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Tag: Evelyn Smythe

Proven Formula

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Review of The Spectre of Lanyon Moor (#9)
Big Finish Release Date: June 2000
Doctor/Companion: Six and Evelyn Smythe
Stars: Colin Baker and Maggie Stables
Preceding Story: Red Dawn (Five, Peri)
Succeeding Story: Winter for the Adept (Five, Nyssa)

Storytelling in Doctor Who has several tried and true formulae (the most well known (at least by name) probably being “base under siege“), so it was almost comforting when I realized that The Spectre of Lanyon Moor was making use of one of them: the fantastical explanation for an Earth legend (see also The Dæmons, or the more recent (and extreme) example of Death in Heaven).

The exact details of how a 3-foot-high alien troll uses its psionic energy to further its own purposes, affecting the surrounding area in Cornwall of course take a full, convoluted four parts. But it only takes a few minutes to realize this creature is being presented as the basis of a great many stories and superstitions—most notably the existence of Cornish pixies. I found it reassuringly familiar.

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Starting Fresh

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Review of The Marian Conspiracy (#6)
Big Finish Release Date: March 2000
Doctor/Companion: Six and Evelyn Smythe
Stars: Colin Baker and Maggie Stables
Preceding Story: The Fearmonger (Seven, Ace)
Succeeding Story: The Genocide Machine (Seven, Ace)

Apparently I just needed to start in the right spot.

After my last experience with a Big Finish audio adventure, I was a little reluctant to dip my toe back into the pool. Although previous forays had been enjoyable, I didn’t get as much out of my first Sixth Doctor story as I’d hoped. (Actually, it was only the first full-length one; I’ve heard a couple of shorts in which Six teams up with Jago & Litefoot.) I wanted to be as enthusiastic about Six’s adventures as I’d been about Eight’s, but something just didn’t quite click.

Good thing I persevered.

Having come into the middle of Evelyn’s travels with the Doctor in The Apocalypse Element, I didn’t quite “get” their relationship. Starting at its beginning, though, I was immediately charmed by Evelyn’s manner with him, and her refusal to take any of his shit. As a 55-year-old woman, she’s well established in her life as a history professor and knows her own mind. She has no need to feel in awe of him, as so many of his (especially younger) Companions have initially been. The more mature give and take between them makes for a refreshing change of pace—not least because it shows him not to be the brusque boor he often was in the televised stories.

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The Element of Distraction

Review of The Apocalypse Element (#11)
Big Finish Release Date: August 2000
Doctor/Companion: Six, Evelyn Smythe, and Romana II
Stars: Colin Baker, Maggie Stables, and Lalla Ward
Preceding Story: Winter for the Adept (Five, Nyssa)
Succeeding Story: The Fires of Vulcan (Seven, Mel)

A few months ago when Big Finish was having a sale, I managed to snatch up a few audio adventures for a song. Now that I have a bit of vacation time coming, I thought I’d listen to a few of them. Starting with the earliest release I had in my downloads, then, I jumped into one with Ol’ Sixie.

Perhaps it was simply the rigors of preparing for the approaching holiday while caring for a sick child, or perhaps it really was something about the story itself, but for what may be the first time, I found myself unable to enjoy a Big Finish drama to its fullest extent.

The Apocalypse Element follows the Sixth Doctor and his Companion Evelyn as they find themselves pulled off course (surprise!), and subsequently arriving at a time travel conference, where various temporal powers have gathered—including some Time Lords.

Over the course of the play, we learn that Romana, now Lord President of Gallifrey, is missing (along with an entire planet) and that the Daleks are involved. Eventually it comes to light that control of the mysterious “Element,” and its use as a weapon of galactic-scale destruction, is the Daleks’ objective.

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