My usual practice for boxsets of distinctly titled episodes applies here, meaning this specific post will be a reaction to the first disc only:
Bernice Summerfield: Legion: Vesuvius Falling
Starring: Lisa Bowerman as Bernice Summerfield, Ayesha Antoine as Ruth, and Thomas Grant as Peter Summerfield
Format: One full-cast CD or download (of 3) with no episode breaks.
Silly? Yes.
Standalone? Not really; prior awareness of Bernice's relationships with Peter and Braxiatel is important.
Recommended? If this is the weakest story of Legion, as I remember it being, then Legion's worth getting.
My reactions to this story contain spoilers for itself and for the status quo of Bernice Summerfield audios leading into it.
Before listening
The boxset series of which Legion is the middle installment has some continuity problems. At this point, Bernice has found her way to the planet Legion, following a cryptic trail of archeological clues only she personally could follow. Legion has been presented so far as a planet of mystery, the remotest place in the galaxy. This reputation is almost entirely disconnected from what the planet is actually like, and the stories do not acknowledge that the premise has shifted out from under them.The clue-giver responsible for Bernice's trip to Legion is Irving Braxiatel, or at least an Irving Braxiatel. By my understanding, at this point in publication history, Braxiatel's personal timeline was murky; the Braxiatel of earlier Bernice Summerfield stories seemed unsynchronized with the Braxiatel of the Gallifrey series, and this new version of Braxiatel complicated things further. Later stories reconcile it, but the murkiness is our position going into Vesuvius Falling, and Bernice is unconvinced that this Braxiatel is anything other than the one who previously betrayed her.
I remember the other two stories in Legion better than I remember this one. I probably only heard Vesuvius Falling once and found it either confusing or inconsequential. I'm not expecting that opinion to change on this listen.
After listening
Vesuvius Falling has two introductory sequences setting up the Legion boxset's status quo before the episode story begins. The first is a monologue in which Miles Richardson describes the seediness of the planet Legion in grandiose cliches, using sources such as Star Trek, Samuel Johnson, and the Gospel of Luke. It is clear by the end of the speech that this is Irving Braxiatel speaking in character, which reasonably justifies the awfulness of the speech. The planet is established as uninhabitable except for a single domed city, and that city as lawless and filled with murderers. There is some vague archeological mystery or body of legend about the planet, but the details of this are not here explained.Following that monologue and theme music, the dramatized events begin. As at the start of Epoch, events begin somewhat in medias res with Bernice having suffered memory loss, but this time around she has simply had too much alcohol the night before. The degree to which Bernice drinks varies by writer, but it is definitely more than the average Doctor Who companion. Bernice has reunited with her son Peter, for whom four years have passed since she disappeared prior to Epoch. Peter is now chief of security on Legion; it is not explained to the listener what type of chain of command this position is a part of. After Bernice's disappearance, Irving Braxiatel cared for Peter and for some reason brought him to Legion. This Braxiatel is younger than the one Bernice knew, and she believes him to be a past version who will eventually become the man who betrayed her. Nothing in Vesuvius Falling contradictions this past-version hypothesis.
The actual story of Vesuvius Falling takes place within this new status quo, but other than highlighting the strained relationship between Peter and Bernice it does nothing to advance or explore it. In particular, Braxiatel is not present for any of the main plot. What we have is a murder mystery attended by Bernice, Ruth, and Jack. Bernice is there because, due to time travel silliness, the scene of the crime is 5000 years old and therefore counts as archeology. This is presented in-universe as a completely logical invocation of Bernice's skillset, not a bureaucratic miscategorization.
The murder mystery initially seems like it will be character-driven and, if not entirely "fair-play", at least in something like the Doyle tradition. This proves not to be the case, as Bernice first discovers evidence has been tampered with using unexpected science-fiction technology, and then the actual motives for the crime turn out to be entirely different from where the story was going. The result is an entertaining roller coaster more than it is a mystery story to be followed as a mystery story, although the internal logic of the crime does seem to hold up under scrutiny.
I had remembered this story as either confusing or inconsequential, and that seems somewhat true: the mystery is confusing, and the relationship of the story to the status quo is inconsequential. However, I enjoyed it, and if my memory that this is the weak link of the boxset is true, then it must be a pretty good boxset.
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