Released: March 2014
Range: The Companion Chronicles
Range Number: 8.09
Starring Maureen O'Brien & Jacqueline King
Written by Jacqueline Rayner
Directed by Lisa Bowerman
On a visit to early 20th century Earth, Vicki receives a warning - if she leaves in the TARDIS, then she will die.
Unable to join her friends, Vicki is given an audience by a psychic called Violet, who contacts voices beyond this mortal plain.
And one of those voices is Vicki herself, who reveals what will happen at the ship's next landing place - and what terrible fate awaits...
At the tail end of the Companion Chronicles range came this seemingly innovative story from Jacqueline Rayner. Now, while I have, for the most part, found her stories perfectly enjoyable, I find Starborn a fustrating experience. One of the reasons why I find it so fustrating is that it's because the idea of having a ghost telling a story about how that person died is an excellent idea, and one that was briefly looked at in Tales From The Vault. But, in this case, I feel that the idea is fudged, which is unfortunately one of a number of elements that has gone drastically wrong with this story.
The plot is sadly all over the place, with very disparate story elements that don't really come together. These elements are rather confused, particularly the science. Now, I'm not usually sceptical of the science of Doctor Who, mostly because it's Doctor Who, but I think that here the science is far too 'out there'. Particularly in the case of the dazzle hoods and the air-conditioned bangles, I don't feel that they are real. The simple fact is that they don't feel like real ideas. While the web of stars has a grain of truth, even this does feel a little far fetched, especially because the imagry that it creates seems to imply that the whole sky is filled with stars. But if it were, than surly the whole planet would burn up. And yes, while the science does have a Hartnell-era feel to it, to me that sort of thing feels really forced, especially now that we're not in the 60's any more. The ghost idea is nice, however I feel that, because Rayner tried to subvert that idea, because we knew that Vicki ended up in the past in The Myth Makers. However, non of those ideas really came out in this story, and while you could argue that Rayner is trying to subvert that ideas that hardcore Who fans will have had about this story before coming in to it, the way that she tackles those ideas is sloppy and undeveloped. For example, I feel that the small clues that are being dropped throughout as to Vicki's real identity are actually rather glaring, and actually pull the listener out of the story. It is difficult to lay subtle clues, but the ones that this story did leave can easily be identified. All of this makes the frame narrative difficult to accept. The villains of the piece are very ill defined, despite the fact that the story is, mostly, narrated by one (albeit one posing as Vicki), and that really pushes me towards a poor rating.
Certainly the only character I feel gets any development in this story is Vicki. She has some wonderful moments, particularly those where she's thinking about the consquences of time travel. It's nice to see Vicki realise the true consquences of traveling in the TARDIS, particularly considering this is an early adventure for Vicki. Her reminiscences of her mother are especially poinient, considering that this was an aspect of the character rarely touched upon. However, most of the other characters are left very thinly sketched. While I wasn't expecting wonders with the Doctor, Ian or Barbara (this is Vicki's Companion Chronicle), the characters of Annette, Stella and Madame Violet are left as little more that ciphers. They all mention their 'mothers' (implying to me some sort of comment about mothers, however I couldn't spot anything), bit that seems to me just to give them some character background. It has no real impact on the plot, and didn't really say anything about the characters. This is a shame, because Maureen O'Brien and Jacqueline King are brilliant, especially because they both have to give very diffrent levels of performance at very different times. Both make this story even better, and are well directed by Lisa Bowerman, who manages to make the best of a bad egg by getting the best out of her performers. Matthew Cochrane's sound design and Howard Carter's music for this is brilliant: understated, but still adding to the story as required. One nitpick with the story as a whole I have, however, is that Jacqueline Rayner's placement of this story is atrocious. There is no gap between The Romans and The Web Planet (where this story is set), and it just bludgeons itself in, when there's a perfectly serviceable gap just after it. I don't usually moan about continuity, but I feel that this is a sizeable nitpick to bring up.
Starborn has problems, and, unfortunately, it promised so much, and yet delievered so little. On a technical side, this was a very confident production, but as is often the case with Big Finish, it is the script that let's it down. It's a shame, but there are definitely worse ways to spend an hour. Sadly, it isn't one of the better ways either.
Rating - 5/10
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