March 25, 2012

Wirrn Isle (2012)

I'm sad to say that we have come to the final story of the Sixth/Flip trilogy. I have grown to like the character despite how every fibre of my being should want to dislike the character. We have the return of the Wirrn who first appeared in The Ark in Space in 1975 and surprisingly made a return in 2009 to go up against the Eighth Doctor. In the interviews, Nicholas Briggs recalls how Jason Haigh-Ellery was surprised that Wirrn Dawn was the one of the best selling stories of that series and so what is surprising isnt that this was the case but that its taken three years for them to return. Written by William Gallagher who had penned Doing Time which was one was of four stories to form the release 'The Demons of Red Lodge and Other Stories' from 2010 and was given the idea of bringing back the Wirrn. The story is set on Earth in 16,127 where we meet the descendants of the Nerva Beacon (two Nerva related stories in the space of three months - note). There is a family that have suffered a tragedy years before but are trying to get on with their lives.

The story does have a link to ‘The Ark in Space’ and it seems that after the Fourth Doctor helped the in habitants of the Beacon they returned to Earth but things aren’t as straight forward as they had hoped. Along with the humans, it seems the Wirrn have also beamed down and have set themselves beneath the Ice in Scotland. The thing about the Wirrn is that they are a visual creation and so there has to be something about their voices which makes them a credible threat. There also has to be an emotional link to one or more of the characters that we meet and in Wirrn Isle that is done because one of the Wirrn is the son that the family we meet lost. I quite liked the idea of their been a lake full of Wirrn and think it would be realised well on TV.

Lisa Greenwood is very good in this story and has continued her strong performances from the other two. This is her best performance to date because she has to go through so much in the space of four episodes. At times I think she outshines Colin Baker which is a very rare thing to do. Speaking of Baker I thought that he has had a better run of stories this year than the Thomas Brewster series. Baker revels in this story. They have a very good chemistry which has the potential to be up there with Six/Evelyn. The ‘big’ name in this release is Dan Starkey who has clocked up a number of Doctor Who appearances over the last coupld of years most notably as a Sontaran. I also quite liked Tessa Nicholson who plays Toasty Buchman, I thought that she was a very good character and Nicholson played her very well. She was like a younger version and possibly more innocent version of Flip.

I quite like Wirrn Isle. It feels more like a classic Doctor Who adventure and ends the series on a very high note. Had this been any other series then this would be a stand out story however due to The Curse of Davros and The Fourth Wall it doesn’t quite become the best however it is still one that could be listened to on its own and still be enjoyed

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