Starring Colin Baker, Lisa Greenwood, Nabil Shaban, Dawn Murphy, David Dobson, Mary-Ann Cafferkey, Scott Joseph & Mandy Weston
Written by Philip Martin
Directed by Nicholas Briggs
Future Britain is bankrupt, it's corporate owners facing financial ruin. Fortunately, the Universal Monetary Fund, and it's slimy representative Sil, are willing to give it's President a multi-billion credit bail out... but terms and conditions apply, and Sil's proposed austerity measures go far beyond mere benefit cuts.
Responding to a distress call, the Doctor and his companion Flip land in a London whose pacified population has been driven largely underground. But the horrors down there in the dark are as nothing to the horrors that await them at ConCorp HQ, where a young biochemist in Sil's employ is working on a permanent solution to the nation's terminal unprofitability.
Because in the final account, Sil plans to make a killing...
Many listeners will have been hotly anticipating this release. After all, Sil is a relatively popular villain from two relatively popular mid 80's stories, and Flip was a companion who, while not making a massive impression in her first trilogy, had been well received by most listeners. So it's a shame that Antidote To Oblivion is a massive let down, especially after the hype that surrounded it. While it's not as poor as Philip Martin's two terrible previous audios, The Creed Of The Kromon and Mission To Magnus, Antidote To Oblivion is by no means a standout of the main range.
The main problem with Antidote To Oblivion is that, despite the exciting premise about modified viruses and Sil planning to unleash them to cut down the population of the future United Kingdom, it ends up sounding like a cross between a bank balance sheet and a scientific formula. And believe me, that's terribly boring. At times, I feel like a whole two episodes could be cut down to make it a much more nippy and exciting hour long story. It certainly feels like the stories goes around in circles with a variety of capture and escape scenarios that do little to enhance the story. Things just go round in circles until the end, where, once again, we get an ending rushed into it's climax, very much like in the new TV series. It doesn't help that it's political subtext is as subtle as a brick, and the storyline is completely unoriginal. Certainly, the idea that the bacteria has mutated and become sentient is an interesting one, however the name 'psychic bacteria' is an absolutely ridiculous one. It ruins the idea completely. Mind you, it wasn't really a great idea to begin with. Even Martin's script has little ambition behind it. The only element of the plot that's really of any interest is when the story attempts to tackle the thorny issue of the aftermath of Martin's segment of The Trial Of A Time Lord. Certainly, a certain characters identy and various scenes that tackle the events of the final scene on Thoros Beta are of great intrest, especially because it gives the story an emotional heart that it appears to be lacking elsewhere. However, with regards to the main story, the various plot threads that spin through this story (the viruses, the transmogrification of Anzor, the fallout from Mindwarp, the situation with ConCorp's finances, and the subplot with Pan and Cerise, amongst others) are either poorly resolved, or not resolved at all. The threads are spun around, so that in each scene, one is delt with, but the threads never really intertwine. Now this can go either way, but in this case, like Dark Eyes, it fails to work. The ideas come along in a piecemeal fashion, meaning that they never get the limelight that they should.
This is pretty much a six character story, but because of the half-hearted plot, they never get the attention they deserve. Certainly the greatest character is Sil, who gets some really good dialogue. It's clear that Philip Martin loves writing for the character, something which has been evident throughout his previous stories. However, here it's even more evident, and Nabil Shaban is utterly brilliant. Aside from Sil, however, no one is really given the attention they deserve. The young couple in love, Pan and Cerise, had the potential to be similar to Arak and Etta, but sadly, I felt that they ended up being misused, so they don't feel quite as strong as they could be. It's not helped that David Dobson and Mary-Ann Cafferkey feel very wooden in performance as well as character. It's a shame more couldn't have been done to make there characters feel more alive, rather than the wet steriotypes they appear to be. Dawn Murphy is another actor who feels very weak on audio, rather ruining the good work done by Martin with her character. Certainly, she's no Sil, but the idea that Cordelia is Crozier's daughter is a facinating one. As for the rest of the supporting cast, there very much left with small bit parts and stereotypical character types to play, all well executed, but all seen before. As for Colin Baker and Lisa Greenwood, I'm afraid to say that the pair are very badly treated. Lisa isn't given anything to do with Flip apart from being infected, meaning her part could have been played by any of The sixth Doctor's companions. And poor Colin doesn't fare much better, with his Doctor fliting between his TV and audio personas quite rapidly. The scene where he forces Flip's head under the drain pipe was a particular example. I think both director Nick Briggs and script editor Alan Barnes needed to be much stronger with this one, to try and get something that doesn't feel as outdated as this. If Marc Platt can do it, than so could Martin. Mind you, at least Fool Circle Productions do well, with some wonderfully rendolent 80's music. If, like me, you love the music from 80's of Doctor Who, then you will really love Antidote's score. It's pitch perfect.
Sadly though, the rest of Antidote isn't so great. Taken as a character on his own, Sil is wonderfully used here, but the rest of the story is a bit of a mess. It feels like a regected first draft of a story from the 80's, rather than a Big Finish release in 2014. As a nostalgia product, it's a nice listen, but it's really hard to get anything new from it. As the first main range release for this year, I'm sad to say, we're not off to a great start.
TARDIS Rating - 5/10
Comments
Post a Comment