Jago and Litefoot Series Seven

 

Jago and Litefoot Series Seven

I've always loved the Jago and Litefoot series to death, even If I haven't reviewed them actively on my blog until now. But alas! There was a goodie bag sale. And so I shall be reviewing the middle section of Jago and Litefoot - Series Seven to Eleven (and I will get to reviewing the prior series eventually for I have a good deal to say about them.) But out of the Series I have done so far, Series Seven may be my favorite at the moment. I've always loved the way Jago and Litefoot managed the perfect fusion of atmosphere, character and plot throughout their series, and really, if you picked up literally any of their sets you'd be hard-pressed to find something disappointing. They're the ultimate comfort spinoff... they exude both a friendly and lighthearted atmosphere while excellently exploring the murky depths of the era. Despite a familiar environment of Victorian London, the series has a scale of variety to it, and while you could accuse it of doing some plots rather frequently, the series does have a way of managing not to repeat itself. My opinion on these series is already top notch - so much of these stories will be me scavaging for any ill points to make - as even the worst of these episodes exude so much charm that I would take them over most any other spinoff or Who story you dare point me towards. I tend to grade series based on the episodes surrounding them these days. So be well aware that a 8 for a Jago and Litefoot may well be a 9 elsewhere...The 100th post on this Blog was a tribute to River Song's spinoff, praising it as the best of those available. Oh, how fickle we as humans are. I can only apologize for my past self being unacquainted with the superior series. But enough dilly-dallying. The review awaits!

The Monstrous Menagrie by Jonathan Morris

Oh, a Conan Doyle story. I should have suspected they'd get here eventually, what with the magnificent tribute to Oscar Wilde that the series had done prior to this. But since Jago and Litefoot already as a spinoff shares much in common with a Doctor Who verse version of Holmes - well, less Holmes and more two Watsons... I suppose I was wondering what you could possibly do with a strictly "Holmes" story outside of the usual. Oh, we get a fullbred Whodunnit later on, as well as a locked room mystery - but those were rarely done by Doyle, the original Holmes stories more often being those of adventure, and as such, there is that question of what do you do to make the Doyle story different? The answer is Dinosaurs. I could complain but this is far too enjoyable for me to bother. Indeed, this is very much in line with the RTD style of celebrity historical, (Unquiet Dead, Shakespeare Code) something this series hasn't really done at all before. It's just riotous watching the shoutouts fall all over you - some obvious as hell (Laura Lyons, Baskerville) and some subtle and insidious. The ideas here about Conan Doyle portray him quite well, but it does have the slight problem of "ah, yes, writer has no ideas, all of his cool ideas actually happened to him, hahahahahahhahaaha" and I would say this is the stories biggest flaw. Yet it also comes up with an in-universe explanation for that, which makes even this critique falible. I love the intensity this story has at shrieking to Conan Doyle that he has to do the Sherlock Holmes sequels. It's repetitive, but it's also so true to life - Conan Doyle in the real world was worn down by the public in very much this way. Perhaps not for the bonafide Holmes obsessive (although I did enjoy it) but as an average episode, it's really just a fun hour. Quite enjoyable: 7/10

Night of 1000 Stars by James Goss

James Goss, damn you. Night of 1000 Stars is Class's Detained (a perfect episode) but somehow even better by like a lot. I adore stories like this, even if they are a cliche, or as a friend once called them, "Dumb Among Us Bullshit." I love seeing these familiar characters at eachother's throats, and Night of 1000 Stars more than achieves this. It's smart in every way. From the getgo, it's a simple and brilliant plot of our three leads (and Leela, still the series' best guest star) in a room, and it's just magical, the way the story plays with both itself, and manipulates us into not noticing the very obvious - perhaps as our dear Magician Ellie Higson would say, it's all about misdirection. Indeed, Night of 1000 Stars is a very clever magic trick. All of the cast are characterized completely unperfectly- all of them are just slightly odd enough to warrant your suspicion, but for each of them, it could all be chalked up to whatever you could choose. By the end of the hour, not only have we solved a mystery, we are uplifted, and we've learned things about Jago, Litefoot, Ellie, and Leela that I wasn't expecting for all of them. Of course, the reveal of who the culprit is does make the character work for one character in particular up in the air...but I shan't complain, for the whole of Night of 1000 Stars may be one of my favorite Jago and Litefoot Episodes to date. An incredible experience. 10/10

Murder at Moorsey Manor by Simon Barnard and Paul Morris

Nearly as good, we take a trip back to the origins of the Big Finish Whodunnit, with Murder At Moorsey Manor, very nearly a tribute to the Chimes of Midnight, but I do feel it has enough differentiating itself from that masterpiece (although it does take a moment to explicitly mention Plum Pudding!) Murder at Moorsey is a fullbred Whodunnit, as I've mentioned before, a Mystery piece that has a lot of homage to Conan Doyle as before, despite the actual style of story having little to do with him. The Concept of a Murder at a Gathering of Sherlock Holmes fans is absolutely inspired, and the way the story evolves as we learn more about this house, and the more the story becomes it's own thing the more I had fun with it. Once again, yeah, it does exist in a very weird realm of being both completely different from Chimes of Midnight in every way and also having so much in common it geniunely peturbs me...(A murder every the hour! A reference to alive houses! Come on!) but all the same, I was tricked, and I did love it. Simon Barnard and Paul Morris's work at Big Finish has always been some of my favorite - and I have to say, with stories like this, it's hard not to see why. The guest cast is phenomenal, Jago and Litefoot themselves are on rare form, and it has the strange honor of being a Whodunnit that actually managed to trick me (quite rare indeed!) A blast of an hour - damn this set is good. 9/10

The Wax Princess by Justin Richards

Oh, I groaned when I first heard the words "Jack the Ripper-" thinking that I was in for one of the greatest cliches in quite some time. Little did I know that the Wax Princess is anything but cliche - it's a very tight, very smart story that gets you nice and comfortable before veering sharply into the macabre. And The Wax Princess, as a result, is absolutely incredible. There's some delightfully grotesque imagrey that I wasn't expecting at all in the Wax Princess, and at the start, it wasn't holding me much at all. But I hate to say it, (because it makes me sound like a fucking sociopath) that as soon as we got the concept of wax figures with blood and internal organs, I was utterly enrapt. Big Finish is very quickly turning me into a deranged bastard, and my god, is this just an absolutely phenomenal small-scale horror story. The climax with Queen Victoria is decent, and makes you think the set is going to end with a whimper, but we end with the bloody Scorchies coming out of nowhere! I swear, with this series, you never know what to expect, and what a lovely thing that is, too. I know that the Wax Princess does have to get a lot out of the way in it's first half to make you feel comfortable and unsuspecting of where it's actually going, and it's very smart, dedicating so much time to putting you in a comfortable Jago and Litefoot space, but I almost wish it had given us more time with the Deranged stuff, as that element of the story is simply so strong, and I wasn't expecting it whatsoever. A glorious finale, if more mixed than I was expecting. What a boxset, what a series, 9/10