Love and War is the second of the
special release Bundle and I have just listened to UNIT: Dominion so Love and
War always had a tough job to try and top that. This story was what set up the
character way back in 1992 and so in its 20th year, Big Finish have
decided that this is the story they would use to celebrate this milestone. This
story was originally a novel by Paul Cornell for the Virgin New Adventures
range and I must say that despite knowing of the range, I have never read a
single book so whilst some people may be able to spot the differences between
the audio and novel versions. I can only go on what is presented in this 2 and
a half hour story. Adapted by Jacqueline Rayner, the story sees the Doctor and
Ace arrive on the planet Heaven. The story starts off with an eight minute
prelude which I thought was quite an odd thing to do but it’s an interesting
eight minutes. The reason why the Doctor wants to go to Heaven is quite a
boring reason but it’s clear that the Doctor is up to something and it’s not
long before the adventure kicks into top gear.
There are many things to like
about Love and War. The main thing for me is that it’s the prelude to the two
main range adventures ‘The Shadow of the Scourge’ (2000) and ‘The Dark Flame’
(2003). It was always interesting to find out just how Bernice ended up joining
the Doctor and it’s a relief that this has finally being done and that’s another
thing off my wish list of things I would like to hear in Big Finish. Having
being quite late to the Bernice stories having only listened to the first
series of Big Finish adventures, I found the Bernice that we got in this story
to be pretty much the same one as we heard in ‘Oh No It Isn’t’ (1998), it’s
quite impressive from both a literary perspective and an acting perspective
that there is a nice continuity over nearly a decade and a half. Something that
I don’t think has been looked at (not before series two anyway) is what made
Bernice the person we hear in these plays and it’s involves Daleks which is a
nice way to make the Doctor sympathise with her in a way that is different from
the norm. Lisa Bowerman is very good in this play and despite this being a
celebration of the character of Bernice Summerfield, she doesn’t take centre
stage and Lisa plays the character in just the right way with the right amount
of humour and determination that we have come to expect.
The Love aspect of the story
centres around Ace. Now I’m not normally a fan of romance in Doctor Who when it
involves the regulars because to me it gets in the way of the action and it
normally goes into sickly sweet territory and totally ruins and tension or
drama that was going on. Certainly there were moments when it looked like it
was going to get a bit sickly sweet but credit to Jacqueline Rayner who has
written a very solid script and managed to keep the Ace/Jan romance going just
right. Sophie Aldred gets to play the angry Ace in possibly some of the most
dramatic scenes that Ace has been in for quite some time. Her anger at the
monsters and at the Doctor seemed to be in equal measure. It was hinted at
early on that Ace would leave the Doctor but it was obvious that this wasn’t going
to be the case and that made the ending even more effective. James Redmond
played the love interest and to be honest I think at times the sort of lack of
anger/fight in the character did become a problem but after the story had
finished I thought that it kind of complimented Ace.
Sylvester McCoy was brilliant in
this. His Doctor is renowned for being a manipulative Doctor and there are
several scenes which are brilliant and wouldn’t have been as effective had it
not being Sylvester McCoy in the role. The Doctor has always played his
companions as puppets and in several stories in the last couple of years in the
main range this has been addressed but in this story it seemed like the Doctor
had to take a long hard look at his actions and McCoy is brilliant at being
sombre and deep in thought.
If I had to pick a fault it is
that I found the monster threat to be a bit underwhelming. They sounded great
and certainly grabbed my attention in their scenes but I would be lying if I said
that they an effective menace. Also the cliffhanger was a bit of a
disappointment because it went from romance to drama with no real sense of a build-up.
Apart from that Love and War is a very
enjoyable release. It’s not up there with UNIT: Dominion but there is plenty to
enjoy and at £12.99 for a download and £14.99 for a CD it’s certainly value for
money and a story that is going to be like a fine wine, it’ll get better with
age.
On a final note, my favourite
line was from Bernice when she said “This is the last thing a Donought sees”
That did make me chuckle.
Rating - 7.5/10
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