The Death Collectors is a companionless story for the Seventh Doctor. It is the third one without a companion following on from Valhalla and Frozen Time. Here we have the third story in four that doesn’t see Hex or Ace and I get the feeling that maybe that they are considering doing more of these stories which would be a shame. This story has been written by Stewart Sheargold who had previously written the 2006 story Red which was a weird story. Another thing about this story is that this is one of those 3 plus 1 stories which sees three episodes form one story and a stand alone episode. I am not a fan of these releases because whilst the three episodes work really well but the single part stories never work because you can’t tell a good story in 25 minutes. Only one story since they have started doing this format has worked and that was Urban Myths in Exotron. Also this story sees Ken Bentley make his first contribution to the Doctor Who range.
Anyone who has been a fan of Doctor Who for more than 12 years will know that Puccini’s Madam Butterfly was played in the TV Movie. According to the Extras on the release this story is set just before the 1996 Movie so it seems that the music is similar to the watcher that appeared in Tom Baker’s finale back in 1981. It was quite a brave decision to set a story so much in Death. Its not exactly a family friendly topic and so it has to be dealt with cautiously. The story is set on a Sky Station above a planet called Antikon. As soon as someone visits the planet they become infected with Decay which slowly kills them. That when the Dar-Traders come in, they feed off death signatures and so anyone who visits Antikon is basically lunch for the Dar-Traders. As the story progresses we learn that the Decay is effecting everything and even travels through sound waves which is unusual for a virus.
Sylvester McCoy is really good in this story. I don’t get the feeling that McCoy was really tested in this story however he still managed to be enjoyable. It enabled him to form some fresh relationships with one off characters. In this story he developed well Katherine Parkinson. Katherine Parkinson isn’t a name that necessarily springs to mind but a little bit of research (god bless Wikipedia). She has appeared in several things but most recently the Channel 4 sitcom The IT Crowd (since 2006). As Danika Meanwhile she plays a very strong character that starts to believe and work with the Doctor as the events on the Sky Station develop. The best example of that is the cliffhanger for Episode 2 where the Doctor has put himself in a coma and Danika has put the spacesuit on which has very little oxygen showed a lot of trust between the two. Alastair Cording was very good in this story as Professor Mors Alexandryn. We learn in this story that his character was once married to Danika Meanwhile. As this story goes on we go from hating him because it seems that his ambitions could endanger everyone but slowly he becomes the hero and fits in with the listener’s desire that the Doctor should be helped and not hindered. Derek Carlyle was very good for two reasons. The first being that he came up with the voice of the Dar-Traders. The voice was truly eerie and fit the character very well. It must have really hurt his voice doing the Dar-Traders for two days but the end result is well worth it. The second reason he was good was because of playing Smith Ridley. The Ridley character met a sticky end fairly early on but as the decay took effect it was Ridley that was the centre point for the events. His efforts helped make the story that much better. Katarina Olson has been in several Big Finish plays over the last few years and in this story she had another good role as Nancy the ships computer. The role didn’t seem to have a lot going for it to begin with but soon became quite integral to the survival of the Sky Station.
This story was very enjoyable. Every character had a good side and a bad side which were equally effective. Stewart Sheargold has written a story that benefited from the three episode time limit. Ken Bentley’s first Doctor Who story was a very energetic let downbeat story.
Now for some negative comments. I know I have never been a fan of single part stories but Spiders Shadow is the worst that there has been. I just didn’t understand why anybody bothered to be a part of it. That was my initial reaction but on second look it had improved slightly. There is a lot of moving around in time and that comes as a bit of a let down. This is because it should be done in a four part story. That said I did like the characters though we never really got to know them very well.
Katarina Olsson was given a slightly better role in this story as Martial Princess Keldafria. Carol Fitzpatrick was also very good as Martial Princess Keldafria Louisa who is perhaps a better character than Olsson’s character. Kevin McNally is a big name actor and it’s a shame that he was given this story and this character to work with. McNally has appeared in Bond Films and perhaps more famously the Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy. In this story he played Henry which was perhaps too small a character for such a big name.
As a release this story was very good. I think that The Death Collectors was the better of the two stories and suited the three episode format very well. On the other hand Spiders Shadow was a poorer effort which perhaps would have been better had it been a longer episode. But as I have said before 25 minutes is not long enough for a story, especially one as complex as Spiders Shadow.
Anyone who has been a fan of Doctor Who for more than 12 years will know that Puccini’s Madam Butterfly was played in the TV Movie. According to the Extras on the release this story is set just before the 1996 Movie so it seems that the music is similar to the watcher that appeared in Tom Baker’s finale back in 1981. It was quite a brave decision to set a story so much in Death. Its not exactly a family friendly topic and so it has to be dealt with cautiously. The story is set on a Sky Station above a planet called Antikon. As soon as someone visits the planet they become infected with Decay which slowly kills them. That when the Dar-Traders come in, they feed off death signatures and so anyone who visits Antikon is basically lunch for the Dar-Traders. As the story progresses we learn that the Decay is effecting everything and even travels through sound waves which is unusual for a virus.
Sylvester McCoy is really good in this story. I don’t get the feeling that McCoy was really tested in this story however he still managed to be enjoyable. It enabled him to form some fresh relationships with one off characters. In this story he developed well Katherine Parkinson. Katherine Parkinson isn’t a name that necessarily springs to mind but a little bit of research (god bless Wikipedia). She has appeared in several things but most recently the Channel 4 sitcom The IT Crowd (since 2006). As Danika Meanwhile she plays a very strong character that starts to believe and work with the Doctor as the events on the Sky Station develop. The best example of that is the cliffhanger for Episode 2 where the Doctor has put himself in a coma and Danika has put the spacesuit on which has very little oxygen showed a lot of trust between the two. Alastair Cording was very good in this story as Professor Mors Alexandryn. We learn in this story that his character was once married to Danika Meanwhile. As this story goes on we go from hating him because it seems that his ambitions could endanger everyone but slowly he becomes the hero and fits in with the listener’s desire that the Doctor should be helped and not hindered. Derek Carlyle was very good for two reasons. The first being that he came up with the voice of the Dar-Traders. The voice was truly eerie and fit the character very well. It must have really hurt his voice doing the Dar-Traders for two days but the end result is well worth it. The second reason he was good was because of playing Smith Ridley. The Ridley character met a sticky end fairly early on but as the decay took effect it was Ridley that was the centre point for the events. His efforts helped make the story that much better. Katarina Olson has been in several Big Finish plays over the last few years and in this story she had another good role as Nancy the ships computer. The role didn’t seem to have a lot going for it to begin with but soon became quite integral to the survival of the Sky Station.
This story was very enjoyable. Every character had a good side and a bad side which were equally effective. Stewart Sheargold has written a story that benefited from the three episode time limit. Ken Bentley’s first Doctor Who story was a very energetic let downbeat story.
Now for some negative comments. I know I have never been a fan of single part stories but Spiders Shadow is the worst that there has been. I just didn’t understand why anybody bothered to be a part of it. That was my initial reaction but on second look it had improved slightly. There is a lot of moving around in time and that comes as a bit of a let down. This is because it should be done in a four part story. That said I did like the characters though we never really got to know them very well.
Katarina Olsson was given a slightly better role in this story as Martial Princess Keldafria. Carol Fitzpatrick was also very good as Martial Princess Keldafria Louisa who is perhaps a better character than Olsson’s character. Kevin McNally is a big name actor and it’s a shame that he was given this story and this character to work with. McNally has appeared in Bond Films and perhaps more famously the Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy. In this story he played Henry which was perhaps too small a character for such a big name.
As a release this story was very good. I think that The Death Collectors was the better of the two stories and suited the three episode format very well. On the other hand Spiders Shadow was a poorer effort which perhaps would have been better had it been a longer episode. But as I have said before 25 minutes is not long enough for a story, especially one as complex as Spiders Shadow.
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