Trouble in Paradise (2013)

The latest Destiny release sees Nicola Bryant play Peri and it’s the introduction of another historical character. This story was written by Nev Fountain who is Mr Nicola Bryant and also the author ‘Peri and the Piscon Paradox’ which won the Toms Tardis Award for Best Companion Chronicle and was the best story from the series that year. So I was quite looking forward to this story knowing that there would be a nice balance between humour and drama.

The inclusion of the 11th Doctor usually comes quite late into the story but here its done quite early. It surprised me but actually when you listen to the story you understand why because it was the only place that it could have been placed. I thought it was a funny moment when the 11th Doctor loves the 6th Doctor’s coat. The 11th Doctor wants the 6th Doctor to get a Omni-Paradox. The Doctor has a Sat-Nav which is voiced by Davros. The idea is a wacky one but seems to work because it came from the mind of Nev Fountain.

It seems like their mission is going to be completed by as with these things they never go quite as smoothly as they could and they are soon captured. Admiral Christopher Columbus is the historical figure that features in this story and for one thing I didn’t know he was an Admiral. Never in the history lessons I had at school did I hear what rank he had. If I did then I must have forgotten it but it was something that intrigued me straight away. Cameron Stewart is the person responsible for bringing the discoverer alive and despite the quite horrible way that he treats the people under him the way that Stewart performs in this story I cant quite find the ability to dislike him. We get a bit of moral history from Peri as she isn’t bowled over by encountering Columbus which annoyed the Doctor. Nicola Bryant gets the chance to give the sort of performance that you wish she would have been allowed to give on TV. Peri gives us an alternative history of Columbus which was quite unexpected. Even after learning all of this I could find myself disliking him because Stewart was so good.

There is a moment when the Doctor doesn’t treat someone with TB is one that on the face of it is perfectly reasonable but there is an argument as to whether one person treated would make that much of a difference but that’s never talked about a Peri is angry with the Doctor and comes up with the idea that if it were Columbus with TB then he would do what he could. It leads to Peri fleeing the Doctor in tears and then it appears that Peri has gone overboard. Now, I always have an issue when the Doctor or a companion is ‘dead’ because I would say a good 90% of the people listening would know that this isn’t the case and something else has happened.

As it was Peri washed up on land and she quickly encounters some locals and what makes them different is some technologies on their spears. Her experiences from this point on are the most entertaining out of the two and I thought that Nicola Bryant did a wonderful job in this story though I thought that only Nev Fountain would be allowed to get away with heifer jokes. Peri encounters a Space Buffalo which at first was thought of as the Devil which isn’t something that I was expecting when I started to listen to this story. We learn that he is the leader of a herd and wants Columbus to discover

Columbus goes from being a nice chap with a posh voice to being someone who turns on the Doctor wanting the Doctor to take him and his men off the ship. The Omni-Paradox is quite integral to the story and its disappearance is causing the Doctor some concern and out of nowhere there is a time that the Doctor tells us he has to find it. This along with Columbus’ demand helps to create a fun second half to the story.

I liked this story as it felt different from any of the stories that we have had in this series which is quite an achievement. I thought that the narration of Columbus was a nice thing to include as it broke up the story a little bit and it was very much like in ‘Marco Polo’ when said character narrates and it helps sees things from his perspective.

If I had an issue with this story then I feel that its slightly too long. It could have lost about 10-15 minutes and would have been even better. That said I thought that it was an enjoyable story with a good setting and some quite funny lines. Especially with the idea that the Doctor got a goat to replace Peri as he thought she had died. It’s a good story and also another solid offering from Nev Fountain.

Peri and the Piscon Paradox (2011)

2011 TOMS TARDIS AWARD WINNER

• Best Companion Chronicle

The first release of 2011 is a special one because it features Peri and two Doctors. The story is written by Nev Fountain who is Mr Nicola Bryant. I’ve never been a massive fan of Nev Fountain’s writing as his two previous contributions to Doctor Who (Omega in 2003 and The Kingmaker in 2006) were not the best of adventures. None the less I listened to this with an open mind. The story is basically split into two parts with the first half of the story being told with the Fifth Doctor involved and a younger Peri and then the story shifts to an older Peri with the Sixth Doctor. Colin Baker is the ‘guest star’ in this release as the Sixth Doctor.

The first part of this story has quite a lot of humour, which normally would be an issue for me but in this story I thought it was well placed. I actually like how Nicola Bryant said as Peri that she wasn’t going to do an impression of the Fifth Doctor which and there were several instances. The story sees a chain of events which we see the other side of in the latter half with the Sixth Doctor. The events of the second half see the Sixth Doctor trying to put things right and this is where some of the humour subsides and is replaced by heartbreaking drama. The story mentions a guy that Peri was going to settle down with and he’s portrayed as this nice guy but we learn from the ‘older’ Peri that he’s a bit of a b*****d as she has been involved in some domestic violence which due to Nicola Bryant’s superb performance make’s it even more heart breaking.

Colin Baker is in the unusual position of being the supporting cast member. Probably not since Zagreus nearly 10 years ago has he not being one of the main characters. If I had to pick a fault with this story and this is nit-picking of the highest order here, then it would be weather Baker was needed. That said I suppose that his involvement was needed at the very end when Peri’s story was revealed. Nicola Bryant puts in one of her best performances for quite sometime. It’s not to say that she doesn’t give great performances but this is the first time where she takes centre stage and she shines with some very funny dialogue.

For a long time in this story I wanted the explanation that I had heard this story was going to give about what really happened to Peri at the end of Trial. It was saved to the very last possible moment where it’s explained that people involved in trying to set the Doctor up were planning to assinate Peri. When the new President read over what had happened they thought living with the King was a fate worse than fate worse than death (another funny line). So they decided to do a Jamie and Zoe and wipe her memory and dump her back on Earth. This explanation might seem unoriginal but was handled very well and was a satisfying end to the production. The final few lines were really nice and it was the name of Peri’s show Worrier Queen (as opposed to Warrior Queen). A nice tie in.

PATPP is a highly enjoyable adventure. It’s brilliantly written, superbly acted and everything about it worked. The rest of the Companion Chronicles will have to work hard to beat this because in my mind it’s a very early contender for Best Companion Chronicle at this years Toms Tardis Awards.

Omega (2003)

This release marks the first of the Baddies Trilogy to lead us into Zagreus the 50th Big Finish release and the 40th Anniversary of Doctor Who in November. Omega has appeared twice in Doctor Who before. First was back in 1973 for the 10th Anniversary story The Three Doctors and the next time was 10 years later in Arc of Infinity. I have a slight problem with the character of Omega and that is I don’t really think he is as important as other people make out.

Bearing my opinions of Omega in mind I ploughed on with this story which is more of a character piece than about any invasion plot or something. This story is set almost immediately after the events of Arc of Infinity and ‘Omega’ explores what happened after Omega had left Earth in a copy of the Doctor’s body. What we get is an insight into the life of Omega. We get to learn about the young Omega and his experiments of time travel. There was a genuine shock at the end of Part three when we learn that the character that we thought of as the Doctor was infact Omega. Genuinely had to pick my jaw up off the floor.

Its refreshing to have a Fifth Doctor adventure without a companion, in fact I think you have to go back to The Sirens of Time to have a companionless Fifth Doctor story. I think that Davison benefits from such a change of circumstances. In effect though Ian Collier is Davison’s companion. Collier played Omega in 1983 and his voice is absolutely perfect for radio. The scenes that the two have together are brilliant to listen to and its hard not to compare them to Arc of Infinity. Caroline Munro was another good piece of casting as Senita and helps add something to the story.

Nev Fountain has done a great job with this story. I came out of listening to Omega having a different opinion than when I started to it. As Fountain has written for the BBC Comedy show Dead Ringers there are moments of comedy in it but they are few and far between. Despite my enjoyment of this story it is followed by Davros and Master and fear that this one will fall third in terms of enjoyment. That said this story still has a lot going for it.

The Kingmaker (2006)

The Kingmaker is the second story that came from Nev Fountain. Many fans of this range will remember that he wrote the 2003 story ‘Omega’. This story also features Peter Davison as the Fifth Doctor except this time he’s with his two ‘regular’ companions of Peri and Erimem. This is the fifth time that this combination has been used (not including The Eye of the Scorpion where Erimem wasn’t a companion). This story is quite a bizarre story that has several interesting elements but also has several flaws.

The first thing that I liked about this story is that the setting. Set in the fifteen century I like it when a story goes back into that time era. Stories like The Marian Conspiracy and The Time of the Daleks have used their settings to push a story along and with the Kingmaker the setting is not really the pushing force of this story because the basic traits of it could be used in any time zone really. Another thing that I liked in this story is the relationship between Peri and Erimem. With this being their fifth story together their relationship is taking on that of sisters. They look out for each other in this story and it was nice at time when Erimem got annoyed with Peri and vice versa. The scene where the robot appears in the TARDIS and is talking to the Doctor was a nice comedy moment which wasn’t too annoying and didn’t detract from the scene.

Other things I liked was the addition of Jon Culshaw who is known in this country as the best impressionist of Tom Baker. Arthur Smith was also a good addition to the story as his character was well written and wasn’t too serious but at the same time not too comedic. There were negative things about this story. For one I thought that the plot was a bit difficult to understand at times. At times I thought I understood this story but then all of a sudden it just shifted gear. Also I thought that the cliffhangers were not very good. They just didn’t feel like cliffhangers. To me, cliffhangers should make you stop and think ‘wow, whats gonna happen next’ but instead with this story you were left thinking ‘oh ok’. Also Peter Davison seemed to put in a background performance, not totally in the background of all the action but didn’t really take charge like he should have done and the way it was written. I cant figure out whether it was the setting of the story or the situation but Davison just didn’t seem on form in this story. Overall this isn’t a really bad story but just a mediocre one and one that could have been better had it perhaps been set in another time.