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 Emerald Tiger (2012)

2012 Toms Tardis Award Winner
Best Main Range Story
Best Main Range Writer - Barnaby Edwards
Best Main Range Director - Barnaby Edwards
Best Main Range Music & Sound Design - Howard Carter

It’s hard to believe that this is the third series to feature the trio of Nyssa Tegan and Turlough. This trio has been the best for the last couple of years and in fact won the Best Series award in 2010. After a long time of waiting for Tegan to return in a full series of adventures, it’s nice to say that that wait has been worth it. The third series kicks off with The Emerald Tiger written by award winning writer and director Barnaby Edwards. It’s true to say when you know a story is written by a certain person you sort of know what to expect. This rule applies to Nicholas Briggs, Marc Platt, Alan Barnes and also Barnaby Edwards. Set in India in 1926, the story seems to have a start which owes something to ‘Black Orchid’ (1982) where in that story the Doctor, Nyssa, Tegan and Adric arrive at a train station and stumble across a cricket match. In this instance, they are there for a cricket match and before we know our LBW from our elbow the story moves onto a train where there is the for mentioned Emerald Tiger.

On the train we meet two people who have completely different stories. Firstly there is Lady Adela Forster (Cherie Lunghi) who has hired the train to go to a cave to blow up an entrance. Then there is Major Cyril Haggard (Neil Stacy) who is running away from the police after commiting a crime. It isn’t long before their seemingly random paths cross and it helps the early stages of this story move along until the second part of the story. It’s quite good set-up for the main part of the story which is done very well.

The final episode was different from what I was expecting. It seemed that we were going to get a reprise from part three but it starts off with Tegan who we haven’t heard from for a while and after a minute or so I thought that this was a great idea that this was going to be Tegan’s episode but after a couple of minutes it went back to being a normal episode which I was slightly disappointed with but the rest of the episode made up for it. Normally, I get annoyed when writers ‘kill’ off one or more of the companions because I think that it’s the stupidest thing to do because we know they make it and the idea that we are supposed to suspend our disbelief is pointless. However when it’s done right then it’s done well and what Barnaby Edwards does is use it help create some tension between the Doctor and Turlough and it also acted as an incentive to try and rescue Nyssa. So in this instant I found the idea of ‘killing off’ a companion a good one but it isn’t one that should be returned to in the near future.

The performances in this are very good indeed. I thought that Cherie Lunghi was very good because she started off as this quite stuck up and unlikeable character but as the plot moves on she becomes someone who has suffered tragedy and we understand why she is as she comes across. I liked how her character exited. It must have been tempting to kill off the character in some sort of self-sacrifice to save her newly discovered son but thankfully they decide to live in the jungle. I also liked Neil Stacey who played Haggard because he was sort of the person we love to hate and he pulled that off very well.

The Emerald Tiger is another good story from Barnaby Edwards. I thought that the story was plotted very well and it knew what it wanted to be and kept its eye on the prize and as a result its possibly one of my favourite stories of 2012 so far. The third series of Nyssa/Tegan/Turlough has kicked off in fine style and I’m looking forward to what the next two stories have in store. Good stuff.

RATING: 8/10