The Rise of the New Humans

A man died after falling from a car park, and upon investigation the Doctor realizes that he tried to grow wings. Spurred by this discovery, the Doctor and Jo head into the country to investigate a medical clinic where miracles are being worked and discover evidence of advanced technology being used. The staff of the facility are unhelpful, as if they are hiding something, and they are: there is a dreadful experiment going on to augment the human race to a new level. But they have some otherworldly help: the Monk has returned to Earth.

Rufus Hound is brought back to play the re-imagined Meddling Monk once again, having already confounded the second Doctor and company some time ago in The Black Hole. His portrayal stays consistent with his previous work for the range and still makes for an effective adversary for the Doctor, although I found myself wondering why there can't be more of a diverse range of incarnations of the other Time Lords like we see with the Doctor himself.  This Monk is still pretty reminiscent of the original as portrayed by Peter Butterworth in the 1960s - he's a meddler and he doesn't see anything wrong with what he does, still insisting that this is all for the good of the humans. But he's still a bit goofy, a bit too jovial, a bit too much just like the previous version. Note the differences between Hartnell and Troughton and Pertwee to date and they are all good guys sure but not interchangeable like the two versions of the Monk are. A grumpy old man version of the Monk would have been interesting. But chronologically this is the third Monk as Big Finish did/will pit him against the eighth Doctor and this one drops a reference to the future Doctor's companion Lucie Miller, making him the next in line.

As far as the whole continuity thing goes the Doctor is still on Earth assisting UNIT although as Jo mentions he could very well just leave and not come back now that the TARDIS is functioning once again. There is still evil at work on Earth, obviously, and the Doctor can't bring himself to just up and leave his new "home" as it were, but the day is coming when he will at last and Earth will have to fend for itself.

While I was listening to this I spotted a few elements of other Who in there, most notable being parallels between this story and the tenth Doctor episode New Earth where another hospital is performing miracles to cure the sick. although they are far more transparent about what is going on. I wouldn't say this is a real rip off of that but there are other instances of similar elements in there from the same story, so yeah, kinda close, but by the time we reach that story through this blog it's going to fade.

The real cover

The Rise of the New Humans is the first story in the fourth volume of Big Finish's Third Doctor Adventures and about halfway through it I realized that I am now so taken in my Tim Treloar's impression of Jon Pertwee's Doctor that I can kinda see Pertwee when I hear Treloar's lines. This is no doubt because Katy Manning is still there as Jo and they make the relationship work just like in the "old days". I'm actually going to miss this combo on audio, although with Treloar established as the new voice of the third Doctor maybe there's a crossover to be had somewhere with the other Doctors.

NEXT EPISODE: THE TYRANTS OF LOGIC

The Hidden Realm

The unknown is always with Jo Grant these days but it hits close to home when her cousin's husband mysteriously vanishes in a small village in the English countryside. The Doctor agrees to take her and investigate, and he discovers the area is riddled with anomalies on the quantum level. A pair of police officers are making their own, somewhat less sophisticated investigation, but discover that there is something not quite right about the area. There are flocks of magpies gathering every time someone goes missing, and the missing tend to show up again after about five days. But the Doctor is not one to calmly accept this as anything normal and delves deeper into what is going on and discovers an atrocity hidden in plain sight.

This is the second adventure from Volume 2 of The Third Doctor Adventures, and as with The Transcendence of Ephros it's another four part adventure with Katy Manning back as Jo Grant alongside Tim Treloar's fantastically convincing third Doctor impression. It's been mentioned in other reviews that Manning seemed to be having a less than effective stint with the full cast episodes when they started out, but I don't really see (or hear) it myself. Fine she doesn't sound as young as she used to but that's the reality of ageing for everyone, especially in a series with this kind of longevity, but she does her best to bring her voice up a bit to sound a bit more like the Jo we knew from the screen.

Where this falls in continuity was a bit of a puzzle at first; the Doctor and Jo are clearly still working for UNIT and mention the organization here and there, but eventually Jo makes a reference to knowing the voice of the second Doctor, so this can go anywhere after The Three Doctors once the TARDIS is back in action, although they do say that the ship is not up and running at the moment.

Realm fits neatly into a four episode format, which made it easy for me to enjoy on a day trip for work. The structure of the story doesn't really do anything new and experimental, it is content to just be entertaining by splitting the Doctor and Jo up and re-pairing them with other cast members as they investigate what's going on. The protagonist of the piece is something new though; not exactly complicated, a very straight up kind of menace but with enough of a motivational twist to remain interesting. In all I am glad it wasn't a super complicated listen as I was driving at the time and didn't want to miss anything crucial as can happen with some of the more complex Big Finish tales.

NEXT EPISODE: THE RISE OF THE NEW HUMANS

The Transcendence of Ephros

The Doctor promises Jo a trip to the planet Ephros - a lush and beautiful jungle world by his accounts. But when the TARDIS arrives the planet is in darkness and dying; the Doctor doesn't understand what has happened here and hopes that a group of religious pilgrims can help him out - especially once the TARDIS falls into a crack in the ground. The religious group are not alone on Ephros; the Galactux Corporation is here as well, having surrounded the planet with a metal shell which is there to gather the energy from the transcendence which is only days away. But the truth is a shocker: for Ephros to transcend means the planet will explode. The religious group are here to die, believing they will ascend to a higher level of being. And Galactux is all too ready to let them.

So Ephros is not quite Waco, TX, and Mother Finsey is not exactly David Koresh but that's the first thing that leaped into my mind as I realized what was going on here. So it's Doctor Who and the Suicide Cult is it? Fascinating. The Pertwee era of the series was never one to shy away from making a political statement about the goings on of the world, touching on colonialism, environmental issues, native rights... by taking on the notion of a suicide cult here Big Finish have grabbed the hot topic of religious belief and expression by the horns. The Doctor remains as neutral about it as he can; having seen the universe and all its many and varied beliefs he's not going to interfere no matter how the thought of all these people dying upsets him. Jo, on the other hand, gets to be the one who is revolted by the whole thing, probably because she has been holding a baby in her arms and the realization that this child is going to die without any choice in the matter. But that's the companion role right there in a nutshell; to see things different from the Doctor and have the "human" reaction to it.

Watching over all of it on behalf of the Earth Empire is Galactux. They aren't going to interfere in what's going on as far as the religious group is concerned: when Ephros goes boom they are going to harvest the energy released and get rich. But it's not like planets just expire and blow up out of nowhere; the Doctor is suspicious about the circumstances and through his investigations underground while looking for the TARDIS he realizes there is more going on here than either group realizes. He's got to fight against the bureaucracy of Galactux right away: the project leader doesn't like delays and shouts at people a lot to get his way. Great motivator, that one.

As far as series continuity goes, I went to Ehpros a little too soon - Big Finish used to say where their stories were intended to fall within the established series but lately they haven't done so as much and the odd time I get a bit of a surprise. My original intent was to listen to it right after the first volume of third Doctor adventures, but to my surprise in episode two, it's revealed that this actually takes place after Frontier in Space with the Doctor calling upon the Earth President to give him some clout with Galactux. And with Conquest of Far being set immediately after Planet of the Daleks I put Ephros even further back, so what you're reading now has been in draft mode waiting to be published for a couple months.

And this one is not without its surprises, no not by a long shot. But I'm not a spoiler. So they remain a surprise.

NEXT EPISODE: THE HIDDEN REALM

The Time Tunnel and The Other Woman

Two of the Short Trips adventures from Big Finish are next, and although I placed them both within the last range of Jo's adventures with the Doctor, turns out only one belongs here...

UNIT are made aware of an alarming incident which has left everyone on board a passenger train dead. When the Doctor investigates he discovers that although the passengers only left the station minutes earlier they have all aged to death as if their journey has taken months. With no other alternatives, the Doctor takes the next train through on his own to discover the truth of what went on.

It's not a complicated story at all, fitting in quite well in the time after Planet of the Daleks and without any of the heavy handed foreshadowing of Jo's departure that has popped up in the novels set in this space. Nope, it's the Doctor and Jo (as read by Katy Manning) and a mystery to solve involving lots of dead people and a localized time distortion effect in an area of England which was once rumoured to have been the Devil's resting place. And all over in about a half an hour. Mind you, it was over a little too easily; time may be short on these ones but there's no reason to make the ending as rushed as this one was.


The Other Woman on the other hand takes place back before the Doctor's exile was lifted by the Time Lords and sees him still trying to escape from Earth. Enter the mysterious traveller Callandra whose own ship has broken down on Earth and she needs help. The Doctor obliges as he can relate to being stranded, but then all the men of UNIT are suddenly falling all over themselves trying to help as well, which sets Jo's instincts off. Good Samaritans all? Or does Callandra have some kind of hold over men?

A classic science fiction device that is - the persuasive seductive alien woman with the series regulars wrapped around her finger, and its takes the female protagonist to be immune to her charms to set everyone free. Smacks of the end of the fourth series of Angel with everyone under the spell of Jasmine and her beauty, meanwhile she's a rotting festering heap of maggoty evil. Callandra isn't exactly like that, but she's not far off. One would have thought the Doctor would be immune to that kind of thing but his desire to get away from Earth makes him more vulnerable to it than usual.

Now for some full length fare...

NEXT EPISODE: THE TRANSCENDENCE OF EPHROS

Last of the Gaderene

What seems like a simple revitalization of an old World War II aerodrome promises to being prosperity to the village of Culverton. Legion International's project is met with enthusiasm from the locals until black uniformed security troops begin to appear on the village streets like some kind of occupying force. An old friend of the Brigadier's gets in touch to voice his suspicions, which brings UNIT along with the Doctor and Jo onto the scene, and their investigation uncovers a stealthy massive invasion of Earth already well underway.

It's the UNIT era down to a t this one - all the hallmarks of a good old fashioned invasion of Earth are here to enjoy: the Brig is skeptical, the Doctor is suspicious, the aliens are malevolent and well connected, and Jo never does anything the Doctor tells her to do to stay safe in the crisis. And true to what Jon Pertwee would have wanted had this been a televised serial, the Doctor gets a go in the cockpit of a WWII spitfire.

It's also the late days of the UNIT era; the Doctor has the TARDIS working again, his exile lifted some time ago, and now he is spending more and more time away from Earth but always comes back to it. So far. While I was reading Catastrophea before I lamented at how I don't like the whole retcon angle where the Doctor knows his companions will soon be leaving him (in that case, Jo), but here we have the same being done with the Doctor himself; the Brigadier is no fool and has seen how desperate the Doctor was to escape exile, and now that he has his freedom back he knows it will just be a matter of time before he is gone for good. That bit I do not mind; it's only logical that it will happen and the Brigadier is just seeing the writing on the wall. To start predicting a companion leaving when there is no clear evidence of it just looks like an author being smug.

The Gaderene are described as a parasitic race and resemble something between a lobster and a squid - horrific really when it is revealed exactly how they co-exist with a host.  And surprise surprise they are trying to escape a dying world and Earth looks like a good place to move to, despite its inconvenient human population. This sort of thing has happened before though, but there are only so many ways it can be presented in the end. And what good is an alien invasion without a thoroughly malevolent spokesperson, in this case a large fat woman named Bliss.  What a bitch. And it's not just the little parasitic monsters to be wary of - there's something bigger and scarier growing out in the marsh nearby.

And of course what story set in this era would be complete without the Master somewhere in there?

Less is more sometime when it comes to design

I can't remember exactly what happened to my first copy of this book - I think eBay might have had something to do with it - but the BBC Book people reprinted it back in 2013 for the 50th anniversary of Doctor Who with a simplistic yet striking new cover and a corresponding audio version read by series regular from this era Richard Franklin (Mike Yates). I sat back for about 8 hours over a few days and enjoyed hearing his storytelling; having been on the series he does passable impressions of his former co-stars and is accompanied by a minimal audio score and some background sound effects; indeed the meowing of a couple cats in one scene set my own off on a hunt for intruders in her domain while other sounds made me wonder if my windows were open and something was going on outside. It's not quite a Big Finish experience, but it's still a good time.

When I was setting out on this journey to read and watch and listen to all the Doctor Who material I have I figured that around here I would be returning to the televised series and seeing Jo Grant off (it's no secret she is leaving soon, the bloody expanded universe authors keep telling us) but her departure has been delayed by more material released by Big Finish and the BBC Audio people. So Jo is still with us for a bit, and I'm about to put a couple Short Trips audios on a flash drive and take them on the road for a listen today.

NEXT EPISODES: THE OTHER WOMAN and THE TIME TUNNEL

Catastrophea

En route back to Earth, the Doctor senses a planet in great distress and alters the TARDIS course to go there. The planet is Katospheria but it has been nicknamed Catastrophea by the human colonists who live there; the planet and its native population, known only as the People, have been used and abused by an intergalactic Company but are now under the protection of Earth’s empire itself. The planet has attracted its fair share of drug smugglers and freedom fighters, and right now sits under a Draconian blockade with invasion imminent. But beyond the visible dangers is a deeper threat from the planet’s old days, a threat which could see everyone wiped out on all sides.

So here we have another offering to the BBC Books line by Terrance Dicks, a man so deeply involved in the Pertwee era on television that it makes sense for him to write a tale set exactly then, with the Doctor and Jo in their starring roles. The story opens right after the final scenes of Planet of the Daleks just as did the audio The Conquest of Far so it’s up to the viewer / listener / reader to decide which of the two is the legit follow-up – I only picked Conquest for my purposes because I was excited to listen to it. There’s a clumsy recap of the previous story but at the time Planet of the Daleks hadn’t been released on home video so perhaps Dicks felt it was warranted to remind people of what went on. And the Doctor has this moment where he realizes that Jo is growing as a woman and will leave him soon (I hate this kind of retcon foreshadowing by the way) but then has a kind of Obi Wan Kenobi moment with his sometimes-referenced Time Lord telepathy picking up the distress of an entire world crying out in pain. It makes a certain sense why that happened as the story unfolds but at the time it just seems like something the TARDIS could have picked up on its own with its own circuits.

Anyways, down to the planet they go and find a colonial world with lower level technology and a subjugated native population being whipped and beaten and not actually doing anything about it (obvious parallels to the British Empire are made). Except for here and there when one goes berserk and slaughters anyone in the way. The people living here are farmers and plantation owners but they’re none too nice – but neither are the drug smuggling group headed by a guy named Dove. There’s little real law and order in the colony with displaced Company security outnumbering and outgunning the legitimate police, and a token branch of Earth military is onsite for general security. And then there are the activists – they’re there to be political and fight for the rights of the People even if the People don’t really care what happens to them. And there are Draconians in orbit with their own agenda.

I found it’s a bit of a mixed bag of a cast with nobody really getting much in the way of character development. Some of these characters could have been dropped in favour of exploring the others better; even the whole subplot about drugs could have gone away along with anyone associated with it. But as I was reading it I realized this setting was not too far off that of Combat Rock which was written beautifully and packed full of detail and suspense, as well as blood and gore which Catastrophea has but it’s just not brought off the same. And Combat Rock had its own set of bad boys who were far more alarming than Dove and his guys could ever be. And the People. There’s more going on there than anyone suspects, and the real trouble, when it starts, will start there.

Timeline wise this takes place at the height of tensions between Earth and Draconia, so some years before Frontier in Space. The two empires are butted up against each other and events on Catastrophea would be just what is needed to plunge them both into war for no real reason except for imperial Draconian court politics. It’s actually an era of “future history” which would be interesting to explore – it’s a shame that Dicks didn’t go there instead of what he eventually did produce.

Oh well. I’m sure it would have been an interesting six episode script back in its day.

NEXT EPISODE: LAST OF THE GADERENE

Speed of Flight

The Doctor takes Jo and Mike Yates on board the TARDIS promising them a trip to the planet Karfel, but instead they arrive on a strange world with a strange life cycle; children are born in the forest and evolve to men on land who then evolve up to flying creatures called Naieen, and below march the armies of the Dead. The crew are separated and the TARDIS is lost in the forest; while Jo tries to reunite with the Doctor and Mike they fall in with a group of men who are on a mission to steal the sun and poison the sky.

Confused? I was for a while.  Paul Leonard created this entire new world and decided the best way to describe it would be through the thoughts of the locals, so there's this strange shift and use of capitalization to describe the Sky, the Land, the Dead and what have you. There's not a lot of explaining done when our regulars arrive either; when they do not know what is going on they are dismissed as "from another Land" and no clear answers are given to them. The Doctor does suss out that the whole place has been engineered as there's very little chance of anything evolving to this level of complexity. The men have managed to create some kind of steam powered technology to fly - in fact the whole technological side of things does take inspiration from steampunk it seems - but they never really say what they use for fuel. And the men have this strange affliction where they will suddenly get inflated muscles and start fighting to the death, and whoever wins will be Promoted. Whoever loses will be Dead.

Dead doesn't seem to be too bad a deal, though; they keep coming back to life. But they are Dead.

I couldn't visualize some of it very well, but for me I had the hardest time with the Naieen; I kept imagining Menoptera and for a while wondered if this was actually another visit to Vortis. But it's not. But if you look at the cover there's an actual physical link between the Land and the Sky, but the narrative suggests that they are much further apart than that.

Adding Mike Yates to the TARDIS crew this time was an interesting touch; aside from the Brigadier he's been the one UNIT member who has gotten the best treatment in the expanded universe of Doctor Who but it keeps coming back to this stop and go attempt to get him and Jo together as a couple. And Leonard makes sure to mention the events of the previous story, Dancing the Code, to create that link between events, and even addressing that concern I had before about the state of UNIT HQ by the end of it.

One more down, but not time to go back to the TV set just yet...

NEXT EPISODE: CATASTROPHEA

Dancing the Code

The Doctor sees a time in the future where the Brigadier will shoot both him and Jo down in cold blood. In order to avoid that fate the two part ways, with Jo taking a mission into the Arab nation Kebiria. There's something going on in Kebiria, though, and Jo is arrested along with the rest of the UNIT force; the governing regime has something to hide out in the desert, something alien and insidious which is establishing itself for a world takeover. The Doctor and the Brigadier are drawn to Kebiria, bringing the possibility of the Doctor's vision of the future closer, but if ignored the alien threat will mean the end of the world.

For starters, there is no Kebiria; it's another made-up Arab nation with distinctly vague borders somewhere around the Mediterranean. I always think it's a little bit iffy to do things like that; nobody ever makes up unknown Western nations for any of the adventures - nine times out of ten it is somewhere in the United States for some reason - so to whip up a cliche sounding nation and fill it with a fanatical Arab sect seems... maybe kinda rude. I saw something similar on some old Transformers cartoons with the action taking place in the Socialist Democratic Federation of Carbombya and that was just downright offensive that time.

Dancing the Code has a pretty interesting alien race as the main baddie behind it all; they're called the Xarax (all those extra X letters really help sell alien-ness) and from the cover illustration they remind me a bit of a Micronauts toy I has as child called a Hortentroid. They're mainly insectoid although they have the ability to mimic other forms. The exoskeleton approach doesn't always work though and they can be cracked open and a big mess of scented honey plops out. The Doctor doesn't recognize the species but they have been around for hundreds of years hiding out around Kebiria getting their plans set for the world and domination and all that.

Here's what I do not like about these sort of invasion stories; out of nowhere there is suddenly this mass of disposable invaders coming at our heroes from all sides, and they're unstoppable and oh my god how are we going to win this one... and it doesn't always come off well. The threat just doesn't quite make it to being palpable - although this could have something to do with the story taking place between episodes of the televised series and then we know everything will be fine, there's just the question of how UNIT HQ gets invaded and trashed to the extent it does and then is all back to normal again by the next TV episode. It's always a danger, making the in-between episodes bigger than what was on tv either side of them, and there's always criticism about it but by and large the Doctor Who writers keep that sort of thing under control or better yet off Earth entirely, but in some cases there's been the question of how the companions have lived through such huge events and come out unscathed.

Still, everyone does, and they're right where they need to be the next time they're on TV. That's just not yet.

NEXT EPISODE: SPEED OF FLIGHT