Bernice Summerfield: Missing Persons

 


Bernice Summerfield: Missing Persons

After the travesty that was Curse of Fenman, I was worried for the future of Bernice Summerfield. They'd spent quite some time on that Antonio arc which had boiled down to nothing, and now, well, where were they going to go from there? The answer is simple, and an analogy will best make my point: When you get a story like The End Of Time, you follow it up with The Eleventh Hour. Missing Persons is the most spellbinding set I have ever heard and will probably be one of the most glowing reviews ever to come across on this blog. Missing Persons is unique in that it's a 5 story set instead of the 3 story sets we've gotten since Road Trip, and as a result, it feels huge.
Also, it does feel as a whole, slightly episodic. Did it need 5 episodes? Probably, yeah, even as it is, it's tightly packed, but how did this behemoth of an experiment turn out? 

Big Dig by Hamishe Steele

Big Dig is a positive classic in terms of Benny stories. It uses the audio format in a fun way that sort of makes fun of the format's limitations, it's plot is incredibly intriguing and sets up the arc of the next four stories ludicrously well and is, well, imminently quotable. The amount of times that I have said "This is a truth" and "I recognize your truth and accept the fact that has been submitted, this is a truth" sadly number in the thousands, and I must resign myself to being one of those people. 
But sincerely speaking, Big Dig is just an enormously fun story with our main trio of Benny and Ruth and Jack, the latter two of which hardly get their money's worth in this set. But nonetheless, Big Dig is amazing. Like, really amazing for an audio that parodies radio shows. "Mm, yes, it does seem that the archaeologists are now digging...still digging...still digging..." etc. 
I fricking love this one. 10/10

The Revenant's Carnival by Martin Day

On the other hand, I found Revenant's Carnival, although hardly a disagreeable listen, one of the most unmemorable audios I've ever heard. (Which may actually be fitting, given the final twist, but hey) It's essentially a weird pseudo mystery where Benny and Peter investigate a masquerade ball. And um, let's be honest here. I liked it quite a lot when I heard it, and it's engaging enough, but...wow. This one... is just...unmemorable. 
...Come here often? 6.5/10

The Brimstone Kid by David Llewellen

While still not a really great Benny audio, Brimstone Kid is a decidedly more assured affair, which emulates a classical western with Benny and Braxiatel. It's like, incredibly fun. Full of misdirection, classical western tropes, and a great soundtrack and atmosphere, Brimstone Kid is just really quite a great time. It does feel somewhat extended out of Revenant's Carnival, as weirdly, they do much the same thing (adventure with side Benny character that ends in them getting yeeted) but Brimstone is just so much better at the job in every way. I would give this one quite a higher score though if it weren't for one blight on this nigh brilliant canvas...Toothless Bob, and the performance he's been given by Mac McDonald. On paper, Toothless Bob is fine. A Saloon Drunkard is wonderful for a western. What I hate is his nails on a chalkboard, not even western sounding, what the hell is that shrieking how do I kill it, voice. And considering this is an audio format.... TOOTHLESS BOB IS OBNOXIOUS. He sounds so fake, so rotten...Okay, fine, I'm being unfair, he's not even in it that often, but golly, I'd take Scrappy Doo over this guy. 8/10 

The Winning Side by James Goss

"Golly, Plum, this doesn't seem that great a boxset. You've had big problems with the past two stories, and well...you said it was going to be amazing!" Well. Here You Go. 
The Winning Side is the most fantastic...unbelievable....extraordinary....
The Winning Side is the best story to feature Bernice Summerfield, and one of the best stories to feature in the Doctor Who universe, bar none. 
There are three actors in it, and a cameo at the end. 
Most of it is a companion chronicle. 
Lisa Bowerman KILLS IT. 
I struggle to think of performances that reach Lisa Bowerman in The Living Side. It's up there with Paul McGann in Scherzo, Tracy Ann Oberman in One Rule or Poker Face, Louise Rolf as Edith in Chimes of Midnight, or Sir Derek Jacobi in the Sky Man. Yeah. 
The Winning Side is ludicrous. 10/10

In Living Memory by Scott Handcock and Gary Russell

"Gee, well, that seems like a great boxset. What should we do for the final episode to tie up all the loose ends of the series?" Nick Briggs asks.
Scott Handcock and Gary Russell laugh maniacally, and present him with In Living Memory.
In Living Memory is by far, from the company that made  ZAGREUS,  the most AUDACIOUS and RIDICULOUS experiment to tie up a major arc that when you write it out it sounds like incoherent meta babble. In Living Memory has no fourth wall. None at all.
THE MAIN STORY THREAD IS ABOUT LISA BOWERMAN, THE ACTOR. 
It's inane. Like, I simplified it there. The actual audio is twice as audacious. I have to applaud In Living Memory so damn much by not giving in and giving us a generic runaround finale, In Living Memory experiments with the entirety of Bernice Summerfield, and leaves the door open in such a strange way, that it feels less like a finale and more a celebration. The NCJDDAS would not dare. In Living Memory is amazing. Like truly amazing, and it even ties back to those weird questions I had about Judgement Day without doing it in a trash way like Curse of Fenman. Sure, In Living Memory has flaws, far more than most stories I give this score, but what it does is so deserving of award I can't think of any other score that would fit. Name a better story that lampshades Beth Chalmers taking over 500 roles in the Big Finish company. I DARE YOU. 10/10



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