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caz963I've finished listening to the Big Finish DW audios featuring the Eighth Doctor, Charley and C'Rizz. They were originally produced between January 2001 and late 2007, so I've obviously come to them pretty late in the day. Not that it matters. I've enjoyed listening to them on the whole, even though there were a couple I struggled to get through. But there are more than 25 of them, so I suppose they can't all be belters.
The last six in the series are pretty good - two of them were, I thought, excellent and one was a bit naff, but all in all, they're a good end to Eight's travels with these particular companions.
Finally emerging from the Divergent Universe, the three of them run slap-bang into Davros and a room full of Daleks. There can be no better way to show the Doctor he's "home" than that, surely?!
I liked Terror Firma a lot. Davros is gradually being taken-over by the Dalek Emperor and wants the Doctor to help him to get away. In the meantime, Earth has been subject to a Dalek plague which has been mutating humans into Daleks (not pig-mutants, thankfully!) and the only bit left untouched for some strange reason, is the area around Folkestone! Our heroes are all split up - the Doctor spends most of the story with Davros, Charley and C'Rizz escape with someone called Gemma, only to be separated; C'Rizz stays with Gemma and Charley is rescued by Samson, who turns out to be her (Gemma's) brother. Gemma is - supposedly - with the resistance but turns out to have been under Dalek control all the time. Charley discovers that Samson and his sister were former travelling companions of the Doctor who were induced to forget him (and he them), and I have to say, the very short glimpses we get of their travels together have made me want to hear more of their adventures together. They quickly establish a very relaxed and warm relationship and three of them bounce off each other incredibly well; much better, in fact, than the team of the Doctor, Charley and C'Rizz (IMO). There's more delving into C'Rizz's psyche (ooh! he's been a mass-murderer but in the guise of a saviour) and in fact, because of his past ruthlessness, the Daleks decide he'd be a good candidate for Emperor instead of Davros.
We also discover that, on a previous adventure with Gemma and Samson, Davros infiltrated the TARDIS, erased the Doctor's memories and those of his companions and implanted something in Samson's brain which enabled him to track the Doctor's movements - which is how he managed to turn up at exactly the right spot when the Doctor returned to "our" universe. I found that a bit hard to swallow to be honest, that Davros could sneak aboard, render everyone unconscious AND fly the TARDIS.
Still, the Doctor saves the day and everyone heads off to Blackpool.
The next audio, Scaredy Cat was the one I thought was a bit naff. It seemed to be rehashing the plot of The Twilight Kingdom in which they were on a sentient planet which is in pain and which manifests itself in one of the characters, as the same thing basically happens here. Clearly, it failed to make much of an impression on me as I can't remember a great deal more about it.
So, I'm moving on to one of the excellent stories I mentioned, which is Other Lives. It's a story set completely in Victorian England with no time travel and no monster to be defeated. In fact, nothing much happens in the way of an alien threat - although there is an attempt to assassinate the Duke of Wellington and a plot to overthrow the monarchy! It's well written and the performances are terrific - all three principals get to play slightly different roles as Charley is mistaken for a member of the oldest profession and then strikes up a friendship with the elderly Duke (played by Ron Moody), C'Rizz ends up in a freak-show and the Doctor is rescued from prison by a woman claiming to be his wife. Of course, he keeps telling her that he's not her husband (who is missing, and to whom the Doctor bears a close resemblance) but he nevertheless ends up in a kind of cosy domesticity with her which is a rather touching look at what-might-have-been. And at the end, when the Doctor is finally reunited with the TARDIS and his friends, his parting from her is quite wistful and he admits that part of him is almost tempted to stay.
Something Inside is also a wee bit ‘generic’; the plot involves a mysterious “brain worm” that attacks people with psychic abilities and eats their brains because it needs the psychic energy to survive. The Doctor & Co turn up in the middle of somewhere that turns out to be a prison for psychics, who were engineered to be used in a war and were then dumped once the war was over. It’s not a bad story though, if a bit predictable in places.
I thought I was going to love Memory Lane. It begins brilliantly as our trio land in a nondescript house and head off to explore, only to discover that no matter which house they enter, it’s inhabited by the same woman offering cups of tea and fish fingers and chips (no custard!). As a result of this “sameness”, they lose the TARDIS (being unable to distinguish which house they left it in!) – which affords one of the strangest lines (probably) ever heard in Doctor Who in which we learn that the TARDIS has been stolen by an ice-cream van! There’s a plot involving a missing astronaut and a mystery prisoner, but sadly, somewhere around the half-way mark this story turns into something much more ordinary and doesn’t really live up to the promise of the opening.
The final two audios mark the departure of both of Eight’s companions, C’Rizz in Absolution and then Charley in The Girl Who Never Was. I know it’s an unpopular opinion, but I can’t help thinking that Charley stuck around for a bit too long. She was Eight’s companion for seven years (I think) which makes her one of the longest running companions in DW. Not that that’s a problem – Leela, Romana, Mel, Ace, Nyssa and Peri all turn up in BF audios and have been around longer than Charley. But with the possible exception of Ace, they haven’t been the Doctor’s sole companion during that time. I think the rot may have set in in Neverland with the ILUs, because how do you retreat from that? (Rusty had the same problem with Rose, methinks). Regardless of whether you think the words were said in a romantic context or not, they’re difficult words to unsay, especially when Charley clearly did mean it in the romantic sense. Shortly after that comes Scherzo, in which the the Doctor talks about not wanting to deal with Charley’s feelings for him and in which they are gradually becoming one, physically – it’s all very intense and then suddenly, once they emerge into the Divergent Universe, it’s almost as though none of that happened. It was like a reset button had been pushed as regards Charley’s character, and I can’t help wondering if there had been an intention to replace her, but the people at BF didn’t want to because she’s so popular. That’s all speculation on my part, by the way. It just seems to me that Charley’s story had run its course by Neverland.
And therein lies part of the problem with C’Rizz, I think. In one of the CD extras even Conrad Westmass suggests that C’Rizz was put into the mix to act as a “gooseberry”, to dilute any remaining romantic tension between Charley and the Doctor – and at times, it felt like the writers didn’t quite know what to do with him.
He and Charley have a big spat at the end of The Next Life in which Charley admits her reluctance to have to share the Doctor with anyone – which just felt wrong to me. She’d accepted C’Rizz throughout their adventures in the Divergent Universe and then didn’t want him around when she found out she could get home. But the thing is – it comes out of nowhere. And then they make their peace and it’s not mentioned again after that.
Absolution then, is where C’Rizz bows out. We’ve learned that he’s actually a mass murderer – his killings in the guise of “saving” others; and that he’s kept a little of all his victims alive in his mind. He becomes separated from Charley and the Doctor and falls under the influence of someone called Aboresh, who manipulates him and exploits his desire to “save” his friends by showing him how to master his psychic powers. Of course, Aboresh wants something as well because nothing is ever what it seems in these situations. I enjoyed the story, even though it was possible to see what was coming a mile off, and it did give C’Rizz a good send-off.
The one thing that really doesn’t sit right though, is the Doctor’s incredibly cold reaction to C’Rizz’s death. I get that it was probably written that way to set up Charley’s departure in the next story, but – is this really the Eighth Doctor? Everybody leaves, he tells her – when it comes down to it, it’s just me and the TARDIS. I can’t argue with any of that as far as the truth of it and the sentiment goes; the Doctor’s loneliness is something that has been played upon in nu-Who in particular, but it just doesn’t sound like him. Or, for that matter, any Doctor (except, perhaps, One).
The Girl Who Never Was was a fabulous way to end this set of Eighth Doctor audios. It’s a wonderful story, complete with timey-wimeyness, adventure, mystery and even Cybermen, although they’re not the main focus of the plot. And I can’t talk about this one without mentioning the wonderful Anna Massey, who sadly died very recently. And she’s just brilliant here, playing an 85-year-old character by the name of Charlotte Pollard with a fantastic blend of authority, mischief and wit, all conveyed using that glorious voice of hers. And the plot twist is one you don't see coming until the writer signposts it for you :-)
The irony is, that having decided to part company at the end of the previous story, Charley and the Doctor agree to work together one last time, and you get the impression that they’d have stayed together in the end – but in the event, they’re separated by a misunderstanding.
Charley ends up stranded on Earth in the year 5000… until she hears a familiar sound wheezing in the distance and races off, only to find that the longed-for blue box is being piloted by – someone wearing a very garish coat!
So, that’s me all caught up with Eight’s audio adventures and eagerly awaiting the three new releases scheduled for later this year.
The last six in the series are pretty good - two of them were, I thought, excellent and one was a bit naff, but all in all, they're a good end to Eight's travels with these particular companions.
Finally emerging from the Divergent Universe, the three of them run slap-bang into Davros and a room full of Daleks. There can be no better way to show the Doctor he's "home" than that, surely?!
I liked Terror Firma a lot. Davros is gradually being taken-over by the Dalek Emperor and wants the Doctor to help him to get away. In the meantime, Earth has been subject to a Dalek plague which has been mutating humans into Daleks (not pig-mutants, thankfully!) and the only bit left untouched for some strange reason, is the area around Folkestone! Our heroes are all split up - the Doctor spends most of the story with Davros, Charley and C'Rizz escape with someone called Gemma, only to be separated; C'Rizz stays with Gemma and Charley is rescued by Samson, who turns out to be her (Gemma's) brother. Gemma is - supposedly - with the resistance but turns out to have been under Dalek control all the time. Charley discovers that Samson and his sister were former travelling companions of the Doctor who were induced to forget him (and he them), and I have to say, the very short glimpses we get of their travels together have made me want to hear more of their adventures together. They quickly establish a very relaxed and warm relationship and three of them bounce off each other incredibly well; much better, in fact, than the team of the Doctor, Charley and C'Rizz (IMO). There's more delving into C'Rizz's psyche (ooh! he's been a mass-murderer but in the guise of a saviour) and in fact, because of his past ruthlessness, the Daleks decide he'd be a good candidate for Emperor instead of Davros.
We also discover that, on a previous adventure with Gemma and Samson, Davros infiltrated the TARDIS, erased the Doctor's memories and those of his companions and implanted something in Samson's brain which enabled him to track the Doctor's movements - which is how he managed to turn up at exactly the right spot when the Doctor returned to "our" universe. I found that a bit hard to swallow to be honest, that Davros could sneak aboard, render everyone unconscious AND fly the TARDIS.
Still, the Doctor saves the day and everyone heads off to Blackpool.
The next audio, Scaredy Cat was the one I thought was a bit naff. It seemed to be rehashing the plot of The Twilight Kingdom in which they were on a sentient planet which is in pain and which manifests itself in one of the characters, as the same thing basically happens here. Clearly, it failed to make much of an impression on me as I can't remember a great deal more about it.
So, I'm moving on to one of the excellent stories I mentioned, which is Other Lives. It's a story set completely in Victorian England with no time travel and no monster to be defeated. In fact, nothing much happens in the way of an alien threat - although there is an attempt to assassinate the Duke of Wellington and a plot to overthrow the monarchy! It's well written and the performances are terrific - all three principals get to play slightly different roles as Charley is mistaken for a member of the oldest profession and then strikes up a friendship with the elderly Duke (played by Ron Moody), C'Rizz ends up in a freak-show and the Doctor is rescued from prison by a woman claiming to be his wife. Of course, he keeps telling her that he's not her husband (who is missing, and to whom the Doctor bears a close resemblance) but he nevertheless ends up in a kind of cosy domesticity with her which is a rather touching look at what-might-have-been. And at the end, when the Doctor is finally reunited with the TARDIS and his friends, his parting from her is quite wistful and he admits that part of him is almost tempted to stay.
Something Inside is also a wee bit ‘generic’; the plot involves a mysterious “brain worm” that attacks people with psychic abilities and eats their brains because it needs the psychic energy to survive. The Doctor & Co turn up in the middle of somewhere that turns out to be a prison for psychics, who were engineered to be used in a war and were then dumped once the war was over. It’s not a bad story though, if a bit predictable in places.
I thought I was going to love Memory Lane. It begins brilliantly as our trio land in a nondescript house and head off to explore, only to discover that no matter which house they enter, it’s inhabited by the same woman offering cups of tea and fish fingers and chips (no custard!). As a result of this “sameness”, they lose the TARDIS (being unable to distinguish which house they left it in!) – which affords one of the strangest lines (probably) ever heard in Doctor Who in which we learn that the TARDIS has been stolen by an ice-cream van! There’s a plot involving a missing astronaut and a mystery prisoner, but sadly, somewhere around the half-way mark this story turns into something much more ordinary and doesn’t really live up to the promise of the opening.
The final two audios mark the departure of both of Eight’s companions, C’Rizz in Absolution and then Charley in The Girl Who Never Was. I know it’s an unpopular opinion, but I can’t help thinking that Charley stuck around for a bit too long. She was Eight’s companion for seven years (I think) which makes her one of the longest running companions in DW. Not that that’s a problem – Leela, Romana, Mel, Ace, Nyssa and Peri all turn up in BF audios and have been around longer than Charley. But with the possible exception of Ace, they haven’t been the Doctor’s sole companion during that time. I think the rot may have set in in Neverland with the ILUs, because how do you retreat from that? (Rusty had the same problem with Rose, methinks). Regardless of whether you think the words were said in a romantic context or not, they’re difficult words to unsay, especially when Charley clearly did mean it in the romantic sense. Shortly after that comes Scherzo, in which the the Doctor talks about not wanting to deal with Charley’s feelings for him and in which they are gradually becoming one, physically – it’s all very intense and then suddenly, once they emerge into the Divergent Universe, it’s almost as though none of that happened. It was like a reset button had been pushed as regards Charley’s character, and I can’t help wondering if there had been an intention to replace her, but the people at BF didn’t want to because she’s so popular. That’s all speculation on my part, by the way. It just seems to me that Charley’s story had run its course by Neverland.
And therein lies part of the problem with C’Rizz, I think. In one of the CD extras even Conrad Westmass suggests that C’Rizz was put into the mix to act as a “gooseberry”, to dilute any remaining romantic tension between Charley and the Doctor – and at times, it felt like the writers didn’t quite know what to do with him.
He and Charley have a big spat at the end of The Next Life in which Charley admits her reluctance to have to share the Doctor with anyone – which just felt wrong to me. She’d accepted C’Rizz throughout their adventures in the Divergent Universe and then didn’t want him around when she found out she could get home. But the thing is – it comes out of nowhere. And then they make their peace and it’s not mentioned again after that.
Absolution then, is where C’Rizz bows out. We’ve learned that he’s actually a mass murderer – his killings in the guise of “saving” others; and that he’s kept a little of all his victims alive in his mind. He becomes separated from Charley and the Doctor and falls under the influence of someone called Aboresh, who manipulates him and exploits his desire to “save” his friends by showing him how to master his psychic powers. Of course, Aboresh wants something as well because nothing is ever what it seems in these situations. I enjoyed the story, even though it was possible to see what was coming a mile off, and it did give C’Rizz a good send-off.
The one thing that really doesn’t sit right though, is the Doctor’s incredibly cold reaction to C’Rizz’s death. I get that it was probably written that way to set up Charley’s departure in the next story, but – is this really the Eighth Doctor? Everybody leaves, he tells her – when it comes down to it, it’s just me and the TARDIS. I can’t argue with any of that as far as the truth of it and the sentiment goes; the Doctor’s loneliness is something that has been played upon in nu-Who in particular, but it just doesn’t sound like him. Or, for that matter, any Doctor (except, perhaps, One).
The Girl Who Never Was was a fabulous way to end this set of Eighth Doctor audios. It’s a wonderful story, complete with timey-wimeyness, adventure, mystery and even Cybermen, although they’re not the main focus of the plot. And I can’t talk about this one without mentioning the wonderful Anna Massey, who sadly died very recently. And she’s just brilliant here, playing an 85-year-old character by the name of Charlotte Pollard with a fantastic blend of authority, mischief and wit, all conveyed using that glorious voice of hers. And the plot twist is one you don't see coming until the writer signposts it for you :-)
The irony is, that having decided to part company at the end of the previous story, Charley and the Doctor agree to work together one last time, and you get the impression that they’d have stayed together in the end – but in the event, they’re separated by a misunderstanding.
Charley ends up stranded on Earth in the year 5000… until she hears a familiar sound wheezing in the distance and races off, only to find that the longed-for blue box is being piloted by – someone wearing a very garish coat!
So, that’s me all caught up with Eight’s audio adventures and eagerly awaiting the three new releases scheduled for later this year.
