The Mighty Nose: The difference between what Tim Treloar is doing with the third Doctor and what David Bradley is doing with the first is worth talking about. Whereas I feel Bradley is doing an impression of William Hartnell playing the first Doctor (and so there is a distance between his performance and the audience) rather than trying to ape the character itself, Treloar is going for a simpler interpretation of Pertwee’s Doctor. Occasionally he is so on the money with his impression I forget that isn’t Pertwee playing the part and the rest of the time it is close enough that I simply buy that this a mock up and let the story play on undistracted. There’s real love to how Treloar attempts to imbue the character with Pertwee’s charm, impatience and anger. It is a performance that has clearly been studied rather than just knocking off a quick interpretation. I think he is very good indeed. You an imagine Pertwee taking a trip to far and giving a few pointers on how to build the gateway in some throwaway cheeky suggestions to help stall famine in the universe. Of all the Doctors, the third was certainly the most moral (I think Malcolm Hulke had a lot to do with that?). A known saboteur of Dalek operations, he is. I really enjoyed the moments at the beginning of part three where the Doctor drops his diplomatic act and loses his cool. That’s a new look for Treloar and he really gives the thin material some welly. Is he putting on the Pertwee lisp? Because that’s some dedication to your duty. He doesn’t care what happens to him but he pleads that his allies take care of Jo. There always was something special between this pair and in that moment I really felt it. He’s very aggressive with the Daleks when they have been defeated, he basically gives them the finger, in the politest possible way of course. He even gets a little moral diatribe in at the climax, in pure Pertwee style.
Dippy Agent: I’m sorry that Katy Manning objects to the fact that fans call her ‘dozy’ and ‘dippy’ when she is playing Jo, perhaps that is a little unfair to the actress who tries to imbue as much spunk as possible into her performance. It is however entirely fair on the character who comes across, on occasion, as the most naïve and useless of all the Doctor’s companions. In the first few scenes Manning is playing the part with a cartoonish, childlike voice that really accentuated that this was an older woman playing a younger one. Jo’s Uncle that got her the job with UNIT once visited the death amps from World War II and even after all those years you could still feel the death and despair in the air. It’s when Manning goes for moral indignation that the old Jo we know and love emerges, almost as if she suddenly remembers how to pitch the character. Stamping her little feet against the injustices of the universe. Jo is interrogated, insulted, tortured and generally abused throughout this story. I can’t think of another story where she is treated so badly. It’s like she’s wandered into a New Adventure. Jo gathers a lot of spunk as the adventure continues, she’s separated from the Doctor throughout, asks all the right questions and drives the story in her own subplot. Don’t get me wrong this isn’t inventive characterisation of a companion (I would expect nothing less proactive from assistants such as Sarah Jane, Leela and Romana) but for Jo Grant this is much more passionate than Jo is often written.
Great Ideas: The last time the Doctor was on Far they were building a hyper-spatial gateway on the surface. It’s a super booster for hyperspace travel, built to bring relief to the many starving outer colonies. The Daleks have been fighting for every inch of territory over a hundred-star systems. The Daleks have created an enormous robotising transmitter dish on Far which can be turned on any attacking force and can be used to enslave an entire army.
Audio Landscape: ‘I’m going to give myself loads of dialogue where I can shout a lot as Daleks! Bwahahahahahahahaha! All shall languish in the thrall of my mighty Dalek voices!’
Isn’t it Odd: It almost feels cruel criticising a story like this with it’s by the numbers narrative, thin characterisation, unmemorable dialogue and predictable twists. Oh wait, I just did. No need to slaughter it any further then. ‘We are the Daleks, we do bad things, we scream exterminate, we are starving the universe, we will chase you, we have a massive army hidden away…’ The Daleks should never, ever be this foreseeable and banal. They aren’t the bogeymen of the Doctor Who universe in stories like this, they’re just cardboard monsters going through the motions.
Standout Scene: The end of part three is supposed to be a climactic moment where the Doctor is walking into a trap. Like the Doctor has never walked into a trap before?
Result: The sheer hubris of Briggs deciding ‘I quite like Planet of the Daleks so I’m going write and direct sequel’ is almost enough to see him through with this one. Planet is such a gloriously ripe piece of Doctor Who, uncompromising in its traditional nature, that anything that tried to ape it, especially if that something is written and directed by Nicholas Briggs (who is practically the love child of Terrance Dicks when it comes to churning out traditional stories), is going to give you an instant shot of Doctor Who. Like Who heroin, it’s going to give you an instant glow of fanboy. Briggs has become the single auteur of Doctor Who now, having written and directed more stories than anybody else. Is his ego so monstrously swollen that nobody else can be trusted to realise his work? Or is it simply that he is a writer that likes to express himself in other ways? When, as Sandifer pointed out recently, Big Finish is releasing such a monstrous amount of content but it is being produced by such a small pool of writers and directors it does seem to emphasise the boys club nature of the company that the same man can perform so many duties within the company. The fact that Briggs is also acting within the production stretches this vanity project to its limit. The Conquest of Far is built up of so many Doctor Who clichés (starving colonies, ridiculous technology, running around jungle planets, a Dalek army, a secret weapon) and so many Big Finish clichés (Daleks, Daleks, Daleks…seriously how many times can they wheel out these metal meanies for another climactic showdown?) that you practically don’t have to listen to the details, just let the wave of Doctor Who hit you and carry you along. If you’re aware of basic storytelling on any level then there are no surprises in The Conquest of Far, it follows a very predictable plotting pattern (the biggest mystery is what secret the Daleks are riding and even that isn’t as revelatory as in other stories) and takes the regulars from one danger to another with predictable repetition. This exists to exist, to tick boxes and fulfil clichés. It’s possibly the most perfunctory of all Big Finish stories, and that’s against some stiff competition. We’ve got the stage now where Big Finish has used the Daleks so much that they have utilised plague planets, gone corporate, sung, gone Soviet, appeared on the bottles of squash, turned into a toy army…they have been beaten into every shape imaginable. So whilst a newbie might find the idea of a gun which turns resistance groups into Robomen an innovative idea, I’m afraid to a BF novice this is small fry. And yet it is imbued with energy thanks to Briggs’ direction, Treloar and Manning are giving it their all, Jamie Robertson provides a terrific score and it’s hard to kick a puppy that is trying so hard to impress with something so commonplace. I’ve said this before, if this was your first Doctor Who audio you might be mightily impressed. It feels authentic. It’s exciting. It has Daleks screaming Exterminate a lot. But speaking as somebody who has sat through what feels like an entire lifetime of audio stories now this kind of throwaway confection doesn’t cut the mustard. Despite my tone, I had fun with this but it was entirely down to the efforts of everybody but the writer. Which is an odd thing to say given who the director is: 5/10
Like you say, this is very by the numbers Doctor Who. But, like you say, everyone is giving their all. I think I garnered a bit more enjoyment out of it than you did, but this is a good example of what Big Finish's detractors have branded "just more Who."
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