Threshold (2012)

Counter Measures is the latest spin off release from Big Finish. I must admit that whilst I know that there were people saying that they wished Jago and Litefoot had got their own series, I cant say that I have ever heard people say the same for Group Captain Gilmore, Rachel Jensen and Allison Williams. When this originally came out I decided against it however as I had heard some good things about this I thought that I would take the plunge and give it a go. Besides, if anyone was going to make this work then it was going to be Big Finish. Gilmore, Jensen and Williams were all in the 1988 Seventh Doctor adventure ‘Remembrance of the Daleks’. The name Counter Measures is the name of the group that Williams and Gilmore work for and Jensen is working elsewhere.

The first story sees an ex-Nazi scientist Professor Heinrich Schumann (Vernon Dobtcheff) dabbling with teleportation and getting some less than desirable results. The story is a very atmospheric piece that had a mystery to solve and that mystery was just who or what was causing the child voices. It was kept a mystery for just the right amount of time before it was revealed and the story could conclude in an enjoyable manner.

Rachel isn’t with Counter Measures but it doesn’t take long before she’s involved in the organisation and it was quite good that it wasn’t really made an issue of. She was staying with Allison whilst taking a forced holiday and then next thing we know she’s rolling her sleeves up and getting her hands dirty. I like the scene where she was trying to prove what caused the eerie child voices and thought that this was quite fitting for the character.

All the central performances were sound with Pamela Salem standing out for me as the best of the three. Simon Williams does sound different from the Gilmore we saw in 1988 but to be honest its not that different and I still bought that it was Gilmore. I was expecting that Gilmore would have some conflict to do with the military but that may come later. Karen Gledhill sounded just like Allison did in 1988 and I thought that out of the three it was the character of Allison came out best. I think that Hugh Ross deserves a mention as Sir Toby Kinsella. There is something iffy about the character which I suspect will be revealed at a later date but I thought that Ross was delightful as Kinsella. Vernon Dobtcheff was a good piece of casting as the mad professor. I like the professor because he had a horrible past but was trying to do something good and got into trouble. The scenes with Dobtcheff were very interesting.

One thing that people have commented on about Threshold and the series in general is the feel of the story is like a 1960’s ITC adventure. This is apparent from the style of the story and also the music that is used. It’s not like the more modern style that we would get in a Doctor Who story or even in Jago and Litefoot. Certainly the final scene where Rachel Jensen joins Counter Measures did seem to have the sort of feel that you would get in a 1960’s drama.

I must admit that whilst I wasn’t 100% bowled over with Threshold, there were things that I liked about this and have cause to be optimistic about this series. Like I said at the beginning, if anyone was going to make this work then it was going to be Big Finish. I thought that Paul Finch’s script managed to capture the feeling of the period that it was set without feeling like it was dated. He’s managed to flesh out the characters and it’ll be interesting to see what future stories will contain for these characters.

Rating – 7/10