This Sporting Life

The TARDIS arrives in London in 1966 but the streets have been cordoned off and people have been ordered to clear the area. The World Cup has been stolen at the height of the season; this would not normally be something the Doctor would be interested in but when a piece of the missing item comes into their possession, the Doctor, Steven and Dodo suspect that there is something more going on than simple theft or a sports prank.

This Sporting Life is one of the Short Trips range from Big Finish and made for a fun listen through the headphones via the Big Finish app on my phone as I wandered around the streets of my native Toronto last week. Given that the tale is told in under 40 minutes it has a structure something akin to that of a TV script, with the pace moving quicker than the usual Big Finish fare where they are able to take their time over several episodes.

The mystery of the deserted streets of London evokes the feel of later episodes of the show where alien invasions have forced people inside or to flee entirely, and due to the one man cast (Peter Purves narrating as well as providing the dramatized lines for Steven Taylor, the Doctor and the heavily accented Goldsmith) there is not exactly a feel of a busy full city going apeshit over a sporting event (I share Steven's cynicism about the hype surrounding the World Cup although I wouldn't go so far as to call the fans "idiot people").

This Sporting Life does not have the same grim edge that Bunker Soldiers wanted to have so by contrast it is a lighter story punctuated by some chuckle moments when the Doctor puts on his best indignant act and had to be led away by his companions while still going off. In fact the title of the episode itself is a reference to a film William Hartnell himself was in, which itself is not exactly a comedy by any stretch.

Regardless of its tone the short trip here is a nice bit of expansion on the time the Doctor spends with Steven and Dodo, even if Jackie Lane has so far been unconvinced to return to the role even for one episode (if Janet Fielding could be convinced to reprise Tegan, anything is possible). But their days as a team are drawing to a close...

NEXT EPISODE: THE SAVAGES

Bunker Soldiers

It's 1240 and a Mongol army is advancing upon the city of Kiev. Nothing can slow this force down it seems and the people of Kiev are waiting for the inevitible; they are waiting to die. The Doctor, Steven and Dodo have landed in Kiev but are denied access to the TARDIS unless they help the people of Kiev. The Doctor knows he cannot interfere with history and the siege of Kiev is something he cannot change, but there is another alien presence in the city which a desperate faction is willing to unleash in the hopes that it will help their cause.

Hmmm. Bunker Soldiers is one of the BBC Books range of novels published in 2001 and it was the second to feature Steven and Dodo with the first Doctor, although while reading it I can't shake the feeling that author Martin Day was not really interested in Dodo's presence at all. How do I know? For starters she is barely in it. I didn't think to do an actual page count but she's not a very active participant in the story at all, relegated to hanging around with another girl her age and being a bad influence on her while the Doctor goes to ask the Mongols to spare Kiev and Steven gets entire chapters of action to himself told in the first person. But Dodo's inclusion makes for placement in that short bit of time between The Gunfighters and the next story, The Savages.

There is a monster on the loose in Kiev in the story; something that can change its shape to blend in with its surroundings and something that was expected to help protect Kiev but seems to want to kill anyone in its path. Its alien origins are hinted at in the odd flashback here and there be it to the past in Russia or somewhere else loaded with technical jargon. The cover art is a bit misleading where that is concerned; it looks more like an alien from V than a shape shifter and what is described is more akin to the monster seen in 2007's Lazarus Experiment. 

I couldn't really get into this one for some reason. I'm not sure if it was the flat supporting cast of Kiev or the shift between first and third person narratives or the fact that the whole alien monster plot just didn't seem to even be necessary; the story could have worked as a purely historical tale and the effort spent pasting together a passable plot for the alien could have gone into refining the supporting cast. Or the alien presence could have been refined itself and played more of a role; it's one thing to shroud it in mystery but it's another to just crash bang resolve it within the last 20 pages of the story.  Odds are BBC Books will commission an audio book of the tale and it might make for an okay translation but I kinda hope they don't... I'd rather just put this one back on the shelf and move on...

NEXT EPISODE: THIS SPORTING LIFE

The Gunfighters

Suffering from a toothache, the Doctor puts the TARDIS down looking for some aid. The ship does not provide the best location for this and lands in Tombstone, Arizona, in October 1881 just before the infamous shoot out at the OK Corral. Dodo and Steven launch themselves into their roles as a tacky cowgirl and cowboy, unaware that the Clantons are in town looking for Doc Holliday. The Doctor, however, discovers that Holliday is the very dentist he seeks but a case of mistaken identity follows and lands him right in the Clanton family crosshairs, with Johnny Ringo not too far behind...

The Gunfighters is one of those stories which craws wildly differing opinions from fans; it is either loved or hated - there has yet to be anyone who was only mildly receptive to it. I'm one of the "love it" team although it's not hard to see why the "hate it" camp has such a hard time enjoying it; in fact the reasons are pretty much the same either side of the coin.

For starters it's a comedy. Some say that there is no room in Doctor Who for comedy and would not have enjoyed The Romans either for the same reason (wow - that seems like so long ago now) but when it's done right it's fine. I wouldn't say this is done exactly right but it's humourous enough and doesn't have a laugh track. I get a kick out of the small stuff like Steven tripping over his spurs when he walks, his cabaret act (at gunpoint) with Dodo at the Last Chance Saloon, and the interplay between the Doctor and any of the supporting cast. My favourite has to be the Doctor's experience at the dentist office as he realizes this is not the height of dental professionalism.

The supporting cast are... well... painful to watch sometimes. All those fake American accents just sound so bad and corny; thankfully Steven and Dodo give it up by the end of episode one and the Doctor never tries it on. But there is not much menace to be had in a shaky voice trying to sound tough in an accent that is not it's own. And as for Johnny Ringo... he looks like he's headed for an old gay bar I knew of called Badlands in his all black (of course - cause he's a bad guy!) attire and his tough guy smoking act.

Then there's the matter of the music. This was the first time lyrical music was used as incidental, and to an extent the lyrical stylings of Lynda Baron as she sings "The Ballad of the Last Chance Saloon" serve as a bit of narration between acts as well. This sort of thing would not happen again until 1987's Delta and the Bannermen and even then it would not be to the same effect. The song has been added as a bonus to one of the audio releases of the story; one is the actual audio track with linking narration (which is baffling as this episode exists in its entirety and can be watched) and the other is a straight up reading of the novelization.

The big redeemer though is the sets - they're fantastic! As with The Ark there is a lot of overhead work and even a second floor to the saloon set, and the streets of Tombstone are actually pretty well designed and well shot to look bigger than they are. There's an obvious jump to a film stage for the OK Corral scenes and the opening where the Clantons ride into town on their horses, and even that looks good for the time.

I had mentioned the novelization of the story earlier; Donald Cotton provided one for this tale and very much in the style of The Romans and The Myth Makers the printed version plays up the comedy element some more. I had seen the televised episode before the novel was published and as such was not thrown off by the variances between screen and page... well not too much.

There are no real continuity points in this one; the premise of the Doctor's toothace is started at the final seconds of The Celestial Toymaker and there are no references to other adventures to cite aside from that and the fact that Steven and Dodo are still wearing the same clothes from that episode. The story does end with the Doctor, Steven and Dodo landing on another planet in an age of peace and prosperity, but it's not out of the question to suppose they had a couple other adventures in between them...

NEXT EPISODE: BUNKER SOLDIERS