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

The Sentinels of the New Dawn (2011)

The latest companion chronicle from Liz Shaw was one that I was looking forward to. Partly because I liked last year’s Shadow of the Past so much and also it was a prequel of sorts to the Lost Story ‘Leviathan’. Written by Paul Finch this is a story that starts of a year after Liz Shaw left UNIT (1975?) and move to 2014. This is because of the New Dawn movement. It’s claimed that the listener doesn’t need to have heard Leviathan to understand this story but I disagree because I think to have heard that Lost Story would mean a great understanding about the New Dawn group. Not having listened to that particular story since it was released in early 2010.

The story sees Liz becoming involved in a colleague’s time travel research and soon afterwards gets the Doctor involved and it’s a this stage that they are flung into the future and it becomes a race against time (forgive the pun) to stop the technology from being misused by the New Dawn. After a good start the story seems to get bogged down and the story struggles to try and find something big that it can throw at the listener. Sadly this doesn’t come when it should but instead comes in the last part of the story with Liz being sad how she left UNIT. Sadly we never go a proper final episode for Caroline John and as a result her departure feels somewhat unsatisfactory. The regret that Liz has about leaving UNIT echoes what people think if they were travelling with the Doctor. Why would you want to leave the Doctor?

Caroline John puts in another great performance but unfortunately isnt really given much drama to get excited about. I still think that Shadows of the Past is her best story but its always good to hear Caroline John and I also enjoyed Duncan Wiseby’s performance. He does a good job with the Beauregard character and hopefully he will return. I think that the character is one that has something odd about him from the outset and when its revealed who is really is then it makes the character even better.

The ending was very interesting as Richard Beauregard shows that he involved with New Dawn and its at this point that I was starting to wish that we could hear more about the New Dawn. The Sentinals of the New Dawn is an interesting story that unfortunately doesn’t have the dramatic punch that I would have expected. That said, its still a good story and a much better adventure that ‘The Forbidden Time’ and hopefully over the course of future Companion Crhonicles and even main range stories we will get more stories because there is lots of potential.

Leviathan (2009)

The third release is one that I don’t know anything about. Leviathan was originally written by Brian Finch and adapted for by his son Paul Finch. Whereas The Nightmare Fair and Mission to Magnus were ones that I knew because they had been talked about in the DVD about the 1986 series on the Trial of a Timelord.

The relationship between the Doctor and Peri was more like the one on TV than their Big Finish one. This is the thing about these Lost Stories is trying to find the right balance of how the Doctor and Peri’s relationship should be pitched. The TV version was more of a biting one where they didn’t necersarily get on, forward 25 years to the Big Finish plays and they are friendlier and get on better. This story pitches it just right.

The first episode is really a bit dull. There’s a lot of the Doctor and Peri being captured by the villagers thinking they were for the Baron. It’s not until the massive cliffhanger at the end of Episode one which shows that the village is actually in a spaceship. I thought that the story took way too long to get going. I understood that the villagers are culled when they get to a certain age but it just got a bit stagnant after about 20 minutes. I think the first part was close to an hour so it’s a shame that it was only the last 30 seconds that I will remember. Zeron turns out to be a computer system that controls everything on the ship. It’s not the most original idea as it’s a common staple agreement in science fiction of a computer system designed to look after humans ends up turning on them. It was even done during the Trial of a Timelord series. The Baron was a character that always had something about him and you just knew that he wasn’t the top man.

The village was created on a spaceship was created to try and create an atmosphere where people could live whilst the leviathan ship goes to a new planet. However it turns out that the conditions are worse than they should be. I found that the explanation of the culling was grim but also quite good. When the villagers get to a certain age then their bodies chemicals are broken down and then effectively the reset button is hit on them and they start again. This is done when they start to question authority and work out what’s going on. This cycle is kept going until the ship gets to where it’s going.

Colin Baker and Nicola Bryant do their best with the script they are given. Admittedly they are really allowed to explore the story in Part two but it’s a shame that they are not really given anything interesting to do. The only nice scene they had together was at the beginning in the TARDIS. With the knowledge that there are five more stories with Baker and Bryant I am more willing to overlook the fact that there isn’t as much for the leading stars as there should be. I think that Howard Gossington was the best or strongest of the guest stars as Gurth. The character seemed like the sort that could become a good companion as he is not as intelligent as others but would soon grow.

When I conduct my series review, I will probably rate this story as one of the weakest offerings. When I listened to The Nightmare Fair and Mission to Magnus I still felt they should have been made for TV but with Leviathan I don’t think we particularly missed anything. It’s a story that only really got going in Part Two. The first half was just padding of this most extreme. Definitely one of the weakest releases so far.