An English Gentleman: This is the only story of the trilogy
that doesn’t begin with the Doctor trapped in some never-region and has him
simply landing somewhere in the TARDIS with Amy acting as his companion. Its
actually rather refreshing. Although it isn’t long before they are trapped in a
closet together and like the rest of this trilogy arsing around doing nothing
in particular. He’s more afraid not to live than to die. Finding his serene
spot (and thus establishing telepathic contact with Romana) is a bit tricky at
the moment (although that has less to do with his distracted mind and more to
do with an upcoming plot twist). Amy questions whether the Doctor is so very
memorable and given his handling in this latest batch of stories I might even
concede that she has a point. The line between being brave and foolhardy is quite
slim and the Doctor tiptoes precariously across it on a regular basis.
Anghelides tries to rip of Eric Saward’s ‘smelling a flower, eating a well
prepared meal…’ speech in a way that feels like pure indulgence (even Davison’s
inflection is exactly the same).
Tracer: The Doctor claims that Amy has done so much living
already but I beg to differ. Embodying all the worst criticisms of a Doctor Who
companion (screaming, getting into trouble, leaning on others all the time) is
not what I would call living. She’s still asking the most naïve of questions
and at times comes across as a particularly spineless Star Trek creation (‘is
this what it means to die?’). The handling of this character has been
woefully inconsistent throughout the three stories but you would think that the
Doctor would spot when Amy is acting completely out of character (why do people
in science fiction never noticed when their friends are behaving in such a
bizarre fashion?). Where she was weak and inadequate in the last tale, now she’s
got quite a mouth on her (‘let go of my arm you humourless jobsworth!’)
and a penchant for sarcasm. The Doctor thinks that she has reached the
difficult teenage years but that’s about as far as he reaches towards
recognising that Zara has taken Amy’s place. He states later that he knew that
Zara wasn’t Amy for much longer than the point when her face started changing
but I reckon he is just saving face. He’s not exactly been at his sharpest of
late. By the end of this story did anybody actually care what Amy’s choice was?
Its rare for a new companion to be bungled quite this badly (I can only think
of one other instance…can you guess what it is?).
Madame President: The Doctor thought Romana was working with
the High Council of Time Lords but he never realised that she was President. I
guess this is the earliest that they can play with that idea before she would
rewrite her own continuity on the TV series (if Romana informed the fourth
Doctor of her future position it would change the nature of their on screen
relationship in a way that I wouldn’t feel very comfortable with). I knew there
had to be some reason that nobody was calling Romana by her name…the twist that
she is President Astra instead comes as a complete surprise and ties in rather
nicely with the original Key to Time season. Unfortunately after the bombshell
is dropped so is much of the interest in the character as Astra turns out to be
little more than an even bossier version of Romana (I’m not sure if its
actually an improvement on the drippy Astra we met in The Armageddon Factor
because at least she could surprise by being steely on the odd occasion) who
remembers nothing about the Doctor and has grown into a toughened space bitch
in the 200 years since she last saw him. Its all a bit thin if I’m honest,
failing to pick up on the potentially dramatic threads that were left hanging
at the end of season sixteen (the Doctor refused to sacrifice her and clearly
had some feeling for the character that could have been picked up very
nicely with the more benign fifth Doctor, especially since she has Romana’s
face). When she retuned from E-Space (how is quite wisely skipped over)
the Gallifreyan Doctors gave her the quick once over and declared her body as
damaged beyond repair and unable to regenerate. With the suggestion that she
might be Lord President of Gallifrey, Romana replies ‘I wish!’ She’s off
to start some reforms on Gallifrey which will ultimately lead to her securing
that role.
Great Ideas: Attacks are emerging from a fold in time that
has been ironed practically flat. The planet of chaos has been held in place
minutes away from the end of the universe. Professor Lydel turns out to be the
White Guardian. Zara rescued him from 9th Century Africa, nursed him
through the years and together they have been hunting for the Chaos Pool and
the remaining segments. The White Guardian isn’t a guardian of virtue but more
one of control. He’s actually a faceless entity that doesn’t care about the
emotional needs of the universe at large, only that it is controlled, that it
has law. He brings structure and order, helplessness and despair. A
benevolent dictator. Romana is the sixth segment of the Key to Time.
Audio Landscape: Slopping through water, alarm, slithering
giant slugs, crackling fire, explosion, drilling through a door, crashing the
shuttle, a babbling brook, running through rain, beasts baying in the distance,
chanting chorus, smashing the segments.
Musical Cues: Before the end of episode one (and without
checking) I knew that this was a different musician than The Destroyer of
Delights. It was far more easy on the ear, the music was only used when it was
needed and had some terrific stylistic touches. Upon researching the sleeve it
turns out to be my favourite…Jamie Robertson! Is this his very first Big Finish
score? I had no real idea what was going on at the end of episode two but the
music was excellent.
Isn’t it Odd: Its another race of ineffectual comedy aliens
in a trilogy that has been full of them. Like buses, you wait for ages for one
to turn up and then three lots turn up at once! If I were the Doctor I would
start to wonder if I had wandered into the wrong universe where every alien
race is suddenly laugh a minute. Even in the heart of the Williams era (some
would say season seventeen) the monsters were at least supposed to be
vicious (the Daleks are more bloodthirsty than ever, the Jagaroth are devious
time manipulators, the Mandrels for all their cuddly appearance are supposed to
be brutal killers, as are the Kraals and the Nimon turn children into dust!).
This bunch of bureaucratic slugs squabble endlessly in their daft, lisping
voices and prove to be quite tiresome rather quickly. Did we learn nothing from
Creed of the Kromon? ‘I shall ingurgitate them!’ Not quite as catchy as ‘Exterminate’,
is it? This trilogy desperately needs some contemporary Earth sequences,
anything for me to be able to grab hold of and distinguish as something worth
giving a damn about. The historical sequences in The Destroyer of Delights
didn’t cut it (because the characters were cut from thin cloth and the tapestry
they were stitched too lacked any meaning) and now we are back in yawnsome
space opera territory. I like the conceit of two races from either end of time
existing side by side but since the Tuphoideans and the Atrions are hardly the
most memorable of species the point is lost somewhat. Did we learn nothing from
the abysmal idea of a handbag with mystical powers in the Excelis series? Now
we are dealing with a satchel dimension! Is there some kind of fashion outlet
where all these quirky extra dimensional accessories can be found? I’m so bored
of allusions to the butterfly effect in fiction. It seems that every time
somebody wants to get deep they drag out this old chestnut. Why does
this story even need Romana? After establishing a great piece of sleight of
hand the writer feels the need to toss everything but the kitchen sink at the
end to try and overwhelm the audience into thinking this is climactic. After
Astra was returned to Atrios the segment was hidden within Romana. I’m sorry…what?
Since when? You can’t just make this shit up and hope that nobody will be
paying attention to the details! Romana drops a bombshell like this and brushes
it off a few seconds later as though the news that she has been one of the
segments throughout season seventeen and eighteen, the novels and the audios
means nothing. It feels like it has been included simply to provide
episode three with a shocking cliffhanger. Oh its shocking alright. More
Black/White Guardian bitching…like we didn’t have enough of that in the last
story. Considering we already know Romana’s future as the Lord President of
Gallifrey (unless this dreadful trilogy is going to attempt to undo four series
of Gallifrey and countless other Main Range titles including The Apocalypse
Element, Neverland, Shada…) there is absolutely zero tension in her attempting
to sacrifice herself as the sixth segment of the Key. Its just meaningless
waffle pretending to be a heart-rending climax. After pushing and shoving at
each other the Guardians are banished back into eternal nothingness. How underwhelming.
Amy and Zara are turned into human beings with a magic flick of the wrist. How easy.
There’s even time for a hideous Star Trek style moral at the end of the story
(that’s what separates people from artifical life forms, dont’cha know?). After
behaving like such a total cow throughout this trilogy Zara is afforded redemption?
Standout Scene: The twist that Lalla Ward is playing Astra
rather than Romana shows that the production team behind this misbegotten arc
haven’t quite lost their touch. Slapping Lalla Ward’s face on the cover and
calling this the Key to Time trilogy means fans will automatically make the
connection and assume Romana is back to aid the Doctor on his quest again. That
she isn’t and this kind of expectation has been subverted is rather clever.
Result: Pluses to The Chaos Pool; the best direction of the
trilogy with Lisa Bowerman upping her game from The Destroyer of Delights, a
fabulous debut score from Jamie Robertson (just listen to the cinematic bluster
towards the end of episode one) and the decent twist about the identity of
Lalla Ward’s character. Already that is more pluses than the first two stories
combined. Minuses include more aimless storytelling that fails to go anywhere,
more ridiculous alien races that make no impact, more incoherent technobabble
that replaces actual plot twists to navigate the plot (‘your singularity
Matrix is amplifying the effect of the second Teuthoidian attack!’ and
similar such nonsense) and a conclusion to this trilogy that fails to cohere
into anything remotely plausible or satisfying. And as for Romana being the
sixth segment…where the hell is the script editor? Its rare to find three such
inept scripts in close proximity from Big Finish since their run of form is
usually pretty consistent (even the first Divergent Universe season had The
Natural History of Fear wedged between The Creed of the Kromon and The Twilight
Kingdom) and as an indicator of how well these trilogies are going to play out
I am surprised that they continued with the format after this disastrous first
attempt. I was desperately hoping that this trilogy would not only do something
pioneering with the Key to Time itself (it’s a device that can turn itself into
anything, there has to be more imaginative storytelling possibilities
with something as malleable as that) and show the Guardians at their
powerful best, juggling with universes to bend reality to their will. Beyond
the suggestion that the White Guardian is far more amoral than he might have originally appeared (and I would question whether that was a good move – why can’t they be
as black and white as they were clearly set up to be?) there is very little
worthwhile exploration of these beings of any kind. What a waste of time and of
three stories; why did we need 360 odd minutes of poor storytelling to reach
exactly the same conclusion as the series did the last time this situation
played out? I despair: 4/10
4 comments:
Having a second Key to Time arc was a great idea but the execution was dreadful.
It's a shame that Big Finish decided to introduce its new trilogy format with such a weak one. The Guardians were wasted and Amy, despite quite a good performance from Ciara Janson, is one of the worst Big Finish companions. I assume that you haven't listened to the spin-off "Graceless". I've been putting off listening to it for years.
I wish that they had started with the considerably better trilogy of "The Magic Mousetrap", "Enemy of the Daleks" and "The Angels of Scutari" instead.
Just finished listening to these. What a pig's ear. Part 2 was the worst by far, part 1 not much better - those ear numbing insect voices! - with part 3 OK in parts.
Why the comedy slugs?
Astra reveal great, but petered out as a character. The Guardians were better done than Laurel and Hardy in Story2 but they were held back when they should have been unleashed. Then they were just thrown away!
The Graves seemed unnecessary and the Lord of the Rings throwing the key into the fires was cringingly ripped off.
If the decaying key weakened the Guardians and being close to a segment restored them, why did BG want it to decay? He would lose his powers again surely? And what was WG going to do with it? He was all for balance once upon a time.
And has it now been destroyed? If so, why was it ever needed in the original stories to save the universe?
Cobblers.
I don't agree with an earlier comment that the WG should be pure white, he was not so in Ribos, he was quite dispassionate. He is better than BG only in that his aim is harmony but is harmony at almost any cost. He was billed as 'Guardian of Light and Time' originally too.
I was excited to come upon this trilogy of stories, with it being a sequel to the Key to Time season. I am really surprised that, with such a premise, this is the best they could do. I mean, I've heard worse, but not for a while.
I actually like the demystified Guardians—they already did it themselves when they wear those dead birds in their heads anyway. But this trilogy plus one is quite disappointing. I really enjoy Judgement of Isskar, but after that it's just going downhill. Amy's naiveté talk is just aggravating and over done. When Romana actually appeared and somehow dragging Black Guardian and somehow she got Key stuck inside her, I just zoned out for the rest of the story.
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