Doctor Who Bonus Releases: The Maltese Penguin
Starring: Colin Baker as the sixth Doctor and Robert Jezek as Frobisher
Format: 1 full-cast CD (or download) with no episode breaks
Silly? Yes.
Standalone? Yes.
Recommended? If the idea of a Doctor Who-adjacent noir detective parody sounds like something you'd enjoy.
My thoughts on this story contain spoilers for it, and potentially for Doctor Who Magazine comics.
Before listening
This one-disc story was released as a subscriber bonus, intentionally not quite an integral part of Big Finish's main Doctor Who range. It stars the Sixth Doctor and Frobisher, a companion who had prior to this only appeared in Doctor Who Magazine comics and a single Big Finish audio. Frobisher is quite different from television companions, being a noir detective shapeshifter who usually takes the form of a penguin.I think this release was mostly trying to provide fanservice for people who really liked Frobisher from the comics. He goes up against his recurring comic antagonist, and the Doctor's role in the story is lighter than usual. I remember finding it an acceptably entertaining diversion on my one listen, but I had heard some of writer Rob Shearman's other work and I was expecting it to meet a higher standard than it did. From what I recall, it doesn't do anything deep or clever with the characters, although it does give Frobisher a point of backstory he didn't have in the comics and a specific reason to like being penguin-shaped.
After listening
The Doctor appears in The Maltese Penguin at a few key moments, but doesn't participate in the adventure in any direct way. It is a Frobisher story, taking place after Frobisher has decided to leave the TARDIS to go back to being a private eye. Colin Baker gets a larger role in it than that implies, since Frobisher spends part of the story Doctor-shaped, played by Colin Baker with an American accent.Much of this story is a radio detective parody in which the central joke is that Frobisher's stereotypical noir narration doesn't accurately reflect what's actually going on. This is harder to do in audio than video, since our only view of what's actually going on has to come over the same channel as the narration, and Shearman does it well. As a comedy, it is well-executed, although I can't point to any specific laugh-out-loud joke.
The Maltese Penguin is also a reflection on what a Doctor Who story is and how a Doctor Who story is different from something else, specifically contrasting the idealism of Doctor Who with the cynicism of a hard-boiled private eye story. Part of this contrast is expressed in the character of Frobisher himself. I mentioned in my comments on Wrath of the Iceni that it was unclear whether Leela's moral boundaries were innate or something the Doctor had taught her; here, it's quite explicit that Frobisher's time with the Doctor has given him a backbone he didn't have before, or at least revealed one he didn't know he had.
There is also an allegory going on, similar to The Happiness Patrol or The Sun Makers but even balder about being an allegory. The villain keeps a planet full of mediocre office jobs because mediocrity is in itself somehow profitable to him (no actual economic mechanism is presented), and at one point utters "imagining is unprofitable". This, too, ties in with the contrast between noir cynicism and science-fiction idealism. The allegory has no very clever point or argument to make, but it is present and lets the story end with more thematic substance than it would have as just a detective parody with a side of Doctor Who metafiction.
I enjoyed this story for what it is, though I stand by my assessment that it isn't Rob Shearman's best. If the premise of a Doctor Who-universe noir detective parody appeals to you, then The Maltese Penguin is worth purchasing. (Outside the UK, I wouldn't say it's necessarily worth the shipping charge for the physical CD, but it is available for download.)
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