Sympathy for the Devil
In this alternate take on the Doctor's adventures, the TARDIS arrives in Hong Kong in 1997 just as the city is about to be handed over to the Chinese. The Doctor emerges from the TARDIS in his regenerated form (played by David Warner for this adventure) and finds a pub called Little England being run by none other than the retired Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, a man whose military career is in tatters after the botched events of several UNIT attempts to stop alien invasions. The Doctor makes contact with the Brigadier just as a Chinese stealth fighter with a cloaking device goes down in the hills outside Hong Kong, and the current UNIT squad are deployed to rescue a defector from the wreckage - a defector who is not quite what he seems.
These sorts of stories are best left to be viewed in retrospect of the whole series, as Sympathy for the Devil makes reference to many events that took place during the third Doctor's exile to Earth. It is interesting to note though that without the Doctor's presence, the attempted invasions and attacks were still thwarted, but at a tremendous price to the world as a whole, and to the Brigadier personally. The Brig as he appears here (still played by Nicholas Courtney, though) is a defeated man, he has given up, he has no friends, and he just wants to be left alone. The Doctor is far more bitter about his exile than Jon Pertwee's third Doctor, even going so far as to appear to make a deal with the devil to escape from Earth, and only grudgingly getting involved in what's going on in Hong Kong until he begins to suspect what is really behind the plane crash and the untimely atomic test detonations by the Chinese government.
Like I said, best to be enjoyed on audio CD after having seen the whole series, or at least enough of it to understand why the Brigaider blew up central London in response to a supposed dinosaur sighting. That is still ahead of us here. Big Finish put out a total of 7 installments of their Doctor Who Unbound range, with an eighth on it way which picks up where Sympathy for the Devil leaves off. I will only be looking at 2 more adventures as they come along where they are directly touched by continuity or perhaps offer some kind of true insight into how the slightest change can alter a whole future.
But for now, back to reality....
NEXT EPISODE : SPEARHEAD FROM SPACE
These sorts of stories are best left to be viewed in retrospect of the whole series, as Sympathy for the Devil makes reference to many events that took place during the third Doctor's exile to Earth. It is interesting to note though that without the Doctor's presence, the attempted invasions and attacks were still thwarted, but at a tremendous price to the world as a whole, and to the Brigadier personally. The Brig as he appears here (still played by Nicholas Courtney, though) is a defeated man, he has given up, he has no friends, and he just wants to be left alone. The Doctor is far more bitter about his exile than Jon Pertwee's third Doctor, even going so far as to appear to make a deal with the devil to escape from Earth, and only grudgingly getting involved in what's going on in Hong Kong until he begins to suspect what is really behind the plane crash and the untimely atomic test detonations by the Chinese government.
Like I said, best to be enjoyed on audio CD after having seen the whole series, or at least enough of it to understand why the Brigaider blew up central London in response to a supposed dinosaur sighting. That is still ahead of us here. Big Finish put out a total of 7 installments of their Doctor Who Unbound range, with an eighth on it way which picks up where Sympathy for the Devil leaves off. I will only be looking at 2 more adventures as they come along where they are directly touched by continuity or perhaps offer some kind of true insight into how the slightest change can alter a whole future.
But for now, back to reality....
NEXT EPISODE : SPEARHEAD FROM SPACE
posted by Sean Hoover @ 2:26 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home