The Beautiful People is the final story of what has been a very interesting series. This story sees the second incarnation of Romana played by Lalla Ward. Ward appeared in the show in The Armageddon Factor at the end of the 1978/79 series playing Princess Astra. She would play Romana proper in Destiny of the Daleks and would stay until Warriors Gaet in Tom Baker’s final season in 1980. I liked the second incarnation of Romana because unlike Mary Tamm’s version, this Romana wasn’t snobbish and didn’t think that she was smarter and better than the Doctor and everyone else. Of course she knew she was smart but Ward’s Romana didn’t ram it down anyone’s throat.
The thing that strikes me about this story is that it seems to be have devised by the thin brigade who laugh at anyone who is fat and mocks them for their unwillingness to do any exercise. Its not quite as serious as the previous stories in the series and shows that it isn’t taking itself too seriously. From the opening line where the Doctor is disgruntled at the lack of Doughnuts around we know that this is a story that would be ideal for the 4th Doctor. The Cliffhanger is a good one in this story. The music and Karna help create a little bit of action and the cliffhanger is quite good considering how difficult they can be in these sorts of stories.
Lalla Ward is very good in this story. She doesn’t sound that much older than when she was in the show but she still sounds like Romana and that is what is most important about these Companion Chronicles. Whilst Ward may not do a good job in impersonating Tom Baker she does do a good job doing a voice for the character of Sebella Bing. Just that voice alone creates an atmosphere of a sort of Health Spa. Ward tells the story in a entertaining way and always puts in a pleasing performance throughout. The only other star of this story was Marcia Ashton who plays Karna. She has some really good speeches and makes the character worthy of being in the story. I think that it’s a good thing that Karna was so unlikeable because that gave Ward the chance to play Romana as someone who had an enemy to battle against.
Jonathan Morris has written a good story and a fitting end to the series. There is a good base for a story along with some interesting characters. He has managed to set the stall of this story out quite quickly. He doesn’t make the listener try and wonder what type of story that we are going to get. Mark J Thompson has done another good job with this story. It was going to be difficult to do a story that was as good as The Blue Tooth but to be fair to him over the last four releases he has had to deal with different types of stories and has managed to deal with them some success.
Overall this is an enjoyable release which isn’t the best of the series but is still an enjoyable one that has a good cast and an interesting story setting. Well worth a listen.
The thing that strikes me about this story is that it seems to be have devised by the thin brigade who laugh at anyone who is fat and mocks them for their unwillingness to do any exercise. Its not quite as serious as the previous stories in the series and shows that it isn’t taking itself too seriously. From the opening line where the Doctor is disgruntled at the lack of Doughnuts around we know that this is a story that would be ideal for the 4th Doctor. The Cliffhanger is a good one in this story. The music and Karna help create a little bit of action and the cliffhanger is quite good considering how difficult they can be in these sorts of stories.
Lalla Ward is very good in this story. She doesn’t sound that much older than when she was in the show but she still sounds like Romana and that is what is most important about these Companion Chronicles. Whilst Ward may not do a good job in impersonating Tom Baker she does do a good job doing a voice for the character of Sebella Bing. Just that voice alone creates an atmosphere of a sort of Health Spa. Ward tells the story in a entertaining way and always puts in a pleasing performance throughout. The only other star of this story was Marcia Ashton who plays Karna. She has some really good speeches and makes the character worthy of being in the story. I think that it’s a good thing that Karna was so unlikeable because that gave Ward the chance to play Romana as someone who had an enemy to battle against.
Jonathan Morris has written a good story and a fitting end to the series. There is a good base for a story along with some interesting characters. He has managed to set the stall of this story out quite quickly. He doesn’t make the listener try and wonder what type of story that we are going to get. Mark J Thompson has done another good job with this story. It was going to be difficult to do a story that was as good as The Blue Tooth but to be fair to him over the last four releases he has had to deal with different types of stories and has managed to deal with them some success.
Overall this is an enjoyable release which isn’t the best of the series but is still an enjoyable one that has a good cast and an interesting story setting. Well worth a listen.
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