The Seventh Doctor Adventures: Silver and Ice

 

The Seventh Doctor Adventures: Silver and Ice

While Silver and Ice is a much more competent production than the vast majority of The 7/Ace/Mel arc that closed out the Main Range, and at several points even borders on quite good indeed, it never quite reaches over into something I could recommend. When Big Finish rebooted the Main Range into the Adventures Boxsets, it tried to reorganize the various releases into jumping on points, which for the most part it did very well. The First Doctor and Dodo, Two beyond the War Games, The Sixth Doctor and Hebe, The Fourth Doctor Solo, these are very open and inviting boxsets that want newcomers to pick them up. On the other hand, there's stuff like Forty, The Eighth Doctor/Liv/Helen once again and Silver and Ice, which almost feels like stalling before Sullivan and Cross properly starts out something new. Silver and Ice is the opposite of what someone who's only seen modern Doctor Who should view for their first time, it's two audios, one of which relies on Cyberman lore and the other on the planet Ribos, and believe it or not, the longer one is Ribos, with it actually managing to take up two thirds of the entire set. 

I don't want to imply that you should only do stories that newcomers could enjoy, far from it, but as a jumping on point, it's not a jumping on point. It's just Seven and Mel, a very nice and fun little duo, but the set indeed assumes you know who they are intimately. These are ostensibly simply two stories. Silver and Ice is trying to be something for the most diehard of Classic Fans, those people who actually care about Ribos, and the Seventh Doctor's character growth between Season 24 and Season 25. It's not like that wasn't already familiar territory for the Seventh Doctor in the Main Range, who was already doing nostalgia like stuff with repeated trips to the Greatest Show in the Galaxy and facing off the deadly Swarm from the Invisible Enemy and still doing more Ace/Hex stories. The point is, I'd be much kinder to this if The Seventh Doctor wasn't the #1 Doctor in need of a drastically new direction, with him literally floundering for next to the entirety of the 200s. 

Bad Day In Tinseltown by Dan Starkey

Bad Day In Tinseltown feels exceedingly NuWho in terms of pacing and execution. It's speedy, nice, and thoroughly inoffensive. I don't understand how one can be mad at Bad Day in Tinseltown. It was probably trying to do something like Silver Nemesis, or something out of Season 24, but all the same - I maintain that it feels quite modern in it's sensibility, ultimately coming across similarly to The Next Doctor or Nightmare in Silver.

 This is probably because Dan Starkey is quite a good writer. He's not put out anything that's truly going to blow your mind, but when you see the name Dan Starkey credited on a script you do know that it's simply going to be rather enjoyable. The plot of Bad Day revolves around a city that's got too much Tinsel from an overblown mining operation and the city trying to get popular as a Tourist location. It's very season 24 in terms of ideas, and you could totally see the BBC in the 80s trying to make something silly and glitzy and camp like this. 

The Cybermen show up eventually, although for the most part of the story they slowly and insidiously are brainwashing Colonel Polly, a background character who steadily manages to become the Main Antagonist. Colonel Polly is very fun. I've heard people complain about her, but I've also heard people complain about all sorts of great things, so you'll just have to trust me and accept that she's very fun. When you describe Bad Day it really does sound like it's aiming 100% to be a campy little 80s tale, but in the way it's executed, it feels like it has the fingerprints of Russell T Davies' interpretation of strange vaguely human oriented society in the future on distant worlds. It ultimately feels less Classic Who and more like The Long Game.

 The dissonance in the setting and tone makes the idea that this place is a glam 80s Tinsel covered dustbowl all the more fun. The thing that really impresses me about Bad Day In Tinseltown is how enjoyable it is and how it made an hour seem much shorter than that. So many Big Finish stories drag on and on and on, but I never felt bored with Bad Day, and I can't say that about many boxsets these days. I'd like to give this quite a high score indeed, but I think that I'll be honest in that while it's a bucketload of fun, it's also in one ear and out the other. 6/10 

The Ribos Inheritance by Jonathan Barnes

Jonathan Barnes uses the scope of the audio medium to try and explore the planet Ribos without a BBC budget. As such, the Ribos Inheritance slowly but surely becomes a story about a massive war and with fifty times the Shrivenzales 70s Who could ever afford. The Ribos Inheritance should not be ANYWHERE near as good as it is, because there pretty much isn't a single thing about the concept I don't hate. The Seventh Doctor returns to the planet Ribos to grapple with Garron!! How droll. But no, the Ribos Inheritance somehow manages to be better than most Big Finish 4-Part Stories in execution. It's still quite overlong, but it's got a lot more witticism to it than I was ever expecting going into it. It's got an oddly really good part one that's full of strong scenes. From the very first scene Issy Van Randwick (what a name) delivers a really stunning guest performance as The Seeker.  There's a dedication and zeal to the way she delivers her lines that makes you almost forget that this is a fricking Ribos Sequel - a sequel to a story that's already boring as sin.

 I feel like I'm sounding far too kind to The Ribos Inheritance, because frankly, it's nowhere near a good or great story. It's just miles better than The Ribos Operation, and so you know, I have to compliment it, you understand? Simply by comparison. The Ribos Inheritance, being an audio story doesn't have the one big thing that Ribos Operation had going for it, stellar visuals, and as such, it can stall in the latter half of Part Two and Four. It's easy to get bored on Ribos, no matter the story. But like, once again. I have to admit there are more scenes I like in this one with good content than I like in the original. I think this story stalls, but on the other hand, I've seen Ribos Operation three times when watching Key to Time, and I only remember what it looks like. I would LOVE to tear into this thing, but objectively, I kinda can't. It treats the original with respect and uses it as a building block to make something pretty much better. 

The best thing about The Ribos Inheritance is what it does for McCoy and Mel's relationship, helping to better flesh out the fact that The Doctor is about to change and become a lot more serious and that Mel doesn't really want to deal with that. The ending - if you wish to so interpret it, leads wonderfully into Dragonfire, with Mel exchanging one rogue on an ice planet (Garron) for another (Glitz.) Bonnie Langford is too good for Doctor Who in general these days. Her character has expanded so beautifully on Big Finish, and at this point I prefer her to basically almost every other companion in their reportoire, save Leela on a good day. A good companion can't singlehandedly save a story if the majority of what they do is just, normal plot things without much acting or whatever, but they can help just a bit. 

All this being said, this has absolutely no need to be four parts long. It borders on a bad story several times, ultimately coming out as an exceedingly average one. I can take exceedingly average though. The Ribos Inheritance had so much against it that it ultimately results in being a blessing in disguise. I'll still take normal stories without weird fanservice over the nostalgia trend though. 5/10