The Sixth Doctor - The Last Adventure
This is a four-story set sold as a single item. I am going to listen to the first story of the set for this selection, leaving the set in the Selectortron so it will be able to come up again three more times in the future for the other stories.
The Sixth Doctor - The Last Adventure: The End of the Line
Starring: Colin Baker as the Doctor and Miranda Raison as Constance Clarke
Format: 1 full-cast CD (or download) with no internal episode breaks, disc 1 of 5 not sold separately
Silly? Slightly silly in a similar way to parts of Trial of a Time Lord
Standalone? Somewhat. You need to already know about two of the Doctor's enemies from TV, and the ending is obviously setting things up for a rematch with one, but the story is otherwise self-contained.
Recommended? Since it's not sold separately, I can't really make a call to recommend or not recommend just from the one episode.
My reactions to this story contain spoilers for The Sixth Doctor - The Last Adventure and for the end of the Sixth Doctor's TV era.
Before listening
It is well known that Colin Baker was unceremoniously removed from his television role as the Doctor without getting a proper finale episode. The regeneration from the sixth to the seventh Doctor happens at the start of Sylvester McCoy's first story and is triggered by what seems to be a mundane head injury after a simple fall to the TARDIS floor.The Last Adventure is Big Finish's attempt to make the sixth Doctor finale that never happened on TV. Each story in the set is set at a different point in the sixth Doctor's chronology, in the gap between Trial of a Time Lord and Time and the Rani. Big Finish has made this gap quite large, with the Doctor taking on many different companions, and each of the four stories has a different companion in it. The main thing they have in common is the Valeyard, the mysterious alleged future self or future dark counterpart of the Doctor whose only television appearance was in Trial of a Time Lord. What The Last Adventure tries to do is set up the Valeyard as a major recurring villain for the sixth Doctor with a gradually unfolding scheme, then use the Doctor's final battle with the Valeyard as the secret reason for his regeneration. I listened to the set once and from what I recall it didn't do a really convincing job of that, but it did have some decent Doctor Who stories in it.
I remember enjoying The End of the Line but having a little trouble following it. I remember a spooky train station and some kind of time loop. I think someone in it might turn out to secretly be the Master, but that might be me remembering a misdirect or a theory of my own that turned out wrong. From what I recall, nothing in this story leaves any particularly obvious hooks for the other three stories of the set, other than just establishing that the Valeyard is still around in the first place.
After listening
Early on, The End of the Line seems like it's going to be a mystery in the Agatha Christie vein, with a small number of people stranded at a train station in the fog, one of whom is a killer. In Doctor Who, such mysteries often involve trying to figure out what the sci-fi twist is as well as who the killer is. However, for a story like this to be a mystery, there needs to be a sci-fi twist that can be reasonably guessed at, not a roller coaster of increasingly compounding twists. It becomes clear soon enough that what's going on in The End of the Line fits the mold of a horror story more than it does a mystery. The apparent mystery trappings are shaken off entirely in a scene that reveals to the audience which person's responsible for the killings, well before anyone still alive in the story knows. The reason why that person is responsible isn't revealed until nearer the end of the episode.The killer isn't the only person with a secret... both the Valeyard and the Master are present in disguise, as well as a new alien who's supposed to be guarding the barriers between alternate dimensions. The Master has done something very foolish and megalomaniacal to those barriers, and the result includes potentially infinite variations of the same train arriving at the same station, a fog that drives people insane and gives them head-exploding psychic powers, and the eventual destruction of the entire multiverse if the Doctor doesn't do something about it. The Valeyard's part in the story is much subtler and not revealed until the very end.
Some twist-heavy Doctor Who stories fall apart when examined more closely. This one seems to hold together fine; it's not clear why any of this is happening at a British railway station in particular, but the location does make sense thematically, and that plus the Master's love of drama might really be enough of an explanation.
We hear two characters going insane with the interdimensional fog's psychic madness, and they go insane in very different ways, both quite well-written and well-directed. The Master and Valeyard identity revelations are also well-executed.
By release order, this story is the first appearance of Constance Clarke, whose chronological first appearance was released slightly later. Constance in this story could be just about any competent female companion from Earth, and nothing particularly stands out about her for good or bad.
If the rest of The Last Adventure stays this good, then it's a set worth getting, though probably worth waiting for it to be on sale rather than ordering at full price. From what I recall, the final episode ends up not quite living up to the promise of the first three, but it has been a long time since I listened to it and my memory might be foggy.
No comments:
Post a Comment