What's it about: The Doctor and Mel must face the final
confrontation with the Valeyard - and the Doctor must make the ultimate
sacrifice...
Softer Six: 'I hope the footprint I leave will be light, but apposite...' We enter his final adventure with the Doctor in full
heroic flow, beaming in to rescue his companion and performing a death defying
stunt to get them out of danger. The beauty of improvising is that sometimes
things can go right. He's back at the same location that his darkest hours took
place - back on the CIA Trial ship and he is genuinely haunted by the prospect.
It's easy to see why Genesta might think that the Doctor is dead, a Time Lord
echo left swimming about in the Matrix. Otherwise why would he be trapped in
there? Genesta reminds him of himself, a youngster who slipped away from life
on Gallifrey to pastures new and funnily enough they both ended up on Earth.
Before he takes his final bow the sixth Doctor gets to do what he does best,
butt heads with the Time Lords (I wish he would head butt one of them) and
points out their hypocrisy (loudly). Somebody has to do it. He's willing to
take his complaint all the way to the High Council where I wish he would
recapture some of that season 22 attitude, brandish a weapon and force them to
get off their arses and act against the Valeyard. There's a tenseness running
through this story as the Doctor's time bleeds away each time he leaves the
Matrix. It's not quite the 24 ticking clock but it does reminds us that his
eleventh hour is approaching. Would the Doctor do anything to stop the
Valeyard? Even break the Laws of Time? Ultimately when the time comes for the
big climax the Doctor is alone with no friends and his greatest foe taunting
him. And he's still defiant. When it comes to it, the Doctor is willing
to murder himself to save the Time Lords - those perfidious, interfering,
morally questionable meddlers. The sixth Doctor is the only Doctor to have the
nuts to (metaphorically speaking) put a gun to his own head and pull the
trigger in order to do the right thing. What a fucking guy.
Computer Programmer: Always a pleasure to hear Bonnie
Langford back in the role of Mel and its a pleasing double hit given she is
currently enjoying a three story stint with Sylvester McCoy over in the main
range at the moment. A much criticised character on TV, Mel has truly come into
her own on audio in the hands of writers that are willing to take risks with
her and an actress who can look back at how she used to play the part and
temper her excitable excesses. The net result: a maligned character that people
are often begging for more of. What a turnaround. It's unexpectedly enjoyable
to hear the Valeyard and Mel off having adventures together, a surprise given
it is reminiscent of He Jests at Scars (brrr boils just broke out all over my
body writing that). When a seer threatens to tell Mel secrets about the Doctor
that she doesn't know she starts to question just how well she does know him.
Standout Performance: Colin Baker, of course. Perhaps they
deliberately gave Michael Jayston such a starring role in Stage Fright so that
Baker could own his last adventure. What a masterful turn from the most
consistently excellent Big Finish Doctor.
Sparkling Dialogue: 'I will stop you even if it is the last
thing I do!'
'He's a diminished, shrunken parody of me!' So much for
Colin Baker to get his teeth into...
Great Ideas: The climax of this adventure is set up in the
first couple of minutes. Somebody has been aiming radiation bolts at the TARDIS
from the Lakertyan system. Now I wonder what Dynasty reject with mad hair, a
nose stud and hands that rarely stray from her hips that could be? Genesta is a
great character, immediately likeable and down to Earth. She's a demolition
expert from the Capitol here to destroy the derelict Trial ship and instantly
that is an arresting setting. Genesta did a field trip to a planet called Earth
when she was very young and was afflicted with a Yorkshire and colourful slang
terms as a result. The ultimate Matrix tinkerer (you know him...black leather
fetish, retarded lexicographer) has been at it again, adjusting the facts so
that the sixth incarnation of the Doctor is reborn in his image. Was the
Valeyard created by a Black Ops weapons department of the Time Lords? As a
weapon? With the sum total of all Time Lord knowledge. The Valeyard has
inserted something into the symbiotic nuclei of the Doctor's TARDIS, the
Nafemos. He rescued them from the moon of Plestinius and they have been feeding
off the Doctor's mind ever since the Valeyard left them in there all those
years ago. Through the symbiotic nuclei of the Doctor's TARDIS the Nathemos have
a direct link to the Matrix, they are transmitting mental impulses of the
Valeyard directly into the Matrix. Just as he replaced the Doctor he wants to
replace every living Time Lord, perhaps even Rassilon himself. He wants to fashion
the destiny of the Time Lords in his own image. That batshit darker version of
the Doctor is probably the one who gave the Master the idea in The End of Time.
Audio Landscape: Crickets, a skimmer out of power, the
Doctor and Mel screaming as the ejector blasts from the skimmer, a bazaar
atmosphere, whispering voices.
Musical Cues: Howard Carter, let me count the ways I love
thee. I'm so often used to him providing robust backup for the Jago &
Litefoot range that it is rare for me to lavish praise on him in a Doctor Who
release. They need to toss him over to the main range where he would no doubt
work his magic there too. His music and post-production throughout this box set
has been nothing short of phenomenal, conjuring a myriad of locations
atmospherically and switching styles musically like he has barely broken a
sweat. Listen to the wistful, brooding music when the Doctor first spots the
Valeyard in The Brink of Death, capturing the moment in a way that took my
breath away.
Isn't it Odd: Mel has to be involved because she was there
at the end of The Ultimate Foe and she was there at the start of Time and the
Rani but it feels like she is more of an afterthought than a necessary
requirement. She's usurped by Genesta and I think I would object more strongly
if Liz White wasn't as stunning as she is in the role.
Standout Scene: Was the Valeyard Genesta from the very
beginning? He asks if it matters which is probably the most evil thing he has
ever contemplated. The Doctor has grown close to her, enjoys her company, has
relied on her. He wants to take her on adventures when this is all over. It's a
murder that has impact because the Doctor had grown to like her. And so had I.
Result: 'It's far from being all over...' I find it
extremely apt that the sixth Doctor should sacrifice his life in order to save
the Time Lords. If you watch throughout his televised era they are built up as
ultimate villains of that point in his life - placing him on Telos in Attack of
the Cybermen, framed for the massacre on Space Station Chimera, setting up a
farce of a Trial to cover up their mistreatment of the Earth and doing a deal
with the Devil to keep it all hush hush. They have become an intolerable,
corrupt menace in his life. But they are still his people. And
ultimately no matter what damage they have done, no matter how much they have
mistreated him, he is still the Doctor and he will do anything - even if that
means resorting to bending the Laws of Time and murdering his foe - to save
them. That's the actions of a hero. To do what he knows is right even if every
fibre of his being is begging him to do otherwise. The Brink of Death wasn't
what I was expecting at all. Perhaps I have been tainted by the saccharine
regeneration stories on the TV (which have grown steadily sicklier until I
physically wanted throw up all over the console in The Time of the Doctor) but
I was expecting more of the same. Nick Briggs doesn't take that route. Instead
he goes for a more disquieting, high concept affair. More Logopolis than The
End of Time. Rightly he places the Doctor centre stage and affords Colin Baker
the chance to show a whole range of emotions from moral outrage to terrorising
fear right the through to blazing heroism at the climax. He must have been
delighted when he read the script and he delivers a pitch perfect performance.
Throughout there is a feeling of time catching up with the Doctor; his ship is
stripped of him, his companion, his allies and finally even his time. It's that
unsettling tone of despair that makes the final ten minutes so riveting with
the sixth Doctor rising from the nightmare scenario he is in and making the
ultimate sacrifice. Is this is climactic as Lucie Miller/To The Death? In a
very different way, yes it is. It touches on the best of the character and
gives him the chance to go out kicking and screaming and sticking one finger at
the odds. Which is just how he exploded into life. I'm not sure if the first
half an hour wasn't a little too quiet for a finale but Briggs more than makes
up for it come the climax. An epic Masterplan foiled by an intimate sacrifice: 9/10
4 comments:
Just finished listening to this one myself I completely agree with your review Joe. Outstanding production work and Colin Baker has never been finer - by the end I was almost moved to tears. Even knowing the Sixth Doctor will continue in the main range, this felt like losing his version of the Doctor in a way that the televised 'regeneration' never did. Excellent stuff!
I have yet to listen to this, but your review has wetted my appetite big time!
Do you remember that ludicrously ridiculous concept set in the NAs taht the Sixth Doctor sacrioficed himself to allow the Seventh to become Time's champion? (give me a bucket!). Eat your heart out, Paul Cornell!! He sacrifices himself allright, but for more heroic purposes it seems :)
And I agree with you with the saccarine regens of the new series
Well I'll admit this was a special release for me, and to do so I'll have to share a slightly personal story.
For reasons I will not discuss, I have in recent times been in a very dark place with myself. That dark voice I have called "shadow"
In a dream I had, I heard a voice arguing literally with Shadow, telling me to get up and sort myself out, that I was stronger than I thought I was. That voice was the sixth Doctor.
I admit then, to here Baker delivering lines in this one like "you are just a spector, a shadow of me" to literally be at the mercy of his own shadow and then finally sacrifice himself to defeat it, ---- -I'll freely admit I cried.
I'm actually really glad other people like this, sinse with the big gulp of continuity, from the sixth doctor's greetings to his past companions (I love the warmth in his voice when he mentions Evelyn), to the Doctor's timy wimy solution to the Valeyard's equally grandiose plan, there is a lot here, and I wondered if people would find it too much, I'm pleased others haven't sinse I will go as far saying for above stated personal reasons this is probably one of the most emotional experiences I've had with Bf.
Hurrah old Sixy! here's to more adventures, but at least your story ends on a high.
A very satisfactory end for Six (well, anything would be better than the sendoff he got on TV). I really enjoyed this whole release, and I'm relieved that it ended on such a high note.
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