October 08, 2009

Colditz (2001)

Colditz is a very strange story. Which isn’t such a big shock considering Sylvester McCoy’s Doctor revels in strange plots and weird stories. Having already done a Second World War story before with Curse of Fenric (1989) it was going to take something pretty big to make different to make this story work. Another reason is that Dust Breeding was such a strong story for the Seventh Doctor.

The two main guest characters of Klein and Feldwebel Kurtz as played by Tracey Childs and David Tennant respectively. I found both characters to be utterly bad and not likeable (as you would expect from Nazi soldiers). In particular it was Childs’ performance that I found the stronger of the two. It was of course the two main stars that stole the show. Sylvester McCoy had some wonderful scenes and it’s such a shame that he never got the chance to do this sort of story when he was on TV. Sophie Aldred seems to be at a turning point in her life. From now on she wants to be called Dorothy McShane. It’s a moment that shows how far she has come from her first story in Dragonfire (1987).

I did find the story to be quite difficult to follow towards the end which is a shame because three quarters of the story was enjoyable stuff. I think when there is a shift is whats going and it happens this late on in the story then it causes problems. It made it slightly easier to sit through cause it was Klein and the Doctor and those two really worked well against each other.

This story is a good story. There are elements that need to be listened to again to be fully understood but everything is there to have a good story. Again I was particularly impressed with Sylvester McCoy and Sophie Aldred who showed their wonderfully close relationship for everyone to enjoy. The Big Finish stories for the Seventh Doctor have certainly been the highlight so far and here’s hoping that it continues.

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