Business Unusual

The Doctor arrives in Brighton in 1989 and discovers that Brigadier Lethbridge Stewart has disappeared - perhaps been abducted - while investigating the insanely low-priced video game console manufactured by a company called SeneNet. Knowing that the Brigadier would not go comparison shopping without very good reason, the Doctor begins a search and rescue mission for his friend, braving the dangers of SeneNet's security, and coming face to face with the person he has been desperately attempting to avoid for years now: a computer programmer called Melanie Bush.

The plot's pretty thin on the ground here, and SeneNet turns out to be the Nestenes again making another bid to conquer Earth for their own purposes. The hallmark of a Nestene invasion plot has never been complexity; find plastic, inhabit it, invade, kill. Oh yeah, defeated by the Doctor, forgot that part.

So here she is now. Mel. Last seen at the end of The Trial of a Time Lord, the Doctor returned her to the future point in time where she was pulled from and then went out of his way to stay away from her and delay the inevitible as long as possible. In this case the inevitible is progressing down the road to his possible future of becoming the Valeyard. Another inevitiblity might be going deaf from the screaming. The Doctor has hidden behind Grant, Frobisher and Evelyn to avoid this point in time, and his attempts to keep Mel from getting involved with him only serve to egg her on to do just the opposite.

Melanie Bush is, of course, one of the least favourite companions of all time; I'm sure a lot of fans rolled their eyes at the intro story before realizing that in print, no one can hear you scream. This is the sort of thing author Gary Russell likes to do when he writes a novel; take the unfinished plot threads and try to tie them back together, eben going as far as to make sure the sixth Doctor gets some time with the Brigadier, although the latter has now already done so in The Specrte of Lanyon Moor. The Brig's continuity with Brendan school is observed as well, although if memory serves (I haven't read this book since it was published in 1997) he has not gotten married to Doris yet, which would actually put Business Unusual before Spectre. Ah continuity. I would have to read it again to be totally sure. And draw myself a continuity map...

Mawdryn Undead
The Five Doctors
The King of Terror
Downtime
Business Unusual
The Spectre of Lanyon Moor
Battlefield

Yes I'm dipping into the future there.

Ah well. So the Doctor has met Melanie Bush at last and we start moving ahead back towards the televised series. It's been forever since Jay and I sat down and watched an episode together. Soon we shall... soon...

NEXT EPISODE : MILLENIAL RITES

100

Here's an interesting little diddy. In another experiment, Big Finish gathered four writers and took a one-episode script from each, all with the theme of 100, and celebrated their 100th Doctor Who release with the compilation called 100.

They're all good. Who said the short format couldn't work for Doctor Who? The seeds of the idea were already planted with tales like Urgent Calls tacked onto 3-episode stories as standalone episodes, so why not a collection of them? We go from 101 BC to the days of Mozart, ahead to modern times, and then across time and space in the final chapter.

My favourite? 101 BC is a contender as it is worked as a comedy, even though there is the grave matter of the Doctor's first real conflict with Evelyn over the ethics of attempting to change history. Why the Doctor didn't lay it on the line as he had to with Barbara in The Aztecs I'll never know. But I think my real fave was My Own Private Wolfgang, a tale of the future of Mozart (and I am not just saying that because author Robert Shearman commented on my thoughts on Jubilee). Bedtime Story I enjoyed as well, a tale of a family curse being handed down generation after generation (and incidentally the third time a Doctor Who story has had the same name as a track from Madonna's Bedtime Story album; the other two being Survival and Human Nature) but when it came to The 100 Days of the Doctor by Paul Cornell I couldn't help but feel it was a bit gratuitous in its leaps about through the Doctor's time stream, havig the sixth Doctor comment on his past and future selves, although the wistfulness he has about Erimem leaves me wondering what fate has in store for her (for at the time of writing this review, she has yet to have her final moment).

Also to be mentioned at the time of writing this, there are no further adventures with the sixth Doctor and Evelyn Smythe. Evelyn has not left the Doctor yet, although we know that eventually she must, to make way for a successor, one the Doctor is destined to meet no matter how hard he tries to avoid it...

NEXT EPISODE : BUSINESS UNUSUAL

The Nowhere Place

It's 2197; Earth's empire is expanding and the military are on a heightened state of alert, and suspicion. At the edge of human space, a carrier group begins to experience breakdowns amongst the crew, the affected members claiming to hear a bell. The Doctor and Evelyn hear the bell in the TARDIS and track it to the carrier, and a doorway set into its hull that predates all known Earth history. The bell sounds, the door opens, and more people are lured through into... nowhere.

Okay things are looking up. The last two audios were not up to snuff as far as I was concerned, for different reasons each time. The Nowhere Place may not be a perfect remedy, but it is a step in the right direction, with a mysterious unknown steeped in the surreal threatening everyone and ultimately everything with destruction. Much more like the Doctor Who we know.

The constantly diminishing cast is made up of the regulars of the series plus the crew of the carrier, the most memorable being the increasingly frantic Oswin, unable to save her ship or her crew she continues to yell out orders even if there are fewer people to obey them every time the door opens. How she actually made it in the military is a mystery if her reactions to the unknown and stress are like this. Her solutions to some problems like the Doctor and Evelyn and just about anyone who she hasn't got time to deal with in the immediate time is to literally put them on ice and freeze them until she has time to deal. Not that it happens, of course, but it would make for an interesting plot device somewhere in a future adventure.

The Nowhere Place does its fair share of jumping about in time, taking the Doctor back to a train in the past where an idle doodle on a scrap of paper could change the future of the human race - a future someone has a vested interest in aborting if they can. How it unfolds, mind you, gets a bit tricky. Are we to believe that there have been infinite races developing on Earth over time and heading for the stars, but not leaving any evidence of their civilzations behind? Silurians? Hello?

Ah well. There's that air of creepiness about this one that doesn't go away - not as chilling as others have been in the past, mind you. Certainly I enjoyed it more than the previous two tales.

Let's have some more.

NEXT EPISODE : 100

Pier Pressure

It's Brighton in 1936 and the Doctor brings Evelyn to the seaside holiday town for a break from their adventures. Too late for chicken in a basket at the local pub, the Doctor is in time to meet local performer Max Miller and learn about the strange goings-on of the pier and a supposed curse that sours the town. Knowing that all is never as it seems, the Doctor discovers a supposed long dead performer named Professor Talbot is in tune with a presence that seethes beneath the pier - an alien presence of pure evil that wants to kill. And kill. And kill.

Or something like that.

Maybe I listen to too many of these things in too close proximity these days but I find that as with Medicinal Purposes this one isn't quite as good as others. I didn't really get the funny musical cues, and some of the dialogue seemed like it was going on far too long. As if it were just filling up time. And the threat... well it wasn't really threatening. Talbot as an agent of evil is hard to swallow, especially when he feels he can switch sides as he pleases and not suffer any fallout. And so he talks to himself in two voices. Big deal. Tegan doing it in Snakedance was scarier.

Cute references to The Nightmare Fair, though, with the Doctor declining a trip to Blackpool based on his last visit there. And entirely coincidental, right when I was listening to this, the spin-off series The Sarah Jane Adventures was featuring a storyline about a tragic fall from a seaside pier.

Please let the next one be better.

NEXT EPISODE : THE NOWHERE PLACE

Medicinal Purposes

It's 1827, it's Edinburgh, and there's blood in the streets. When the Doctor and Evelyn realize where they are, the Doctor wants to meet the infamous duo of Burke and Hare, who snatched bodies and robbed graves and aided progress in medical science. But nobody knows who Burke is. And a certain Dr Robert Knox is taking a much greater interest in what's going on that he should.

So back we go into history with this one. I've actually had it sitting on the shelf waiting to be enjoyed for the better part of two years now. Yes, I'm a bit of a freak that way, waiting until it came along in the cycle to listen to it rather than leap ahead. I'm sure at times Jay only tolerates my observations where continuity are concerned; he'd gladly go ahead and take in disjointed adventures left and right. Not me, though.

Was it worth the wait, then? I suppose so. Historical characters are all around here, even Daft Jamie, played by current tenth Doctor David Tennant. But honestly? I didn't get a great sense of the threat here. Okay Knox is an interesting character and a threatening adversary, but I never really got him as a proper menace to the Doctor. Or to anyone, really. There'sa moment or two when you think he may be more than he seems, erhaps even an old enemy back for another go, but no. He's kinda boring really.

The whole thing is kinda boring, really. It's dialogue-heavy, but that's not the issue as there have been others with a lot more chat than implied action (and seeing as it's an audio we're not getting a whole lot more unless we make finger puppets for ourselves) but somehow... it just didn't work for me here. Maybe I listen to too many of these. But hey one clunker after so many god ones, that's not so bad...

NEXT EPISODE : PIER PRESSURE

Arrangements for War

After escaping from the Forge, the relationship between the Doctor and Evelyn is strained. Evelyn cannot understand the Doctor's casual acceptance of Cassie's death and feels she needs some time to be on her own to come to terms with it. The Doctor takes them to Vilag, where an arranged marriage between two warring kingdoms will bring about a truce that will repel an alien invasion in the future, but the presence of the TARDIS travellers moves events in a different direction. Embroiled even further than they ever have been before, the Doctor and Evelyn struggle to save a planet from destruction.

Hm. Arranged marriages always have the same thing going for them: neither party involved is really into the idea, especially when they're doing it for political reasons. Where's the love? What's the point without it? Can ones love of ones people really make someone sideline their own life? Princess Krizstyna doesn't want to do it - she wants to marry Reid, a lowly infantry trooper - but she's going to go through with it for the greater good, no matter how many pieces her heart breaks into. That is, until Evelyn tells her that love is worth fighting for, right around the same time the Doctor bumps into young Reid and tells him the same thing. And then things get tricky.

The Doctor becomes the Princess's advisor, and Evelyn becomes a political consultant for the third party state that is hosting the wedding while falling in (love?) with Governor Rossiter. Separated over the course of a month, the Doctor and Evelyn keep track of each other when they spot the other in the media in their new roles - a far cry from the peace and quiet the Doctor had promised Evelyn. Mind you, Evelyn doesn't seem to be too upset about getting involved despite her earlier complaints. It's only when things start to crumble and the war begins to brew again that she wants back out, even going so far as to leap off a speeding train to avoid extradition to a hostile state. The Doctor gets himself on the bad side of a sadistic security guard and gets kicked around once or twice for it. And all the time neither can reveal why the war must cease, for warning the fighting nations about the impending invasion (and it does come) is one of those revealing the future clauses that we usually see only in historical adventures on Earth.

Good cast. Good dialogue. Good things going BOOM in episode four. Is being plunged into a war the best medicine for the rift between the Doctor and Evelyn? Seems to work, and Evelyn gets herself an offer she barely refuses to stay behind and marry Rossiter. But is she ready to stop travelling with the Doctor yet? Time will tell.

NEXT EPISODE : MEDICINAL PURPOSES

Project Lazarus : parts 1 and 2

The Doctor finally has a breakthrough with the Twilight virus, and true to his word sets the TARDIS on course to collect young Cassie and hopefully cure her. The ship overshoots and comes to land some months later after Cassie has been forced to once more go on the run from Nimrod, the chief enforcer of the Forge. All is not as it seems, though, and Cassie has become another pawn in the Forge's game to collect alien technology and capture visting species for their own ends. And doesn't the Doctor just happen to be an alien.

Why only episodes 1 and 2? Because the story moves very fast at this point, so fast that the segment concerning the sixth Doctor and Evelyn is resolved by the end of the second episode, leaving the two time travellers somewhat estranged from each other ater the horrors of the Forge. The other two episodes feature the seventh Doctor, and they will be covered later.

This story is very much about the Forge and its evils, and with two Doctors making an appearance at separate instances they are more like guest stars. The Forge have moved on from the Twillight virus and have embarked on the Lazarus project, named for the man who would not die - which is in fact a planned study of the Doctor's ability to regenerate. By forcing him to do so they want to discover the process and use it to imbibe soldiers with immortality in effect, so they set about electrocuting the Doctor. Ah torture. And man can Colin Baker wail when he needs to sell the pain.

The parallels between the Forge and the new series, Torchwood, can't be missed, although it is unlikely one affected or influenced the creation of the other. As far as suspension of disbelief goes, so long as there is UNIT there would be a secret more sinister counterpart organization somewhere, skimming off their secrets and trying to use them to their own advantage. The Forge has something that the Torchwood team do not: they act with no sense of morals and thus killing anyone in their way is not a problem.

The Doctor and Evelyn get out with their lives, but Cassie does not, and the Doctor's almost casual acceptance of her death throws Evelyn into a fit of resentment, making her wonder if maybe it's time to end this association and go home...

NEXT EPISODE : ARRANGEMENTS FOR WAR

Doctor Who and the Pirates!

ARRRRRRRRRR! Ahoy mates! Gather round for a tale of spirited adventures on the high seas! The Doctor and Evelyn arrive on the good ship Sea Eagle just as she is raided and plundered by the feared Red Jasper - the scourge of the seven seas! Jasper is on the hunt for the fabled Ruby Islands where unimaginable treasure awaits, and he doesn't care who has to walk the plank for him to get his hooks on the map. It's a classic tale of rattling cutlasses, high drama, daring escapes, cannonballs, land hooooooo! and .... a musical number?

Hysterical! The odd time Big Finish will play a scene for laughs here and there but The Pirates is total pantomime bliss for the ears. The tale unfolds as Evelyn, eventually joined by the Doctor, returns to see a struggling student of hers and tells a tale of the adventures that ensue once the TARDIS materializes below decks on the Sea Eagle. There seems little point to Evelyn doing this at first, as the story doesn't affect or involve her student, but eventually the logic is there, and I am not going to ruin it with a spoiler.

So there I sat at the Laundry Express at the corner of Davisville Avenue and Yonge Street listening to this as my whites tumbled about in sudsy bliss, and I was in stitches, particularly at the opening of episode three when the Doctor breaks into song. Yes, it's almost Pirates of Penzance but with a Gallifreyan slant, and Evelyn's horror at the Doctor warming his vocal chords is just fantastic. Pure fan bliss!

And there's no underlying theme to delve into here. There is no moral of the story. There is, like I said, a simple point to why the story is told like this, but aside from that it's a story for its own sake, just to be listened to and enjoyed and laughed with. Oh clever clever clever.

NEXT EPISODE : PROJECT LAZARUS - Episodes 1 and 2

Jubilee

It's the year 2003 and the glorious English Empire is celebrating the 100th anniversary of the day they defeated the Daleks. Aided by the Doctor and Evelyn, the English people wiped out the Dalek invasion fleet and used the technology they captured to take the world. And today, in 2003, they are going to celebrate their victory in style and execute the last Dalek survivor from the war.

Brutal. Who would ever feel sorry for a Dalek? As fans we have a love - hate relationship with them; delighted when they return and loving to hate them, but here it's different. The last Dalek is brutally punished and tortured but its human captors, its outer casing smashed and dented, its weapon removed. Defenceless and in agony, the last Dalek is ready to die, but the arrival of the Doctor sends it towards the edge of a complete mental breakdown. In desperation it forges a bond with Evelyn Smythe, refusing to kill her when it has a chance because after all the years of conditioning it can't handle having a choice again.

The people of the English Empire have become a brutal, obsessed race. They have trivialized the Dalek threat with all manner of Dalek themed merchandise in their stores, movies about the Daleks where the Doctor reduces them to quivering wrecks. And they are obsessed with killing the last one to such an extent that without the hatred, they would no longer have an identity.

The Doctor knows that the timeline is wrong, and somehow the TARDIS managed to materialize in both 1903 and 2003 and place both him and Evelyn in a time paradox. At times the differential threatens to overcome him, and he can just hold it back. Almost. But he sees the choice the people of Earth have made and how their evil has replaced that of the Daleks; the Daleks, after all, were engineered to hate, to conquer, to enslave... they had no choice. Humanity did, and it became the biger monster, with crowds gathered and screaming "Exterminate!" on the Jubilee day.

This is actually powerful stuff. Who knew that a story with only one Dalek in it could be one of the best Dalek tales out there. And to have Colin Baker's sixth Doctor (who is fast becoming one of my favourites) as the star.... close to perfection.

What is not perfect is how in 2005 the new production crew decided to get writer Rob Shearman to pretty much self-plagirize his story and re-tell it as Dalek. Skip ahead to the entry and see for yourself how similar the tales are. Here's where the new series starts raping the old, or at least having their way with the non-canon tales brought out by Big Finish, which to me smacks of disrespect. And it happens more than once.

But enough. Time for sme adventure on the high seas...

NEXT EPISODE : DOCTOR WHO AND THE PIRATES!