The Fourth Doctor Adventures Series Nine Volume One

 

The Fourth Doctor Adventures Series 9 Volume 1

I'm very quickly falling in love with these sets of two two hour long stories, and am all the sadder to see that Big Finish will soon be forgoing them in order to focus on three story boxsets, which I'm not quite sure is the right move. Especially when we have sets such as this as evidence that the classic who 4 part format is nigh perfection for the classic doctors. It would be difficult to serve a team like the Fourth Doctor, Romana, Adric and K9 in a one hour format, or even the First Doctor, Ian, Barbara and Susan for that matter. You can only see this all the more with how the modern day series struggles with large TARDIS teams. And while Stranded benefits from a large ensemble piece, half of set one didn't include Andy, and set two had a revolving door cast. Not only is the four part format made for Doctor Who, I tend to find the four disc format is made for Big Finish, and I'm disappointed about that. But that's a whole bunch of rambling about the state of Big Finish, you came here for the review. And perhaps the reason I prestate this set with such a review, is it is as wonderfully solid in terms of a set as Big Finish gets, both stories perfectly complimenting each other. It's no God Among Us 2, but all in all, it's fairly close. 

Purgatory 12 by Marc Platt

Purgatory 12 starts the set off with something that we'd never see televised who attempt in this era: an almost entirely pure character piece, and starring Adric no less. Before you run away, I must stress that this story does singlehandedly begin the "Let's redeem Adric" conga that the likes of Peri and Mel got in early Big Finish releases, and while it is also kind of at points rather clear that Matthew Waterhouse is not 15, he still can manage to be convincing enough, especially thanks to how he's actually improved quite a lot in his acting. The story opens with a long character filled segment set in the TARDIS, where we see how utterly and completely outclassed Adric truly is next to the current TARDIS team of Two Time Lords and a Supercomputer Dog. It's thoroughly smart writing from logical points, but the thing I like about Purgatory 12 is it's true to character, and Four reacts exactly as you'd think he'd react to Adric's emotional plight that is the delightful center to the story. That's not to say the plot isn't bad, but while certain 4-part stories struggle under the weight of their mediocre ideas that could be done in 2 or 3 parts, Purgatory 12 drives you forward by being driven by these emotional beats and performances. A Living Asteroid has been done before, but a Living Asteroid where Adric has to come to copes with the fact that his brother was horribly killed and not once has anyone shown him any sympathy about it? That's far more interesting, and so the story molds itself around that. Plot based moments such as a legitimate fake-out death (yeah, don't you hate those? Especially when you know the character is going to be fine) are made all the more stunning by the fact that they are written with character first, and while the audience knows it's a fakeout, the real emotion is seeing Tom Baker, Lalla Ward, John Leeson and Matthew Waterhouse all do their goddamn best to sell it hard. When Tom (my middle name is silly) Baker starts giving a eulogy and seeming affected...you know it's good. The best thing about this TARDIS team is the ego, the fact that every single member of the main cast thinks they're the main character of the show, and how unwelcoming that would actually be is brought to the forefront. Waterhouse wasn't welcomed to the show with open arms in real life, it was adversarial. Purgatory 12 is really good because of that. But then, the plot isn't bad either. A asteroid filled to the brim with coffins...living rust....Lalla Ward pulling double time as a baddy and some decent side characters help to fill this story out to it's length it deserves. But the emotional center that absolutely murders you in the final few scenes with just the sound effect of a knocking on a door makes this story one of the best in the range thus far: 9/10 

Chase The Night by Jonathan Morris

You want hard-sci fi after that character piece? Alright, I'll give you hard sci-fi. And no one does it better than Jonathan Morris for these tightly plotted idea pieces. The man gave you Static, now get ready for Chase The Night, and it's even better. Chase The Night is just brimming with ideas. Ideas, Ideas, Ideas, it's absolutely pouring with them. One of the most inventive settings for a Doctor Who planet in history, something that absolutely could not be done on a television budget. It's tense, the story constantly moves forward, just like the train that must outrun the sun to survive. Any questions on the implausibility of the concepts will be swiftly abandoned when you truly observe how magnificently it is plotted, and how wonderfully different it is - and yet how perfectly in line with the season it comes from's own opinion on Entropy. Just trust a season Eighteen story to be entirely about the second law of thermodynamics. Not only that, it's such a visual piece, and yet it's done incredibly well on audio. Chase The Night is just brilliant on every scale from a writing concept. But just because it focuses on Sci-fi doesn't mean that it doesn't give astonishingly in-depth character content too, as The Doctor, Romana and Adric all have to grapple with what exactly it is the Doctor does. When the Doctor meets someone who has completely abandoned their moral scruples in order to legitimately save as many people as they possibly can, how will the Doctor react? It's at this interesting conundrum that the story is forged, and like all great moral dilemmas, all the characters react differently. Romana is the star though, as although the Doctor has a frivolous nature to most things in this incarnation, she takes it all to heart so clearly. When The Doctor brushes off a "You would make a good Dalek" by the next story, Romana really considers what this means and decides to make a change in her outlook, beautifully lineing up with Warrior's Gate too. I may be gushing, but I'm not done yet, as I haven't mentioned the beating heart of Chase The Night, the chillingly powerful performance from Jane Asher as Pilot Deena. She's incredible beyond words - she literally took my breath away at points! And yeah, that's Chase The Night. It's up there with Aquitaine or the Aforementioned Static as one of the most pure Doctor Who stories you'll find on audio. But goddamn it, if it isn't a magnificent one, and proof eternal of this format: God, why don't more people try this stuff! 10/10