The Paternoster Gang: Heritage Four

The Paternoster Gang Heritage Four

Now that the series has a throughline, will things be much different for our favorite Victorian London trio? ...That is, favorite Victorian London Trio that's not Jago, Litefoot and Ellie, because let's face it, they're still much better. As a matter of fact that brings me to the segue - Jago arrives in this set to give us a lovely little standalone episode before the two-part finale. Standalones are important to have, but it does feel like an odd jump backwards after Heritage Three went all out to definitely avoid that. And Heritage Four quite frankly is odd, as a middle road between quality and otherwise. It's not really either. I can't say Heritage Four is good, far from it, but I can't truly disparage it like I did sets one and two, because the truth is, at all times the series is, indeed, trying. You can tell that this set's level of ambition is worth applauding. But much like stories like The Sirens of Time, or basically any NuWho finale for instance, you can tell it's a bit too big for their britches. Stories featuring multiple eldritch Gods can be hard to tell when your protagonists are mortals. I thought at one point the finale was going to play with that when Strax said "I think we're dead," and Jenny responded "It can't be helped," but no, our heroes do indeed prevail when there should be absolutely no way they can survive multiple eldritch gods. Like I said, too big for their britches. It's a fascinating set to discuss really, as The thing is, about this sort of set, is it's really one long story with another filler one tacked on. And that makes it almost as difficult to review in this opening blob than three stories with nothing to do with eachother. Because it's just two. Which is slightly less than three. Pity that. Perhaps I should move on to one of them. Especially since I'm already getting rambly to begin with. 

 Merry Christmas, Mr. Jago by Paul Morris

Remember how perfect it was when Strax slotted into Jago and Litefoot series for that special? Jago and Litefoot and Strax was a brilliant story, and while it included Strax, it was ultimately a Jago and Litefoot story, and it's brilliance came from how the two clashed. The clashing doesn't work if there's not much of a tonal distance between the two groups, and quite frankly, Merry Christmas Mr Jago doesn't have that tonal distance, and I think to me personally it fails because it's Jago being haphazardly placed into a Paternoster Gang story. Jago is always fun in his own series as a foil to Litefoot, and Jago and Litefoot and Strax understood this - Jago is a comedy character and Strax is a comedy character and so the episode had Litefoot and Ellie do much of the driving force to it to keep the atmosphere going. When transported to a rompy riotous series like the early Paternoster Gang, the contrast isn't there, and yes, this is painfully an early Paternoster Gang-esque episode. It teases you with what you think are connections to the arc, but ultimately it's irrelevant - not a character piece, not arc related, but essentially a joyous Christmassy romp. This could work, I don't hold much of Merry Christmas Mr Jago against it, but the closest comparison is probably the Tsuranga Conundrum but with the Paternoster Gang. And that's not merely because of the "imp breaks things" comparison. It's comedy scene after comedy scene after comedy scene, and to be fair, they are funny scenes, but there is something saccharine about the whole thing, it's a little too sweet an episode that it forgets to have a plot worth a damn. Christopher Benjamin can't be bad as Jago though, and he effortlessly steals the highlight of the story, a scene near the climax where he leans on the fourth wall slightly to state that they would need a hell of a deus ex machina to get out of this. Dan Starkey gets several funny lines, but I think that on the whole he's a little too irritating, especially since Strax is essentially responsible for everything bad that happens here. (I know they blame it on Smallpiece, but Strax is the one who not only introduced them to Smallpiece and he just got the whole thing going in general by confusing the packages.) I don't want to be too harsh on Merry Christmas Mr. Jago, because it's got a lot of good things in the muck, and you can tell that it can be salvaged, but it really is just an inferior episode, much like those of Paternoster Gang 1 at it's worst. It's an episode that's just not got ideas to it. I think my least favorite part of the whole thing has to be the villain - it's a twist villain that doesn't reveal herself until the last five minutes, and if that wasn't bad enough, it's heinously obvious that she's the twist villain. The story's only real emotional beat - the collapse and destruction of Madame Vastra's garden, her least connection to her old home, destroyed so the earth can live -  is also completely disregarded - Jenny starts going on talking about 'what a lovely christmas tree' and the QUIRKY music plays, and the whole episode has such quirky music that it kind of feels like there's a gun to your head telling you to laugh. Structurally, this is a complete disaster, but if you told me 'Big Finish Paternoster Gang Christmas Special Featuring Jago' was a thing, you can see from the sound of it how brilliant that pitch is, and this really could have been great. But Jago needs a gothic energy to contrast against to work, and this is just, well, it doesn't even feel Dickensian in terms of Christmas, it just feels like a shitter Gremlins. All in all, I really do think Paul Morris' effect on Jago and Litefoot versus Paternoster Gang is striking. In Jago and Litefoot, he wrote some of my favorite episodes- Murder at Moorsey Manor, Woman in White - but in Paternoster Gang he's written my two least favorite. It's odd. Nonetheless, as a bit of fluff before the two-part finale you can get by with a story like this...if you lower your expectations going in, you may even enjoy it. I just got this feeling halfway through it, that everything was just TOO quirky and fun to have a point. 5/10

The Ghost Writers by Roy Gill

The Ghost Writers, I think, is very close to being a really amazing part one of the two part finale - it's got a lot of good stuff, and it's plot is nigh perfect, except for the one massive gaping problem that...I just don't buy it. Much of the story hinges on Vastra and Jenny having a bit of a tiff, and Vastra commiting some classic Thirteenth Doctor "It's all down to me, I must defend my friends by not trusting them whatsoever" bullshit. This culminates in Vastra directly breaking her promise to Jenny not to resurrect Anura all to - decode a book. It's not much of a reason to get Anura back into the finale - of course you needed to have the best part of Heritage Three in this episode, but the way she's introduced back into the plot is unkind to the characters across the board. Ignoring the bit that actively has characters possessed, Vastra's super weird in this one. Throughout The Ghost Writers, Vastra acts atypical, and I don't want to say slightly jerkish, but yes, she does act that way, and out of character in general for not much of a reason. Obviously Vastra is going to be out of character AFTER she summons the ancient Silurian Goddess to possess her, and of course this is a killer way to end part one, but the way it gets there doesn't work for me. It's just such an odd choice. And suddenly fudging Vastra's character so close to the finish line in a way that makes her seem rather unsympathetic, well, it's the Ghost Writers one massive, massive, glaring flaw. The Ghost Writers is deftly, brilliantly plotted, but in order to get to it's admittedly quite good destination, it does have to fudge the characters a bit, and for a finale, that's really not exactly what you want. The plot and the ideas on the way are so stellar, as a matter of fact it really does all fit together wonderfully, the thing is, I've seen a lot of fuckups in terms of storytelling in my time, but while the Ghost Writers is, rather clearly, a fuckup, it's one of those rare fuck ups that works. The plot's twists and turns, aside from Vastra and Jenny's character crap, moves forward in an interesting way that makes even the most seemingly irrelevant parts of the story fit together into a magnificent and intricate jigsaw. Annette Badland is back for the third time now, and this is her fourth completely different character (she played two characters in Heritage Three) and it's the fourth character that has nothing to do with any of the previous ones, but this is still awesome. Annette Badland is continually one of Big Finish's top performers, and The Ghost Writers is no exception. I fully believe that Annette Badland just came in and read better for the part than anyone else so they had to cast her even though she'd been four different characters beforehand. The Guest Cast in general is strong to be honest, it's headed up by Daisy Ashford, and she's another part of the story that works magnificently, as she's worked in so well, but it's the third time this series has done the "woman held back by Victorian times who is also possibly a lesbian" trope. And when they're all used merely as accessories for Vastra and Jenny's characters, having none of their own, what's the point of this being so common? I'm starting to wonder what the hell even is The Ghost Writers - is it beautifully plotted? Does it intensify the arc in a lovely manner? Is it a misfire that kills Vastra's sympathy to the audience?  It's somehow all of this, and really just defies examination - how can you review something like this!? 7/10 

Hunters of Earth by Matt Fitton

There’s a scene in Heritage Four where Jenny is sword fighting with a member of the Victorian Elite and we get the immortal line: “My lineage lies through the Jacobite Succession!! The likes of my like give your life legitimacy!” And this tells you everything you need to know about this finale’s ineptitude. The first forty minutes of this story are among the most unbearable that I've experienced ever, and it rather feels to me like a reverse of Last of The Time Lords. Whereas that episode had a good first thirty minutes and died in the last ten, this story is just, awful at the start. The story has a very sharp left turn in the last twenty minutes where it suddenly decides to become good, after the first forty was quite a unbearable slog to get through, so it's yet another episode that I don't know how to score. And not only that, it bears yet more similarities to Last of the Time Lords, with a time skip (albeit, a small one, two weeks to a month maximum) and the main hero of these sets (Vastra, The Doctor) at the mercy of the main villain unable to help our heroes. Unlike Martha, Strax and Jenny cannot carry an episode entirely on their own - although they do get the helpful assistance of Silurian Vella from the Bloomsbury episode - and so the story flounders until Vastra returns. Vastra isn't returning from just anything though, she's returning from posession by an ancient Silurian goddess who wants to awaken the "dark ones" from Silurian mythology and stuff, and really, it's rather immense. The story isn't dealing with one, but two supernatural entities of unimaginable power, and that's a lot to juggle. Especially when a twist about one of these entities instantly makes one of them irrelevant. ...I hate this twist so much it's not even worth spoiling to discuss it. It's just bad. Bit of a problem, that! Anyway, Immediately when Vastra DOES return - this is when we get the sharp left turn to sudden quality again. Hunters of Earth is somewhat representative of Heritage as a whole, I think, and it makes an awfully good analogy. For the majority of Heritage, we were disgraced with a multitude of subpar episode of the week stories. Heritage Three comes along, sudden quality, sudden brilliance, but it takes it's damn time to get there. And that's Hunters of Earth, because despite it all, despite sluggish and ridiculous clunky dialogue like I listed above, there's still this stunning beautiful moment where Vastra and Jenny have to put their lives onto a page with magic ink. It's gorgeous, it gave me chills, so well directed and so well acted. A Matt Fitton finale is quite a flip of a coin, because he can make your series all the better with a stunning sendoff (The Dalek Defense/Triumph of Davros) or make the entire series seem worse in retrospect. (Dark Eyes 3 and 4.) And Hunters of Earth is surprisingly both inept and well earned, which adds up to a strange brew that ultimately, while disappointing, is something that I'm willing to accept. I could get livid over Hunters of Earth, but quite frankly, it is what you would expect from a series like this doing a set that's not Heritage Three. While it has an arc, the set doesn't feel like that, it feels closer in turn to Heritage One and Two. And yet it ends in my good graces, which doesn't make much sense - I'm not sure how it earned that, but ultimately I can't help but focus on the positive. This whole two parter is a mess - it's probably not a good idea to entrust one story to two writers each writing a completely different part of it. It's such a mess, a complete mess, but I think it's a bit of a valiant mess. Scenes and concepts leak through throughout, and you can tell, that despite it all, they were trying. There was at least a point to it all, thematically, and that's nice, I suppose. 5/10

I can't help but feel this may be the last time that we see the Paternoster Gang, which quite frankly, feels sad. Heritage Four came out in October 2020, and we've not heard hide nor hair from it since. It's a series that without a doubt - is in limbo. Big Finish are no doubt carefully examining sales to see if they are what they would like, and while I would like the Paternoster Gang to go on, it all depends on what they do with it. Heritage Four probably wouldn't be AS disappointing as it is, if it wasn't doing a whole lot of heavy lifting on arc stuff after set three was the only one involved in that previously. You'd think that would mean it's not got much to wrap up, but holy mother of god, did it have a lot to do, and it did not use the time it had well. This series is at it's worst when it's saccharine and cheery with no emotional impact to it, and if the series went on, it would need less of that and more of the darker atmospheric stuff from Heritage Three. At the very least, I think the Paternoster Gang has more life in it than UNIT. Heaven knows that that series took Seven sets to get one good set out and this one took three. Granted both are of similar quality, and I love Kate, I love Osgood, and I love Vastra, Jenny and Strax, but for similar reasons I'd be hardpressed to earnestly recommend either as actual series. The Diary of River Song is probably the best NuWho spinoff as far as I consider it, without dragging in things like Time War sets or actual TV spinoff's like Torchwood. Remember what Torchwood Aliens Among Us did with 12 episodes? It makes this whole exercise look futile. It's sad if the Paternoster Gang dies here, and I do want to advocate that the series do go on, because the potential is there, and they've already gone out and made some of it that works pretty damn well. As long as there is a possibility of return for the Paternoster trio, I'd love to see it. Either that, or give Ellie the Barmaid a spinoff at this rate.