Hexagora (2011)

After being impressed with The Elite, I went straight into Hexagora. This was written by Paul Finch who wrote another Lost Story ‘Leviathan’ in 2009 and he also wrote the less than impressive ‘Sentinels of the New Dawn’ but I have to approach this with an open mind. The idea for the story came from Peter Ling who’s previous Doctor Who contribution was ‘The Mind Robber’ (1968) which is a funny (not funny ha ha) story. Like ‘Kiss of Death’, this story sees one of the companions emotional state examined. This time it is Tegan who shows us her caring side when the TARDIS crew end up on the planet Luparis which has an uncanny resemblance to Tudor London. We learn that there are scuttling creatures that are actually the human minds that have been abducted including that of Mike Bretherton.

The sub-plot seems to be between the Doctor and Queen Zafira where for the second time, the Doctor finds himself engaged. However unlike ‘The Aztecs’ (1964), the Doctor has to but the problem was that I found the Tegan/Mike stuff more interesting than what was going on with Queen Zafira. The whole story is a simple alien invasion plot but the problem is that despite everything I just think that it lacked that killer punch that there was in ‘The Elite’. There was a revelation of sorts in this story when we find out what happened to Mike after he was abducted but even that wasn’t really a massive shock for me. In ‘The Elite’ I kind of knew what was coming but when it was revealed I was still enjoying it but that didn’t happen two stories in a row.

I am very impressed with the casting of this story and felt like it should have been reserved for a main range release. Jacqueline Pearce returns to Big Finish after 11 years as the formentioned Queen Zafira. I thought that character was well played by Pearce and quite frankly made the character far more interesting than anybody could have made it. It should be made a law that Toby Hadoke appears in every story because despite his limited involvement in the story (playing a bug cant be the greatest role ever), Hadoke is very entertaining and manages to do a pretty good Australian accent. Richard Mark and Dan Starkey were both strong in different ways as Lord Jezzavar and Lord Zellenger respectively and Sean Brosnan is quite entertaining as Astrorius.

The regular cast are all very good as usual but Janet Fielding is actually the best of the regulars because she has the emotional stuff and she is the one that drives the story at the beginning. Sarah Sutton does her best but she does do the supporting role in this story but its always good to have Sutton in a story. Peter Davison has some good scenes with Queen Zafira. But ultimately he doesn’t get to be a Doctor-like as he was in ‘The Elite’.

Whilst I didn’t dislike this story, I didn’t find it as good as ‘The Elite’. I also thought that it was odd that the insect Mike was the only one that managed to retain its human emotions is a tad bit convenient and ruins the sadness we are suppose to feel about humans being turned into insects. The final scene also feels a tad bit botched. There is a line where Mike says he will have the barby on in ten minutes that I found totally silly because this was the final scene between Mike and Tegan and considering Mike has feelings for Tegan it seems an odd line to make someone say. I think that apart from solving the mystery of Tegan’s friend there wasn’t a lot going on and that is ultimatley why I was disappointed with Hexagora. The characters and setting worked but the writing was slightly underwhelming. Ok but nothing more.

The Mind Robber (1968)

The Mind Robber is a strange story in more ways than one. It uses a lot of characters from stories and fables and what appears to be normal isn’t. The story was actually only meant to be four episodes however due to problems with the previous story ‘The Dominators’ that story was made one episode shorter and a new Episode 1 was required. However with no money for extra sets or characters it was just the main cast, the TARDIS console set and a white cyclorama that was used.

I like episodes that are just set in the TARDIS. It gives a claustrophobic feeling that is very refreshing. That’s one of the reasons why I love ‘Inside the Spaceship’ so much. Like that story there is an unseen threat to the TARDIS crew which sees Jamie seeing his home town in Scotland and Zoe’s home town in some space-age town. Both wanted to get out of the TARDIS and they soon realise that it’s a trick. Due to the fact that there are only the three characters it means there’s a lot more time for them to interact and this is intriguing to me.

This story features the Master but not the one that we all know and love. He turns out to be controlling the controller but all we see of it is a big ball with some cobwebs in it. The Master was bought to the Land of Fiction though he doesn’t class himself as a prisoner. He loves writing but is wired to a machine and it is the machine that wants the Doctor to replace the Master due his age. The Master starts off as a nice bumbling author who is as sweet as pie but when the Doctor refuses to take over from him he shows his nastier side. The plan is that the Master/Controller is going to take all the people on Earth and use their imaginations for his purpose. With the Earth empty, the Master can create his own world with his own characters. As plans go its quite out there. But then what in Doctor Who isn’t.

There’s a nice battle of words between the Master and the Doctor with the threats and dangers getting more extreme each time. It was nice to begin with but ultimately got silly as time went on. I found the idea that there was that the actions of the Doctor, Jamie and Zoe were being read out via a machine and the Master.

This story is also notable for the fact that for one episode, Frazer Hines got replaced by Hamish Wilson due to Hines having Chicken Pox. To be Wilson he did a competent job, he wasn’t on par with Hines but then that like getting another actor to pretend to be Patrick Troughton. They’ll do a decent job but it just won’t work. When Hines was in it he was his usual likeable self. Wendy Padbury was also on good form but I did find it disconcerting that she kept screaming. For some reason I think that smart academic women like Zoe or Liz Shaw shouldn’t scream. It just doesn’t seem natural. Patrick Troughton was on usual good form and at this time of his run as the Doctor he was seemed to be getting slightly tired of these sorts of stories.

The main problem that there is with this story is that it’s just dull. There’s no immediate threat for the Doctor, Jamie and Zoe. It was quite late in the story before the Doctor meets the master. I think that this should have happened quite a lot earlier in the story. Also I found the actors playing some of the literature characters to be a bit below par. Especially Christine Pirie who played Princess Rapunzel. She seemed wooden to me and I didn’t care for the character. I also can’t understand why they bothered to bring in Karkus. The actor playing Karkus (Christopher Robbie) wasn’t a muscular as he should have been and the scene with Karkus battling Zoe was just embarrassing and shouldn’t have been committed to film. The only character that I thought worked was Gulliver as played by Bernard Horsfall who is always a reliable actor.

The Mind Robber isn’t a bad story just dull. Peter Ling did a credible job writing this story but just put too many characters in it. Worth a viewing but don’t expect too much from it.