January 14, 2010

Primeval (2001)

I have to say right now that I loved Primeval. It pushes Nyssa to the centre of the story and as this character is one of my favourites. It also sees the Doctor taking Nyssa back to Traken obviously some time before it was destroyed in Logopolis. Now the thing about Nyssa was that her potential was never met. She got trapped in the three companion system and only got her breath of fresh air in Arc of Infinity.

Nyssa’s life is in peril and according to the blurb on the back of the CD will die at dawn. This is due to her exposed to too much evil. However despite this fact it has very little to do with the actual story itself. The story is actually about Kwandaar Rebels who are trying to take control of the source. They may be Nyssa’s only hope of survival. The Traken is not the one that we saw in The Keeper of Traken but its actually quite darker. Almost like it was made for the new series. In fact there are several references to older TV stories but not to obvious to make the listener loose track of what is going on.

Peter Davison is very good in this story. There is genuine desire to try and get things going quickly enough to try and help his friend. I cant think off too many time when Davison’s Doctor is put in this kind of situation. Sarah Sutton is brilliant and gives the best performance for Big Finish. I think that this combination should have been given longer on TV. Its just as good if not better than the Third Doctor and Liz Shaw.

When I finished listening to this story I found myself loving it. Lance Parkin has written a story that is highly enjoyable. The characters were all really good and the pace of it wasn’t too fast but just right considering the plot. A story that should be listened to on a nice slow Sunday afternoon.

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