1001 Nights (2012)

Toms Tardis Award Winner - Best Main Range Cover Design

1001 Nights is the last story from the main range release of 2012. The four single episodes is something that Big Finish have done for the last couple of year with Company of Friends (2009), The Demons of Red Lodge and Other Stories (2010) and Recorded Time and Other Stories (2011). From the cover (designed by Alex Mallinson), the story has an Arabian nights feel to it and it aso have a different feel to previous stories whereas the stories had all been self-contained with not real link, this has a story and short stories in the middle. Also unlike previous stories there is no specific story title with an author attributed to it. No such thing happens here. The story sees the Doctor and Nyssa trying to find a beacon to stop a threat from arriving. Instead of letting the Doctor and Nyssa find it, the Sultan wants Nyssa to tell him stories. The title comes up quite quickly as we are told that someone had to tell 1001 stories to keep someone alive, so Nyssa has to do the same to get the Doctor out.

The first story sees the Doctor and Nyssa arrive where someone is being kept prisoner. He appears to be the only prisoner and there is only one guard. There is a force field protecting the prisoner and at first he seems to be someone quite dangerous but that is short lived when the prisoner says that the jailer is the dangerous one. The prisoner is a Myaxa and is being tortured to confess for something he doesn’t know what he’s done. In a clever twist, the prisoner and the jailer are the same person. The story has a fairly snappy end to it with both the prisoner and jailer being zapped but it doesn’t end glumly. There was a nice ending where the Myaxa (now as one) is left in the force field until its turned off. I quite enjoyed this story, it was short but had a steady and rapid build up to a nice and satisfying conclusion.

The second story is set in Norwood in the 19^th Century where Nyssa is being possessed. It’s basically The Excorist but in the Doctor Who world without any of the gore and horror. It turns out that the thing that is possessing Nyssa is a Crypto Conscious Virus called The interplanterian (not sure of spelling). We didn’t get the power of Christ compels you but we did get the power of Gallifrey compels you’. The word that the Doctor used to get the virus out of Nyssa was Tremas which was a nice link for Nyssa. I thought that when Nyssa and the Doctor left then that would be it but there was a nice twist where it continued  as the interplaneterian has moved to someone else and he is defeated by some special tea. The story itself was rather good and I enjoyed.

The third story sees the Doctor and Nyssa arrive at a coastal town where they go to a pub where they seemed to be obsessed with telling stories. It seems that the locals of the pub are quiet what they seem. We learn there is a planet of tales and a planet of jokes. The mere idea is wonderful. The locals are all after the Doctor’s tales and we think that he had been drugged and they seem to be wanting to download his tales. The story ends with the locals memories got wiped. I liked this one because it was not what I was expecting. I thought that out of the three so far this was the one that I enjoyed the most. There was a nice wide range of characters that were nice to listen to.

The main story has seen the Doctor trapped with the old man and as the story progressed we learn that the Doctor is being used so that they can take the Doctor’s TARDIS. The Sultan (Siddig) turns out to be a Shanakey. He traps the real Sultan in his ship and makes him think he is in a cell. The fourth episode is where the main story takes centre stage where we learn whats really going on and the reason why Nyssa has been telling the stories. I liked the scene where the Sultan smells the air for the first time and he delivers a lovely speech, then there is the moment where he discovers that he has been held captive for a century. I thought it was a shame when he departed from the story and thought it would have been nice if at the end we find out that he was back in his rightful place.

I like it when the story seems to go up a gear in the final part where the Sultan pretends to be the Doctor, makes Nyssa forgets the Doctor and go travelling in the Doctor. I like how Nyssa manages to twig what is going on and then takes the TARDIS back. When Nyssa finds the Doctor we discover that the Doctor has been left for just over 3 years of 1001 nights. The ending of the story is rather good because the Doctor takes the Shanakey somewhere that will look after him and probably use him as a lab rat.

I always like the Fifth Doctor and Nyssa stories as Nyssa is one of my favourite companions and I always think that this partnership works well. Peter Davison doesn’t really get much to do until the final episode but when he does eventually get something to do he does it well. Sarah Sutton puts in a fantastic performance from start to finish. It’s always good when Sarah Sutton is the only companion because it means that she gets to show why the character is so good. The big name of the supporting cast was Alexander Siddig who won the Toms Tardis Award for Best Supporting Guest in 2010 for his role as The Captain in The Wreck of the Titan. Here he plays Sultan who is a very unlikeable character and Siddig plays the role wonderfully. I personally think that this was a better character than the captain but it shows what a good actor the Siddig is. The rest of the characters were all very good and there wasn’t a dud performance in any of them.

I thought that this was a lovely story. After the very tense and dramatic stories that we have had in the latter part of 2012 it was nice that we had a story that was very light in terms of dramatic weight but still felt like it was a proper Doctor Who story and it was the perfect way for the main range to end 2012 with. Out of all the stories with single episodes, this has to be the best because it seemed to work better, the main story along with the short stories all worked well together to make the whole release enjoyable.

 

The Doomsday Quatrain (2011)

The Seventh Doctor series where he is companion light continues after the brief pause to celebrate release 150. The Doomsday Quatrain sees another figure from history used in a Big Finish story. Now first of all I have never heard of the word Quatrain so with the help of Wikipedia I was able to find a long description of it but here is the short version.

“A quatrain is a stanza, or a complete poem, consisting of four lines of verse.”

This story is written by two people who are complety new to Big Finish (to the best of my knowledge) and that’s the first thing that strikes me about this story is how fresh it feels and in particular the first episode never seems to take a breath. The historical figure was Nostredame who was famous for being able to predict the future and certain atrocities. Nothing is normal in Doctor Who and we learn that the Nostredame in this story isnt the proper one but infact made up. That’s where the story goes from a simple pseudo-historical to just plain sci-fi. The whole 1560 Florence has been designed by a bunch of poltagons who are creating worlds and in this particular adventure have created a fake world where a group of crocodile like creatures who are planning to invade and this is a sort of training exercise.

There are many plot threads being woven through this story. The first being this world created for the Crocs and its the relationship between the Poltagons and the Croc people. Now the course that this went down which was predictably strained and went the way that I thought it would but to be honest I thought that it was done rather well. Then we learn that the Crocs have had previous dealings with the Timelords and once they discover that the Doctor is a Timelord then their plan changes to capturing the TARDIS. As well as this there is the Doctor trying to prevent the inhabitants of this fake Florence being killed. All these plots are well handled and don’t feel like they have been rushed or compromised.

The big name of this story is that of David Schofield who makes his second appearance in a Big Finish play having appeared in the 2009 Eighth Doctor adventure ‘Death in Blackpool’. He has appeared in the first Pirates of the Carribean film as well as in the Christopher Eccleston led ‘The Shadow Line’. I thought that his interpretation of Nostradame was very well played. It flipped between being of his time and being able to take in the fantastic sights of the TARDIS interior and being able to accept that he is not real and has only existed for a few days. I was also impressed with Caroline Kleff who has to fill the role of temporary companion as Ace and Hex are nowhere to be seen. I think she does a good job and comes across as a likeable person from the get go. She is the only one of the Poltagons that seem to have a conscience. I always think that the test would be if I would want to see that person as a long term companion and in this case I would. I think that the character had potential and with a bit of tweaking she would be very good. Over the course of the four episodes she is continually on the side of good and not willing to let things carry on. I thought that Kleff’s performance was well played.

Slyvester McCoy is on his usual good form in this. I am glad he doesn’t do his rolling r’s that seem to have become his trademark since starting his Big Finish career. He seems to do well with having Ace, Hex or Mel with him and it gives McCoy a bit of freedom as the story focuses on the drama rather than some padding with the companions. It’s nice when Sophie and Philip are with McCoy as there is a nice chemistry between the three of them but in stories like Frozen Time, Robophobia and this one its good to have a bit of variety for us and for McCoy.

I like how at the end they decide to name the planet Prophecy. But like Project: Destiny last year it was the final scene that really set things up for the following story. A prophecy by Nostradame handed to the Doctor seems to indicate his death. Now this is quite an odd thing to do because we know that the Seventh Doctor dies in a alley way in 1999. However I may have this wrong but no matter it is still nice to have a link to another story. It might seem odd if you listen to this on its own but otherwise its ok. Both Beeby and Rennie have written a very smart story that had a lot going on and I could very easily have lost track and nearly did a few times but at the end of the adventure I thought that it was a solid adventure and hopefully they will get the chance to write further adventures in the future.