Pointless Witterings - The Isos Network

The Doctor, Jamie and Zoe are leaving Earth after having successfully defeated a Cyberman invasion… The Cyber-fleet is still exploding… But something is escaping through the mass of vaporising debris.

In hot pursuit, the Doctor and his friends find themselves drawn to a mysterious planet where strange beasts slither through the streets of a deserted city… And an old enemy lurks beneath the streets.

As a force of heavily-armed aliens arrives, a battle to save the entire galaxy from invasion begins.


The Isos Network does come off the back of two Cybermen stories from Big Finish that haven't quite worked that well. Last Of The Cybermen (which virtually featured this TARDIS team) was perhaps one of the most average Doctor Who stories ever, despite it being placed in the Locum Doctors trilogy, and Return To Telos (which was written by Nicholas Briggs) managed to convolute the hell out of a story that was naturally going to play around with time-twisting elements. Quite simply, a lot of onus was on The Isos Network to deliver, and to give the Cybermen their first decent outing since Legend Of The Cybermen.

And did it?

Well, to say that it was 100% satisfactory would probably be a lie. After all, The Isos Network can be very rigidly put into the folder of 'stuff we've all seen before'. Even Wendy Padbury mentions in the extras that this is the sort of story that would have been told at the time. So sure, this story automatically loses out on the originality stakes. Nothing that Nick Briggs introduces in this script is terribly novel or original. However, that isn't to say that this story is wholly unenjoyable. Quite the reverse: this is an interesting script that manages to do a few interesting things, and bring a little more to the table with regards to cannon. Should that be the reason for writing a story though? No, of course not, but I think in this case it just about pays off. One thing that is clear in this story is Nick Briggs' enthusiasm for the era, even more so than in his Fourth Doctor Adventures, and therefore he produces a story that would slot in alongside The Invasion, The Krotons and the other stories in Season 6.

One thing that I have an immediate complaint about, however, is the pacing. Sure, doing lots off scenes of exploring corridors, and looking at odd mucus trails is interesting, but you can only do it for so long before it begins to get a little boring, and I wish the story would just get a move on. I just felt that, particularly in parts 2 and 4, the pace just seemed to shrivel up and die, and I actively felt like I was losing interest in those two episodes. I don't think that this problem is helped by the fact that Nick Briggs didn't want this story to feel like a Missing Episode Soundtrack, but rather a Target Novel Reading, and I think this is where the story falls down a bit. The long passages of narration are lovely, but at times I just feel like their not really aiding the plot, and the whole thing is just lounging about. It's a shame really, because there were elements of this story that were very good, and when the story shifted focus after the episode 2 cliffhanger, that re-established my interest. However, the whole thing felt particularly formless to me, to the point where I was actively uninterested in what was going on.

However, there were good bits. The way the Cybermen were presented was, I felt, very effective. I liked the fact that Briggs brought back the Cyber Controller, as seen in Tomb Of The Cybermen, although I did feel he diminished the Cyber Leader's presence a little. The Cybermen felt more like the creepy, chilling creatures that they were back in the 60's, and I think Briggs, more so than any writer for the TV series, has really managed to tap into that idea that less is more regarding the Cybermen. That's one of the things that I felt was lost with Return To Telos; the Cybermen were far too active for them to be a chilling force. Here, however, I felt that they were well represented. I also thought Briggs characterised the regulars incredibly well. I did feel that the Doctor was side-lined somewhat, but Jamie and Zoe had plenty to do, and their sub-plots were interesting and rather nice. I did like the inclusion of the slugs, although I did feel that they were rather underutilised somewhat. The guest characters were alright: nothing particularly novel, but they kept the story going. I have to say that Hilsee was the most interesting: having been part converted, we get a little look at the grim horror of the conversion process. It's nothing too graphic, but it's just enough to be putting images in your mind. It could perhaps have gone a little further by looking at the emotional consequences of the conversion process, but I get that Briggs was just trying to make it fit in with the era. I could just see how it might also work better with more emotional detail.

I thought the acting and directing was up to the usual supreme standard at Big Finish. Briggs (who also directs this story) keeps the cast nicely contained, and everything is tight as a drum. Frazer Hines and Wendy Padbury are given plenty to do in this script, and they are both excellent: Padbury providing an engaging narration, even in the story's slower sections, and also effortlessly recreating the part of Zoe with ease. Frazer Hines also provides an engaging narrator, plus a pitch-perfect performance as Jamie, and an excellent rendition of the second Doctor, Patrick Troughton. I thought that Rachel Bavidge and Richard James were also good, although since their characters didn't have that much depth to them, I don't think there was much they could do. Kieran Hodgson, who's becoming a bit of a Big Finish regular, has a more substantial role as Hilsee, and his performance was excellent. I also thought Briggs' Cyber voices were excellent, with that extra time before release getting the voices right having really paid off. I thought they were accurate to a fault. The music and sound design was also excellent: the music sounding more like an update of the traditional 60's themes than most Early Adventures. The sound effects were accurate to a fault: some of them even sounded like they were torn from Thunderbirds itself.

I have to be honest though, I did think the ending was a little rushed. I know, most Doctor Who endings do feel rushed. But I felt that this one didn't feel as built up as it could have been, and ended up coming across as a bit of a hack job in order to conclude the narrative. Sure, it was a satisfactory end, but that was the whole point, the end was merely satisfactory: not good, or innovative, but satisfactory.

And while you could argue that could be said of the whole story, I hasten to call it just 'satisfactory'. I enjoyed it, there was lots I enjoyed about it. But there was lots I didn't, and I just felt mostly a sense of it being ok. Sure, I would have liked more, but sometimes being ok is fine. It's just a pity it had to happen on a story like this, which shouldn't have been so commonplace and formulaic.

Rating - 6/10

Would I Recommend:
Yes, but only if you're looking for pure nostalgia for the Troughton years. It's a bit grander than most of his era, more Enemy Of The World than Tomb Of The Cybermen, but the same tropes and ideas are there. If you want something more original featuring the Cybermen or the second Doctor/Jamie/Zoe team, I recommend steering clear.