alone in the TARDIS control room at the start of the story, he can't quite resist the urge to push a button, which is what causes them to materialize on Earth Station 454 and kicks off the entire adventure. He's consistently resourceful throughout the rest of the serial. He insists that Zoe join him in dressing up in Security uniforms to avoid detection, and he comes up with a plan to rescue Zoe late in the story. He views her as someone in need of protection, telling Biggs that she always thinks she's in control of any situation, "and she's usually wrong!"

Zoe: When Rugosa mistakes her for a member of the Communications crew and asks her to translate messages from Earth, she plays for time in much the same way the Doctor has been doing. She's under the supervision of Colbert - or rather, Colbert's doppelganger. After carefully making sure that he isn't actually aware of the codes or procedures, she makes a show of translating the messages and makes something up to put pressure on him. This being Zoe, she can't help but push her luck a little too far... but not before her invented message forces Rugosa to adjust his plans.

Professor Biggs: David Warner lends considerable presence to the main guest role of Biggs, the expert botanist who serves as the Doctor's ally. When Rugosa reveals the properties of rosa toxicaera, and that serum from it has gone missing, Biggs responds with outrage, concerned for the welfare of his staff. But when the Doctor steps in to feign cooperation for Rugosa, the professor is swift enough to immediately follow his lead.

Commander Rugosa: The Rosemariner leader behaves in a calculatedly pleasant manner when interacting first with the real Colbert, then with Biggs and the Doctor. Actor Clive Wood perfectly captures the amiable way the commander simultaneously intimidates and manipulates the scientists into doing his will. The Doctor at one point accuses him of distrusting scientists. Once he's alone and free to drop his amiable facade, Rugosa laughs that he actually loves scientists' predictability: "They can never resist trying to give you what you want if they think it will prove how clever they are."


THOUGHTS:

Donald Tosh's The Rosemariners isn't exactly a highlight of the "Lost Stories" range, but it is a fun bit of escapism. Had the script been completed and shot at the time, I suspect it would be an engaging but fairly average Season Six story... which is certainly no bad thing, and I quite enjoyed listening to this.

Tosh was script editor during the first half of the series' third season, so it's perhaps unsurprising how well-structured this is. The first episode sets up elements that end up paying off later. Jamie and Zoe don the station uniforms, which results in Zoe's masquerade as a Communications Officer. A minor gadget of Professor Biggs, seemingly just a character beat to add color, ends up being key to Jamie's rescue of Zoe. A minor guest character in the first half becomes extremely important in the second half. There's even a nice bit of symmetry involving a killer plant and its victims. Nothing comes out of nowhere.

Like other early "Lost Stories" where one or more members of the main cast were no longer with us, The Rosemariners mixes fully voiced conversations with narration. It's more or less the same format that would be recycled for Big Finish's Early Adventures, and I think it's a good one. The narration allows for settings and actions to be clearly visualized with no artificially descriptive dialogue, while the cast interactions allow for immediacy. In effect, we get the advantages of both audiobook and audio play formats.

There are some highly visual settings here. Jamie and Zoe pick their way through a theater crowded with station staff in the process of being brainwashed, which is an effectively described scene. The most memorable image is the rosarium, a giant area filled with thousands of roses of all types and colors.

I doubt the rosarium would be half as effective had it been fully described through dialogue. For that matter, I also doubt that it would have been well realized by late 1960s Doctor Who. Jamie fighting a giant flower would doubtless have been a hilariously cheesy moment, rather than the genuinely tense one portrayed here.


OVERALL:

Well-structured, well-acted, and boasting a couple of interesting settings that engage the listener's visual imagination, The Rosemariners is a good audio release. The story itself is standard Doctor Who fare, and the way the villain is defeated is a little too easy to see coming. But it's engaging throughout: well-structured, well-paced, and consistently fun to listen to.

I don't regret that it wasn't made as a television serial, as I suspect it would have been a fairly "middle" entry in the season. Still, I'm happy that Tosh was able to write it up for audio, and in a format that's particularly well-suited to its strengths.


Overall Rating: 7/10.

Set During: Season Six

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Sunday, March 24, 2013

3-7. The Masters of Luxor.


6 episodes: The Cannibal Flower, The Mockery of a Man, A Light on the Dead Planet, Tabon of Luxor, An Infinity of Surprises, The Flower Blooms. Approx. 196 minutes. Written by: Anthony Coburn. Adapted for audio by Nigel Robinson. Directed by: Lisa Bowerman. Produced by: David Richardson. Performed by: Carole Ann Ford, William Russell, Joe Kloska.


THE PLOT

A mysterious signal draws the TARDIS to a seemingly dead world, a cratered planet with only one distinctive feature: an incredibly tall, crystalline building. The ship is pulled into the building's courtyard, where its power immediately begins to drain away. With escape impossible, the travelers are left with only one option: exploration.

They discover an army of robots inside the structure: The simplistic "Mark One" servitors, and the more complex "Derivitron" robots. The Derivitrons greet them as "Masters of Luxor," and see that they are given food, baths, and fresh clothing. Then they are taken before "The Perfect One" (Joseph Kloska), the leader of the robots - who is himself a robot, though one with a nearly perfectly human appearance.

The Perfect One's ambition is to become fully human. To that end, he experiments on any living subject who finds his way to the structure, originally built as a prison for criminals on the planet Luxor. All of these prisoners have been male, leaving him intrigued by the possibilities posed by Barbara and Susan: Women, who give life. He decides they will be the key to giving him true life... by draining their life force completely!


CHARACTERS

The Doctor:
 Initially dismisses Ian and Barbara's suspicions of the robots as primitive and unenlightened. He insists that there is no reasonable grounds to suspect any malice at work. That attitude fades fast when the robots begin evading direct questions, but he is still shocked and outraged when he discovers that they have actually destroyed living beings. As a scientist, he sees the work done by the masters of Luxor as a perversion: "They have become drunk with their science," he proclaims scornfully. When he and Ian discover Tabon (also played by Joseph Kloska), the man who indirectly created The Perfect One, the Doctor pushes him to action. He first calls the scientist on his past cowardice, then dangles the carrot in front of him that if The Perfect One was based on him, then some of Tabon's own traits can be exploited to defeat it.

Ian: When Susan marvels at his apparent fearlessness early in the story, Ian confesses that he is actually very frightened - He just keeps control over himself. He briefly loses that control when he and the Doctor encounter the hibernating Tabon. Despite the Doctor's call for restraint, Ian refuses to wait for the scientist to wake on his own and begins shaking, then slapping the man, fearful that any delay will be the difference between rescuing Barbara and Susan and arriving too late to help them.

Barbara: The early parts of the story see a slightly "off" characterization. Barbara talks about how the structure "feels" wrong - Something that would actually seem more suitable coming from Susan. That, and a few other bits (talking about Luxor's "evil society," for instance) can likely be put down to this being a very early script, with the characters not really fully set yet. The latter half of the story sees her much more in character, protective of Susan and pushing their attempts to find and exploit weaknesses in the robots.

Susan: Much more active here than in most 1960's scripts. In a rare switch in the division of regulars, she goes to explore with Ian at the start of the story while Barbara stays behind to help the Doctor try to repair the TARDIS. Susan gets to be observant and useful, noticing the cameras watching her and Barbara inside their cell. She also briefly transforms into Emma Peel in Episode Six, wriggling free of her bonds and tripping up robots to free Ian in an action scene that I couldn't make myself picture as being remotely convincing. Still, I suspect Ford would have been very pleased at having such an active script had this been produced at the time - It's a far cry from Susan catching "plot convenience" fever in order to get recaptured in The Reign of Terror.


THOUGHTS

The Masters of Luxor was originally intended to be the series' second story. Story editor David Whitaker had issues with the script which could not be resolved in time for that early production block, so it was pushed back and another set of finished scripts were moved into place. Those were Terry Nation's scripts for The Daleks, and the rest was history.

Rewrites continued on The Masters of Luxor, which grew from its initial four episodes to the six presented in this audio. But Whitaker continued to feel that the script had problems, and the story kept getting pushed back until it was finally dropped altogether. I actually think it was the correct decision. While there are several good elements in this story, and I did largely enjoy listening to it, I don't believe it would have been terribly well-regarded had it been produced for the television series. 

It does get off to an excellent start. The first episode is particularly good. It's an episode which features only the regulars, allowing us to follow them into this foreboding environment. I always enjoyed these types of first episodes. The Daleks, The Space Museum, The Mind Robber, The Ark in Space... Some of these stories ended up being very good, others not so much - but in every case, that first episode with the regulars exploring and confounded by a strange environment proved to be atmospheric and highly effective, and that proves to be the case even in audio form here.

The capture/escape/recapture formula becomes repetitive as the story moves along, but the strength of the production brings the structure to life, maintaining a genuinely unsettling atmosphere. Then the Doctor and Ian escape from the structure and meet Tabon... and that's when the momentum begins to stall. With the focus shifted away from the robots and the machine-laden trap of the building, the atmosphere subsides noticeably, and continues doing so right up to the end - an ending which isn't nearly strong enough to pull together all the various threads of the preceding five episodes.

What really stands out about this serial are the elements it has in common with The Daleks, the story that ended up replacing it. Both are long stories, one a six-parter and one a seven-parter. Both feature futuristic structures, and both take the first episode to follow the regulars around these structures before filling htem with guest characters. Both stories even feature a midpoint escape, with the escaped regulars sneaking back into the structure through a tunnel in the last part of the story.

The Daleks, however, made better use of almost all of the above. The Dalek/Thal conflict made for a more compelling backdrop than the Tabon/Perfect One angst; The Perfect One isn't even aware that Tabon is alive, so there is no pre-existing conflict before the Doctor and his party arrive, whereas the Daleks and Thals had been at war for generations when we met them in The Daleks. The mid-story split between the "capture/escape" strand and the expedition strand kept The Daleks fresh throughout its run, whereas here the story seems to stall around Episode Three. 

Big Finish continues to show a strong feel for the Hartnell era, and the production evokes the early black-and-white days of Doctor Who wonderfully. Toby Hrycek-Robinson's score could be right out of the early 1960's, being both effective in supporting the drama and just right for what would have been heard in the series at that time. William Russell and Carole Ann Ford do a splendid job as always, and this story really showcases how well Ford does both at recreating Susan and at bringing Barbara to life. The scenes in Episode Five, in which Barbara and Susan confuse the robots by reciting nonsense and singing hymns, are edited so that Ford's Susan voice is layered on top of her Barbara voice, their lines overlapping, and these scenes truly feel like there are two different actresses in the room: Credit to both the editing and to Ford's ability to both lower and soften her voice for Barbara's line deliveries.

An excellent production of a flawed but interesting script. Had this been a television serial, I would probably award it about a "5." Given the strength of the audio presentation, however, I'm going to bump it up just a little to a solid:


Overall Rating: 6/10.

Set during Season One.

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Friday, March 1, 2013

2-1a. Farewell, Great Macedon.


6 episodes: The Hanging Gardens of Babylon, O Son My Son, A Man Must Die, The World Lies Dead at Your Feet, In the Arena, Farewell Great Macedon! Approx. 220 minutes. Written by: Moris Farhi. Adapted for audio by Nigel Robinson. Directed by: Lisa Bowerman. Produced by: David Richardson. Performed by: Carole Ann Ford, William Russell, John Dorney.


THE PLOT

The TARDIS suffers a malfunction, leaving the time travelers stranded in ancient Babylon in the year 323 BC. Their arrival coincides with that of Alexander the Great (John Dorney), making his second visit to Babylon on his return trip from India. It is a visit that history teacher Barbara knows all too well will end in disaster.

The TARDIS crew quickly befriend Alexander, Ian impressing him with his courage, the Doctor with his knowledge, Barbara with her wisdom, and Susan with her sincerity. Alexander to agree to let them move freely between the camp and Babylon, and the ample petroleum surrounding the camp provides the Doctor with all he needs to repair and refuel the timeship.

Elsewhere in the camp, conspiracy is brewing. Antipater, a ruthless politician with dreams of gold, has hatched a scheme. He will arrange to put a puppet king on the throne by assassinating not only Alexander, but his trusted successors as well. Each death will be made to look like the result of either an accident or natural causes, with a prophecy by seer and co-conspirator Iollus blaming it all on the will of the gods. 

With four deaths to arrange, Antipater and Iollus simply need four omens to tie them to. And the arrival of the strangers, four in number, seems like a gift from Olympus itself.

"Soon the king's camp will be in panic - and death and panic go hand-in-hand!"


CHARACTERS

The Doctor:
 William Russell does his usual, splendid job of bringing the irascible First Doctor to life. The Doctor is delightfully characterized here. The scene in which he is called upon to walk across hot coals is marvelous, and I can picture the gleam in Hartnell's eyes as the Doctor trots back and forth across the coals, utilizing a trick that is explained after the feat is done. The Doctor is at his craftiest, too, recognizing early on that the seemingly natural deaths of Alexander's friends are actually foul play - though he is wise enough to hold his tongue, recogizing the folly of making accusations without proof.

Ian: His decency and courage impress Alexander early on. His Episode Two argument with Cleitus over the rightness vs. wrongness of slavery shows him passionately arguing for equality among all men, an ideal to which Alexander gravitates. When the TARDIS crew is (predictably) implicated in the deaths of Alexander's friends, Ian's defense is plain. They are innocent, and "innocence is its own defense." His willingness to sacrifice his own life to insure his friends' welfare impresses the king, and seems to immediately remove any doubts he has as to the travelers' innocence.

Barbara: When she realizes that they have arrived in Babylon during Alexander's visit, she knows almost immediately that they are doomed to witness his fall. Her resignation is more effective than the Doctor's bluster or Ian's defiance. Even as the two men in the party try to battle destiny to save the king, Barbara knows that their efforts will come to naught. She has an innate diplomacy that makes her an ideal mediator between the short-tempered First Doctor and the fiery Alexander, and the genuine friendship she and Alexander form also sharpens the sting of the tragedy. Carole Ann Ford does a splendid job bringing Barbara to life, adopting a slower and more thoughtful tone that captures a surprising amount of Jaqueline Hill's screen presence. I would argue that Ford's Barbara, in this story, is actually better than her Susan.

Susan: Largely on the sidelines, though she does get one very good character moment. After the first death, when Ian is blaming himself for contributing to the argument that led to the tragedy, Susan goes to comfort him. She does this in a simple way that would have worked perfectly on television (and which still works well on audio, thanks to adapter Nigel Robinson): She sits beside him and is quietly there, not talking or pushing him to talk but simply lending the support of her presence.


THOUGHTS

Farewell, Great Macedon is arguably the best-received of Big Finish's Lost Stories range, and it's not hard to see why. This story was originally submitted to script editor David Whitaker for the show's first season, and with only minor adjustments would have been right at home alongside the likes of Marco Polo and The Aztecs. It is very much in the style of of those early "pure" historicals, as the time travelers witness events from history but are unable to do anything to stop history from following its course.

Writer Moris Farhi's extensive research on the death of Alexander shows, his script taking time to discuss the tension between Alexander's goal of a fully integrated world society and the Greek culture from which he sprang. It isn't exactly true to historical events; the deaths of Alexander's friends actually took place over a period of years, rather than all occurring in one fateful stop at Babylon. But compression of events is an accepted dramatic device, and Farhi's research continues to shine through as he recreates the deaths in ways that closely mirror historical accounts while still making for good drama. The fate of Calanus is particularly moving, the sage's choice foreshadowing Alexander's similar choice at the end.

The script has been skillfully adapted by Nigel Robinson into something halfway between an audio drama and an audio book. Adaptation and production combine to marry the best qualities of both styles. The narration allows the story to evoke the visuals in a way that would not be easily possible with dialogue alone. The narration is divided between William Russell and Carole Ann Ford based on the characters: Russell reads all narration and dialogue related to one set of characters, Ford all narration and dialogue for another set, with their bits swapping back and forth. This creates the sense of a conversation or argument, particularly within dramatic scenes. It may sound potentially distracting, but the back-and-forth has been artfully done, and the format is remarkably effective.

Russell and Ford both do splendid jobs, both as actors and narrators. Russell is particularly good. He switches so effortlessly between his Doctor and his Ian that in scenes between the two characters, I found myself forgetting that it was the same actor performing both voices! He does an excellent job distinguishing the voices of the guest characters, as well, adopting an almost animalistic growl for the violent Seleucus and a crafty sneer for Antipater. The production is also excellent, music and sound effects mirroring those of the early days of the series. The result is a story that feels absolutely authentic to the era for which it was written.

Had this serial ultimately been made, I suspect some changes would have occurred. Moris Farhi seems to have taken the name "Doctor" a little too literally, complete with a rather forced reference to the Hippocratic Oath! The final episode sees a sequence in which the Doctor and Ian assemble an iron lung in an attempt to keep Alexander alive. This is the story's weakest part, seeming implausible and just a bit over-the-top. Had the story been developed by the production office, I have little doubt that then-script editor David Whitaker would have adjusted these bits to better match the series he was making. 

This remains a fine story, one that with only minor adjustments would have been an excellent addition to the television series. As a listener, I'm very glad Big Finish resurrected this story. At more than 3 1/2 hours, this vies with Zagreus for the title of longest Big Finish audio up to this point - and despite this fact, it remains entirely gripping throughout, the six episodes flying by effortlessly.


Overall Rating: 9/10

Set during Season One.

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1-2. Mission to Magnus.

Mission to Magnus cover.

2 episodes. Approx. 117 minutes. Written by: Philip Martin. Directed by: Lisa Bowerman. Produced by: David Richardson. 


THE PLOT

Magnus is a world shaped by a virus that kills any male human exposed to sunlight, but leaves women unharmed. The result is a female-dominated society, ruled by the power-hungry Rana Zandusia (Maggie Steed). Her reign is under threat, however. The men of the neighboring world of Salvak have discovered a cure to the virus and intend to invade. Presumably not because of a shortage of women on their world, and probably not to rescue the handful of oppressed males native to Magnus, but just because a planet of women is too tempting to resist taking by force (in more ways than one, as I'll discuss below).

The Rana, who inexplicably is accepting advice by the Doctor's old enemy Sil (Nabil Shaban), intends to steal Time Lord technology to prevent the Salvakians from ever curing the virus. But an even greater threat has already infiltrated Magnus. The Ice Warriors are here, and they plan to use nukes (the clean kind, that don't have any radiation) to change Magnus' climate to make it cold. That's apparently much easier than simply conquering a planet that already is cold. 

The Doctor is the only one who can stand in their way - If he can stop cowering around his old school bully, that is...


CHARACTERS

The Doctor:
 The story is awful.  That said, Colin Baker is outstanding, and writer Philip Martin has given him a very strong role. No locking the Doctor in a cell for half a story here - He's active throughout, whether playing mind games with the telepathic Ulema (Tina Jones) or distracting an Ice Warrior to allow young Vion (William Townsend) to bring down an ice ceiling. When delving into his mind, Ulema describes his thoughts as "a swirl, a dance of delight!" We learn that the Doctor was bullied at the Prydonian Academy by the brutish but well-connected Anzor (Malcolm Rennie), and that he remains terrified of his schoolboy nemesis... Something which could have been used to good dramatic effect, if the script had an ounce of subtlety. Instead, the Doctor cowers behind the TARDIS console in their first scene together, then treats him like any other disliked authority figure in their remaining encounters. 

Peri: "I'm used to following alpha males," she quips when Vion tells her to follow him to the Rana's castle early in the story. Nicola Bryant's delivery emphasizes the sarcasm... but based on the actual story, she might as well be saying it in all sincerity. Even when rescuing Vion, every action she takes is at his direction. It would have taken less time, and would have strengthened Peri's role, had she freed him on her own initiative. She does get a decent scene in which she does some fast talking to forestall execution by an Ice Warrior, but this is an overall quite weak showing for her.

Sil: His role in Vengeance on Varos was so memorable, a genuinely well-written villain who was perfectly cast, that it was inevitable that he would make a return appearance. He did so the following season, in the Trial of a Timelord segment, Mindwarp. His role there was much weaker than in Varos - but it was still infinitely better than this, his originally intended second story. Sil is completely superfluous, neither helping nor hindering the Doctor's efforts, and it seems clear he was tacked onto the story to satisfy a brief. The good news is that Nabil Shaban makes as much of a meal of the role on audio as he did on television, recapturing Sil's oily speech patterns and inimitable laugh to perfection. At least it appears to have paved the way for Shaban to reprise the role in better stories in the future.

Ice Warriors: With Sil reduced to providing commentary on the sidelines, that should at least allow plenty of room for the Ice Warriors to make a triumphant return as genuinely formidable foes! Or not. In classic Season 22 fashion, the Ice Warriors aren't even seen until the end of the first episode - meaning that a full hour of this two-hour story is spent filling time with Rana's attempts to gain access to the TARDIS, something that's irrelevant to the actual plot. When the Ice Warriors do appear, they come across as complete bumblers, failing to kill the Doctor and his party so many times that it actually becomes quite funny. The finale witnesses the Ice Warriors literally falling over dead when the rays of the sun hit them (just as they're about to execute the heroes, of course). What next? Chase them off by lighting a match?


THOUGHTS

One thing about Big Finish's Lost Stories range: It makes me appreciate how little was lost when the original Season 23 was cancelled. The Nightmare Fair was an adequate but uninspired runaround, slightly enlivened by writer Graham Williams' wit and some strong performances. The Ultimate Evil was not adapted for audio, as terms could not be reached between Big Finish and writer Wally Daly, but I've seen/read very little to indicate it would have been anything other than poor. Mission to Magnus is even worse, a hodgepog of half-baked ideas (mostly bad ones) thrown clumsily into the same set of episodes with no visible effort given to making them actually work together. Say what you will about Trial - nothing in it was anywhere near as bad as this!

I barely know where to begin in cataloging the ways in which the story fails. Had it been produced, it would likely be regarded as the Spock's Brain of Doctor Who - complete with sexual politics that already seemed dated in the 1960's being put front-and-center in a mid-1980's story! The ending is even roughly the same, as the women of Magnus are told point-blank that they are going to be forced into marriages they show absolutely no sign of wanting. "You'll enjoy the mingling of the sexes," Ishka (Nicholas Briggs) leers - and the situation is treated by all as basically a grand joke.

I could look past the ludicrous sexism and even the poor plot construction if the story was at least fun to listen to. The first half almost meets this standard. By any critical measure, it's a horrible, cliched, cheese-fest, but for the first episode it's a passably diverting horrible, cliched, cheese-fest.

Once the Ice Warriors lumber into view, however, it descends into scene after scene of running around corridors, with the Ice Warriors constantly repeating that they will execute everyone on sight only to take the Doctor's party prisoner every time they encounter them. The Ice Warriors plan is to set off a big bomb. The Doctor's plan to correct the damage? You guessed it - Set off a big bomb (well, a series of bombs). There's no spark or imagination to any of it, and it just lumbers along for an hour until the appalling "funny rape" ending at least has the courtesy to bring it to a close.

I will say that Big Finish's production standards remain outstanding. Simon Robinson's music and sound design really enforces the feel of mid-'80's Who, and it's easy to visualize even the most action-heavy parts of the narrative. It's very well-made, and Colin Baker, Nicola Bryant, and Nabil Shaban are all on fine form.

It's just a shame it's all wasted on such a pathetic story, one that had it been produced would almost certainly be a regular feature on lists of the series' all-time worst.


Overall Rating: 1/10.

Previous Story: The Nightmare Fair
Next Story: Leviathan

Previous Television Story: Revelation of the Daleks
Next Television Story: Trial of a Timelord - The Mysterious Planet (not yet reviewed)

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