The Caves of Androzani

The TARDIS brings the Doctor and Peri to Androzani Minor. The planet is nothing special to look at but under the surface a war is raging between the military forces of Androzani Major and the android army of Sharaz Jek. Minor has the distinction of being the main source of an anti-ageing chemical called spectrox, and Jek is holding the supply ransom unless his demands are met. Caught in the middle once again, the Doctor and Peri face death on all sides, although this time they're not going to get away as easy as in the past.

Yes, we're back to the televised adventures once more. AT it's original broadcast Caves followed directly after Planet of Fire, with no suggestion of any time having passed by Peri's clothes still being the same. Now the gap has been split wide and a second companion has come and gone (but obviously there is not going to be any mention of her here), but it seems to work here; Peri emerges from the TARDIS engaged in some playful teasing with the Doctor as if they have been friends for a while, but Nicola Bryant's performance is a bit less than spectacular with Peri stuttering and whining here and there (something she never did in the audios). The Doctor, good natured fellow that he is, is either oblivious to her teasing or just lets it slide.

Caves of Androzani is one of those nearest-to-perfect adventures we ever saw in the classic series, the only real flaws being visual ones such as the roll and bounce Peri does when falling off a ledge (to be seen to be fully appreciated; Jay and I watched it three times before we moved on) and some unconvincing monster costume (I still say it looks like it's wearing a cape and its floppy fingertips are reminiscent of Admiral Ackbar). Everything else, though, shines. Robert Holmes penned one of the tightest most enertaining scripts of his career with the show complete with his usual set of double acts (The Doctor/Peri, Morgus/Timmin, Stotz/Krelper, Chellack/Salateen) and grim moments of meance underscored by the atmospheric music, the vast sets that were the caves, and directing unlike anything before including the slow dissolve between scenes. And at the centre of it all is the brooding meance of Sharaz Jek; a brilliant mind gone mad, disfigured and isolated from his peers, wanting justice with a big side of revenge.

This is also the end of the road for the fifth Doctor. As with Logopolis there is a flashback sequence of sorts as the Doctor "dies", with specially shot footage of the Doctor's companions urging him to survive and carry on (Adric, Nyssa, Tegan, Turlough, and Kamelion, but no Erimem of course), and then flash of light, *boom*... we have a new Doctor.

NEXT EPISODE : THE TWIN DILEMMA

Omega

Still travelling on his own, the Doctor comes to a sector of space in the future where the story of Omega is told to tourists who gather to see the region of space where the last of the Gallifreyan time travel experiments were conducted. Here the followers of Rassilon became Time Lords. And here Omega was destroyed. Celebrated as a hero by his people until his two attempts to return to the physical universe, Omega is still shrouded in mystery with so many questions of what went on that last day still unanswered. Unanswered, that is, until he shows up as well.

Omega is the first of the "Villain Series" that Big Finish produced for their range; four were produced in total and each one pitted the Doctor against a suitable nemesis from his past. Given that he encountered him relatively recently in Arc of Infinity it is fitting that the fifth Doctor come into conflict with Omega once again. At the climax of Arc, the Doctor said he could destroy or expel Omega, and the choice he made was never really known until now; the lingering effects of the attempted bond with the Doctor have allowed Omega a residual presence in the universe; enough to influence people into obeying his will.

It's a distinct pleasure to hear the rumbling tones of Ian Collier as Omega once more; as Omega's second "incarnation" he has a bit more style about him even if he has the head of a bug. There is no ranting, no craziness, just a man who wants to find a place in the universe. Omega might well be one of the few sympathetic villains in series history; not driven to kill from being misunderstood, not just plain evil, but a man who longs for a place either side of the black hole that claimed his life millenia ago. The supporting cast work well with him, even Caroline Morris (who was once rumoured to be the new companion in a big screen film version of the show) as Omega's devoted .. finacee?

Placing the episode in the correct chronology was until recently a challenge as it clearly is set after Arc of Infinity but at a point where the Doctor is alone. No attempt is made to gloss over the lack of companions as was the case in Excelis Dawns, but the events of The Veiled Leopard make it easier to grant the Doctor the opportunity to be flying solo. I know, continuity nerd. But in a series about time travel, it's important.

NEXT EPISODE : SON OF THE DRAGON

The Gathering

While Peri and Erimem are in Monte Carlo on their mission, the Doctor carries on with unfinished business of his own and ends up following a trail that leads him back to Earth in 2006, and more specifically to Brisbane, Australia, and the 46th birthday party of Tegan Jovanka. But it's not all fun and happiness; Tegan has moved on with her life and is not eager to revisit her danger days with the Doctor, but someone has brought something alien to Brisbane, and danger is not far behind.

Now I'm not going to throw too much plot detail around, as this adventure is in effect a sequel to The Reaping, an audio adventure with the sixth Doctor... which is in the future as far as the series is concerned but set in the past, in 1984. Just looking at the cover art (a new feature to my blog!) you might be able to guess what alien menace is involved, so I'm not going to say any more about that angle.

Let's talk about Tegan. Indeed, let's talk about the Doctor and Tegan. The fact that we have a Tegan audio is a fantastic thing as Janet Fielding for years insisted she would never return to the role she left behind, but was persuaded finally to do "just one". Not since Sarah Jane Smith has there been a companion who's dynamic with the Doctor was such a source of amusement and joy to the viewers, although the two could never be more different; where Sarah made the business of time travel with the Doctor her life, Tegan spent most of her days grumbling about where the TARDIS had landed them this time and looking for a way out until she finally left out of disgust at the violence that follows the Doctor. Hence his return to her life is not greeted with joy, exactly, and when people start to die Tegan feels like it's the good old days. Oh yeah, and seeing as she's 46 now she actually looks older than him, which would annoy anyone.

The Doctor is never fazed by this; indeed he has gotten used to popping up in his friends' futures and either not having aged a day or with a whole new body - look how often he does it to the Brigadier. The only thing that does rattle him though is the suggestion that Tegan is only grouchy because she loves him. This I blame on the new TV series, seeing as the Doctor has changed into not just a good friend to travel with but some unattainable sex object, and the notion is starting to creep into revisionist fan factions' work. Still, it's pretty much a given that it is not going to make its way any further back than Peter Davison's Doctor. Unless there's something we don't know about Vicki and some grandpa complex she might have had.

NEXT EPISODE : OMEGA

The Kingmaker

A visit from a robot collections agent from a publishing house in the future prmopts the Doctor to make a trip back in time; he is in default for delivery of a book he was contracted to write during his time in exile with UNIT. In doing so, however, the Doctor is separated across several years from Peri and Erimem who end up embroiled in the mystery of Richard III and who killed the two princes in the Tower of London. But there is an extra player in this game: another time traveller from the Doctor's past is present, stirring the pot with his own ideas and pushing Peri and Erimem further into the web of deceit. And the closer their circumstances bring them to the Doctor, the less their chances of being reuinted begin to seem...

There has been talk of this sort of story in the past, where the action is spread over two time periods and the characters communicate back and forth but do not cross paths again until the climax, and it works quite well in The Kingmaker. The premise of the Doctor writing under the pen name of "Doctor Who", though is a bit of a sticking point, but the concept is amusing, especially when the Dead Ringers cast provides the recorded voice of the fourth Doctor in recorded notes on history. And watch (or listen) for the cameo appearance of the ninth Doctor ... sort of.

The Kingmaker is played for laughs, a comedy in the midst of a lot of more serious, heavy adventures where terrible things happen to the TARDIS crew. There are planety of laughs and a reassertion of Erimem's character, although having her going around breaking arms of people who touch her bum seems a bit... silly. Especially after everything that has happened to her recently. Peri gets to the the resourceful one during the separation, and the Doctor wonders how he will ever escape the robot collection agent.

And no I am not going to say who the other time traveller is.

NEXT EPISODE : THE VEILED LEOPARD

The Council of Nicaea

In AD 325 in the city of Nicaea, theology, philosophy and politics are brought together for the first time in a council with delegates from the civilzed world attending. The TARDIS brings the Doctor, Peri, and Erimem as visitors and observers only, until Erimem finds herself swept up in the struggle of one man to be heard - a man history says will die, but a man Erimem swears to help live. The Doctor has always said that history cannot be rewritten, but he has also said that the future can be shaped - whose perspective will win out?

This is something I have always wondered about. In fact, it's something a lot of other people have been wondering about as well. The Doctor is always very keen to preserve the web of time where Earth and its history are concerned, but on other planets where he is an outsider, he topples regimes left and right without any mention of that planet's history or future or if what he is doing is the right thing. Here we have the same dilemma at last; Erimem knows nothing of the future of Earth, only that it has one and the fine details are something the Doctor gets to worry about, so without historical perspective it seems theoretically possible that she can indeed change things. Unlike Barbara's intentions in The Aztecs, Erimem is not acting to preserve an entire culture but to ensure that in her eyes justice is done for one man, and she comes perilously close to stepping into history and becoming a part of it.

The Doctor has never been at such direct odds with a companion before, even during the worst of his arguments with Tegan, and as such he doesn't use any of his Time Lord guile to have Erimem dealt with, but instead continuously attempts to reason with her and convince her he is right and she is wrong. And poor Peri, stuck in the middle, feels the heat from both sides although she does ultimately believe that the the Doctor is right and risks alienating Erimem from them once more. And you know... three adventures in a row Erimem is put through the wringer, you've got to wonder how much more of this she can take, royalty or not...

NEXT EPISODE : THE KINGMAKER

Blood and Hope

It's the American Civil War. The TARDIS had brought the Doctor, Peri and Erimem to the most turbulent time in American history, and within moments of their arrival they are separated; the Doctor falls in with the Northern army but the girls find themselves attempting to survive amongst the racist attutides of the Deep South. With family loyalites split on either side of the border, three strangers immediately draw suspicion, especially if one of them appears to be a slave with more freedom than she should...

It's amazing how the small novella format of Telos packs just as much of a punch as an entire televised or Big Finish adventure. Writers labouring under a tight format have to be mindful of keeping the plot simple yet entertaining, the characters developed but not overwhelming, and here Iain McLachlin succeeds. And as the first writer to bring Erimem to the series, he is faced with the challenge of adapting his own creation to a reverse circumstance; Erimem came into the series as a Pharoah with slaves of her own, and now she has to stay hidden and pretend to be a slave herself, even enduring the physical abuse that came with the role.

Brilliant. And fun. Great book. Read it.

NEXT EPISODE : THE COUNCIL OF NICAEA

Three's A Crowd

The TARDIS brings the Doctor, Peri and Erimem to a space station in the future, and on the planet it orbits a new Earth colony is ready to begin. The trouble is, though, the colony is not going according to plan, and the people living there seldom venture out of their quarters; living in isolation has made it almost impossible for them to socialize without attacks of nerves. All this goes on under the watchful eye of the colony's leader, Auntie, but is Auntie also watching as the colonists are murdered by forces unknown?

Erimem is still suffering from the effects of her encounter with the anceint evils in the Himalayas, and it has made her distant from the Doctor and Peri. Peri wants Erimem to feel liek she is part of the crew again but as soon as they arrive on the colony the inevitible happens and Erimem is lost in a transmat cubicle and dropped on the colony. The Doctor doesn't pay as much heed to Erimem's personal issues as Peri feels he should, but after so many companions the Doctor may be used to their adjustments to life on board the TARDIS. And anyways, he has bigger things to worry about: big lizard people hunting down the colonists for sport. Auntie promises the people in her charge a return to their home planet now that the colony is folding, but their departure from the planet only delivers them into the hands of the hunters.

Auntie isn't evil. She's a woman trying to cope with an impossible situation; to defy the invaders outright will only bring about mass slaughter, but letting them be picked off one by one buys her time to hope for help to arrive. And it's not as if her robot, Butler, is much help, armed though he is. I'm thinking C3P0 on a caterpillar track. And white, for some reason.

Did I like Three's a Crowd? Yes. I believe I did - more for the characterizations and interplay of the regular TARDIS crew than anything else. It's been a while since I actually listened to it - and I am trying to get caught up here - and the one thing that stands out the most is just that; the TARDIS crew manage to heal their wounds and carry on. The last major blow to the dynamic was the death of Adric, and since then Nyssa, Tegan, Turlough and Kamelion have all left as matters of routine, the most marked of them being Tegan following her posession by the Mara (and maybe Kamelion seeing as he's dead), but Erimem's suffering and confusion brings some of the most human moments in the series to life - at least, in the series to date if we are to look at the Big Finish audios in their linear progressions with the rest of the show. The new series on TV right now takes these things farther and throws all new light on them - but we're not quite there yet...

NEXT EPISODE : BLOOD AND HOPE

The Roof of the World

The Doctor, Peri and Erimem arrive in Tibet in 1917 and the Doctor is invited to a cricket game held by English explorers and military personnel. High up in the Himalayas, though, and ancient evil is sitting waiting to awaken and resume a spree of destruction and terror it commenced centuries before being banished to this place. And as the TARDIS arrives, it senses its opportunity at last.

No, it's not another Great Intelligence story. I myself thought it might be what with the setting not being too far down the road from the old Det-Sen Monastary of The Abominable Snowmen, but no. In fact there's no reference to it at all, although the Doctor does drop the name of Lord Cranleigh from Black Orchid to smooth the way a bit with the English army.

What this story is, though, is a big character peice about Erimem, who is feeling a bit distant and traumatized by recent events. Peri is at least somewhat braced for her adventures with the Doctor due to her contemporary (insofar as 1984 can be contemporary when writing from a 2007 viewpoint) background, but for Erimem things are not always as easy to absorb or understand. Her cultural isolation from her companions makes her ripe for an attack by the disembodied force in the mountains, and it plays upon her feelings of abandonment and insignificanc, even convincing her that the Doctor and Peri feel relieved at the idea of being without her, when the reality of it is they are desperate to find her and bring her back to the fold.

Now I'll admit that I found the whole Erimem as fish-out-of-water a bit irritating after a while, but that's what happens when one tries to pack away a whole adventure every day and not space them out to an extent. As you can see by the date it's been quite a while since I blogged any of this - and for a time I considered stopping altogether but there's just something about Doctor Who that makes you want to talk about, it to write about it, to think about the characters and dig into what motivates them. Erimem's motivation is unique; in the eyes of her people she has trancended life itself and lives amongst the gods, but she knows that she is a mere mortal, as are her companions, and they deal with the god-like. What her destiny would have been if she had stayed on Earth is anyone's guess, and what it will ultimately be with the Doctor is a greater puzzle still, but her perspective on the TARDIS and her companions is unique as the only period companion since Victoria Waterfield.

For now, though, she does have a future. Of course the Doctor saves her. Of course they go on.

NEXT EPISODE : THREE'S A CROWD

The Axis of Insanity

The TARDIS is drawn to the Axis, a hub where damaged and twisted timelines are gathered and held in a perpetual loop. The Overseer of the Axis has been attacked and overthrown by one of the minds trapped in a dead timeline, and now the Jester sits upon his throne. The Doctor ventures into the twisted realm to help, and Peri and Erimem are soon drawn from the TARDIS as well, but the Jester proves to me more than he seems, and his plans stretch far beyond simple escape.

I'm not quite sure how I feel about this one. Another adventure where the TARDIS is operating outside of space and time as we know it, and for such an empty void it seems to be pretty full; the Toymaker, the Land of Fiction, and now this. I guess it's just a handy way to explain away things like shape-shifting and let some evil character seem formidable with the power to alter reality.

But Axis keeps alive the tradition of Erimem being separated from the Doctor and Peri and beat up. Yeah we get it... only the baddest of bad guys beat up girls.

NEXT EPISODE : THE ROOF OF THE WORLD

Nekromanteia

A corporate battle fleet meets a horrifying end at the hands of the Witches of Taledrun, guardians of the Relic of Sharra. The Doctor, Peri and Erimem arrive on the planet shortly afterwards, lured by tales of the Nekromanteia system, and also fall victim to the unnatural powers of the witches, but also to the schemes of the survivors of the fleet.

This one is actually pretty terrifying. Peri is trussed up to be a sacrifice to Sharra. Erimem suffers not only a shooting wound but a terrible beating at the hands of the commanding officer of the surviving forces. And the Doctor is beheaded and his body eaten by the ever cackling witches.

I ain't kidding.

It's one thing for the Doctor to come face to face with death in the form of a Dalek or a Cyberman or some terrifying alien monstrosity, but for him to be overcome by something mythical and older than himself is quite different. Obviously there's a way out of this situation for him, which doesn't make 100% sense and requires the audience to believe in the separation between body and mind for it to be credible. But it's not the first time the Doctor has had out of body experiences - his visits into the Matrix on Gallifrey being prime examples of these.

The abuse of the girls calls into question a few issues about violence against women in general. Most of what Peri suffers is inflicted by the witches and doesn't have that usual man to woman violence connotation, but where Erimem is concerned her beating is getting off lightly as her punisher had meant to rape her while a female subordinate stood by. A lot of sci fi feels that it has to be more gristly and violent to be perceived as credible these days, and although the televised episodes do not reflect it to the same degree, Doctor Who has started to move into some dangerous territory where the non-canon audios and books are concerned, almost coming close to the line between acceptable and gratutitous. We know the man is a slime, does he have to attempt to sexually assault Erimem to prove it? Now there is the issue of the Doctor's beheading as well, so there's no platform to make this an exclusive violence against women debate, but as the Doctor's companions are predominantly female, the statistics to add up rather quickly. As it stands right now where my blog is concerned, there is more non-canon material to review than actual televised episodes, the gap between 1989 and 2005 being a long stretch of novels and audios wherein limits are pushed and the female companions are beaten up, tortured, shot, and in one case even killed. There will be a total of 10 more female companions in the tales to come and 3 males, so guess which team takes more lumps in the grand scheme.

I don't want to start a crusade, but I want to point out that Doctor Who doesn't exactly need this kind of thing to stay relevant and interesting. The series didn't start out with Susan getting smacked around in the schoolyard by bullies, and Nero never did get his hands on Barbara back in The Romans, so why the show has to evolve away from clever writing and to a more common base I'll never know. Eric Saward, script editor for the televised series, is on record saying that he believes that violence should be shown for what it is but not be gratutious, and I agree; there's always going to be some. But where's the limit?

NEXT EPISODE : THE AXIS OF INSANITY

No Place Like Home

Now that Erimem is a full member of the TARDIS crew the Doctor decides to take her on a proper tour of the ship. Erimem is confused by the configuration of the corridors and believes they are changing as they walk through them, but the Doctor pooh-poohs that notion and says she is imagining it - until he too realizes there is something at work within the TARDIS and the ship is no longer in his control. It seems that a long time ago, something got inside the ship and has been lurking there in the shadows, slowly figuring out how to control the ship, until it is now ready to get rid of the Doctor and his companions and take the TARDIS for its own.

It's a mouse. I don't see any reason to make this more dramatic than it wishes it was. No Place Like Home was a freebie disc made by Big Finish but sent out with Doctor Who Magazine as a little perk for readers and a way to give Erimem some time with the Doctor and get her out from under Peri's shadow, such as it were (that's not a boob joke). And it sort of works. Right up until the disembodied voice starts cackling away to itself about how the Doctor has played into its hands at last, then it's just a joke.

Gallifreyan mouse. Who knew. Good thing Erimem has a miserable cat.

NEXT EPISODE : NEKROMANTEIA

The Church and the Crown

The Doctor is trying to take Erimem to the Braxiatel Collection where she can make a contribution to its section on Earth history when the TARDIS lands in 17th century France instead. At Peri's insistence the travellers leave the ship to show Erimem some of her future, and almost immediately Peri is kidnapped by forces unknown. Musketeers and Church guards clash in the streets as the Church and the Crown struggle for power, but a third force is watching from the sidelines waiting for the right moment to attack and carry out its own plans against France - plans which are complicated by the fact that Peri and Queen Anne are dead ringers for each other.

The Church and the Crown is pretty much a historical comedy about mistaken identities, bickering spouses and wry commentary made while flicking a sword about, almost in the same vein as Donald Cotton's The Romans back in 1964. As with The Romans, the travellers become unwilling pawns in the games being played out around them but not taking any of it very seriously. The musketeers are pretty much played up as a farce, and Peri kicks a lot of men in the balls. Erimem yells at the Royal couple when their bickering gets on her nerves. The Doctor just wants her cat to behave. Yes, I found myself grinning at times while I listened to this on the TTC as I headed to work. Or from work. Either way, the TTC was involved.

This one is just one of many tales that show that Doctor Who does not have to take itself seriously every time, especially every time the action moves to France. Well hang on... City of Death was in France. But the first two times the Doctor and companions went to France (The Reign of Terror, The Massacre) their straits were dire indeed with death waiting around every corner. This time... not so much. Not such a bad thing, really; we should be allowed to have a lighter adventure every now and again. Something to make the listener grin or giggle. I have a feeling that somewhere out there are legions of fans who have the exact opposite opinion of this one, but that's the risk one runs in having an opinion.

How's Erimem doing as a companion? Quite well, really; she's resourceful and very clever when it comes to dealing with royalty, which we all know can sometimes be the Doctor's stumbling block depending on the royalty he meets, so travelling with some is a good plan. Still, it's a bit odd that he was going to take her and have Irving Braxiatel add her to the collection (the collection that has been alluded to before by Romana in The City of Death and will come up again in the future... in a while) but maybe I just didn't get what was really going on.

And it wouldn't be the first time.

NEXT EPISODE : NO PLACE LIKE HOME

The Eye of the Scorpion

The Doctor and Peri arrive in a desert and come to the aid of a young girl on a chariot being pursued by mercenaries. The place is Egypt. The girl's name is Erimem. And she is waiting to be named as Pharoh. The Doctor knows his history well enough to remember that there has never been a female Pharoh in Earth's history, so either there is some disturbance in time or the girl will never be crowned, and the latter seems more likely as Erimem faces challenges to her right of accession and assassination attempts within her own palace. But the mercenary army threatening the city of Thebes is not all it appears to be, and the Doctor soon suspects that there is an alien presence amongst them.

Hmmm. An interesting adventure. Oh the story is very straightforward and well presented with all of the splendour of Egypt, or at least the sounds of that splendour, brought to life through the headphones, although I'm not sure if all the scarab beetles really make a giggling sound when they swarm. And the scorpions, for that matter. This is all minor stuff in the face of the bigger issue: the issue of Erimem.

Erimem never does get crowned as Pharoh. It's pretty obvious to all that she doesn't really want the job anyways as it has made a terrible distance between her and her own mother, her last surviving parent. Erimem is lonely in her position and does not believe she is a "living god", but she can't tell anyone. So why wouldn't she want to leave with the Doctor? And it's not as if the Doctor just readily bundles her into the TARDIS, he does face the dilemma of taking Erimem away before she is crowned and either creating history or damaging it. But in the end, Erimem leaves in the TARDIS and becomes a new companion, bringing the TARDIS crew up to three. There is almost an instant bond between Peri and Erimem, as if they were sisters, which will of course lead to joint efforts at teasing the Doctor, but that's all in the future.

So the real question is, though, is the gap between Planet of Fire and The Caves of Androzani really wide enough to support an extra "season" as it were, including an extra companion who will eventually have to go? Would this have been a good idea to add a companion to the crew with the Doctor and Nyssa while Tegan was absent from the TARDIS crew; it would be more readily acceptable maybe as they were separated for the length of time between two seasons, not just rammed in the gap between two episodes. Somewhere along the line in the future, other Doctors will be meeting other non-televised companions but they will not generate half the comment that Erimem's presence does to this day. Well, maybe one will but that will be more about why he is even part of the cast and the motives of the production team behind hiring him.

I like Erimem. It's good that Peri has someone else in the TARDIS as a friend as she travels with the Doctor, although how there will be such a bond between them and then it never gets mentioned again in the regular series is going to be interesting, and not something that can be readily fixed, even by the retcon fans. Erimem has the distinction of being the first character from a distinct period of Earth history since Victoria Waterfield, although this will change should anyone decide to pen a tale about the Doctor, Tegan, Turlough, Kamelion and Will ... no, I don't think they will. Erimem is also the first non-white companion, even though she is played by Caroline Morris, who is white, and Erimem is never actually seen by the audience.

Can the TARDIS handle a crew of three again? Can the Doctor handle Erimem's evil cat? Interesting.

NEXT EPISODE : THE CHURCH AND THE CROWN

Red Dawn

The Doctor wants to take Peri to alien worlds now that she is travelling with him in the TARDIS, and their first stop is a cold apparantly dead world. The planet is actually Mars, and while the Doctor and Peri explore within the structure they have landed, overhead an expedition from Earth is making final descent for the first time since the Mars Probe visit of 1970. Once the humans arrive it becomes obvious that some of them are not here on a benign mission of exploration, and as that happens, a group of Ice Warriors emerges from hibernation to defend their world.

It's nice to see the Ice Warriors back in action. Well, see being a relative term. The sad truth is the Ice Warriors made their final televised appearance in The Monster of Peladon and even now in this new age of Doctor Who have yet to be seen. Choosing the silibant Martians as audio foes is a bit of a calculated risk as even on television their voices could sometimes dip below audible levels, but they manage to work this time, with their leader, Lord Zaal, evoking Alan Bennion's performances as Izlyr and Azaxyr in both of the Peladon stories.

The Doctor and Peri work well together for having just met, really. Peri is full of questions and sarcasm that the Doctor takes in stride as part of his "nice guy" demeanour. On television they hardly had any time together before things began to change, but Big Finish have given us the chance to see this relationship develop so that when we finally rejoin the Doctor and Peri's televised adventures (and it'll be a while as I mentioned before) it will seem as if they have been together a while.

The human supporting cast is the usual sort of thing we get in these tales: scared of the unknown, unprepared for what they do find, and one of them with a secret agenda that puts everyone in danger when it emerges. Mars continuity is maintained by referencing the events of The Ambassadors of Death and referring to it as the "Mars Probe fiasco", wherein the public was spared the truth of events and told that the project had indeed failed. Turns out, it hadn't, and while the landing party met some Ambassadors from another world, they did indeed discover relics from the civilzation of the Ice Warriors which in turn spurred this landing expedition.

I've only got one tiny beef with this one, and it's the episode length. While the rest of the episodes in Big Finish so far have stuck to the established length of televised episodes as a guideline, one episode of Red Dawn clocks in at just under the 19 minute mark. Okay, only four minutes shy of the usual, you may say, but let me tell you when your day consists of a cramped ride on the 44 Kipling South to Lakeshore you need all the Doctor Who you can get your hands on to keep sane...

NEXT EPISODE : THE EYE OF THE SCORPION

Planet of Fire

Kamelion goes into spasm in the TARDIS, having apparantly intercepted a Trion distress beacon wghile plugged into the navigational computers. The Doctor knows they must help, but to Turlough the planet Trion means something altogether different; it's his home, and he's a political exile who has escaped his sentence. The TARDIS follows the signal first to Lanzarote but then to the planet of Sarn where a small colony faces extinction from an impending volcanic eruption. Together with a young American girl named Peri, the Doctor and Turlough find themselves up against the Master once more, but whose side will Kamelion be on?

Right from the opening minutes of part one, Planet of Fire feels different. It's a combination of two major make-or-break deals where the series is concerned; a striking visual on location (in this case Lanzarote in the Canary Islands) and a different kind of music score that goes light on the usual synthesizers. At first Jay was going to be all ho-hum at me about the show being shot in a quarry, but then he noticed volcanic rock as opposed to sand. And then we both noticed that neither of the first two characters seen on screen were wearing any underwear.

Yes, it's going to be one of those kinds of reviews.

Kamelion makes his first on-screen appearance since the closing moments of The King's Demons, but the android is pretty stationary the whole time, either laying on the floor or parked in front of the console. And screaming. Why does Kamelion never make it to the top 10 screamers list? For an android in pain he can really let it rip. "Oh look," Jay said. "It can stand," And it's a hellishly tall thing when it stands beside Nicola Bryant, making her first appearance as Peri.

There's a lot of companion transition in this one. It's the end of the road for Turlough and Kamelion, and the start for Peri. The girl makes an auspicious start as the first companion to be seen in a bikini. But lo there's more exposed skin as Turlough throws off his shorts to expose a speedo, but interestingly enough keeps his shirt on. I think we can thank the hidden gay agenda of producer John Nathan-Turner for that one, as well as his casting of what appear to be really gay actors in every part. And cute ones too, as we see in Malkon, Turlough's brother. Turlough's departure is an interesting contrast to others before him; he's not really the galactic adventurer type after all, he only left with the Doctor in the first place to.... well, to kill him, but more to escape from his exile on Earth. With his sentence lifted, he can go home now, and he still has family to go home to.

And then there's the Master. Anthony Ainley gets to do a stint that evokes a southern United States evangelical preacher as he addresses the Sarns, playing on their supersitious fears about their fire god. "I'd be pissed if I were him," Jay says, pointing out how everyone is wearing cooler clothes for this shoot on a volcanic island - from Peri's step-father and his jean shorts and nice pecs, Turlough's shorts, Peri's own bikini, and even the Doctor drops the sweater and jacket and carries on in his shirtsleeves - but the Master is as always clad in black, this time a 3 piece suit. Yeah that's fair. Ah well, he's evil, perhaps being overheated was motivation that day.

This is one of the adventures I am really dying to see come to DVD and hopefully they'll remaster the score into Dolby 5:1 as they did with Resurrection of the Daleks. And to see all that incredible Lanzarote footage in sharp detail after years of VHS madness will be a treat. And I am sure there are some extras to be shown, including Kamelion breaking down here and there.

So off the Doctor goes with Peri on board the TARDIS now, headed for unknown futures. Of course they went right into the next episode of the season, but over at Big Finish they have taken advantage of this one to one relationship and created a stretch of audios to explore the time where the Doctor and Peri get to know each other better; there are no less than 12 full length audios, one special release, and even another Telos novella placed in this gap.

So I had better get started.

NEXT EPISODE : RED DAWN

Singularity

The TARDIS encounters temporal distortion which brings the Doctor and Turlough to Moscow in the mid-twenty first century. The Somnus institute - also known as The Sleepers - have erected a massive glass tower by Red Square and are promising a future where mankind evolves into a godlike being, although the Doctor knows that the future does not unfold this way at all. The temporal distortion grows more and more until the time line beings to split, threatening to tear the entire cosmos apart, with the Doctor and Turlough right at the centre of it.

It's not often that the Doctor meets people who are just pure malevolance, and here they are again. And it's not exactly an alien invasion per se this time, which makes things very interesting. And the choice of Moscow as the location is also an interesting one; the location doesn't really mean much to the story - it could happen anywhere - but then again it's not like London is so pivotal to the entire planet that every adventure has to happen there.

And here's how mean they are. They torture the TARDIS. There's a little Christopher H Bidmead in everyone it seems as the ship comes close to destruction at the hands of the Somnus people in their aim to fulfill their plans. Nasty.

This pisses the Doctor off. It's different when Davison's Doctor gets angry; he's "the nice one" as far as everyone is concerned.

And Turlough. His cowardice comes into play again, and he reluctantly gets involved at the beginning, and even he gets angry at people in part four. But so would you if you'd been bodysnatched. There's a twist to their relationship, though, when Turlough tells the Doctor that he's angry at being the Doctor's little tag along companion and he's never told anything, and he even makes a comment under his breath about how long he'll remain with the Doctor.

No mention of Kamelion, though.

NEXT EPISODE : PLANET OF FIRE

Loups~Garoux

The TARDIS brings the Doctor and Turlough to Rio in the days before the carnival, but they are not the only strangers in town. An ancient and powerful grey werewolf has crossed the ocean in pursuit of his perfect mate - a woman who has tried to hide from him for years. Together with other members of her pack Ilyana attempts to hide from her pursuer and keep her half-human son safe, but if the Grey One gets his way, the world will fall under his thrall and no-one will be able to stop him.

Incredible. But that's what one should expect from a script by Marc Platt, especially when the regular cast is joined by the likes of Elanor Bron as Ilyana. I remember the first time I listened to this one I was on a train heading to Windsor, and as the bulk of part two takes place on a train it was a fun way to do it. Listening to it on the TTC isn't quite the same, but in this cold weather of February it's very easy to allow yourself to buy into the notion of sunny Rio de Janerio and escape for a few minutes. With Doctor Who we're always so ready to say how we don't think the show "looks" like it was shot where it is said to be, but the changes of scenes in this one work so well that it's easy to imagine the locations, from Ilyana's home, to the train station and space port, to the desert that used to be the Amazon basin, and the city of Rio itself.

Nitpicky bits? A couple. The howling the werewolves make; it's not very scary. I know a Yorkie named Chippy who is more intimidating. The Doctor has some interesting close calls with the female species, and backs off all stuttery and nervous almost as if it were Hugh Grant in the role instead of Peter Davison. And why he goes to talk to Turlough about it I have no idea. Maybe because Turlough scores this episode. He does, you know; with a native girl named Rosa who would actually have made an okay companion. And speaking of companions, so sign of Kamelion again, right when he could have been particularly helpful, what with there being all that shape-shifting to be done.

OwwwwwwOOOOOOooooooooOOOOOOOOOooooo.

NEXT EPISODE : SINGULARITY

Imperial Moon

The TARDIS arrives in 1878, just as three spaceships set off from England to the moon. Knowing that no suche events ever took place, the Doctor is determined to find out what is going on, and together with Turlough and Kamelion journeys to the moon to find a sustained biosphere in one of the craters - and all of the plant and animal life is hostile. British explorers are no strangers to such environments, nor are the Doctor and his companions, but the presence of a race of brutal killers stacks the odds against them.

Okay I am including this BBC novel for the sheer sake of giving Kamelion some more material. I hate it when characters with potential get chucked away before they can be properly explored. It is remarked by Turlough that Kamelion just sits in his room for days on end not actually doing anything but listening to the TARDIS systems, which is more or less what is said of him in the televised series. What I find a bit odd though is Turlough once more feeling lonely without Tegan on board (this happens a bit too often now; Lords of the Storm was written in 1995, Imperial Moon in 2000, so you'd think that there would be some kind of acknowledgement of other stories, that Tegan's absence would not hang so heavily in the TARDIS. Still, here it serves as a clumsy plot device for Turlough to confide his lonliness and lack of purpose to Kamelion; not something anyone normally does in someone they do not exactly trust. Kamelion does his best to be companionable, but in the end he's no K9 and he only serves the Doctor because he will obey the strongest will present. But fair dues to him, he does get to do things and actually take part in the adventure, even if the energy field maintaining an atmosphere over the moon traps him inside the TARDIS for most of the story. The Doctor is kinder to Kamelion than one might expect; he's more or less left the android in the closet all this time but when Turlough comments that they should make use of him the Doctor stands up for Kamelion's rights as an individual not to be used. Look back at some of the stuff K9 had to do, though. Apparantly robot rights are one of those things that are only acknowledged in the best of times.

Onwards.

NEXT EPISODE : LOUPS~GAROUX

Phantasmagoria

The TARDIS brings the Doctor and Turlough to London in 1702 just after the death of the king. The people are embracing the rule of Queen Ann, and in the Diabola Club, local gentlemen are trying their luck at cards. Sir Nicholas Valentine, however, is playing at more than just a game of patience, as those who play against him either vanish into the night or are found dead, or dying, screaming of being pursued by all the demons of hell. The Doctor has his suspicions, and they do not seem unfounded as it appears there are more aliens in town than just the Time Lord and his assistant.

Phantasmagoria was the first Big Finish adventure made with Peter Davison back in 2000, bringing Mark Strickon back as Turlough. Where Davison's voice hasn't changed much over the years (as has already been noted in previous blogs), Strickoson doesn't have the same squeak to him that made his angst moments on the show such a... well.... okay so it's something Jay and I laugh at. Whatever. Set some time after Tegan's departure from the crew, the story gets a chance to show us some normal interaction between the Doctor and Turlough, although Turlough still plays the coward role and the Doctor has to be as patient with him as he can.

The rest of the cast are the stuff of which historical Doctor Who adventures are made; gentlemen, ruffians, servant girls, roughnecks, and a famous highwayman namjed Billy Lovemore. And two alien voices chattering away at intervening moments.

Valentine's lair is one of those places where you really can't go on television, with someone remarking that the walls are "like liver" and blood being everywhere. I suppose we came close with The Claws of Axos but this is a far gristlier, the bodies of the abducted men melded with the chamber walls to revitalize Valentine's ship.

I listened to this one over the course of a day's transit to and from work on the subway, which made for a welcome diversion from the usual... well, nothing really, just staring at the walls or the poor fashion of those around me. The fact that Big Finish have extended the 21st season of Doctor Who by 17 full adventures (well okay 15; two of them are a bit on the short side being special releases) makes for better days in transit if you ask me, and of course makes for better expansion of the existing characters. I always felt that the Doctor and Turlough were cheated out of something as on television they are not together on their own very long. And Kamelion gets a total bum deal as I have said before; the mention of him in Lords of the Storm is one of the few times his presence in the series is acknowledged. But, lo, he's in the next one.

NEXT EPISODE : IMPERIAL MOON

Lords of the Storm

The Doctor and Turlough arrive on the planet Raghi where members of its lower social caste are falling ill, some dying, others vanishing mysteriously. Investigation of this points to the nearby moon orbiting the gas giant Indra - where a Sontaran force are preparing an elaborate and deadly trap in what will be pivotal victory over the Rutans.

Lords of the Storm was published in 1995, the first science fiction attempt by until-then historical writer David A McIntee, and I remembered enjoying it so much that I have just read it again, some 12 years later, and realized why I liked it so much. This book is fun. Pure unadulterated fun. It's got a solid plot, it's got the Doctor and Turlough working together as a proper team, which is something we never got to see in the televised series, and it's got an actual confrontation between the Rutan and the Sontarans.

The Sontarans only appear in Doctor Who a grand total of four times yet they are as often mentioned in favourite monster polls as the Daleks or the Cybermen. What they've got going for them is an established sense of culture; as a species totally devoted to war against one enemy for eternity, they would appear to be singleminded and hollow, but McIntee has taken the hints of Sontaran life offered on television and expanded upon them to create a full picture of why the Sontarans do what they do, even going as far as to explain why some of them look different than others, and why some have more fingers than others (because blaming it all on the BBC proper and costume people is kinda silly). There are too many of them to list, but there are references to previous Sontaran stories aplenty, and a few hints at others to come including a spin-off movie called Shakedown which could be a sort of sequel to this one.

McIntee does not stop at the Sontarans; he goes deeper into the psyche of the Rutans and their culture, but also takes time to touch on the mythology of the Tzun; an alien race he created for his seventh Doctor novel, First Frontier. It takes some sheer talent to pull all these threads togther to make a tapestry like this, but he does it. I remember after reading his first few attempts at Doctor Who - and I believe I said as much when reviewing The Face of the Enemy - that I did not enjoy the way he wrote, but when I read this... yowzers. The back cover blurb says he likes to play the Star Wars video game called X Wing as research, and he has captured not only the spirit of the game, but even bits of the movies themselves with his incredible space battle sequences.

I like the Doctor and Turlough as a team. Just the guys, travelling around together. Tegan's departure is still relatively recent at this point so the two of them have a bit of an awkwardness about them now they're without her, but it works. One can almost hear Davison and Strickson in their respective roles as the Doctor and Turlough, he's got them down so well. And there is even a mention of Kamelion, the Master's old shape-shifting robot, as a reminder that he's still somewhere in the TARDIS after The King's Demons.

Let's look at multiculturalism in Doctor Who for a moment. Raghi is not a colony like others before it; instead of being founded by corporations, the efforts to terraform and move to the planet were all privately funded by the colony's predominantly Hindi population - something else I can tell McIntee dove right into researching as he has nailed that as well. And this is not done by making the people of Raghi seem elitist or insular; it is just the way the colony came to be. After all, why should space only be developed by rich white men? Bravo, I say.

I'm glad I read this again. I really am. I would go so far as to say this book is pretty much perfect, and that's a huge heap of praise no matter where it comes from.

NEXT EPISODE : PHANTASMAGORIA