The Second Doctor Adventures: James Robert McCrimmon

 

The Second Doctor Adventures: James Robert McCrimmon

And the award for the “what were they thinking naming this boxset” goes to—

I initially wondered why The Second Doctor Adventures even bothered with doing a continuation past War Games if they were going to jump back and immediately do more Jamie stories again. There are so few Second Doctor stories that even attempt to give him a life beyond Jamie, that one of the previous set’s redeeming features was that it was at the very least, new for the Second Doctor — a figure we had never seen before travel alone. Indeed, for that matter, Raven does the job as a new and unique companion in a way that we’ve never really had before. She’s Ollistra meets Catwoman, a strange and sensual villainess that the Doctor has to put up with. Why bother with anyone else??

At the very least, James Robert McCrimmon (what is WRONG with just saying volume 2 or Return of Jamie, this set does not deserve a subtitle, Jamie's name is not a theme) does seem to be aware that Jamie is a figure we are quite familiar with, and it does it’s best to try and create a new atmosphere for a familiar character. It doesn’t quite hit the highs of Return of Jo Jones, it’s closest equivalent, but it’s actually not absolutely horrible like I was expecting based off of the previous set, one of Big Finish's worst in recent memory. 

However, I can't truly say it's expert marksmanship either. Comparing it to Return of Jo Jones, as it is very easy to do, results in a very unfavorable comparison. Return of Jo Jones is so searingly new, and Jo's personality as an adult is quite a bit different than she was back in the 70s/80s. The stories in that set are constructed around the basis of Older Jo as a conceit. Young Jo would not act anywhere near the way Jo acts in The Conservators or the Iron Shore. Jamie doesn't quite work by the same framing. He's still the old sod we all know very well. While I found myself truly in love with Michael Troughton's performance, I kept thinking how much the entire thing would be if it was just him and Raven. 

Jamie by Mark Wright

It's amazing how a story that is only 50 minutes can feel so overlong. Not much happens in Jamie. Jamie's titular story is about him losing his mind in a cellar somewhere, except he isn't, except there are two of him, a Jamie who remembers his time with the Doctor and a Jamie who doesn't. This is a remarkably good hook to do something with. It's a clever idea to seperate the Jamie before and after the Doctor. There's also something to be said that Jamie doesn't HAVE a life outside the Doctor. He's rotting in a cell somewhere because he doesn't understand how to operate outside The Doctor's company. He's spent too much time with him, and he doesn't get the real world anymore. It's all... viciously cynical, to be blunt. It reminds me of Ace's depiction in the Hex arc as essentially a bit of a womanchild who doesn't know how to do anything but save the world and make quips. Jamie (story) takes that idea and goes even further than that into brutality. Said brutality I'm not sure is entirely deserved in tone for Jamie (character) nor does it particularly seem to change him, at least once the dementia bit is over. 

There are glimmers of something better in Jamie (story) - there is of course, the question of why we're returning to Jamie (character) at all, especially considering he's hardly left, but I'm ignoring that, mostly, because the story alone leaves a lot to unpack. Jamie (story) is trying to answer that question by saying HE'S CHANGED. It's trying to be a melancholic surreal sort of a story, almost for something like Circular Time, to be a story that is about life in retrospect. Jamie is trying to be a story about how things are different now, but it never quite convinces you that they are, because once it's over and done with, Jamie (character) is back to tip-top shape. Mostly because for most of it nothing happens. There are a lot of dream sequences in this one. Maybe call me biased because I've just finished watching Twin Peaks, but they're remarkably uninteresting dream sequences.

The best part of Jamie (story) is undoubtedly the new angles it gives to explore Raven, a character who was one of the better parts of Beyond War Games, despite being one-dimensional, and has now evolved past that into something quite interesting. She's manipulative, sure, but she's also not at the top of her game, and sometimes she knows a lot, and sometimes she knows remarkably little. Her little interactions on the basis of humans give a companion dynamic that has never been done before, and is quite interesting. I would have loved a series entirely based on her - a little brutalist Romana in the making, a lens to examine the Doctor with. We tend to see Time Lords mainly who are renegades or the top of the social class. Raven has authority, authority to do whatever she likes with the time-split Second Doctor we're viewing in this series, but beyond that she has very little power, and isn't going to conquer the universe any-time soon. If only we got that series: Her chemistry with Michael Troughton is electric. Jamie (character) has potential, as did Jamie (story) but Jamie (both) seems to be a fairly missed opportunity. 

The Green Man by Michael F Verhoeven

For the first half of The Green Man I was very pleased. The opening scene taking place within the TARDIS where The Doctor and Jamie berate Raven for all the slave labour they're doing for was both charming and fun. The central concept of doing a (to be fair, frustratingly exact) parody of Rear Window, one of my all time favorite films, was good too. But you can't really do Rear Window on audio -- it's hard to do an audio all about the danger of LOOKING, especially considering The Red Lady has already been done. You especially can't do Rear Window in a secluded hospital where no one's there to look at. The bustling streetlife is part of the fun of the original film, and The Green Man has a very very small cast. Rear Window beats the Bekdel Test and this one's only female character is Raven. But I'll stop now, because The Green Man is probably the best one of the Two audios so far. It's still got a massive problem in it, but I did at least have a hell of a lot of fun with The Green Man, and it starts and ends on great notes. 

...Still. Nitpicks. Every time I start to really enjoy a story in these sets, a Classic Doctor Who villain shows up to be uninteresting. The first set's biggest problem was being plagued by both a Dalek and Ice Warrior runaround without any real emotional connection to anything happening, and the Krynoids' inclusion in this story may be more irritating than either of those -- because not only does it fail to do anything beyond the original serial in expanding them, it also brings up more questions than it's worth. I was so confused about the casual nature the Krynoids are treated with here, like an old nemesis - which doesn't exactly gel well with the original story in my book. Jamie, of all people, is intimately familiar with the Space Plants of Doom and knows exactly how their seed pods work and everything, something he has evidently learnt of offscreen. Yes, yes, I know. Little plotholes and nitpicks like that aren't really very relevant:  But they do bug me, they do take me out of the world I'm listening to, and little things like that weren't the only ones. 

Jamie is competently written, even if his return, unlike Jo, immediately heralds a problem. Jamie hasn't changed a bit in the 30 or so years he's spent without the Doctor, and he's still as headstrong and faithful as ever. I had sort of hoped that Jamie would have undergone a little bit more development offscreen, that he understands how to be both a pacifist and a warrior from his time with the Doctor, but that's not what this story is interested in. Which is fine, but frustrating. More nitpicks. 

Still, If we MUST have a Second Doctor and Jamie fight the Krynoids story, this is pretty much as good as you're going to get that concept, because the film that it is originally homaging is pretty much perfect to begin with, and Troughton and Hines are both lovely performers. Michael Troughton especially continues to amaze me, as the man he's basically imitating is almost universally considered to be one of the finest actors to grace the program. He's making this series work.

The Shroud by Robert Ayres

When authors are new to the audio genre, they tend to default to the question of how to make the concept of audio important. That's not a misinformed claim - It's a quotation from Nicholas Briggs in Vortex 167. I know what I'm talking about. Anyway, it fits, because Robert Ayres' first audio was The Demon Song, but it was pitched at the same time as this one, The Shroud, which not only is also about the concept of audio in a different way, it's pretty much just as good. 

I don't have too much to say about The Shroud because it's basic concept has been done on audio a few times before. Embrace the Darkness is a similar sort of story, where everything is really dark, and Torchwood did a take on it in See No Evil from God Among Us. The concept of audio being narrated because everything is really dark isn't new to Doctor Who and it's subsidiaries, but when the execution is this strong across the board, it's hard not to get swept up off your feet.

Half of the fun of The Shroud is it's atmosphere, and the other half is that it's just plain sharply written, even more than The Green Man, which was already halfway on it's way to really impressing me, if the Krynoids weren't so bad in it. The Second Doctor really has not had a good record on audio, a few exceptions like Rob Nisbet's The Edge withstanding, so it's just a joy to get a story that is dripping with excellent sound design and musical cues, and a fun mystery to boot. The Shroud goes straight into the opposite direction you may expect with the second half, but it isn't disjointed, because it's been sept up so well in the first. 

I don't want to be too cruel, because Jamie does have a fair deal to do in this one, but it's sort of "companion basics." He's enjoyable, but he's there to ask questions to the guest star characters and besiege the Hospital to try and rescue the Doctor in the second half - a task that doesn't do much with his character. For three stories in a row I've been frustrated with his implementation due to the sheer lack of exploration his character gets. Luckily The Shroud has a larger than usual focus on The Doctor so it isn't too noticeable, and for that matter, it plasters over the problem with Jamie's character by making it not a character piece for him, just Jamie at his most fun, which does really benefit the piece. The Shroud is really really good, and not at all what I was expecting from the series that continually seems to make mistakes - although based on it's cliffhanger ending, there's plenty of room for those in the followup. Still, The Shroud is definitely the best Second Doctor story I've done on audio. Just forget the base under siege, and give me another surreal madcap story like The Mind Robber and we'll be back in business.