The Blood Furnace

 

The Blood Furnace by Eddie Robson

I can't pretend that the Blood Furnace is an all time triumph of writing in Doctor Who - that it's completely original, has as many unique ideas as Mummy On The Orient Express, or filled with as much original character drama as Scherzo - but I doubt that it's trying to be that. The Blood Furnace is fun, and it's pleased enough with telling the story it wants to tell. I don't know if my standards are getting lower after a few of these releases, and it can be quite sleepy at first, but I hold the Blood Furnace over a few stories like Life of Crime or Absolute Power in that it held my attention for the two hours. It's a low bar, but you'd be surprised what a good bar of measurement it is for these stories - and when you can list things about it in particular that you actually liked - well. That's just marvellous! First - it's got a very good integral concept. The idea of these dockyards as a setting for a who story lent itself to a nice gothic jumping off point - that times are bad for the area and that people aren't going to ask too many questions about the job they have as long as they're bringing home good money - well, it's a great hook. Almost gothic enough for a Jago and Litefoot episode. And another one of the story's advantages is that gothic atmosphere that it sometimes gets in it's bravest scenes. There's a particularly grisly scene of a blood sacrifice (oh, yes) that surprised me a little as to how far it was willing to go, especially since the later main range sometimes balks at things that you can't do on the telly. Speaking of that - the story's final grace is Julie Motherfucking Graham, one of my favorite actors, who just shows up in this one as Carolyn (she hasn't done much Big Finish actually, this is her only main range appearance, and she had a Benny episode) and holy fucking shit does she nail this one. She's a level of a cracking villainess that I haven't seen in a long time in these stories - she's given some frankly ridiculous dialogue at some times and she just makes it sing. (Funnily enough one of these instances is her gleeful screaming of, "Sing! Yes! Sing!" During the aforementioned Blood Sacrifice.) She has an incredible voice for audio, and she really ties this one together. You need a good actor for saying ridiculous latin incantations to work, and she makes it menacing, and throughout, she delivers 110% to the role. Much like Miss Foster, Kizlet, Delphox, or any of those other television villainesses of the week, she's the best part of the episode, and I'm astonished Big Finish haven't asked her to do more. 

On the negatives for this episode (yeah there are actually a bit of them), McCoy kind of dominates this story a bit too much. He's too clever and solves the plot instantly, and kind of wins on his first attempt to defeat the aliens without difficulty in part four. I think it's actually rare that we've ever seen The Doctor so completely ridiculous in terms of power. He really wrecks shop, which is impressive, but does decrease tension. Mel isn't handled much better - her arc of the week is seeing an old flame from her youth and wondering if she should settle down, before deciding not to (oh yeah, we've seen that before, buddies) and her old flame is actually, kind of legitimately responsible for everything that happens here, and I do not know why she even considered him for a moment. We sometimes get these old flames of companions to show up in Big Finish as a "How far they've come," story device, but the arrival of this character actually somewhat diminishes Mel a bit, to my actual surprise. Mel has been a force of nature throughout all of these stories so far, a legitimate god, and she's just kind of, not as good in this one. Not that she's bad, it's just when most of her focus is brought towards this plot, it does mean Ace gets to sit up and do most of the actual work in the plot. She spends the climax fighting off aliens with a muscly holographic body given to her by the Doctor, which neatly overlaps with my prior point about him. Last but not least - part two of this story especially is really dull, and you may find yourself especially bored around that point. 

There's a lot of good, and a lot of bad in this one. It's mostly good, and you probably will enjoy it, but there's no reason to seek it out over plenty of other good stories out there.  6/10