#12 Bernice Summerfield: The Extinction Event

The Kingmaker was a long, long ride, and while I enjoyed it I'm glad to now be moving on to something else. Another spin of the Randomoid Selectortron yields...

Bernice Summerfield: The Extinction Event

Starring: Lisa Bowerman as Bernice Summerfield and Miles Richardson as Irving Braxiatel
Format: one full-cast CD with no episode breaks
Silly? Not generally, but a climactic moment is undermined by silly choices for an alien character's vocal treatment and language use.
Standalone? Yes. Braxiatel is an established character in Bernice's continuity but this is his first on-mic appearance and there is solid establishing dialogue very early on for the relevant aspects of his role.
Recommended? Not on its own, but yes as part of a larger Bernice Summerfield listen. If buying from the Big Finish website outside the UK, be sure to click the red "BUNDLES" button and buy season 2 as a single item, rather than as separate CDs, as shipping calculations work completely differently depending on how you buy it.


My reactions to this story contain spoilers for it and for the status quo of early Bernice Summerfield audios.

Before listening

I've already discussed Bernice Summerfield's history with Big Finish when I was writing about The Kraken's Lament. The Extinction Event is one of the earlier Bernice Summerfield stories. They keep it in stock on CD, but it has never yet been made available for download. Currently, shipping prices from Big Finish to the United States make purchasing the early Bernice Summerfields rather a pricey endeavor, but there was a time several years ago when Big Finish's shipping calculations worked differently and it was possible to get a Bernice Summerfield CD season rather cheaply. From what I understand of actual intercontinental shipping charges, this was basically a bug on the Big Finish website and they were making little money from these sales, or possibly even losing money on them. I think their current shipping charges might be erring in the opposite direction, but they did have to do something about it. I'd bought the first three seasons before they closed the hole.
The very first season of Bernice Summerfield audios were adapted (some loosely) from novels. This is the third story of the second season, and thus the third original-story Bernice Summerfield audio. It is the first audio appearance of Irving Braxiatel, who at this time is Bernice Summerfield's employer. He is extremely wealthy and collects artifacts without a great deal of ethical scruple, putting them on display in the Braxiatel Collection. (The name "Braxiatel Collection" appears in the classic TV episode City of Death as somewhere Romana and the Doctor compare to the Louvre, with no other information. Novels took that passing reference and built a major Bernice Summerfield continuity element out of it.)
Braxiatel's original appearances, in official BBC-licensed Doctor Who novels, established him as a Time Lord. This audio, like most fiction in the Bernice Summerfield brand, doesn't have that license, so while they can use the character of Braxiatel, they can't bring up Time Lords. From what I recall, the fact that he's a Time Lord doesn't matter materially to this particular audio, though it does to others.
I believe I've listened to this story one time. I remember that the titular "Extinction Event" is a publicized sales event featuring goods from extinct planets, rather than an extinction event in the usual meaning of the phrase. I vaguely remember one twist about the nature of the sale, but I forget part of the significance of the twist because I don't remember what Braxiatel actually does in this story other than standing around being incredibly wealthy and I'm sure he must do something. I am looking forward to listening to The Extinction Event again, both to fill in the gaps in my memory and just to enjoy the writing and performances.

After fact-checking the above

It looks like I was mistaken about shipping prices: many Big Finish items now have an extra international shipping surcharge on them, but Bernice Summerfield season bundles continue not to! I'm not sure why this is, but I'm assuming it's on purpose. If purchasing older Bernice Summerfield CDs from the Big Finish website, DO NOT buy them a la carte. Click the red Bundles button to buy a whole season with a lower shipping rate.

After listening

There is a confusing cold open in which Lisa Bowerman is voicing someone who isn't Bernice. Initially I thought this was Big Finish not being able to afford enough actresses, but later it turns out they have the same voice in-universe and it's a plot point. This is a reasonable level of coincidence for the Doctor Who universe, since both the first and second Doctors had encounters with lookalikes on Earth.
After the cold open there is a plodding instrumental theme song. I was relieved at this because it meant I wasn't hearing the version with lyrics. Unfortunately, the version with lyrics is used as the closing theme, where it is even more tonally inappropriate.
After the opening theme, there is a nice establishing scene showing both how bad Bernice is at putting effort into archeology and how good she actually is at archeology without really trying. This is followed by some dialogue that does a good job of establishing the Braxiatel/Summerfield working relationship as it exists at this point in continuity, and then the main action of the story begins with Braxiatel taking Summerfield to an auction so she can authenticate a harp he wants.
The story is dark. A planet has been destroyed (represented poorly by an overly long vague sound effect and only properly explained later), and a survivor's attempts at vengeance are going badly for depressing and banal reasons. Meanwhile, Braxiatel pretty much just cares about getting surviving artifacts from the planet, particularly the harp. It ends badly for everyone involved except Braxiatel, who does get the harp in the end, and Summerfield, who gains nothing but doesn't materially lose anything either. The "adventure is my game, won't you play with me" lyrics of the closing theme really, really fail to fit.
There are a few audio problems. I already mentioned the use of a vague sound effect to ineffectually convey the destruction of a planet. There are also scenes in which the stereo separation is excessive, with voices entirely on one side or the other. The climactic action sequence near the end is not well-suited for audio in concept, and its audio treatment is not skillful enough to make up for this.
The actual vocal performances are fine, except that one alien character comes across as humorous when he shouldn't, particularly in his repeated use of the literal word "expletive" as an expletive, which is a gag that would work well in a scene where gags were actually called for but doesn't fit the tone of the scene it's actually in. The story itself is well-constructed, and all the writing issues I've mentioned are only problems with individual moments and not the overall script.
I enjoyed listening to this audio, but there are many better Big Finish audios and I wouldn't really recommend it in isolation. In the course of a larger listen through Bernice Summerfield, it's definitely worth your attention. Because of the above-mentioned shipping rate issues, you probably shouldn't buy it except in the course of buying at least all of season 2.