Best Main Range Story
Best Main Range Writer - Barnaby Edwards
Best Main Range Director - Barnaby Edwards
Best Main Range Music & Sound Design - Howard Carter
It’s hard to believe that this is the third series to feature the trio of Nyssa Tegan and Turlough. This trio has been the best for the last couple of years and in fact won the Best Series award in 2010. After a long time of waiting for Tegan to return in a full series of adventures, it’s nice to say that that wait has been worth it. The third series kicks off with The Emerald Tiger written by award winning writer and director Barnaby Edwards. It’s true to say when you know a story is written by a certain person you sort of know what to expect. This rule applies to Nicholas Briggs, Marc Platt, Alan Barnes and also Barnaby Edwards. Set in India in 1926, the story seems to have a start which owes something to ‘Black Orchid’ (1982) where in that story the Doctor, Nyssa, Tegan and Adric arrive at a train station and stumble across a cricket match. In this instance, they are there for a cricket match and before we know our LBW from our elbow the story moves onto a train where there is the for mentioned Emerald Tiger.
On the train we meet two people
who have completely different stories. Firstly there is Lady Adela Forster
(Cherie Lunghi) who has hired the train to go to a cave to blow up an entrance.
Then there is Major Cyril Haggard (Neil Stacy) who is running away from the
police after commiting a crime. It isn’t long before their seemingly random
paths cross and it helps the early stages of this story move along until the
second part of the story. It’s quite good set-up for the main part of the story
which is done very well.
The final episode was different
from what I was expecting. It seemed that we were going to get a reprise from
part three but it starts off with Tegan who we haven’t heard from for a while
and after a minute or so I thought that this was a great idea that this was
going to be Tegan’s episode but after a couple of minutes it went back to being
a normal episode which I was slightly disappointed with but the rest of the
episode made up for it. Normally, I get annoyed when writers ‘kill’ off one or
more of the companions because I think that it’s the stupidest thing to do
because we know they make it and the idea that we are supposed to suspend our
disbelief is pointless. However when it’s done right then it’s done well and
what Barnaby Edwards does is use it help create some tension between the Doctor
and Turlough and it also acted as an incentive to try and rescue Nyssa. So in
this instant I found the idea of ‘killing off’ a companion a good one but it isn’t
one that should be returned to in the near future.
The performances in this are very
good indeed. I thought that Cherie Lunghi was very good because she started off
as this quite stuck up and unlikeable character but as the plot moves on she
becomes someone who has suffered tragedy and we understand why she is as she
comes across. I liked how her character exited. It must have been tempting to
kill off the character in some sort of self-sacrifice to save her newly
discovered son but thankfully they decide to live in the jungle. I also liked
Neil Stacey who played Haggard because he was sort of the person we love to
hate and he pulled that off very well.
The Emerald Tiger is another good
story from Barnaby Edwards. I thought that the story was plotted very well and
it knew what it wanted to be and kept its eye on the prize and as a result its
possibly one of my favourite stories of 2012 so far. The third series of
Nyssa/Tegan/Turlough has kicked off in fine style and I’m looking forward to
what the next two stories have in store. Good stuff.
RATING: 8/10
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