Aggressive Astronaut: Steven is not longer King of the
planet of the savages. This bombshell is dropped in the first scene and he
links the reason to a moment of his life with the Doctor, encouraging us to
listen to his narration of a tale. To know that we will be rewarded with the answers
for the framing device by listening to the central narrative gives the audience
an extra motive to push on. Steven is very protective of the Doctor,
considering him an old man but he knows in his heart that he can look after
himself. He scoffs at the thought of Dodo being his girlfriend and admits they
didn't travel together for long. However he named his youngest daughter after
her and she was his favourite which tells you something about what Ms Chaplet
meant to him (even if he tries to brush away any suggestion that he had a
favourite). His time in the military is mentioned once again and he knows who
to take care of himself in the rigorous training procedure. He thought he had
escaped the bullying orders and passive aggression of the military and resented
falling back into that lifestyle. He knows that the best way to escape would be
to get his head down, train with the other soldiers and learn about this world
and its conflict. In the military you become the uniform and Steven found it
was frighteningly easy to step back into the role. Steven set up schools on the
savages planet to teach the history of the planet, to avoid the population
making the same mistakes. Poor Steven has to suffer the indignity of being
squirrelled away in a dark and stinking latrine. As soon as he realises the
terrible game that is being played Steven understands that there is only one
way of changing things - to run for election. Steven had learnt from the Doctor
that sometimes the best way to get noticed by those you are opposing is to
stand on the rooftops and shout subversive platitudes. When Steven's daughter
Dodo died, he stopped fighting and accepted his political fate. Steven learnt
on Comfort that if you want to make a lasting difference to a world then you
can't just leave after one night once the society has been fundamentally
changed. The planet of the savages was a life's work, the challenge he had been
looking for and a chance to find some roots after suffering so much loss in the
TARDIS.
Dead as a...: Dodo comes bursting out of the TARDIS full of
enthusiasm and bravado, it instantly feels like an accurate interpretation of
the character. She doesn't do too badly during her assessment stages but
naturally doesn't have the physical aptitude of a natural fighter like Steven.
The thought of being split up and sent to fight in a war alone terrifies
her. Dodo had a way of getting on with everyone.
There are some people out there who might smirk at the though of Dodo being
placed in front of a firing squad. Had she appeared in more stories of this
calibre that might not be the case.
Standout Performance: Peter Purves has mentioned how he
would like to do more acting and given his multitude of superb performances
throughout the companion chronicles it is a crying shame that he isn't being
used more elsewhere. This is an intelligent actor, who can take a script and
wring every nuance out of it. He gets to the heart of the story that Simon
Guerrier is trying to tell simply and effectively and delivers every line with
emotional honesty. I genuinely think he is one of Big Finish's stalwarts.
Sparkling Dialogue: 'A lot of people think so' 'A lot of
people can be wrong.'
'The more time you face war up close and intimate, the worse
it is to go back.'
Great Ideas: There is an impressive extra feature interview
between David Richardson and Simon Guerrier discussing not only The War to End
All Wars but also the companion chronicles in general. They are, not
undeservedly, celebratory about the range and look back over seven impressive
seasons worth of stories and discuss the flexibility of the format, their
successes, where they were criticised and what emerged as the stronger stories.
I don't think anybody can deny that the range was a massive success, that the
prolific number of stories are generally very strong and that there was a great
deal of experimentation and sense of creative freedom that has perhaps vanished
from the main range, certainly of late. One element of the companion chronicles
that they discussed was how very early on they decided to play about with the
framing device for these stories. You take a look at the two truncated seasons
at the very beginning of the range and they all seemed to take place years
after the selected companion left the Doctor and featured them looking back on
their lives in the TARDIS, how it affected them and impacted their lives since.
Had that formula been regimented the range might have grown stale quite quickly
(there were a finite number of companions for a start). However The War to End
All Wars does return to that format for one last hurrah and is the only story
that features Steven in his post-Savages life and fills us in on his life
since. It's lovely to see the series come full circle like this on it's last
recording (mind you there are two more releases). It's a great idea because Steven's
fate has been left unresolved for decades and if there was anybody up to the
job of sketching in the details, it is companion chronicle maestro (he admits
it himself) Simon Guerrier. Cleverly, Guerrier brews a potent image of the
world Steven was left on and leaves the audience hanging on a disquieting
cliff-hanger pondering it's fate once again. Will we ever find out if the
Doctor (although not the Doctor) managed to stage a coup?
Audio Landscape: Door opening, Steven on the treadmill,
marching feet, trudging through puddles, explosions, screaming soldiers, feet
slapping on mud, enemy gunfire, heart monitor, banging on the door, smashing
through, cheering.
Musical Cues: Simon Robinson's music was deliberately
electronic sounding and all pervading, two things that you couldn't say is true
of the Hartnell adventures on television. I have to say it distracted me from
the narration at times which probably wasn't the intention.
Standout Scene: How like the Doctor to take on the visage of
the leader of the enemy, to accept defeat and put an end to the conflict. Such
a simple, selfless way to end the conflict.
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