The Conspiracy (2015)

When it was announced that Big Finish were bringing back Torchwood there was a great sense of surprise. I think that many thought that the show was pretty much dead and buried after the disastrous Miracle Day series that aired about four years ago. This isn’t the first time that there have been radio plays for the show as there was a BBC Radio 4 play called Lost Souls back in 2008 and there were a few more the following year and then some more in 2011. Torchwood is a show that still has potential but I think that Big Finish is the place for it to shine. With the sort of writers at BF’s disposal it was only a matter of time before the high quality starts to shine.

The setup of the story sees Captain Jack investigate a former journalist called Wilson who seems to have become some sort of evangelical talking about aliens. It seems like he is part of the Committee but he soon he admits to Captain Jack that its all a lie. The twist is something that was quite good because I found myself so involved in the story that when it was revealed it was clear that it was building up to something which came a lot quicker than I was expecting.

The story ends with Jack on the run and on the hunt for the Committee. I like the idea of the Committee because it’s a good concept and it makes this feel like it is Torchwood or part of the TV series. With Jack being the only character from the show in the story its quite good how they manage to get around the fact that Eve Myles and Gareth-David Lloyd aren’t in it by having them on the end of a phone call (well Gwen anyway).

The performances are very good. John Barrowman has been playing Captain Jack for a decade and sounds more convincing than ever. When he hasn’t got to deal with the innuendo’s which blighted his character in Torchwood on TV, he is able to play the character remarkably straight faced. This is Barrowman’s first encounter with Big Finish is rather strong and what is quite interesting is that he was in America when he recorded his lines. That is not something that comes across when listening to. Sarah Ovens plays Kate and it’s a rather good character and she plays it well. Oven’s last and first encounter with Big Finish was as The Cell in last years ‘The Highest Science’. I’ll be honest I can’t remember much about that story. It’s quite good how she starts off as the rather downtrodden and loving daughter and then becomes the villain of the piece. This implies that there will be more from Ovens and that’s a good thing cause her performance was enjoyable to listen to and I want more of the character. John Sessions is one of those actors that I had the feeling had been in more Big Finish plays than he actually had. His previous appearance have been in 100 (2007) and Castle of Fear. As George Wilson he plays the role which doesn’t seem to dissimilar to Howard Beale in the 1976 film Network where he has a job and then just goes way off track. The difference is that Sessions plays the role a bit more seriously than the character of Beale. His death at the end seems inevitable so when it happens its not too much of a shock and its done rather well. Last but by no means least is Dan Bottomley who plays Sam and at the start of it he comes across as a bit of a pain in the backside but with his final scene I actually felt sorry for him and thought that he was actually a nicer guy than I had given him credit for. On one hand its was necessary for the plot but on the other hand I think that with there being such a low number on speaking characters it means that loses are more noticeable and I thought that his loss in the end was a bit of a waste.

If there was one thing that I didn’t like about this story then it’s the bad language. There is a bit at the beginning where Wilson is swearing but the swear words are bleeped and that I could deal with because bleeping swear words is funnier and actually more effective than the actual word so when minor swear words are used then it felt like a brief return to the first series where it seemed like the show was trying to be more adult than Doctor Who. That is the only aspect of this story that I didn’t like but if that’s the worst thing that I could find then that gives a good indication as to how much I liked this story.

The Conspiracy is a great start to the new series. David Llewellyn’s script gets things started nice and seems to have managed to iron out all the niggles that seemed to bother me about certain aspects of the show. If only he would write for the main range that would be great because he is a very good writer. Scott Handcock directs this story with a pace that helps the hour long running time fly. This is the sort of Torchwood that I want to listen to and I am looking forward to more and with a second series already announced I suspect that by bank account is going to take another battering sometime soon.

Extermination (2013)

Extermination is the beginning of the end. After five series, Gallifrey is about to come to an end and some may that it has an awful lot to live up to. I came to the Gallifrey story late and found that the early stories were somewhat hard to get into whilst having their own good points. Over the next couple of series the stories got somewhat lighter in tone and complexity and for some that was an issue but I approved. Whatever your opinion is of this, the one thing that could be agreed is that the inclusion of the Daleks shows a desire to end the spin-off on a high note.

The first part of the final series starts off with how to deal with the Dalek invasion. Obviously for logical as well as narrative reasons, it’s not going to be a job that’s over in five minutes and that proves to be the case as it turns into a battle of survival. However that’s not the whole story as Romana is wanted by the Daleks….an wanted alive. As the story progresses, so does the interest and I found myself totally enthralled from start to finish.  

The friendship between Leela and Romana is one of the things that I have enjoyed about this spin-off series and it’s on fine form here where Leela is willing to help her friend even in the face of the deadly Daleks. When they are reunited the relief between them is evident and it’s a nice moment in the midst of all the terror. With Daleks there are going to be deaths and Irving Braxiatel is one of the earliest big names (I say early – 25 minutes) and the deaths continue.

Whenever Big Finish use the Daleks, they always try and do something different with them. Instead of just invading or trying to kill the Doctor, they always try and use them as creatively as possible. They have managed to do the same here as the Daleks want to take over the multi-verse.

The central performances of Lalla Ward and Louise Jameson are both very good. I always think that Louise Jameson gives a good performance whenever she is Leela. The Leela we get in these stories is different to the one that travels with Tom Baker’s Doctor and so its great to see a different side of the character. Lalla Ward can also always be relied upon to give a good performance as the President. I have always thought that Romana was on a hiding to nothing with her position because she’s always going to be at the centre of everyone’s anger and rage. The scene where she orders the Dalek to exterminate itself is a fantastic scene and is the highlight of the entire story. Anyone who is down on Lalla Ward should listen to that scene which occurs about 20 minutes before the end and they should understand why the character is so good. At the end of the release Romana announces that she has been wounded and she wont be able to regenerate. Ward gives another great speech and it shows just how good she has been in this story.

Extermination might not be the epic opening that most would expect (and I include myself in that) but I think that it’s a damn fine opening with some good scenes and the Daleks are really good. The writers know that they have three releases to finish this story and it allows them to lay the groundwork here and I have high expectations with the next two.

Annihilation (2011)

The third part of this impressive series takes a slightly different tone. Written by Scott Handcock (writer of The Magician Oath) and Gary Russell, this story deals with Vampires and I will state now that I cant stand Vampires. Not that I have a phobia of them or something but they just bore me. I wasn’t overly over the moon with The Time Vampire from the Companion Chronicle series. There are two big names in the guest cast list. Katy Manning returns to Big Finish playing Magistrix Borusa whereas Geoffrey Beevers (formerly the Master in The Keeper of Traken) plays Lord Prydon.

This version of Gallifrey sees a civil war (what else) and its between two groups led by Prydon and Borusa. They have been fighting for quite sometime and there is a feeling in the performances that this is the case. In this version of Gallifrey they are not called Timelords but True Lords which is quite a strange title and doesn’t quite sit right in the story. I think it’s a good thing it will probably never be used again. I think that the writers have done a clever thing but referring to Leela’s blindness. I had forgotten about Leela’s age progression being held back whilst being on Gallifrey and despite it being Gallifrey, its not the original and she starts to age but in a clever scene, she is cured and most importantly her eye sight has returned which is a relief because it was restricting what the companion could do and now it wont be referred to ever five minutes. Louise Jameson is on good form again and this is the seventh story within a couple of weeks that I listened to and that she has been in and she is simply wonderful.

Katy Manning is brilliant as Borusa. Having not heard as Iris Wildthyme since Excelis Rising, I am more use to hearing Manning play Jo Grant. She plays the role brilliantly and like Colin Baker in the previous story is one of the best things in this story. That said this story isnt a patch on the previous one but I was still impressed with her performance and it was made even stronger when its compared to Geoffrey Beevers. He has a superb voice and I think that whilst he doesn’t sound that different from when he appeared in Dust Breeding (2001) and also the Target audios but to be honest I don’t really care. The two of them could read the phone book and it would still be interesting. I also have to say that Lalla Ward was very good in this and its her best performance of the series so far.

Annihalation is the inevitable weak link in the chain. It’s not a terrible story by any stretch of the imagination and I would quite happily listen to this story again but I think whereas the previous stories in the series have been so high in terms of quality that anything that was remotely off-target would result in the story being not as highly regarded as other stories. I still think that this series is the best so far and this story has a lot of strong points but one minor point (the vampires).

The Magician's Oath (2009)

The tenth story in the extended companion chronicles series sees Mike Yates tell his story of an adventure he had with the Third Doctor. Mike Yates was played by Richard Franklin between 1971 and 1974. In the end his character had a nervous breakdown and had to go off to a retreat. This sort of character development was unusual in Classic Doctor Who. This story is the first story to come from Scott Handcock who according to Wikipedia was a production runner of Doctor Who Confidential. This story seems to be set in the present as the dialogue seems to indicate that he has left UNIT and so has the Brigadier.

The first thing that I like about this story is Franklin himself. When the voice is right then the story could be the phonebook and it would still be interested. Franklin gives a nice straight forward performance and he manages to get the right tones for Jo, The Brigadier and the Doctor. He opted to go for tones instead of doing impersonations that very rarely work in these stories. He also managed to bring back that thing which was obvious on the TV and that was the relationship between Jo and Mike. It was obvious to everyone that they had feelings and at the end you felt sad that they never got together and Jo went off with that Welsh Hippie. The story itself is quite a good one, UNIT are trying to solve what the cause is of these freak cold snaps that can turn a public area like Hyde Park into a ice rink killing everyone. The character of Diamond Jack was well written and what I liked most was that he had a past to him that almost made you feel sorry for him because he had been exiled to Earth (like the Doctor) and had his mind erased which was quite horrific. I quite like the idea that there are different version of Jack. The first is the form that he takes now so that he can blend in with everyone and then there is his true form which seems to be a springy monster and then there is the card which has his memories on it and what he is really like. Why the people who exiled him to earth don’t just destroy it is a mystery to me and that’s my only problem with this story. The final scene which was set on the walkway between the towers on Tower Bridge was really really dramatic and had me gripped all the way, it shows what can be achieved with this range that doesn’t always happen. The cliffhanger was a nice one which is another area that other companion chronicles has because whilst it can be difficult to create an effective cliffhanger its something that needs to be really thought about for it to work.

Richard Franklin was very good as mentioned as Mike Yates. Yates isn’t the a character I would have thought off for a companion story but I am glad someone did because it gave Franklin to show us what Yates would be like now. Hopefully they will ask Franklin to do more stories not just in this series but in the main one. Michael Chance was very good as Diamond Jack and he gave the character a very clear aura of menace about him and the fact that he had the power to kill people in a truly horrific way whenever he wanted. You felt his desperation and sadness in certain scenes which made it difficult to know whether you were supposed to hate him or like him.

Scott Handcock has written a good story for his debut. It was a nice gentle paced story that accelerated when it needed to. The back story behind Diamond Jack was a very good creative move and added some tension in the latter scenes that I really enjoyed. Nigel Fairs was very good as the director. Fairs has directed several of these stories and is really good at keeping the pace and the story going. His previous story was The Transit of Venus which is one of the best stories of the season and perhaps in the entire series.