The Genocide Machine written by Mike Tucker and directed by Nicholas Briggs

What’s it about? The library on Kar-Charrat is one of the wonders of the Universe. It is also hidden from all but a few select species. The Doctor and Ace discover that the librarians have found a new way of storing data - a wetworks facility - but the machine has attracted unwanted attention, and the Doctor soon finds himself pitted against his oldest and deadliest enemies - the Daleks!

The Real McCoy: Oh dear and it was going so well. McCoy is really good at playing it quiet but when he is asked to play righteous anger – like he does throughout this tale it all falls to pieces. This is the first story where I would say we have a poor performance from one of our Doctors; he is frequently unintelligible, garbled and putting inflections on all the wrong words – a world away from the confident mastermind in The Fearmonger. It might have something to do with the quality of the script and characterisation, as McCoy can work wonders with strong dialogue (Ghost Light, Master). He has an absent minded, nutty professorish attitude in the first episode and becomes obsessed with returning his stolen library books to the Kar-Charrat library. He shows suitable awe at the wetworks facility claiming to have never seen anything on that scale before. It is revealed that his companions are his greatest weakness which is hardly the most original observation. The only explanation I can think of is that the Doctor is aware of how banal this story is and refuses to give it any genuine credo. The trouble is Colin Baker would be saddled with the odd lousy script later but his performances would often salvage them.

The Ace of Hearts: A very poor outing for Ace and the first step into the descent of her reputation. Sophie Aldred is by all accounts a wonderful woman and she has never shied away from Doctor Who even after it cancelled and admittedly she worked wonders in seasons 25 and 26. However acting on audio is definitely not her forte and after a brief taster of it in The Fearmonger here is a whole story of her shouting and screaming poor dialogue like a kid in a sweet shop without any money! I remain to be convinced that anybody would say dialogue like: ‘Got a frog in your throat? You should get some strepsils for that!’ which takes us back to the worst excesses of her trashy outdated 80’s slang of her stint on the telly. Ace actually gets quite a bit more to do in this story, seeking out Bev Tarrant, taking on Daleks and getting duplicated but she is saddled with lots of Tegan-esque whining from the first scene which makes her unlikable. She picks a fight with Elgin, Tarrant and the Daleks. Okay the last one is fine but she reminds me of one of those kids that goes out on a Saturday night spoiling for a fight.


Great Ideas: The real meat of The Genocide Machine comes with the ideas and how they are executed. The Kar-Charrat library is such a good idea that Stephen Moffatt nabbed it for his recent two part season four masterpiece. A building that holds every scrap of information from every civilised world – one of everything – it even rivals the Matrix on Gallifrey for its wealth of information. The library is hidden from the public (much to Ace’s disgust) because the accumulation of knowledge within its walls makes it a terribly dangerous weapon in the wrong hands…
Enter the Daleks who have tried to attack the library before. In a good showing for the Daleks ingenuity and patience to get what they want they have been waiting on Kar-Charrat for the past few centuries waiting for a time sensitive to arrive so they can duplicate them and enter the library. They want to absorb the total knowledge of the universe into a Dalek. They will do this via the wetworks facility, an awesome system of water tanks that holds every single scrap of knowledge.The final twist is that the water is enslaved Kar-Charrateans, they are creatures made of water. The Doctor condemns Elgin for enslaving the population without even attempting to recognize if they are sentient. I really liked the idea of Mr Prink, Elgin’s assistant who is constantly slagged off for chatting so much and yet we never hear anything more than an embarrassed cough every time he is criticised for it! The story ends on an ominous note with the mighty Dalek Emperor suggesting that although things did not go as planned on Kar-Charrat there are still plans to expand the Dalek Empire…

Standout Performance: Probably Bruce Montague as the fey and rather pathetic Librarian Elgin but only because he is the best of a bad bunch. McCoy and Aldred lack conviction and I’m not at all impressed with Louise Faulkner’s initial turn as Bev Tarrant either. Montague has some fun with his lines, injecting a lot of humour and eccentricity into them.

Sparkling Dialogue: ‘Astonishing! You could acquire the wisdom of a million years from a billion worlds in the time it would take to read a bus ticket!’
‘Robot things…nasty little pepperpots!’ It’s not the line but the way Montague says it!

Audio landscape: The saving grace of this story and the first real example that the more science fiction based stories can be as gripping and evocative as the Earthbound ones. Technically Nicholas Briggs excels himself, creating a convincing soggy world in Kar-Charrat and bringing the Daleks to audio in real style. The rain runs through the trees and there lots of soggy footprints to suggest lots of water. Freeler birds scream through the jungle, a Dalek saucer descends with gravity and the Daleks burst into the library and blast everybody to death (with the staff screaming wildly) to disturbing effect. The initial Dalek voices are powerful, almost screaming and they really assault the ears and the fabulous Emperor Dalek has a growling, menacing voice to give you nightmares! Add to that the cute bleeps and howls from G-14, the gorgeous Dalek control room heartbeat and a truly seductive computer voice in the library and you have a production of technical chic.

Musical Cues: Nicholas Briggs doesn’t really have a firm grasp of melody at this point – his music reminds me of the experimental scores of Pertwee years. Wall to wall music that is occasionally impressive and occasionally intrusive. I did think this was his best score so far, with a superb sting when the Daleks are mentioned (this would be used to much greater effect in subsequent Dalek stories) and a great moment when the Doctor and Elgin find Ace in the jungle, urgent and full of menace.

Isn’t that Odd: Ace, obviously.
Some of the Dalek voices have to heard to be believed. Go and listen to episode 3 and catch the one that says ‘Dalek assault squad teams are assembled’ and then ‘Proceed’ in the same scene. These mincing Daleks give Dalek Invasion of Earth a run for its money. Which one was Gary Russell?
McCoy, naturally.

Standout Moment: The Dalek massacre, loud, proud and full of bodies!

Result: There will be a Dalek story set in a jungle that deals with duplicates much later on in Big Finish’s run called Brotherhood of the Daleks and it is superior to The Genocide Machine in practically every way. The problems start with the script which undersells the threat and contains lots of obsolete ideas, poor characterisation of regulars and guest cast alike (I don’t know if anybody gets a character moment that isn’t a function of the plot) and some corny dialogue. Ignoring the good work they did in The Fearmonger McCoy and Aldred phone in two underwhelming performances and the guest cast fail to raise the game as well. Which leaves poor old Nick Briggs and the Daleks to give the proceedings a bit of zip which they try valiantly to do. You can admire the sound design and the horror of the Daleks for a while but without a plot to drive them and decent characters to care about you are fighting a losing battle. People praise The Genocide Machine to the detriment of The Apocalypse Element and whilst the second Dalek Empire story has its problems I find it by far a finer story. A hugely disappointing return trip for the Daleks: 3/10

Artwork by Simon Hodges @ http://hisi79.deviantart.com/

Phantasmagoria by Mark Gatiss and directed by Nicholas Briggs

English Gentleman: Peter Davison’s Doctor rarely impressed me on the television, often because of underwhelming scripts and productions (which often had the right resources but the wrong directors) but also because his Doctor more than any other lacks the gravity of the others. He often felt like he was swamped by the adventures (and numerous hysterical companions) around him. However I do feel there was something of an improvement during the end of his run, starting with his engaging banter with Will in The Awakening, his authority in Frontios, the assassination attempt of Davros, the companion he should have had (Peri) and finally his commanding final turn in The Caves of Androzani. This adventure takes place during this period so it comes as no surprise that the Doctor is rather wonderful, with all that added acting chops that Davison has mastered over the years. He is still cricket obsessed, explaining the rules to Turlough and beautifully using Wisdens Almanac to defeat the villain. He strikes up an easy relationship with Samuel which begs the question why the Doctor never had an elderly companion (which Evelyn Smythe and Wilfred Mott would later on prove to be an invaluable idea). Turlough complains that he is elusive with answers but quite like the Doctor of this era he is quite free with the true of aliens and the TARDIS with the historical characters. I am very glad Big Finish has given an older Davison a chance to revisit his character and iron out the creases. The fifth Doctor and Turlough would be a relationship that was peppered throughout the Main Range (wonderfully the penultimate adventure is this pairing again, coming full circle) but it wasn't one that was given any real consideration or exploration. Aside from Loups-Garoux, Singularity and The Blazing Hour they mostly were squeezed into adventures with Tegan and Older Nyssa and there were just too many people about to give them the appropriate time. A shame because I think there is a lot to unpick there; a relationship that began with the companion trying to kill the Doctor and a level of mistrust throughout. 

Looking over his shoulder: Turlough was actually one of the more interesting companions the Doctor travelled with. He had a mysterious back story and he was introduced in an intriguing way (a trilogy of stories where he attempted to murder the Doctor in various lacklustre ways). We learnt shocking things about his people (the Tractator attack) and he left with the truth about his character finally revealed; his family are political prisoners fleeing from their home planet. Mark Strickson was mostly on the ball throughout the series too; offering a shifty character that you didn’t entirely put your trust in and would always keep an eye on to see what he was up to (he had several opportunities to bump off Tegan and never took the chance so I couldn't endorse him entirely). The problem was that more often than not the stories did not really give Turlough anything to do. Which was a real shame but thems eighties Who for you. Turlough doesn’t entirely translate well to audio, certainly not as well as Nyssa or Peri do in later stories. In some scenes Strickson seems a little forced, like he doesn’t quite believe what he is doing (because he’s not actually doing it). I certainly didn’t believe he was eating and talking during the café scenes. He’s a bit of a moaner, with a voracious appetite and quite petulant. I didn’t quite buy that he was a fan of Earth history because he claimed to hate the planet in Mawdryn Undead. He is appropriately cowardly, running away from the spirits in episode one but is afforded a moment of heroism in episode four (‘It wouldn’t be cricket, would it?’) after claiming he isn’t a hero. Turlough was my only real grumble with the story.

Great Ideas: Valentine stealing learned men, marking them with his cards and calling on his previous victims to transport them to his hellish ship so he can slave their minds to the computer and restore the systems. You have to love how Hannah rouses all the victims to murder Valentine once he has been tricked into being slaved to the computer…killing both of them. This is a story that is playing on atmosphere rather than mad creativity so the fact that this story leans into two big ideas alone (the card game that if you lose you become a victim and the organic ship made out of those victims) is not really a problem. 

Standout Performance(s): David Ryall has the perfect gruff villainous voice and creates a memorable villain in Sir Nicholas Valentine; a deranged, psychopathic and yet oddly charming killer.
Mark Gatiss deserves kudos for disguising his real voice so completely as the throaty and verbose Jasper, every one of Jasper’s scenes is a voyage of verbose vernacular, like he has been taking lessons from the great Henry Jago himself. A quick mention for (another unrecognisable) David Walliams as his chipper and camp companion Quincy Flowers. This is a remarkably strong cast. 

Sparkling Dialogue: ‘I’ll soon be able to let me britches out meself as a marquee for the coronation!’
‘Wounds! I can’t say I favour this coffee stuff meself, Flowers. Tastes like something that’s dropped from the wrong end of a cow!’
‘The sweats standing off him like diamonds on a cloth.’ What a great visual metaphor.
‘What hell mouth is this? The walls like wet liver!’ And again…
‘Valentine is calling in his debts.’

Audio Landscape: This story is a treat for the senses. If you shut your eyes the sound effects conjour up the world of London 1702 with ease. You’ve got town criers, the clip-clop of horses, church bells, trees swaying in the breeze, children singing and playing and dogs barking to make the scenes outside come alive. Indoors there’s clocks ticking, fire crackling in a hearth, cutlery clacking and audience laughter in the theatre making things feel like you are really there. It's effortlessly done. Nick Briggs seems much more comfortable directing the more realistic settings of this story (his Earthbound episode two of The Sirens of Time was the best too) and he creates a terrific atmosphere with some relatively simple but subtle effects. His alien voices are really good two, creepy and unearthly. Rather brilliantly the TARDIS scanner makes a number of rather pathetic sounds, which is very 80’s Who. 

Musical Cues: This story introduces the wonderful musical stylings of Alistair Lock who will go on to provide some fantastic music for the opening Big Finish audios. This is a rousing historical score, full of melody and bounce. He underscores creepy moments like the séance and provides a playful atmosphere in scenes like Turlough and Jeake prowling around outside Valentine’s house.

Isn’t that Odd: That Turlough should be chosen to kick off the fifth Doctor’s adventures when he would only pop up every now and again…it does rather suggest that this would be a regular engagement with Davison and Strickson but that doesn't turn out to be the case at all. 
Also for storytelling purposes I can see that Valentine’s ship, which he has working on for years, just happens to be ready to lift off at the dénouement of the story, but it is an incredible co-incidence. Mind you, many a Doctor Who story has been structured around remarkable coincidence, especially during this period on TV so I guess you could say that just adds to the authenticity. 

Standout Moment: The end of episode 3. I love the fact that they have produced these audios in the style of the old four part adventures from the television but it means they have to work extra hard to shock us at these climactic moments. The revelation that Hannah is Billy Lovemore and they are both aliases for an alien comes from nowhere and is still an effective surprise.

Result: A far more assured and confident production than The Sirens of Time with Nick Briggs grabbing hold of Mark Gatiss’ atmospheric and giving script and bleeding it for every laugh and scare. This is traditional Doctor Who to the core and it revels in the fact; the Doctor is clever and amusing, the guest cast colourful and enjoyable and the villain is despicably hissable. There is nothing here that is especially fresh but the pieces are put together with such gusto and as an example of how agreeable and visual these audios can be. Davison seems to enjoy the material, although Strickson feels a little forced. There is an extremely impressive guest cast, an abundance of witty lines and the whole thing moves along at a fair lick. Because I can’t keep listing standout performers I want to put a word in for Steve Wickham who puts in a very sweet performance as Samuel and would go on to play a character utterly different in The Fires of Vulcan. Phantasmagoria would probably flounder later on in the range where we expect things to be constantly innovative but as a positive first step in to producing adventures these Doctors could never have on the TV this story gets a huge thumbs up: 8/10

Artwork by Simon Hodges @ http://hisi79.deviantart.com/

The Sirens of Time written and directed by Nick Briggs

English Gentleman: This is the fifth Doctor I have always asked for (but rarely got). Davison is a revelation on audio, his instantly recognisable voice commanding and a little older sounding, but all to the benefit of his younger looking Doctor. Along the way he would find his feet as a very different Doctor than the one you might recognise on television but since Davison himself thought he was too young to play the Doctor, this is the Doctor that he perhaps would liked to have played all along. You would think that surrounded by the bombastic sixth Doctor and manipulative little seventh Doctor he would be a bit lost but Davison manages to hold his own beautifully (he's the most prolific actor of the three in terms of television by far and that might feed into his scenes with the two of them). He is a first class gentleman, travelling with Tegan and Turlough but we don’t get to see them (hurrah, finally unencumbered by whining companions), described as an educated young man and compassionate. He can think on his feet quickly too, making up lies to get back to the TARDIS. This is a very promising beginning for the fifth Doctor on audio. I look forward to hearing more. If this is where we begin with him...where will we end?

 Softer Six: As good as Davison is, Baker matches him beat for beat. This is the real renaissance of Big Finish, rehabilitating the sixth Doctor, a much hated incarnation of the Doctor. I will go on to explore this in considerable depth over the next 230 odd releases but it still thrills me to think that thanks to the valiant efforts of both Baker and Big Finish that this Doctor has had a rehabilitation enough that pretty much everybody who still loathes his Doctor on TV adds the caveat 'but he's great on audio.' It has long been proposed by Baker fans (including myself) that it was the scripts and behind the scenes that spoiled what could have been a decent run for a fine actor and Big Finish has given us the proof. With Baker finally having some input into what makes his Doctor tick he makes him an amiable, polite, charming sort of fellow, travelling alone, softly spoken and a real treat to share an adventure with. He is observant, surprisingly modest for the most part, tangles with the authorities with glee and with a gift for poetry. A genuine pleasure to listen this sixth Doctor. And he would continue to be my favourite throughout, with an astonishing run of quality stories. 

The Real McCoy: The most disappointing transition to audio is the seventh Doctor who relied on his brooding presence and piercing eyes to puncture a scene on television. I always felt that McCoy was the weakest performer, with some inconsistent performances unbalancing some great scripts and he is certainly the least believable of the three here. He still has real trouble shouting convincingly (it's really odd) and doesn’t really have a chance to shine in his episode, overshadowed by the plot going on around him. Still there are a few compensations; he has a melancholic tone to his voice in his first few scenes, cooing to the TARDIS affectionately and he has a few funny moments when he is with the other two, especially when he uses the more rotund sixth Doctor to break his fall at one point. Described as the thinker of the three. McCoy would go on to have something of a renaissance of his own in the middle run of the main range (100-150) but looking across the range as a whole he really suffers from a mixture of weak scripts, and first night readings of them that make it sound like some of the time he is not invested (or doesn't understand) the material. 

Great ideas: The Temporan, the legendary time beast that folds its way through the oceans of time, serene, sublime. A prison planet holding a war criminal. The Sirens of Time feeding on divergences in the timeline. The story cleverly allows us to enjoy an episode with each Doctor stopping at a pivotal point and we learn in the last episode that he made the wrong choices and changed the timeline, feeding the Sirens the energy they extract from such deviations. They need others to cause destruction for them and Elanya/Helen/Ellie nudged at each Doctor in the right direction to do so. That’s some ambitious plotting and trust me that is not an accolade I will be throwing at Nick Briggs too often. 

Standout Performance: Sarah Mowat because she plays four different characters and manages to make enough differences to make each feel like a character in their own right. I can completely understand why Nick Briggs gave her her own series in Dalek Empire. I saw her in the theatre in Eastbourne once and she was just as commanding there. Maggie Stables deserves the runner up prize for her unforgettable turn as Ruthley; chewing the scenery fabulously and being just weird enough to be slightly scary. Give this woman a part as a companion immediately. 

Sparkling Dialogue: ‘If you do obey your orders Commander you’ll be signing the death warrants of the Time Lords.’
‘The Time Lords really do want me dead!’

Embarrassing Dialogue: ‘I’d trust you to drive me naked through a cheese grater.’ There will plenty more gems like this from Briggs to come. 

Musical Cues: There is a haunting musical cue, a ghostly vocal that plays once in each episode that sounds a little like the music from Enlightenment.

Audio Landscape: The spaceship crash landing made me duck. The echo effect is used a couple of times but it is very atmospheric.

Isn’t that Odd: I understand why they choose the Tom Baker theme to introduce each of the episodes for the first bunch of releases because it was the most recognisable of the themes and they were trying to appeal to a mass audience rather than just Doctor Who fans. But the Doctor Who fans won out with Big Finish and the company essentially became a big nostalgia trip and so going back to these original stories with an inauthentic theme tune feels off kilter. 

Standout Moment: The Time Lords taking over the German officer and attempting to assassinate the fifth Doctor – nail biting stuff. A portent of what is to come with Big Finish historicals; a genre I think they manage to nail pretty much every time and certainly with more consistency than the TV series. 

Result: As an opening story this is probably a little too ambitious, especially since Big Finish were still finding their legs. Not an argument I would make somewhere in the middle of the run where ambition stagnated and nostalgia dominated. But this might have been the right place for Phantasmagoria; a traditional, atmospheric, clever tale rather than a multi Doctor platform with vignettes that barely tie together at the climax. I’m certain had they tried this story around the time of Zagreus when both the company and Nick Briggs had had much more practice at this sort of thing it would have been more dramatic and made much more of an impact. It’s a nice idea to have three separate episodes with individual stories and then tie them all together in the final episode but everything feels oddly disjointed; that fourth episode is a long time coming and ending each episode on a cliffhanger that we don’t get to see resolved is frustrating and hard to move onto the next story. Saying that, the story boasts some lovely ideas, some crude but still atmospheric audio landscapes and a good pace that never flags. Baker and Davison are surprise highlights whilst McCoy sounds oddly amateurish in places. It doesn’t help that the individual stories aren’t that interesting; episode two stands out and the most and was my go to recommendation for people to listen to when first dipping their toes into Big Finish and they wanted to hear something from the first story.. The final episode is okay but muted considering it is about 3 Doctors saving Gallifrey from invading conquerors. There is enough here to promise better things for the future but Nick Briggs will write and direct far better stories in the future, and worse too: 5/10

Artwork by Simon Hodges @ http://hisi79.deviantart.com/