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