So
it comes down to this. The seventh Doctor series comes to a close with Gods and
Monsters which sees the return of Fenric who the Doctor had encountered in
1989. Big Finish have a good track record when it comes to bringing back
monsters who appeared in Doctor Who once. They did it with the Spiders from
Planet of the Spiders, the Zygons in Terror of the Zygons just two that I could
mention. This story has a lot to live up to and not just because it’s the final
story of the series but because of the links to stories going back as far as
2009. This isn’t a story that you could just dive into because you would need
to start really with Toms Tardis Award winner The Magic Mousetrap. With this
story having so much to live up to it has taken two people to write this adventure. As Alan Barnes and Mike Maddox work hard to
tie up all the loose ends, the story is a fairly complex one (which I
expected). The setting jumps from different location to different location and
it all seems to be part of Fenric’s game with the Doctor but it is only quite
late on that we discover that the game isn’t Fenric vs. the Doctor but Fenric
vs. Weyland. I personally found this a slight disappointment as it kind of goes
against what happened in ‘The Curse of Fenric’ but one thing about this story
is that there isn’t any time to ponder on these thing as it moves so quickly.
The ending of Gods and Monsters came totally out of the blue and what made it
even more shocking was Ace’s reaction which used the underlying chemistry
between Ace and Hex to excellent effect.
All
the performances in this story were solid and they rose to the occasion. This
is Sylvester McCoys best story purely because it’s the most that we have heard
from him this year. Every scene he was in was fun to listen the dialogue he was
given was great. McCoy is at this best when he has someone like Fenric to be
against because the Doctor has to really test his nerve and intelligence.
Sophie Aldred put in another great performance where I one scene we discover
that Ray from Delta and the Bannermen could have been a companion instead of
Ace. Aldred was quite involved in The Curse of Fenric so it was always going to
be the case that Ace was going to be used in the way she was here. Philip Olivier
seemed to be the one that got the short straw as he was treated like the small
child that the big brother or sister has been asked to babysit. It was only in
part four that he really got to get stuck into the meaty part of the story. Due
to the plot, this allows Olivier to give his best performance in quite some
time. As the other ‘companions’, Maggie O’Neill and Amy Pemberton give very
strong performances. Despite being part of a very crowded TARDIS crew, both
managed to show that they weren’t making up the numbers and made the characters
seem just as important as Ace and Hex and despite the relatively limited time
that they have been part of the Doctor Who world is quite an achievement.
Hopefully it won’t be too long before they return.
Gods
and Monsters is everything that it should have been and it was a relief because
there was a big chance that it could have totally blown it. I still maintain
that Protect and Survive is the best story of the series but that doesn’t mean
that G&M doesn’t have its own merits. This was the sort of story that you would
expect from Alan Barnes but I get the feeling that Mike Maddox might have
helped make it more understandable. The final scene with Hex hints that he may
return and if that’s the case then it will make the next Seventh Doctor
adventure something to look forward to.
Rating - 7/10
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