Doctor Who Lost Stories: The Elite

‘The Elite’

Based on a script by Barbara  Clegg adapted by John Dorney, directed by Ken Bentley
Story 3.01
Released 31 October 2011
His former hero Omega destroyed, the Doctor decides to take Nyssa and Tegan to Florana for a much-needed respite. Instead the TARDIS lands inside of a domed city populated by blank-faced inhabitants and dominated by a massive cathedral-like structure. Soon, the Doctor realizes that he has placed himself and his companions in the middle of a holy war. The youth are trained by computer ti become brilliant tacticians and fight for the glory of the Elite and the mysterious High Priest whom no one has ever seen.

The Lost Stories releases by Big Finish adapt scripts or treatments that never made it to production while the program was on the air. The first of a trilogy of Fifth Doctor stories, The Elite is an enjoyable and exciting tale that not only fits into the classic series feel from the cast to the synth-flute music but also offers up some startling surprises along the way.

Barbara Clegg is likely a familiar name to hardcore fans of Doctor Who as she penned the classic Fifth Doctor adventure ‘Enlightenment,’ a story so popular that it got a special edition release re-edited and ‘enhanced’ by new CGi sequences. Clegg apparently drafted this story as well, an adventure about a fascistic society where the young are trained for a holy war. The initial idea was that the soldiers would be very young, possibly twelve, which was changed for the Big Finish to under 40. It’s unclear to me how much of Clegg’s draft was rewritten or changed, but John Dorney confesses on the behind-the-scenes portions that he is an admirer of 1980’s Who and did his best to match the period.

I have listened to a few of Dorney’s stories and he is an incredibly skilled author as well as being a splendid actor! In each instance I was impressed by his scripts and the brilliant power of his dialog. However, this story is a real treat for me for several reasons. Not only does it feature the Fifth Doctor, Tegan and Nyssa specifically set directly after Arc of Infinity, but it also uses a classic monster in a completely inspired fashion. I won’t say much about the monster as it gives far too much away (and not talking about it makes this review frankly difficult), but it does exactly what writers should do in these instances and uses it sparingly and for good reason.

Davison is in prime form in this story and has some sparklingly witty lines. When he is shown a training room full of emaciated youngsters, he offers them a bar of chocolate. When their teacher arrives and is furious, he laughs, ‘You’re not going to have me shot over a bar of chocolate?’ and is then a bit shocked when he is ordered to be killed. When his execution is narrowly avoided, he notes that this seems to happen to him all the time, and still, ‘people talk about death by chocolate, but really…’

His youthful exuberance is ever present throughout The Elite, despite the fact that this is a much older Peter Davison than we saw on telly back in the day.

The Doctor’s companions Tegan and Nyssa are also used very well. Reunited with Tegan, the Doctor admits that he is not jumping for joy to have the brassy Aussie back on board. Nyssa tries to reassure the Doctor that he’ll be fine so long as he doesn’t make any mistakes. Later, the Doctor describes Tegan as a ‘force of nature’ which had me in stitches.

The chemistry between all three lead actors is perfect, but Dorney uses this strength by separating them. As the Doctor becomes embroiled in local politics, first threatened with death and then treated ‘like a shuttle cock’ as he is whisked from one compound to another throughout the domed city, his companions are rounded up as subversives and have their own paths to follow.

Possessing an above-average intelligence Nyssa becomes a member of the Elite just as Tegan finds herself rejected due to her lower IQ and joins up with the resistance, a motley band of youngsters kicked out of the perfect society. Each of these threads weave together as one would expect as the rejects, the military and the church fight over the future of the perfect society as a doomsday device ticks away.

There are several stand out moments that make it so easy to imagine on screen and others that reminded me that it was all but impossible (an all-terrain vehicle smashing through a glass-fronted building and a vast laser-battle in the streets). Even so, that is what these Lost Stories are, a hint at what could have been and a reinvention of Doctor Who as an audio experience.

A terrific start to an all too short line of adventures, the Elite is heartily recommended… and don’t reveal the secret to anyone who has yet to listen as it would ruin a superb reveal (that I kind of called a mile away due to the voice work). A story steeped in 1980’s-style violence and arguments over the future and who has a right to claim it, this is a rather chilling tale of warfare as it depicts a holy war as one which never truly ends.

Doctor Who Lost Stories The Elite can be ordered directly from Big Finish and from local retailers such as Mike’s Comics.

Doctor Who Big Finish -Nekromanteia

Nekromanteia

Story 41
Written by Austen Atkinson
Released February 2003

The Doctor is trying to expand the experience of his companion Erimem, a former priestess from ancient Egypt, by taking her to the Garazone bazaar, a kind of wild expanse of shops and creatures from all over the universe (something like it was attempted in the BBC Wales version in Human Nature and Turn Left). The Doctor wanders off on his own, leaving Erimem and Peri to find their own fun. Usually a rather staid character, Peri is very feisty in this story, proclaiming a desire to meet boys and get into trouble. It’s a nice change and makes her much more interesting.

The Doctor visits an old friend, a shifty businessman named Thesanius who is busy breaking into a vault. It’s a small scene but conveys so much of the Fifth Doctor’s social awkwardness and straight-forward English sensibility that I really enjoy it. With the local police on his heels, the Doctor swoops up Erimem and Peri into the TARDIS. While their protector was off on his own, Erimem was trying to convince Peri that a local artisan was a wise old seer. The seer impresses a message into Erimem that causes the TARDIS to land on the planet Talderun within the system of Nekromantea.

Above the planet, a violent space battle is taking place. The commander of one of the ships, the gravelly voiced Harlon, manages to escape disaster with his aide Cochrane and they land in the midst of a terribly dangerous situation. The area below is overrun with necromancers who worship a dark god named Shara. Harlon is undeterred, however, as he is employed by the cut throat executive Marr who is desperate to obtain a mysterious source of power on the planet.

Another person just as determined to control the same power is the leader of the sisterhood, Jal Dor Kal (a character very reminiscent to the leader of the Sisterhood of Karn in Brain of Morbius). Trapped by Harlon, the Doctor manages to pull some psychological trickery on the mercenary, convincing Harlon that he was sent by Marr to check up on him. But the Doctor’s impulsive lick runs out when he barges into the middle of a ceremony led by Jal Dor Kal. The blunder results in his death. As the sisterhood decapitate the Time Lord and lift his head high in triumph, the Doctor finds himself in a cricket match he long dreamed of attending.

Nekromanteia is a story with a lot of angles and tends to dole out details in a somewhat devious manner so that while we do not know who Harlon is, we also don’t know what he wants either, making it difficult to stay invested in the action. That’s where the script really comes into its own, though, as there is plenty of action, humor and psychedelia that is at home in the Fifth Doctor era, home as it is to stories like Kinda and Snakedance.

When the details do come together behind Marr’s mission to Talderun and Jal Dor Kal’s ceremonial sacrifice, thankfully it’s all worthwhile. So often in fiction, a writer refuses to back up actions with reasons, promising that the answers are coming and when they do it makes no sense. That’s not the case here. It’s all very well constructed.

I have said this before, but Peter Davison is so remarkable in these audio adventures. I know that Colin Baker is the Big Finish king, but Davison is a close second as the Prince (or Duke… or whatever). His vocalizations are so subtle that he often mutters his lines and stammers through conversations but with such alacrity that it is immensely entertaining.

I simply adore Erimem, an amazing companion combing elements of Leela and Katarina along with something new. I wasn’t exactly sold on Erimem in The Eye of the Scorpion but the more I hear her the more I really like her as she is such a well-devised creation. Her resolve is solid yet she has the soul of an innocent, unfamiliar as she is with the world outside of her home in ancient Egypt. When she is threatened by the malicious Harlon she flatly states that she will gut him yet later accepts the horrific fate of the scientist Rom as he is tortured by the fiendish sisters. She can appreciate that there is a higher moral code at work that must be honored and accepted. This of course jars with Peri who thinks of Erimem as ‘one of the girls’ yet needs to be reminded that Erimem may as well be from another planet.

I truly wish that there were more examples of companions with cultural differences in Doctor Who as it adds so much to the drama.

Glyn Owen may sound familiar to fans of the classic series as he played the gun-runner Rohm-Dutt in the Key to Time: Power of Kroll. If anything, his voice has become more distinctive and fully-rounded, though that may be the result of whiskey and cigars (we should all be so lucky!).

Nekromanteia does tend to get very over-dramatic and there’s a lot of screaming, violence and near-deaths, but that is often the case with Doctor Who. I love the notion that the Doctor spends much of the story in a daydream cricket match talking to an immortal creature in a struggle to regain his sanity while his companions are running about dodging bullets and trying their best not to get sacrificed.

This story has a lot of energy, heap loads of talent and a generous helping of charm. A lovely adventure.

Doctor Who- Nekromanteia can be ordered directly online from Big Finish Productions.

Doctor Who Big Finish- Return to the Web Planet

Return to the Web Planet

“I’ve always thought if it was quiet, if there were no crises or panics, then Vortis would be the perfect place for a holiday.”

Story 103a
Written by: Daniel O’Mahoney
Released on: December 2008

A sequel of sorts to one of the highest rated classic Doctor Who stories ever, the Web Planet, this audio adventure is lots of fun. On screen, director Richard Martin struggled with commendable zeal against impossible odds to create a stunning alien vision of a planet populated by human-sized sentient bugs. The result is mixed (more on that in my forthcoming Doctor Who and The Web Planet review), due to numerous constraints ranging from time to money to the confines of the set itself. Even with today’s computer generated ‘magic,’ a modern mounting of the Web Planet would face the same problems as in 1965. Big Finish had none of these limitations, however, and it shows… in your ears anyway.

Although the Doctor has returned to the Web Planet of Vortis in comic strips, novels and ‘give-a-show’ slides, it remains one of the more obscure alien worlds in the classic Doctor Who mythology. Combining faerie tale sentiment and fantasy with pulp science fiction elements, Bill Strutton’s original story grabbed viewers young and old back when it was first shown, but it has not had as much luck with a modern audience. There are many reasons for this, but almost all of them are circumvented when a similar story is attempted in an audio format.

The Doctor and Nyssa arrive on Vortis by accident, though the Doctor tries his best to make it seem like he made the trip on purpose. They are soon assaulted by a swarm of Zarbi, massive ant creatures as tall as a man and far more dangerous. Caught up in their migration, the pair of travelers get separated, Nyssa falls into a network of tunnels and the Doctor is hoisted into the air by a Menoptera, a majestic butterfly-like being. The Doctor’s rescuer, the aged scientist Acheron, explains that he is living in a massive tower in exile from his people, studying the Zarbi. His wingless daughter Hedyla rescues Nyssa from her plight, but not before the young woman meets a stranger who, like the TARDIS crew, is alien to Vortis. The stranger is scarred and frightened, departing before Hedyla can see him.

After being reunited with Nyssa, the Doctor is determined to discover what has changed the Zarbi’s behavior in such a destructive manner. The answer lies in a vast scarred plain called ‘the Desolation.’ Mounting a tame Zarbi named Arbara (presumably after the First Doctor’s traveling companion), the Doctor and Acheron depart for the Zarbi hive where they find a woman claiming to be the voice of Mother Life. The Speaker is in search of something called a lode-seed and cannot seem to communicate about anything else. Using a firecracker (a lovely nod to the Second Doctor), the Doctor and Acheron escape with the Speaker.

The stranger manages to get enough courage up to force his way into the tower. Named Yanesh, he is covered in vegetation that is growing on and into him and is anxious to find Xanthe, a being that he mistook Nyssa for on first site. The Speaker is clearly Xanthe, but has been altered by her time in the Zarbi hive so much so that she is no longer the same person. Distraught, Yanesh abducts Nyssa and Arbara and charges straight toward the marauding Zarbi, seeking oblivion rather than live alone. The Doctor has deduced what Xanthe and Yanesh really are and, using a pair of gliding wings made by Hedyla, swoops in at just the right moment to unite the pair. A strange process of biological fusion begins, life starts anew in the desolation.

Return to the Web Planet was released as a special ‘bonus’ for subscribers and is a portion of the standard running time of other Big Finish audio stories. A marvelous and bizarre tale, Return to the Web Planet pays homage to the early 1960’s Doctor Who era when the program was intelligent, unique and fearless in its exploration of new concepts.

Doctor Who- Return to the Web Planet can be ordered directly online from Big Finish Productions.

Doctor Who Big Finish- Primevil

Primevil

“It’s never too late… although I admit we are pushing it a bit fine.”
Story 26
Written by: Lance Parkin
Released on: November 2001

A loose sequel to the 1980 adventure Keeper of Traken was a long time coming, Author Johnny Byrne had planned to follow up his world of Traken several times, but none of these efforts came to fruition. Introduced in the Fourth Doctor’s final series as the first in a series of traps laid by his arch rival the Master, Traken was governed by a select council overseen by a Keeper forever bonded to the source of the planet’s power, an immense energy of good. A lush and romantic world of austere beauty and sophistication, Traken begged to be revisited. Perhaps it is only right that a reunion should take place with the Fifth Doctor and Nyssa, long before either had set foot on Traken, in a different far more turbulent era of the planet’s history.

Nysaa is suffering from some unknown malady, prompting the Doctor to take her back to her home long before it was destroyed by the Master. This of course opens up the possibility of temporal paradox, but the Doctor decides to just remain quiet on the subject. At the mercy of a society that thinks itself the pinnacle of achievement, the council is paranoid of the infection of evil that the Doctor brings with him to their secluded home. Despite the fact that the Doctor insists that good and evil simply does not work this way, he cannot avoid their judgement. Unfortunately, the more resistance he encounters, the more he places Nyssa in jeopardy.

By uncovering the dark secrets of the people of Traken, the Doctor encounters the cult-like figure of Kwundaar (played by Blake’s 7 Stephen Greif) who leads a devoted squadron of mercenaries who have followed him for generations, waiting for the moment when his revenge on Traken can be exacted. A horrifying and powerful being claiming to be a god himself, none can look upon Kwundaar without risking madness or worse. But the Source on Traken is enough to keep him at bay, so how can he hope to infiltrate its defenses? Somehow the Doctor is the key to his plot’s success.

Primevil is wonderfully written, an intelligent adventure with lush characters, thrilling settings and more. There’s a very strange kind of humor thrown in here and there as the Fifth Doctor stretches his witty muscles such as a Batman 1966 gag where the Doctor activates a space craft by saying, ‘atomic batteries to power, turbines to speed,’ the same mantra spoken by Batman and Robin every time the dynamic duo roared out of the Batcave.

The conclusion seems to imply that Kwundaar has sent out a call to other celestial beings, marking the Doctor as prey. I don’t know if this thread was picked up in later stories or if it is a thinly veiled reference to other threats such as Fenric, but it’s a terribly interesting idea.

Doctor Who- Primevil can be ordered directly online from Big Finish Productions and from local retailers such as Mike’s Comics.

Doctor Who Big Finish- No Place Like Home

No Place Like Home

Written by Iain McLaughlin
Released January 2003
(supplemental story)

The Doctor decides to give new companion Erimem a tour of the TARDIS only to find that he has lost his way in his own home. The interior of the TARDIS is re-configuring itself much to the delight of a hidden foe who watches the Doctor and Erimem’s plight on a monitor. When a construct of the Time Lord High Council named Shayde appears, it becomes clear to the Doctor that there is more at stake here than simply being lost.

No Place Like Home was given away as a supplement with Doctor Who Magazine #326 (along with a sample of Dalek Empire). A ‘filler’ story in much the same way as the Ratings War and Last of the Titans, there’s not much to No Place Like Home, but Davison and Caroline Morris fill in the gaps with the opportunity to further flesh out the relationship between Erimem and the Doctor. It’s touching to hear the young/old Fifth Doctor talk about his solitude among his own people and his reluctance to think or even talk about his family. It’s a subtle way of dealing with these issues that would later be hammered home in the BBC Wales production. Erimem is also given just enough space to appear a more fully rounded character, in direct opposition to her rather flat first appearance in The Eye of the Scorpion.

The wardrobe of the TARDIS is used as an in joke as the Doctor sheepishly attempts to explain the long scarf, fur coat and frilly shirts of his previous incarnations. I quite enjoy the social awkwardness of the Fifth Doctor, a trait that would have made his portrayal stronger if it had been played up on screen. Erimem can’t really see the sense in most of the clothes, but is entertained by them. Her ability to enjoy the madness and random nature of life with the Doctor is a charming quality that reminds me of the classic companions of the 1960’s.

Along with being lost in the TARDIS, the Doctor is also uncomfortable with having Erimem’s cat on board as it is a nuisance in the long white corridors of the time vessel. But Erimem cannot see the problem from the Doctor’s perspective and suspects that he simply doesn’t like cats. The Doctor admits that he never had this kind of trouble with his faithful robot dog companion, K-9.

The real interesting part of No Place Like Home is of course the inclusion of the Shayde, a bizarre creation from the Doctor Who Magazine comic strip. I remember first seeing Shayde in the comic strip back in the 1980’s when Marvel Comics reprinted a few of the Tom Baker and Peter Davison stories in color. Able to blend into shadows and absorb information by removing his spherical head, he’s an impressive visual, but in the audio format Shayde is somewhat less successful.

The Shayde explains that the Doctor has been irresponsible in protecting his TARDIS and has allowed for it to become compromised. An alien entity is attempting to take control of the TARDIS which could in turn damage the web if time in unpredictable ways. After warning the Doctor that the situation has been identified by the High Council as catastrophic, the Shayde attempts to take control of the situation in eliminating the threat that the still unseen menace poses. Erimem prompts the Doctor, somewhat shaken by the situation, to take the matter to hand. They are then confronted by a villain so strange and unusual that they are overcome by fits of laughter.

A Gallifreyan rodent, transformed by radiation, has become mutated in a hyper intelligent being… and he’s angry. Furious at his lot in life he demands justice. All of this is too much for the Doctor who, even though he recognizes the implications, cannot get over being ranted to by a mouse. In the end, the solution is a simple one, but the Doctor still dislikes Erimem’s cat.

Like Last of the Titans and The Ratings War, No Place Like Home is a quick adventure filling up the time between Fifth Doctor audio stories. I quite like it and it has elements that remind me of the comic strip, such as Shayde and the weirdly villainous Rovie.

Read other Big Finish reviews at the Daily P.O.P. 

Doctor Who Big Finish- Spare Parts

Spare Parts

“I’m not even sure they are people by the end. They’re just so many tinned left-overs…”
Story 34
Written by: Marc Platt
Released: July 2002

The Doctor and Nyssa find themselves wandering through the dark and hauntingly quiet streets of what could be London in the late 1950’s, only it isn’t. There are many similarities, but far too many differences such as the astronomical location of the planet to the Cherrybowl Nebula. The Doctor is in a peculiar mood and seems just as anxious to get away as he is interested in investigating further, but on his own. Nyssa wanders off and encounters a father and daughter engaged in ‘mat hunting just as the young woman’s father is badly injured, appearing to be dead by Nyssa’s reckoning. To her surprise, ‘Dad’ sits up right as rain even though he has no pulse. Fearing the police-patrolled streets after curfew, they encourage Nyssa to follow them home. Meanwhile the Doctor encounters a street doctor who is eagerly looking for limb and organ donors even though most fashionable replacements are cybernetic these days.

This is clearly not Earth.

When Davison first started his run as the Doctor, he confessed that his favorite ‘monster’ from his childhood was the Cybermen. This should come as no surprise given that he primarily watched Patrick Troughton as a child and the Second Doctor faced the silver-faced cyborgs on several occasions. Billed as a kind ‘Genesis of the Cybermen,’ Spare Parts is a very bizarre story. Written by Marc Platt (Ghost Light, Loups Garoux), Spare Parts is a period piece mixed with cyberpunk elements and a healthy dose of Yorkshire accented locals. I’m not sure how I imagined an adventure that explored the origins of the Cybermen, but patrols of neo-Cyber-cops on horseback was far from my mind!

A fan-made recreation of Cyberman Kroton and horse by Ronald Purviance

On screen, Peter Davison was faced with many convoluted plots involving chicken monsters running water-powered generators in Amsterdam, a giant dog in a vest starting the Big Bang and Concords being swiped to the Stone Age by a stereotypical Oriental wizard. He rarely had the opportunity to flesh out his character with the many mannerisms and quirks that he wished to inject. In Phantasmagoria, Loups Garoux and Spare Parts he is in fine form, depicting a harried and strange traveler who carries firecrackers in his pockets and gives the impression of a very old man in a youngster’s body. His stammering, a terrible sense of direction and tendency for witty puns in moments of terrible danger are very appealing and are all in full effect here.

As Nyssa, actress Sarah Sutton was terribly young when she appeared on screen and came off as rather wooden most of the time. She’s terribly cute and clever, but quite boring in the personality department. I imagine that her creator Johnny Byrne saw this as a sign of her royal breeding, but it is difficult to get invested in her character. In Spare Parts, Nyssa spends much of her time away from the Doctor and by the time they are reunited, she has realized that they have arrived at the genesis of the dreaded Cybermen, the same monsters who killed Adric. Eager to change history so that her friend’s life can be spared by history, she butts heads with the Doctor who once again reminds her of the Web of Time… and that Adric was a rather rubbish companion (I made that bit up).

Spare Parts is very atmospheric, set entirely in a world underground, fearful of life in the surface and protected by miles of concrete from ever seeing the staggering sky. Vocal auteur extraordinaire Nicholas Briggs also brings life to the early and haunting ‘Tenth Planet’-style voices along with the resounding Cybercontroller in its first chronological appearance. There are some spine-chilling moments as well such as the swarming Cybermats attacking the TARDIS and the desecration of the graveyard for fresh material to build more Cybermen.

Amazing fan-made animation

I recall reading before the Cybermen returned in the BBC Wales version that this audio adventure was a strong influence on the televised two-parter ‘Rise of the Cybermen/The Age of Steel.’ Marc Platt is even given credit as a source on screen for the story. Yet after listening to Spare Parts, I am dumbfounded as to how the production crew passed up the opportunity to translate at least some of the ideas in Platt’s scrip for the small screen. The dirigibles, President of the UK, sports drinks and alternate Tyler family are poor substitutes for the amount of fantastic concepts here. Spare Parts does have its problems, but it is miles better than the BBC Wales alternate Cybermen. Imagine The Doctor and Rose landing in what looks like 1950’s London only to encounter a Cyberman on horseback, or the crumbling sky cliffhanger revealing a strange vision of space and you can see right away how amazing this story could have been.

Doctor Who – Spare Parts can be purchased at local retailers such as Mike’s Comics and online from Big Finish.

Read other Big Finish reviews at the Daily P.O.P. here.

Doctor Who Big Finish- Red Dawn

Red Dawn

Story 08 Written by Justin Richards
Released: May 2000
Promising his companion Peri a visit to an alien world, the Doctor arrives on the planet Mars just as a NASA craft has landed. The corporate-funded expedition has less-than-honorable intentions, but can the Doctor stop them in time or will he be witness to the revival of the long-sleeping warriors of the red planet and their conquest of the universe.

One of the most popular monsters from the 60’s, the Ice Warriors faced off against the second Doctor in two memorable adventures written by Brain Hayles, the self-titled Ice Warriors set in the Earth of the future when the population are fighting a rapidly approaching second ice age. During exploration of the expanding ice shelf, an Ice Warrior is taken from its place of hibernation, only to become revived and hostile. Soon an entire craft is unearthed and an assault on the planet is begun as the Ice Warriors are seeking a new home.

Their second appearance, The Seeds of Death, was more dynamic story set further forward in Earth’s history. A new character, the Ice Lord, led an attack of Ice Warriors on the T-MAT: a revolutionary transportation technology system that connected the entire planet.

A worthy monster to stand beside the Cybermen and Yeti, other popular foes at the time, the Ice Warriors became an iconic classic monster.

When the Ice Warriors returned in the Pertwee era, they were part of an intergalactic council judging the inclusion of the planet Peladon into the Federation of Planets. In this and their final on-screen appearance a year later, the monsters were given more depth and developed as a proud warrior race. A planned return to the small screen in 1985 and later in 1990 failed to materialize (however both Lost Stories have since been adapted for print and audio). Red Dawn marks their first appearance in Doctor Who in some time and in many ways it is an homage to all of their previous appearances.

After several stories that explored new ideas in a traditional style from the classic program, Red Dawn is more of a straight-forward affair. That’s a nice way of saying that it’s rather dull and uninspired. After several encounters with the Ice Warriors and seeing them play the role of hero and villain, the Doctor is understandably confused and uneasy around the lumbering green ‘monsters…’ and I do mean lumbering. On screen the Ice Warriors moved and spoke very slowly. In audio format, we cannot see them but can certainly count the seconds crawl by as they speak exposition. I don’t mean to be too harsh on this story, but it hardly stands out as exciting and full of new ideas as previous installments such as Whispers of Terror.

The crew of the spaceship Argosy are investigating an ‘anomaly’ on the planet Mars. Finding the Doctor inside a strange tomb-like structure raises many questions for the NASA crew, allowing the perfect opportunity for one of their number, Paul Webter, to hatch a secret plan. It soon becomes apparent that Paul’s father’s business, the Webster Corporation, was well aware of the tomb and the sleeping warriors. The plan is to reverse-engineer ‘Earth Warriors’ from the DNA found on Mars. Paul puts the entire crew in danger by attempting to abduct an Ice Warrior himself, and takes Peri along for the ride. The Doctor realizes that Paul’s actions place the human race in a bad light, to say the least, and desperately attempts to stop a war between Earth and Mars from erupting.

Red Dawn is hampered by a predictable plot and sub-par voice acting as well as a soundtrack that sounds like it belongs in a cheap late 80’s science fiction film. I have been very excited about the high level of quality from Big Finish Productions, so I was very surprised to find such a drop in this story. I do quite enjoy the Ice Warriors, but it seems that Justin Richards handled them with too much unease by placing them in a mish-mash of their 60’s and 70’s appearances; a proud warrior race is unwittingly revived from a deep sleep.

Peter Davison is again in fine form as the Fifth Doctor, giving equal parts drama and witty humor in his delivery. Red Dawn sees Davison paired with Nicola Bryant as Peri, a companion that was under-developed on screen. Here she is brave and smart, but still a bit dull (not her fault, the plot is just not that challenging). Separating Peri from the Doctor does allow her to shine in her own light, I should admit, and she certainly shows that she has what it takes to be a great companion, but again, the action is just not dramatic enough for me.

Hardly a failure, Red Dawn is simply not as superb as the other audios that I have enjoyed. Nonetheless, if you are a fan of classic monsters and of the Fifth Doctor, this may be right up your alley.

Doctor Who – Red Dawn can be purchased at local retailers and online from Big Finish.

Read other Big Finish reviews at the Daily P.O.P. here.