Classic Doctors, New Monsters Vol. 2 Review

Gustaff Behr gives his verdict on the latest audio boxset from Big Finish.

Last year’s Classic Doctors, New Monsters turned out to be a gamble well made for Big Finish and because of this rapturous success (for the most part), it was a safe bet we’d be seeing a Volume 02 sooner rather than later. But can Volume 02 maintain the bar set by its predecessor?

Night of the Vashta Nerada

Big Finish swaps the Seventh Doctor for the Fourth this year and begins the festivities by pitting Tom Baker against the Vashta Nerada. I’ll say this for Big Finish: They do have a lot of guts over there. Last year we had the Weeping Angels and this year they’re doing another silent villain on audio. Twice! And again it works! Both times!

Night of the Vashta Nerada finds the Doctor visiting Funworld, an amusement park like planet not yet open to the public. He is soon joined by a rescue team of sorts in search of some crewmembers who have gone “missing”. Penned by Big Finish veteran John Dorney, this story plays out like a typical horror tale. You have your band of talking meat puppets, your spooky venue (bonus points for setting this story at night) and you have your hungry monster. All that’s left is to count the seconds until the bodies start dropping.

While Night of the Vashta Nerada does share some similarities with Silence in the Library, it does try to distinguish itself by putting new spins on those clever 2008 Steven Moffat concepts. It also helps that the Doctor has only vaguely heard of the Vashta Nerada, making this the Doctor’s first encounter with them. This is an aspect of the box set which bothered me last year as in all those stories, the Doctor knew and acted as though he’d faced the Weeping Angels, the Judoon and the Sycorax before.

By placing the Doctor out of his depth and showcasing just how powerless he is against this “new” threat, it’s easier to raise the tension of the story in multiple scenes while at the same time emphasizing just how dangerous the Vashta Nerada is. There’s also something very unnerving when you hear the Doctor suggest giving up and calling it a day as opposed to standing your ground and facing your enemies.

This first instalment doesn’t bother exploring the guest cast. They are mostly made up of stereotypes whose only real purpose is to be killed, though this isn’t a bad thing. It’s actually more preferable as these characters are very unpleasant and easily dislikeable…which makes the scenes in which they encounter the Vashta Nerada so much fun to listen to. One highlight of this story is the Doctor’s chemistry with the rest of the cast. It’s fantastic all across the board and works because the characters all have vastly contrasting personalities.

Rating this story: 8/10

Empire of the Racnoss

For a long time I’ve held the belief that my least favourite monster in Doctor Who were the Slitheen. I was mistaken. It’s the Racnoss. I owe this revelation to listening to Adjoa Andoh as the Racnoss Empress hamming it up for the better part of an hour. To her credit though, Andoh’s performance is magnificent in the sense that she nails the Empress’ character to a ‘T’. One can only imagine what the poor woman’s throat must’ve felt like the morning after.

This second instalment is perhaps the most far removed story from The Runaway Bride as it finds the Doctor becoming involved in a war between the Time Lords and the Racnoss. Yes, I know we’re getting a Time Lord War story two episodes from, but that doesn’t make the Doctor not being a “warrior” mentions any less funny here. What this story does have in abundance is unpredictability. The narrative likes to keep the listener on their toes with curveballs and it does do a good job of pulling the rug out from under you at least once with…spoilers.

At its centre, Empire of the Racnoss feels like a traditional Doctor Who story, though by fan standards, it may not go down as one of the all time greats and because of the Racnoss Empress over-acting and hammy dialogue delivery, it is sometimes hard to take the threat being posed seriously, but this problem existed in The Runaway Bride as well so let’s just chalk it up to a fault of the Racnoss as a species and not this story.

The guest cast is stronger in this time. Lisa Kay plays Time Lady Alayna who is captured by the Racnoss while Nigel Planer gives Adjoa Andoh a run for her money as the equally hammy Racnoss Emperor. Andrew French plays a wounded Racnoss the Doctor saves at the very start of the story and joins in one the hamfest once the Doctor does what the Doctor usually does. You can tell all the actors are doing their best to make the characters as rich and lively as the script will allow. Unfortunately due to the amount of plot developments, there is not enough time afforded to give these supporting characters much depth, but thankfully more than enough is given to explore the Racnoss Emperor and Empress’ struggles which resonate at the heart of this episode’s narrative.

Rating this story: 6/10

The Carrionite Curse

Colin Baker’s Judoon in Chains from last year served as my favourite instalment of the box set. Much like last year’s Sixth Doctor story, I went into this episode with low expectations as the Carrionites are not a foe worth revisiting in my opinion, although I can understand why Big Finish selected the Sixth Doctor to be their adversary. This incarnation does have a great love of Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness after all. But a few fancy words, even if they are spoken by Colin Baker, are not enough to save this story, whose biggest fault is being discount The Shakespeare Code but with the Sixth Doctor and twenty extra minutes padded to it.

Yes, this episode is almost a direct adaptation of the 2007, beat for beat, but without William Shakespeare. Worse, this story steps on its own toes by using plot developments from 2007 and incorporating them here. The fatal flaw of this story lies in the information it communicates and allows the Doctor to learn, which include name of the villains, their powers and how they work and the importance of words which is key to defeating them. This story even has the audacity to use the same ’14 sides of the globe theatre’ plot point to have the Doctor arrive at the same deduction his Tenth incarnation will arrive at several hundred from now. So then how come the Tenth Doctor doesn’t know any of these details and why does he have such a hard time in The Shakespeare Code?

It’s easy to say these events span centuries for the Doctor or he develops amnesia, but it’s still cheap and lazy. This story is far from original since it doesn’t even attempt to disguise the “source material” it’s based on.

Unlike The Shakespeare Code, which provided us with a rather interesting character to explore and be supportive of in the Bard himself, The Carrionite Curse offers no such morsel. The characters’ names are not worth remembering and given very little to do besides ask the Doctor ‘what’s going on’ or ‘what do we do next’. Another issue stems from the length of the story. Basically: It’s too long! With a narrative of more than an hour, several scenes slow down the pacing to an almost standstill.

One aspect of the story did hit a little close to home in light of recent events in the Doctor Who universe and it’s something I admire about The Carrionite Curse, but only with the benefit of hindsight. It’s spoilery to go into details but it’s very likely that if this box set had been released two weeks earlier, then this plot point wouldn’t have carried nearly the emotional weight it did here.

The saving grace of this third episode is Colin Baker. Whilst I haven’t listened to a bad Sixth Doctor outing since Planet of the Rani, I can’t ever fault Baker’s performance as he injects too much life and energy into every word he utters. It’s a joy to listen to the Sixth Doctor take a trip around the English language while he battles the Carrionites and be reminded how this incarnation’s command of the English language should be classified a weapon in its own right.

Rating this story: 4/10

Day of the Vashta Nerada

You’d think the Vashta Nerada were already one of the deadliest creatures in the Doctor Who universe, wouldn’t you? Unfortunately the Time Lords don’t. You see they’re in the middle of a Time War and need every advantage they can get, even if said advantage involves the incredibly stupid idea to make the Vashta Nerada even more deadly.

The last episode once again features the Eighth Doctor in the midst of the Time War, and reunites him with Cardinal Ollistra (Jacqueline Pearce). It’s a team-up that’s not especially necessary here, but the link to the War Doctor audios and a familiar face means less time needs to be spent setting up an opponent for the Doctor to deal with. It’s also worth noting that unlike the War Doctor whom Ollistra admires, the Eighth Doctor is very much a thorn in her side.

Day of the Vashta Nerada capitalizes on plot points introduced in Night of the Vashta Nerada, but instead of emulating them, builds and expands and develops a story that is truly one of the best in the Eighth Doctor era. It’s almost Jurassic park-esque, but in a good way. Matt Fitton comes up with several interesting directions to take the Vashta Nerada in, including a remarkably clever way of having his cake and eating it. Yum!

At the same time, unlike the previous story, the guest cast are all enjoyable to listen to. Special mentions must go to Jan Ravens, who plays Dr Eva Morrison, a brilliant scientist experimenting on the Vashta Nerada (…ok, maybe not that brilliant) and Tim Wallers, who serves as Commander Roxita, the ever faithful bodyguard for Cardinal Ollistra. Biotech Dendry, played by Himesh Patel, has a smaller role in the proceedings, but is enjoying for the short time he is with us.

As with The Sontaran Ordeal, Day of the Vashta Nerada is a rather bleak story, fittingly so given when it’s set. This gives Paul McGann ample opportunity to showcase just why he’s such a wonderful incarnation. Passionate, resolute and a Doctor who desperately wants – no needs – to see the hope in everything he does. Much like his Fifth incarnation, Eighth’s era is filled with more turmoil and hardships designed to break his spirit. To listen to a Doctor so adamant about his purpose in the Time War as a would-be helper and cleaner of Time Lord messes, his burning anger at his people’s behaviour and the effects the Time War has had on the rest of the universe, it’s easy to imagine him alongside Ten and Eleven in Day of the Doctor.

Rating this story: 9/10

There are only a handful of New Who monsters left for Big Finish to play with without stepping on continuity or retreading previous box sets. These include the Silence, Reapers, Krillitanes and Men in Black from the Alliance of Shade. Though there’s always room for the Trickster’s Brigade.

Given this, it will be interesting to see where Big Finish goes from here and what Volume 3 (if there is one) chooses to do next.