Doctor Who: The Stageplays: Seven Keys to Doomsday
Starring: Trevor Martin as the Doctor, Charlie Hayes as Jenny, and Joe Thompson as Jimmy
Format: Two full-cast CDs (or download) with one act per CD
Silly? Childish, but not particularly funny.
Standalone? Yes
Recommended? No, but I will say the cast do a good job of acting.
My reactions to this story contain spoilers for it.
I got this one in a bundle and have never listened to it. I forget whether I started listening and stopped or whether I never even began.
It is an unusual item: Big Finish got the actor who played the Doctor in a Terry Nation stageplay to reprise the role in an audio adaptation decades later. They didn't get the actors who played the companions, though, one of whom was in the original stage production Wendy Padbury (better known for the earlier role of Zoe on televised Doctor Who). This is one of three Doctor Who-related stage plays Big Finish adapted into audio; of the other two, one has Colin Baker and the other is Doctorless. I haven't quite randomly selected a Doctorless Dalek story this time around, but Trevor Martin's incarnation is possibly even more dubious than Peter Cushing's, and this is indeed a Dalek story.
I'm not expecting to get much unironic enjoyment out of Seven Keys to Doomsday, but I am expecting to find it interesting as an artifact and I plan on listening to it with that attitude.
This was a play for kids, and Big Finish did not want Terrance Dicks to make any unnecessary changes when he adapted his script to audio, so the result is quite shallow compared to a typical Big Finish production. It is also not well-adapted in my opinion; there are numerous fight scenes that aren't using the audio medium well.
The opening scenes are oddly metafictional: the TARDIS lands on a stage and a couple audience members help the Doctor regenerate and end up becoming companions. I had thought that this was added as a nod to the story's origin, but in fact it was adapted from the way the stage play actually opened. One difference is that on stage Trevor Martin dressed as John Pertwee and hid his face before the regeneration, while in the audio version Nicholas Briggs briefly voices the dying Doctor. There is history behind Briggs playing the Doctor, as he did so in the unlicensed Audio Visuals cassette series long before Big Finish began.
The plot concerns some crystals evil aliens are trying to assemble to use a doomsday weapon. The weapon will only work with all of the crystals and the Doctor doesn't want it used, so it would make sense for the Doctor to take the crystals he's already found and leave as soon as he realizes what they're for, but instead he goes ahead and gathers the entire set. Unlike the Key to Time arc or The Keys of Marinus, the separate pieces aren't in interesting individual locations; a couple are more stumbled on than actively discovered. The alien masterminds are revealed as the Daleks late in Act One, which comes as no surprise given the CD cover and the poster for the play.
The first CD ends with an act break and then over 20 minutes of interview segments. The interview segments are more interesting than the play, but not worth purchase price. I am not expecting Act 2 to be any better than Act 1, but I'm not expecting it to be a particularly difficult listen either.
Act 2 is a bit better than Act 1. With the main mysteries of the plot revealed and the crystal-gathering done, the story is more focused, being specifically about the Doctor leading an attack on the Dalek weapon base. The Doctor destroys the ultimate weapon in a predictably Doctorish fashion. Companion Jimmy gets a good character moment in which he pretends to betray the Doctor. One of the rebels assisting the Doctor turns out to have an unexpectedly complex motivation, in a twist that is much less kid's-show than the bulk of the plot but that is very much in keeping with televised Dalek stories. There are deaths amidst the still poorly described sound-effect battles. Still, it is Doctor Who-lite, and not in a comedic way.
I don't feel bad about having listened to Seven Keys to Doomsday, given that I got it in a bundle that also contained more worthwhile Big Finish releases, but I really don't recommend it.
It is an unusual item: Big Finish got the actor who played the Doctor in a Terry Nation stageplay to reprise the role in an audio adaptation decades later. They didn't get the actors who played the companions, though, one of whom was in the original stage production Wendy Padbury (better known for the earlier role of Zoe on televised Doctor Who). This is one of three Doctor Who-related stage plays Big Finish adapted into audio; of the other two, one has Colin Baker and the other is Doctorless. I haven't quite randomly selected a Doctorless Dalek story this time around, but Trevor Martin's incarnation is possibly even more dubious than Peter Cushing's, and this is indeed a Dalek story.
I'm not expecting to get much unironic enjoyment out of Seven Keys to Doomsday, but I am expecting to find it interesting as an artifact and I plan on listening to it with that attitude.
After listening to Act 1 and the first CD's behind-the-scenes tracks
One point in my above writeup was mistaken. I was aware that another stage play with Daleks was a Terry Nation product and I thought this was likewise. As explained by Terrance Dicks in a bonus interview, it was Terrance Dicks's script and Terry Nation's only involvement was taking a lot of money to let them use Daleks. Another detail I was unaware of is that Charlie Hayes is Wendy Padbury's daughter, so they did try to have some amount of companion-casting connection.This was a play for kids, and Big Finish did not want Terrance Dicks to make any unnecessary changes when he adapted his script to audio, so the result is quite shallow compared to a typical Big Finish production. It is also not well-adapted in my opinion; there are numerous fight scenes that aren't using the audio medium well.
The opening scenes are oddly metafictional: the TARDIS lands on a stage and a couple audience members help the Doctor regenerate and end up becoming companions. I had thought that this was added as a nod to the story's origin, but in fact it was adapted from the way the stage play actually opened. One difference is that on stage Trevor Martin dressed as John Pertwee and hid his face before the regeneration, while in the audio version Nicholas Briggs briefly voices the dying Doctor. There is history behind Briggs playing the Doctor, as he did so in the unlicensed Audio Visuals cassette series long before Big Finish began.
The plot concerns some crystals evil aliens are trying to assemble to use a doomsday weapon. The weapon will only work with all of the crystals and the Doctor doesn't want it used, so it would make sense for the Doctor to take the crystals he's already found and leave as soon as he realizes what they're for, but instead he goes ahead and gathers the entire set. Unlike the Key to Time arc or The Keys of Marinus, the separate pieces aren't in interesting individual locations; a couple are more stumbled on than actively discovered. The alien masterminds are revealed as the Daleks late in Act One, which comes as no surprise given the CD cover and the poster for the play.
The first CD ends with an act break and then over 20 minutes of interview segments. The interview segments are more interesting than the play, but not worth purchase price. I am not expecting Act 2 to be any better than Act 1, but I'm not expecting it to be a particularly difficult listen either.
After listening to Act 2
Usually, the Doctor is trying to stop the evil aliens from doing some specific thing, and in the course of stopping them he ends up almost incidentally destroying their headquarters. That's not how Seven Keys to Doomsday works: the Doctor actively counterattacks to do as much damage to the Daleks as possible, instead of just making sure their specific scheme will fail. The script seems unaware that this is an atypical sequence of events, and at no point is it explicitly stated that this is the Doctor's reason for sticking around instead of leaving with one of the crystals.Act 2 is a bit better than Act 1. With the main mysteries of the plot revealed and the crystal-gathering done, the story is more focused, being specifically about the Doctor leading an attack on the Dalek weapon base. The Doctor destroys the ultimate weapon in a predictably Doctorish fashion. Companion Jimmy gets a good character moment in which he pretends to betray the Doctor. One of the rebels assisting the Doctor turns out to have an unexpectedly complex motivation, in a twist that is much less kid's-show than the bulk of the plot but that is very much in keeping with televised Dalek stories. There are deaths amidst the still poorly described sound-effect battles. Still, it is Doctor Who-lite, and not in a comedic way.
I don't feel bad about having listened to Seven Keys to Doomsday, given that I got it in a bundle that also contained more worthwhile Big Finish releases, but I really don't recommend it.
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