Doctor Who Companion Chronicles: Project: Nirvana
Starring: Sylvester McCoy as the Doctor, Maggie O'Neill as Lysandra, and Amy Pemberton as Sally
Format: Narrated three-actor single CD (or download) in two half-CD parts
Silly? No.
Standalone? No. This is not a typical Companion Chronicle; it is a supplemental installment to an arc of the Doctor Who monthly range, released during that arc.
Recommended? Yes, but not without context.
My reactions to this story contain spoilers for it and potential spoilers for other Seventh Doctor audio releases related to it.
Before listening
I've listened to this once. I didn't know much about its context, but I was roughly able to follow it anyway. My understanding is that in Black and White, Ace and Hex discover that the Doctor's been having adventures with other previously-unrevealed companions in parallel with his adventures with Ace in Hex, as part of some sort of scheme that's circuitous even for the Seventh Doctor. Project: Nirvana is a glimpse into those secret adventures. As the title suggests to a knowledgeable listener, it is related to the Forge, as seen in stories such as Project: Twilight and Project: Lazarus.I am remembering an action-movie-like aspect to this story, possibly involving the Doctor and companions skydiving to enact a heist on a speeding train full of secret alien hardware. I think I recall being able to follow the action plot even without being very clear on the significance of Lysandra and Sally as companions. I am expecting to enjoy it on relistening, but still not to know exactly why everything is happening, since I still haven't heard much surrounding context.
After listening to part 1 of 2
The Forge is an organization that first appeared fairly early in Big Finish's continuity. Like UNIT, they investigate alien activity, but their remit is specifically to harvest alien technology for use by themselves and the United Kingdom's clandestine agencies. They are not generally the good guys in their stories. Lysandra worked for the Forge, and this story begins with the Doctor and company applying repurposed technology from the Forge for their heist. At least in this first part, it is not made clear how Lysandra joined the Doctor or how she managed to take Forge tech with her in doing so, and it is not really clear who Sally is at all.While the present-day status of Lysandra and Sally is not closely explored, this is very much a story about Lysandra's past with the Forge, in the literal sense that the train they are heisting has a younger Lysandra on it who is still loyal to the Forge and acts as the main antagonist of part 1. This is a good use of the limited-cast Companion Chronicles budget and of time travel.
The story is narrated by older Lysandra and by Sally, with Sylvester McCoy providing a few voice lines for the Doctor. One other character seems to be voiced by Amy Pemberton with some digital vocal effects, providing adequate enough differentiation for the character's brief conversation with Lysandra.
At the end of the episode, there is an immediate cliffhanger danger facing Sally, of an interesting variety that works very well in narrated audio, with narrator Sally saying things that performed Sally can't. We haven't heard from older Lysandra in a while, but the open question of why she doesn't remember having been on this train points to interesting directions for her. An alien device has been introduced that could cause memory loss, but not a reason for that device to end on younger Lysandra. From my vague memories of my earlier listen, I think I remember it all tying together very well and I'm looking forward to the second part.
After listening to part 2 of 2
Dialogue seems to assume I've already heard the "how" of Lysandra joining the TARDIS team, though this audio reveals a previously mysterious "why". Lysandra's situation is quite similar to Ace's: the Doctor detected the meddling of an "elder god" in Lysandra's life and took her as a companion in order to fight that god. Apparently, at this point in his Big Finish career, the seventh Doctor is fighting elder gods, plural, as a major focus of his activities.As of companion Lysandra's future time, the Forge's commander, Nimrod, has been defeated, but he is still in charge at the time of this heist, and he had used unconscionable methods to ensure younger Lysandra's loyalty. This leaves me even more curious about how Lysandra ended up a companion, but I don't plan on immediately adding to my Big Finish backlog by ordering her other stories unless they happen to go on sale.
Project: Nirvana makes excellent use of narration, both Sally's and Lysandra's. I'm sure the story could have been told without it, but the particular decisions writers Cavan Scott & Mark Wright made about how to tell the story relied on the narrated format, and a direct translation into a fully-dramatized format would lose much of value. I don't know why Big Finish decided to put a side story of the concurrent monthly range into a Companion Chronicle, but it seems to have worked out very well aesthetically. I enjoyed this audio release and I would recommend it, but I suspect it really belongs in its context, not in isolation.
No comments:
Post a Comment