The Robots Volume Three

 

The Mystery of Sector 13 written by Robert Whitelock and directed by Louise Jameson 

The Robots seems to be following the rule of most series, be it television or audio, where they begin with a bumpy first volume that shows promise, things ratchet up in volume two and then with the confidence of the base blocks of the range in place the third series begins to reap the rewards. If that's not the case and I've made that tradition up then The Robots is certainly on much surer footing in its third outing with some standout writing, direction and performances and a greater consistency of quality. This is the most Liv and Tula heavy story of the year and it wisely splits them up and lets them attack their separate investigations with their own unique talents. This is how you follow up on the promise of an exciting cliffhanger. Liv promised to investigate the corruption behind the scenes on Kaldor at the end of the previous volume and she is living up to that, albeit with some time having passed (it's exactly the sort of thing Big Finish often gets wrong - remember when the Doctor suggested he was on the trail of Rassilon in The Twilight Kingdom and that isn't followed up until four stories later in the Divergent Universe arc?). Louise Jameson steps on board to direct two stories this year and brings a fresh ear to the series with a stress on sound effects to create great moments of tension. There's a superb sequence at the start where lots of robots wrist alarms go off as medical emergencies start flooding in and Liv on the verge of discovering the secret underground is made all the more tense by the inclusion of a heartbeat-like alarm that pervades the closing scenes. I loved Liv teaming up with SV56 and their scenes have a wonderful banter that you can only get with a character who is commenting on the action with a knowing eye and a machine that cannot comprehend any of the humour - until it starts trying to be funny itself. The ultimate discovery is left open ended - you still don't understand the significance of the railway track under Kaldor at the end of this set but it has intriguing possibilities. Guy Falkes anyone? In the meantime Tula is discovering that all the Company mistakes we have seen catalogued in previous stories are being deleted from all records. I'm starting to get the impression that it doesn't matter if you're committing acts of terrorism for the Sons of Kaldor or covering up murders in the Company - whoever ultimate rules the City will be corrupt. Jon Culshaw arrives, and played a familiar sounding but very creepy character. More of him please. This really is starting to feel like a fully fleshed out world now: 8/10

Circuit Breaker written by Guy Adams and directed by Ken Bentley 

This is very dark indeed. It's a replay of the Toos & Poul story from last year but with much better dialogue, world building and a brilliant twist waiting to floor you. The more I explore the seedy underbelly of Kaldor, the less I am convinced this is as much of a utopia of the future as they tried to pass it off as in the first volume. It's certainly a much more engaging setting this way. We're down amongst the most poor, seeing just how they cope with their wretched day to day and indulge in some horrific roleplay in order to please themselves. Scenes of grown men acting out scenes with robots dressed up like their mothers telling them off should be hilariously terrible but played for real they come across as perversely, terrifyingly unnerving. Mummy why wouldn't you say you loved me, indeed. Add to this sinister business a murder investigation that Toos is trying to involve Poul in but he is reluctant because of his skin crawling robophobia and you have an episode that really strikes the right balance of sinister and revealing. Toos takes the back seat this time and we get rather deeper into Poul's insecurities than we have ever dared to go before and David Collings is more than up to the task of portraying his fears, his bravery and ultimately his deception. The twist that he is responsible for the 'murder' of the robots and has been using Ullman's theatre of cruelty to play out his fantasies of lashing out at the monstrosities comes at just the right point to floor the audience and Mark and I were looking at each other slack jawed. Bravo for taking such a frightening step with a much loved character. His actions in the last ten minutes leave me wondering where precisely we are going with him. More prestige casting in the form of Carolyn Seymour this time and although heavily accented (convincingly so), she delivers a humdinger of a performance playing the woman responsible for this nasty set up. Whether she is providing a form of therapy or merely accentuating peoples anxieties is left to the listener to decide. The creepiest story to date: 8/10

A Matter of Conscience written by Lisa McMullin and directed by Louise Jameson

This is a busy script and gets a little muddled at times but so much of what is being discussed is so interesting I can only really complain that it has a wealth of ideas and the lack of runtime to deal with them all. The idea of whether the Sons of Kaldor are terrorists of freedom fighters is raised and through the eyes of a brilliantly characterised new convert to the terror group we get to see why somebody might turn to violence to bring down the Company but also how they struggle with their conscience as they set to work setting explosives that have catastrophic effects. The moral compass swings between the Sons of Kaldor and the Company and both are seen here to be behaving in appalling ways and that whoever wins this struggle might be the lesser (or greater) of two evils. Then there is the whole business of Tarkov (from the first story of this set) and the bravura performance of Jon Culshaw who single-handed takes the insane and could-have-been-ridiculous twist about his character being the return of a familiar face and makes it work due to his superb studying of the original actors vocal mannerisms. He utterly convinces in the role, but with this unnerving spin on him it isn't just the return of an old face but pushing him in an intriguing new direction. Let's take a step back from the story for a second and look at the creators of this release. With Lisa McMullin writing, Louise Jameson directing and Nicola Walker and Clare Rushbrook in the central roles you have an all female major creative team and whilst it has taken a long, long time for Big Finish to get there, the results of doing so are a consistently thoughtful and exciting piece of work. McMullin delivers her most enjoyable script to date with lots of fascinating plots to juggle and the story rounds off in an enticing fashion with hints of an actual sequel to Robots of Death to come. It pleases me that they have waited until this range has developed an identity of its own before going there. This story proves that it has achieved that, and then some: 8/10

A confident volume; dark and insidious and very entertaining. Salivating for more.