What’s it about: When the First
Doctor and his grand-daughter Susan escape through the cloisters of Gallifrey
to an old Type 40 Time Travel capsule, little do they realize the adventures
that lie ahead… And little do they know, as the TARDIS dematerializes and they
leave their home world behind, there is someone else aboard the ship. He is
Quadrigger Stoyn, and he is very unhappy.
An Unearthly Child: They left Gallifrey because it just
wasn’t their home any more…but we all see these things differently, don’t we?
We’re with Susan when she says goodbye to Gallifrey, watching the planet shrink
away on the scanner to a dot. It would be along time before she returned and
only then to play the Game of Rassilon in the Death Zone. Susan believes she
has made up the name TARDIS, but the Doctor seems to know it too. He allows her
this little victory when it is clearly not the case. Stoyn admits that nobody
has Grandfathers these days – is it just an affectation?
Hmm: If anybody was going to script this momentous companion
chronicle for the Doctor and Susan it would have to be resident Big Finish
expert on these two characters, Marc Platt. When it comes to capturing the
voice of the first Doctor and his grand daughter there is none finer and he has
written a prolific number of adventures for them both already. Platt writes for
both characters as authentically as David Whitaker did back in the sixties, he
understands what makes them tick. His Doctor is authorative and intelligent but
with a real twinkle in his eye and his Susan is alien, wide-eyed and naïve but
an essential emotional anchor for the Time Lord. Wonderfully the Doctor smiles
at Susan when she realises that he is going to pilot an old Type 40 out of the
Dock and out into the universe. It takes years to learn how to fly one of these
machines, to form a bond with it, but he mischievously takes to the controls
and defies all common sense and kick starts his greatest adventure. All the
Doctor and Susan had was each other now and they clung on to each other as the
Ship first took off. Susan could hear his thoughts telepathically at this
turbulent point. What had he done? Where would they end up? What would become
of Susan? He describes the TARDIS as antiquated but quite serviceable. At home
his views were too disruptive, he couldn’t keep quiet was his trouble and there
were powerful people that would not endure such dissention. For her Grandfather
to just sit and watch would have been intolerable, he had to do something. How
great is it that the Doctor has never heard of the Earth at this stage of his
life and wonders whether there is a suitable planet for them to put down upon
in Sol 3 in order to affect some repairs. The Doctor mocks Stoyn for leaving
the TARDIS in an environmental suit, cheekily poking at his precautions when he
should experiencing the joy of standing on an alien planet for the first time.
The Doctor’s first first contact situation is a bit of a flop, he stands to his
full height, clutches his lapels and announces their presence dramatically.
When the Doctor gets to watch the history of the planet Earth he is entranced
by the experience.
Stoyn: He was down in the inspection webbing when the TARDIS
went live – the Doctor almost killed him by setting the controls and leaving
Gallifrey and blistered one side of his face. His job is to dismantle the
engines before the Ship heads to the knackers yard. He’s a typical example of
one of the Doctor’s people and exactly the sort he was trying to get away from.
Nervous, insular, impulsive and unable to cope with situations outside of his
frame of reference. He pretty much spoils everything the Doctor tries to
achieve in The Beginning and then when the shit hits the fan tries to head off
with Susan to leave him to his fate. When the Doctor ignores his pleas and
removes the TARDIS and his only way of escape, you have to wonder how he will
react when they meet again.
Standout Performance: Appropriately this is Carole Ann
Ford’s most accomplished performance yet on audio. She understands the
importance of this material and raises her game to match it’s quality. Listen
to her delivery of ‘It would be a massacre!’ when the aliens attempt to destroy
the human race, it’s a fingers down the spine moment.
Sparkling Dialogue: ‘Let the experiment be purged!’
Great Ideas: To be able to listen to the Doctor and Susan
attempting to escape Gallifrey from her point of view gave me goosebumps all
over. The story ties beautifully into the TV series’ The Name of the Doctor and
Big Finish’s recent Prisoners of Fate with Susan entering one TARDIS and
hearing the Doctor talking to somebody outside and suddenly pulling her
outside and choosing to escape their home planet in a different TARDIS
altogether. Out of date and condemned to the junkyard, the Doctor and the
TARDIS begin their long relationship together. As the two runaways stare out at
the universe before them they see a universe of possibilities that they had
been denied. Beyond the food machine the Ship was as big as a house with many,
many doors leading off and awaiting exploration. This old Type 40 is dying, the
air getting too thick to breathe…the thought of their travels being over before
they have even begun is heartbreaking. As it understands the affinity the
Doctor will have with the planet, it forces the Doctor to the Earth. Whether by
accident or by design, the Doctor has literally saved the TARDIS from being
killed – it is no wonder they form such a close bond. At this point the TARDIS
still has a functioning chameleon circuit and is disguises itself as a boulder.
Susan gets to watch a ‘first contact induction video’ where she gets to
experience the history of the human race from fishes swimming in the ocean
right through to homo sapiens. Local time was frozen and the Doctor and Susan
were caught in the bubble, centuries have passed, aeons even and in the
meantime the Earth had evolved. It was only the arrival of human explorers with
that insatiable curiosity of theirs that broke the spell allowed the Doctor and
Susan to break free. It is a miracle that the Earth and the human race have
turned out as well as they have given all this alien involvement over the
years. Was the planet an experiment from the off? Were the human race seeded to
try and keep order on a lush and verdant world, an experiment that went
horribly wrong? The human race evolved on its own terms whilst the aliens have
been trapped in time and have a right to exist, argues Susan. The TARDIS as
giant mushroom – that I would love to see!
Audio Landscape:
That glorious sound of the first TARDIS flight we ever heard, a staser blast,
alarms, trying to cut their way into the TARDIS, unwrapping a food bar, the hum
of the console room, a jungle full of verdant life, wet ground sucking at their
feet, an eye of ice threatening to consume the Doctor and Susan, the squeaking,
vibrating lunar rover, the great gun booms.
Standout Scene: The first ten minutes charter an incident I
never thought we would get to experience from such an intimate point of view
and so generated a great deal of excitement from the off. How could you not
have goosebumps as the Doctor and Susan make their escape from their home
world?
Result: The story I never thought we would get experience –
the Doctor and Susan’s first flight in the TARDIS. In a year that is turning
out to be choc-a-block full of anniversary treats, this is one of the mot
exciting because it opens our eyes to the wealth of adventure that lays ahead
for the time travellers and shows their first step on this incredible 50 year
journey. Marc Platt is too intelligent a writer to simply turn this into a
nostalgic exercise though and he weaves in his own brand of exciting, quirky
ideas and strong plotting. In the same vein companion chronicle producer David
Richardson is too clever a frontrunner to allow this story to stand as a one
off and uses the anniversary as a lynchpin to tell three exciting, linked
stories that follow the journey of a Time Lord technician who was unfortunate
enough to be carried along for the ride. Played with skill by Terry Molloy, I
can’t wait to hear the rest of his story. We get to experience the Doctor’s
first contact with the human race and the start of his love affair with the
species and get to witness the very first time he saved that blue/green pearl
from destruction. There are far more treats than those I have mentioned above
and you should do yourself a favour and get hold of this priceless little gem
and discover them for yourself. It fits in with the continuity set up in The
Name of the Doctor, Lungbarrow and Prisoners of Fate but has many other points
to be discussed and questioned. For Platt’s expert handling of the first Doctor
and Susan alone this is a story to be treasured but there is much more to this
than that: 9/10
2 comments:
I was really worried how would this story fit into the continiuty of The Name of the Doctor but it seems there was no need to. It looks like it all was planned by Big Finish and TV series producers together all along, and after that recent minisode I think it's actually very possible!
Interesting to see that you have chosen a cover with a pyramid-like Tardis, which was later replaced with a new one. A small hint about your preferences?
Overall that's another wonderful review. I liked mostly the first part of the story, second seemed not so special for some reason.
B
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