Army of Death is the final instalment of the 2011 Eighth Doctor/ Mary Shelley arc. Big Finish trilogies frequently hit a stumbling block with one of the plays and this time, it's the concluding one. Firstly, Draxine is one of the company's stock, slightly-futuristic bureaucratic planets cf. Whispers of Terror, Creatures of Beauty, Arrangements For War, etc. It's only discernibly different from a future-Earth because of perpetual twilight - which we can't see anyway. The second problem is the "monster"- animated skeletons- which, since they have no personalities and virtually no dialogue, make ineffectual villains on audio. There are some interesting guest voices: Robin Hood's Friar Tuck, David Harewood and especially Waterloo Road's Eva Pope as the tough and tragic Nia. However, the alpha baddie, Karnex the Bone King is a Bronze Age comic book cliche: his campy dialogue ("Doc-torrr...where aaaare you?") took me right out of the story and made me a bit irritated.
Paul McGann re-captures the flamboyant and glib Doctor VIII of the early Noughties. The story's final scenes depict Mary's decision to leave the Tardis and Doctor Eight coaxing her to stay. While Julie Cox has been a cool, practical and sympathetic companion, the suggestion that Mary's fiction is shaped by her experiences was played out when Timelash did it to H.G. Wells in the Eighties. It also limits those experiences to the "Gothic" stories we associate with the early years of Tom Baker; I can't picture Mary Shelley working at all in humorous stories, like Max Warp or The Cannibalists. Despite a really striking and effective musical score, Four out of ten Talmars
The Art of Death is the latest exclusive Eleventh Doctor short story reading from AudioGo. The reader is Raquel Cassidy, who appeared on tv in the "Gangers" episodes last year. The story is set in a haunted, futuristic gallery- but unlike Draxine, this world has a dark-fantasy feel that is very evocative. Often, I have found the AudioGo series somewhat disappointing-even soporific- but this is an atmospheric ghost story that captures the tone of Moffat-Who very well. It would be difficult to imagine another incarnation of the Doctor in this tale and Cassidy gives an appealing impression of Matt Smith's drawl. She also does a very good Inverness-shire accent for Pond. James Goss should definitely be writing for the tv series; a bit "timey-wimey" (ugh!) so nine out of ten Talmars.
Finally, the third issue of glossy fanzine Nothing at the End of the Lane alludes to archaeology in its editorial. Amazingly, the production team have found all kinds of obscure material from the history of Who, some of which I've never seen mentioned in DWM:
Jackie Lane in rehearsal and Peter Purves with a cigarette; Boris Karloff, potential radio Doctor; fab gear Space Pirates designs; the first Sarah Jane Smith; Victoria's Tam O' Shanter; the unmade third Doctor Who film "The Lossiemouth Affair" (that's only 15m away!) aka Dr. Who's Greatest Adventure; Zoe's lime-green feather boa;. Hecuba, the Celestial Toymaker's half-sister; a mock-up 1972 TV Action cover; the groovy Tricolour coffee bar; Lee Sullivan art for The Dark Dimension and Billy Hartnell's panto girlfriend (the old devil!).
The Sixties location photos alone are staggering and I'm sure Big Finish are making plans to record The Queen of Time, by Brian Hayles, for their Lost Stories strand. This is a fascinating and enjoyable document; well worth a read if you like Who, Vworp Vworp or Sixties tv.
Next: More solid-gold villainy in the Bronze Age of comics.
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Dougie, excuse my denseness, but were you saying that Boris Karloff was a potential radio Doctor? Your punctuation allows for some ambiguity on the matter.
ReplyDeleteYes, it's alleged Karloff was approached to play the Doctor on radio in early 1966 but health issues put paid to that. Peter Cushing then recorded a pilot script that summer, which has subsequently been lost.
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