Here we are again: another half-term. In previous years, I always hared back to Glasgow. After my nine-month sojourn in suburbia between 2016 and 2017, I don't feel so inclined this time. Also, it's been bitterly cold, with threatened snow showers: an appropriate climate for this Big Finish audio box set, The First Doctor Adventures.
SPOILERS!!!
This pair of plays utilises the cast of the Mark Gattis- scripted anniversary docu-drama, An Adventure in Space and Time. But here, as in the final Capaldi tv episode, David Bradley is no longer playing William Hartnell: he's playing Hartnell's Doctor. It's an usual approach to casting an audio, since none of the cast really sound anything like the original Tardis crew. Only Claudia Grant has borrowed some inflections from Carole Ann Ford. I believe William Russell's Ian Chesterton would never say "okay".
Unlike Twice Upon A Time, happily, there are no instances of inaccurate sexism or "political incorrectness". Bradley's Doctor pauses and hesitates like Hartnell and has something of Victor Meldrew in his catchphrase " Simply unbelievable!"
The first of the audios, The Destination Wars is a sci-fi adventure in the Space Year 2003. The Tardis crew mistake the colony world Destination for a utopian future Earth but soon learn that the benevolent Inventor is in fact the Doctor's old rival "pioneer", The Master.
Dreyfus is best known for caricature camp roles. Here, his Master drips venom but has none of the winsome charm of Derek Jacobi's renegade Time Lord. He's recorded a further two audios so it'll be interesting to see if he warms on me. In Destination Wars, the Master is orchestrating a conflict between the colonists and the alien Dalmari to spearhead technological development that will enable him to escape the planet. I wasn't clear how he accelerated time in the story but I did like the subtle undermining he did on the relationship between Ian, Barbara and the Doctor. Space age sounds lend something of a period flavour to Destination Wars but I preferred the second play, which seemed more plausible as a 1964 script- if that's the point of this set.
Coincidentally, since the last post here looked at a storm in 1968, The Great White Hurricane set in 1888 revolves around one of the most severe blizzards in the history of the US. In 1888, Celtic fans, the Duke of Gordon's statue in Elgin had already been standing for over thirty years and John Logie Baird was born.
I was able to visualise this story thanks to Gangs of New York . Scorsese's 2002 epic, which I saw in Glasgow with my late pal, Gary Stirling.
In Hurricane, Susan and the Doctor become caught up in the territorial bloodshed of the Mad Boars and Alley Dogs gangs. Meanwhile, Ian and Barbara's discovery of hospital patient Rosalita's spousal abuse involves them in the daring rescue of stranded train passengers.
The American accents sounded very modern- not as RP as they really would've been in 1964- but I felt there could be more local colour, more oddity of language since the past really was a different country, in this instance. However, my attention was held by this wintry story.
Unlike the Third Doctor Adventures, which took a long time to have much appeal for me, I have no misgivings about coming back for the second set of First Doctor stories later in the year. We've become used to recasting: Ben, Barbara, the aforementioned Third Doctor. Are the final taboos the Brigadier, Troughton's Doctor and the nonpareil, Sarah Jane Smith?
I wonder also if the Bradley Doctor obviates the need for The Early Adventures line of plays. Partially narrated, this series tells adventures of the First and Second Doctors. The latest one I've heard is The Black Hole. The Doctor, Jamie and Victoria arrive on a research station orbiting a black hole and uncover the identity of Constable Pavo, a Gallifreyan police officer investigating time standing still on the station.
Unusually for this range, this disc is narrated by David Warner, who doesn't play a character in the story. It was also the first outing for Rufus Hound's version of The Meddling Monk, aka Mortimus. He appears to have replaced Graeme Garden last seen in BF's 200th Main range play The Secret History in 2015, whose hatred of the Doctor arose from Tamsin's death in, er, To The Death.
The Monk is quite malevolent in this incarnation, unleashing an alien army called the Sleeth. He finally gets his comeuppance in The Side of the Angels in the last Doom Coalition set. (I'd forgotten he precedes Graeme Garden chronologically)
While this was quite an entertaining listen and a blend of classic and modern ( a Time Lord takes on female form in the story, as they do on tv now), as a dusty ancient Whovian, certain story elements frustrated me. This story eliminates the 2005 Terrance Dicks book World Game, as it gives another explanation of the events in 1985's The Two Doctors. Poor Victoria, the most traumatised of the "Who Girls", is left to recuperate while the adventure with Dastari, Chessene and the Sixth Doctor takes place between episodes. But Uncle Terrance's Season Six B, where the Doctor is an unwilling Time Lord agent is undone here. Bah.
BF seems to have a haphazard attitude to DW books and canon. I thought I detected a reference in The Black Hole to the Virgin New Adventure No Future by Paul Cornell, where the Monk was a Richard Branson type. For me, though, having the Monk and the Master "appear" in Season Five and Season One respectively diminishes the Master in Season Eight. Also The Black Hole is very similar to 1997's book The Dark Path, where Victoria encounters the Delgado Master (aka Koschei.) At the climax of David McIntee's novel. the villain is trapped within a black hole. I can't believe Simon Guerrier didn't read it.
Ah well, it's madness to try and reconcile all the story strands of Who across all the media. I'm now waiting on the next box set of Fourth Doctor Adventures. Before that, however, I want to re-listen to the first Dan Dare box for the long-promised blog post on Britain's first multi-media spaceman. I'm also thinking about Star Trek and Green Lanterns. Stay tuned.
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