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Tag: Romana II

Might-Have-Beens and Never-Weres

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Review of Neverland (#33)
Big Finish Release Date: July 2002
Doctor/Companion: Eight, Charley, and Romana II
Stars: Paul McGann, India Fisher, and Lalla Ward
Preceding Story: The Time of the Daleks (Eight, Charley)
Succeeding Story: Spare Parts (Five, Nyssa)

It’s been diverting to broaden my Big Finish horizons and listen to some adventures with the Sixth and Seventh Doctors, but I found I was missing the Eighth. Thus I’ve returned to the last of his adventures recommended to me from the first fifty releases in the Main Range.

Charley has visited a couple more interesting points in space and time with the Doctor since last I joined them. We do not, however, start with the two of them—instead, we are on Gallifrey with Lord President Romanadvoratrelundar—known to the Doctor (and us) simply as Romana. Someone is reading out historical facts revolving around Charley’s anomalous survival of the R101 crash and her subsequent travels, but the recitation soon becomes garbled. The paradox appears finally to be too much for the Web of Time to bear.

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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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Unfinished Masterpiece?

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Review of Shada (Unaired)

DVD Release Date: 08 Jan 13
Original Air Date: Slated for the end of Season 17, Jan-Feb 1980
Doctor/Companion: Four, Romana II
Stars: Tom Baker, Lalla Ward
Preceding Story: The Horns of Nimon (Four, Romana II)
Succeeding Story: The Leisure Hive (Four, Romana II)

Here we go. There’s just about nothing better for starting an argument among Long-Term Fans than bringing up the question of the quality (or canonicity) of the “lost classic” Shada. Written by the now-legendary Douglas Adams of Hitchhiker’s Guide fame and sadly interrupted and eventually scrapped due to a labor strike, Shada has gained legendary status among fans. Many seem to believe it would have become one of the best stories of all time, had it actually been completed.

In 1992 the BBC released the existing footage with “linking material” – that is, descriptive narration of the missing bits – by Tom Baker (who, weirdly to me, does it all in first person as the Doctor while dressed in a natty suit), and Shada finally saw the light of day. (It is that version, though remastered for DVD, that is on this disk.) More than a decade later in 2003, it was reworked as an Eighth Doctor adventure and presented as both a webcast (also included here, for access on a PC or Mac) and a Big Finish audio adventure. After another decade, the novelization – written by Gareth Roberts, but based on Adams’ scripts – was released just last year.

So is this serial, “the one that got away” so to speak, all it’s cracked up to be? In my opinion, the answer is a firm “it depends.”

I first saw Shada when I was trying to get a better feel for Eight. I’d seen The Movie, but didn’t want to shell out for a bunch of Big Finish product I’d no way to know whether I’d like, so when I ran across the webcast, I was thrilled. Here I could kill two birds with one stone: more Eight, and see this unfinished story I’d heard so much about. Mostly, I found it a little confusing – whether because I was unfamiliar with the format or due to the script itself, I don’t know.

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Waking Nightmare

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Review of Nightmare of Eden (#107)
DVD Release Date:  08 May 12
Original Air Date:  24 Nov – 15 Dec 1979
Doctor/Companion:  Four, Romana II, K9 Mark II
Stars:  Tom Baker, Lalla Ward, David Brierley
Preceding Story:  The Creature from the Pit (Four, Romana II, K9)
Succeeding Story:  The Horns of Nimon (Four, Romana II, K9)

I’m not gonna lie; this was a bit of a slog. Four does nothing overly clever, funny, or inspiring. Romana’s boring window dressing. The Mandrels are crap. The effects are crap. And the plot is nothing to write home about.

As soon as I realized it was all about drug smuggling, I pretty much completely lost interest. I watch Doctor Who to escape, to be inspired, or to make me look at things with a fresh perspective, not for a futuristic spin on modern crime. Maybe I’m just not the target market for this one, but my one-word “note to self” at the end of this one was “weird.”

Having watched some of the extras, I can see where there might be some endearing parts to Nightmare, but for me, there was not much to love. I mean, it wasn’t even John Leeson voicing K9. But seriously, the plot itself was… OK, for being all about drugs – blatantly so, rather than metaphorically, as pointed out by Joe Lidster (see below). There are some interesting concepts, though I was at least twice put in mind of Carnival of Monsters (the CET machine itself is reminiscent of the miniscope, and the Mandrel crashing through the walls at the end of Episode 1 similarly made me think of the Drashigs). Much of it was executed so poorly, though (the bad guy has a Germanic accent? srsly?), that it was hard to look past the rubbish. I’m really not that interested in metaphorical truffle hunting…

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