What's it about: On the planet of
Arviem 2, Bernice Summerfield has a lot of problems. Pursued by robots, maniacs
and miracles, she has another issue to contend with. The Doctor's come looking
for her – and he's not feeling himself.
Archaeological Adventuress: Bernice's calling cards are:
stealing priceless artefacts, violating the local culture and desecrating the
sacred. Benny's scathing criticism of the Doctor (where she is apparently being
kind) is easily the nadir for the character as long as I have been reading or
listening to her. I can't think of a single moment where I have wished ill of
her like this. Hardly an auspicious start. Never underestimate what a woman can
reach with her heels...why do you think Benny wears them? Benny's love of drink
can get her in terrible trouble sometimes because it loosens her mouth.
The Real McCoy: The idea of the Doctor being stuck up on a
shelf and waiting to be rescued merely emphasises his ineffectiveness and the
failed efforts this story goes to to be quirky. The Doctor hates it when people
say they are going to explain later, a supposedly amusing role reversal. The
Doctor suggests that everything that is happening here is a fiendishly clever
plan dreamt up by him in the future, so intricate and involved that they cannot
begin to determine its true shape. Whilst that might be an amusing idea in
practice, it is exactly the sort of timey wimey bollocks that drove me nuts in
the New Adventures. Where the Doctor was always playing God with his
companions. The idea of McCoy's Doctor being considered some kind of supermodel
because of his superior brain (which he hardly demonstrates here anyway) made
me feel a little nauseous. He stands for scientific proof at all times. The
Doctor is supposedly something a genius and has concocted a solution before the
adventure even began but the evidence of this is not backed up by the Doctor
himself who behaves like a drunk child throughout. Tell me something I don't
know is his motto.
Oh Wicked: At least we are spared Ace. Let's be thankful for
small mercies.
Standout Performance: Hands down, this is McCoy's worst
performance in a Big Finish audio in some considerable time. Probably his least
convincing since the days of The Rapture and Unregenerate! He's always been
dramatically inconsistent as an actor (but pretty consistent as an entertainer)
but when Bernice points out that the Doctor has had his day I could not help
but be simultaneously shocked at such a statement and shake my head in
agreement given the hideousness of the performance of the man playing him. He
screams and shouts and gurns and giggles and moans and sighs. It's the most
bizarre performance I have listened to in some time. Mind you Lisa Bowerman,
who I have long admired for many, many years has a momentary aberration in her
stunning track record when she delivers the least convincing drunk of all times
in the opening scenes. Finally there is Nicola Bryant who manages to deliver
the most outrageous character in a story full of them. Perhaps she is doing her
damndest to disguise the fact that she isn't Peri but I couldn't buy into the
accentuated eccentricity of her voice one jot.
Sparkling Dialogue: 'Professor Summerfield come out, we
don't want to harm you' 'No?' 'No, we want to kill you.'
'Attention: this is not miracle! A rational explanation will
be issued later.'
Dreadful Dialogue: 'Doctor pleeeeeease! Show me a
siiiiigggnnnnn!' One of the most cringeworthy deliveries of a line ever. I
wanted to the ground to open and swallow me up it was so embarrassing.
'What has religion done for us? Nothing. It makes up fairy
stories and calls everything it can a miracle.' I'm not in the slightest but religious
and have my own issues with the notion but I think that is dangerous territory
to take the series in. For the Doctor to make such an uncompromisingly
disrespectful statement boggles the mind.
Great Ideas: To give you a clue about the unimportance of
Arviem II, there isn't even an Arviem I. In a one planet race to be called
Arviem I, it came second. The obsession with science on this planet is not
healthy because it is like an obsession without love. Benny rather cleverly
uses that obsession to her advantage by highlighting the theory of
Schrodinger's Cat as a scientific fact that cannot be disproved and
manipulating it to allow for her escape. This is a world where faith in the
indefinable is a punishable action, you have to have your every belief backed
up by scientific fact. Arviem II joined the Federation three months ago.
Unfortunately the Doctor was drunk when he created all life on this planet so
he seems to have forgotten al about it. He's created the only planet in the
galaxy where all the bible stories are literally true.
Audio Landscape: Robot hydraulics, automatic doors,
footsteps, a hover bike ascending, smashing glass, a screaming cat, gunshots, a
screaming crowd, jungle sounds, an exploding head.
Isn't it Odd: I wont lie, when I first heard that the Benny
adventures were moving away from their established continuity and straying back
in to New Adventures territory my heart sunk. I genuinely felt that the series
that had done the most to strive for its own identity and had never played by
the rules was falling back into a safe region and a one that I had not been
particularly keen on in the first place. Whilst I can admire that the New
Adventures were a wildly innovative period of for brand as a whole it doesn't
change the fact that, Benny aside, I could barely stand any of the companions
and I found that McCoy's Doctor was perverted out of all recognition. The books
were often overblown, atrociously written trying to push the envelope for the
sake of it rather than having a creative reason. Don't get me wrong there were
some fantastic authors to spring from the New Adventures but the range was also
saddled with some amateurish ones too. Whilst this set as a whole alleviated
some of my anxieties, The Revolution certainly failed to do so. What I feared
would happen was that Doctor Who would intrude on the Bernice Summerfield range
and take over and instead something even more shocking happened, the Bernice
Summerfield range judged Doctor Who, criticised it and considered it unworthy.
When Bernice belittles the Doctor in such a way s to tell him to fuck off and
let her get on with this adventure without him, I was appalled.
Apparently the Doctor without the TARDIS and a hat is just an annoying man in a
hat. This is clearly a Bernice Summerfield adventure with the Doctor
involved...so why is it fronted by the Doctor Who theme tune rather than the
Bernice Summerfield one. For a range that is claiming to have not lost its
identity that is a bizarre statement to make. The tone of the story doesn't
exactly inspire confidence in the new direction that the range is taking. For
once I think the Bernice series should have dumped the sarcasm and ploughed for
something more serious, the smugness that permeates The Revolution reeks of a
new direction that is absolutely full of itself. The Doctor doesn't fit in in
adventures with a lot of shooting and shouting? Who was that wandering through
the Eric Saward era then? I've swallowed down some pretty outrageous concepts
in my time as a Doctor Who fan...but sentient clothing? I'm unconvinced that
the structure of the story works either, we come in after the Doctor has made
his considerable input to this world and pick up with Benny drunk at the bar
with no idea what has occurred before until later in the narrative. But the
revelations hardly justify the mystery. Once we reach the climax of worlds
being created by pink dragons, robots dancing to awful music and heads
literally exploding because they cannot handle the pressure of contradictory
ideas I had lost the will to keep going. I was willing this to end.
Standout Scene: 'This isn't easy Doctor but I don't want you
to come with me. I just don't think this is your kind of adventure. This isn't
the kind of adventure where we do something frightfully clever at the end where
everybody ends up more or less happy. This is the kind of adventure where I
fire my guns at them and they fire their guns at me and the one who fires their
guns the most number of times wins. It's just a lot of shooting and shouting
and you don't fit in here. Most of the time you are the most wonderful,
inventive, clever person I've ever met and you have quite definitely the finest
brain in the galaxy but here...here you're just an odd little man saying odd
little things and you're just getting in the way. Find a nice little planet
where everyone's nice...' It actually made my blood boil typing those words
that I had to stop. Just hideous.
Result: I have never known so many Nev Fountain jokes fall
so wide of the mark and I think it is due to the uncertain tone of the story.
Whether that is due to the writing, directing or performances I don't think I
ever quite put my finger on it but I was literally astonished to see the work
of so many people I admire failing to gel in such a spectacular way. There were
points where it was so ill judged that I was quite embarrassed listening to it
and I don't think that has happened since the days of Bang Bang a Boom! which
ironically enough featured another abysmal Sylvester McCoy performance. I fail
to see the logic of bringing in the Doctor to generate some interest in the
Bernice Summerfield range if he is going to be undermined and made a joke of
like he is here. Laugh with him by all means but the characterisation and
performance is so off kilter that I was mostly laughing at him and that isn't
something I ever want to find myself doing. The story itself plays about with
some tasty ideas (as you would expect from Nev Fountain) but it is squandered
on a shallow run-around featuring too many characters that are facetious and
self-righteous. Go and listen to the superlative range Dorian Gray and you have
hours of evidence that Scott Handcock is one of the strongest directors Big
Finish has ever employed. So what happened here? There are so many gags in this
script, most of them need to be delicately handled but instead it is like
watching an appalling Benny Hill sketch where he trips over his shoelaces,
slips on a banana and falls face down into a cream pie. It lacks any subtlety
or nuance. The biggest indignity, however, is Sylvester McCoy's performance. So
bad it practically redefines the meaning of the word, it sounds like he has
tripped off a plane after a flight back from New Zealand and picked up the
script jetlagged. I've never heard anything quite like it. I always want to
love what the Bernice Summerfield range is releasing because it is constantly
innovating and surprising but this was an enormous step backwards in quality
and realisation. Parts of this story are truly abominable so things can only get
better: 2/10
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