Written by Douglas Adams
Adapted & Directed by Nicholas Pegg
The Doctor has a spot of unfinished business. Reunited with his old friends, Romana and K9, he answers a summons from Professor Chronotis, a retired Time Lord now living the academic life in a Cambridge college.
But the Doctor isn't the only visitor to Cambridge. Somewhere in the city is the sinister alien Skagra, who is intent on stealing an ancient and mysterious book brought to Earth by the Professor many years before.
What is Skagra's diabolical masterplan? And who or what is the mysterious Shada? To discover the truth, the Doctor and his friends must embark on a perilous journey that will take them from the cloisters of Cambridge to the farthest reaches of deep space, risking deadly encounters with a sentient spaceship, the monstrous Krargs, and an ancient Time Lord criminal called Salyavin. As the Doctor soon discovers, the fate of the universe hangs in the balance...
Everyone who knows about the involvement of Douglas Adams in Doctor Who history knows the story of Shada: Douglas Adams' intended final story as script editor, Graham Williams' final story as producer and the conclusion of one of Doctor Who's most popular seasons. A story that had an amazing cast, set in and around the town of Cambridge and played around with Time Lord mythology in an interesting and different way was one that was always going to have a reputation. However, this story became even more notable for being the only TV story to be part-filmed and never transmitted, and it's reputation was inflamed way out of proportion. For Doctor Who's 40th Anniversary, Big Finish (in collaboration with BBCi) decided to restage Shada as a joint webcast and CD release, with a brand new cast, including a new K9 (well, the original voice of K9, John Leeson) and a new Doctor (Tom Baker was offered a chance to feature, but turned it down). And while it is certainly enjoyable, there is a feeling throughout that something is very, very wrong with the story, and that it should be Tom Baker in the title role. This is no slight on Paul McGann: he's fantastic in this particular story, and is really, really enthusiastic in the role. However, a lot of the humour falls flat on this Doctor: while Paul McGann's Doctor is very Tom Baker-y in concept, he shifts it in a very different direction from that which Tom Baker excels in. A few of the changes to make it fit into the audio medium also feel rather clunky, and it's clear that this is still early on in Big Finish's development, as it's nothing at all like The Lost Stories. Whereas they manage to make subtle changes to make the script sing better than the original, these changes feel clunky in the extreme.
However, the original story (the one Douglas Adams created in 1979), is a great plot that manages to keep itself going for six episodes with only minimal padding. Adams throws so many seemingly desperate elements into the kitchen sink, however they all pull together really, really well. The idea of dealing with someone who wants to gain access to a Time Lord prison, seemingly lost to time, is a great idea. After all, we know the Time Lords have many secrets, but we never really got see, beyond the Doctor's trial in The War Games, how the Time Lords pass sentence, and what kind of prison the Time Lords would construct. Adams uses the main maguffin of the story (The Worshipful And Ancient Law Of Gallifrey) to become the main object of a journey across space and time, ranging from Cambridge to the Think Tank station, and finally to Shada itself. It certainly contains the same kind of whimsy that populates both The Pirate Planet and City Of Death, but it still takes itself seriously enough, so that the stakes are as high as they should be. I wouldn't call it the very best Doctor Who story, however. It certainly suffers from it's pacing being a little flawed, with the trip to the Think Tank in episode 4 and 5 just seeming like a diversion in order to fill out about fifteen minutes of material. However, as mentioned above, there is a gaping flaw in the story: albeit not from the original story. The set up for this remake indicates that the original did actually happen, but the events of The Five Doctors erased it from the timeline, and the Doctor and Romana have to relive it again due to a dream. However, it seems to indicate that the story is, in actual fact, a sequel to the original Shada, rather than a remake. However, there's only a few references to this being a time-displaced version of the story, which make the whole set-up of this story incredibly contrived. It just feels unnecessary, and it simply confuses the listener. And, as I said before, there's lots of expository dialogue that just seems there to describe things that can't be seen. There are loads of moments that don't quite fit in, and it's clear Big Finish learnt a lot from this release when coming up with first their Stageplay releases, and then The Lost Stories later on, because their transition from a visual medium to a non-visual one feels a lot smoother. I just feel like this particular release was too busy setting itself up in continuity and explaining away the different versions of the material, that it seemed to forget to be a good Doctor Who story, and just ends up leaving threads everywhere that seem out of place. Some of the changes of dialogue are nicely in-keeping with Adams' style, but some absences of material (such as the loss of the great chase sequence that concludes episode 2, and the lovely punting scene) feel very obvious, and really makes me wish that this could have been broadcast, instead of being confined to the audio medium and a limited amount of Flash animation.
The characters are, as written by Douglas Adams, fantastic. The character of Chronotis is a great concept, and I think that he's probably one of the best supporting Time Lord characters (so excluding the Master, the Rani, the Monk etc.) we've ever had. He's a doddery old man, who's a bit bad tempered, but perfectly lovable. Which is probably why the twist at the end of episode 5 (which, incidentally, should really have been the cliffhanger) is so shocking: because it's not something you'd expect of the character. I do think he could have been involved in the action a bit more, and find his disappearance towards the beginning of episode 6 a shame, since he was such an interesting character. As a concept, and as what is written in the script, I think he's fantastic. However, I don't think James Fox is anywhere near the stellar performance that Denis Carey gave in the original version. He just sounds too young, not at all like the doddering figure of the original. While I think that taking the original and reworking it can work, I think that this version of Shada should have stayed away from that, to be honest. After all, the original was never finished, and this was an attempt to complete the story as much as possible (while having to make changes for it's transference from one medium to another), so should other changes be made, when your trying to hue to the original as much as the story is. Skagra is another example: Christopher Neame's original was cold and calculating, with an arch attitude that makes him a pleasure to watch. While the only scenes featuring him are towards the beginning of the story, we do have one of him at the very end, after his total decent into madness. It's clear that, had it been completed, Neame's performance would have been as strong as Julian Glover or Susan Engel's in their respective late Baker serials, but sadly Andrew Sachs decides to act as camp as mustard, when I think a subtle approach was necessary in order to try and get the subtlety of the character. Adams writes him as patiently ludicrous: there was no need to go as over the top as they did with it. That isn't to say that Sachs portrayal is bad, quite the opposite, but I think it's clear Neame's style was the greater approach. I also thought Sean Biggerstaff was nowhere near original actor Daniel Hill, who just sounded more like the character of Chris as written. The scene where he's talking about how 'one' expects the unexpected in science sounds completely off, coming from an accented voice. Biggerstaff isn't really the problem: just like Sachs, his acting isn't poor, but I think an RP tone would have suited better. Cast members Susannah Harker, Hannah Gordon and Melvyn Hayes, however, are fantastic, and are suited to their roles perfectly. Harker, in particular, pretty much eclipses Victoria Burgoyne's original performance, which was something I wasn't expecting. I also thought that John Leeson and Lalla Ward were amazing, Leeson reminding us why he'll always be the definitive K9 voice, and Ward slipping back into the story like she'd never been away. Finally, there's Paul McGann. Now, McGann is, without a doubt, one of the best actors ever to play the Doctor. Here, he recognises that the material is spectacular, and his performance matches accordingly, giving us one of his most confident and spectacular performances ever. In many ways, it's very reminiscent of the TV Movie in it's breathless, puppy-dog enthusiasm. However, I just don't feel the material is right for his Doctor: it's clearly been written with Tom Baker in mind, and, unlike some stories, where a Doctor could be considered interchangeable, this story is very much written with Tom Baker in mind. It just shows that Paul's Doctor simply cannot fit into the story, and, while McGann brings a breathless enthusiasm, the lines just don't work with his Doctor.
From a production standpoint, this is probably one of the most polished out of the earliest years of Big Finish. Nicholas Pegg's direction is excellent, keeping the pace moving even in some of the slower sequences. He also makes sure, despite my quibbles about the actors, that the acting is of an excellently high standard, and it's very well put together. Gareth Jenkins' sound design is fantastic, really helping to build the variety of settings that we go to in this story really, really well. I also thought that Russell Stone's score was also excellent, with some lovely Simpson-esque beats, but doing it's own thing and being excellent in that way. However, the score does highlight another problem I have with the production as a whole: it just feels too modern. It feels too much like Shada done by 2003 standards, in the same way the video felt like Shada done by 1992 standards. What this story really needed was to be kept as authentic as possible, and the only definitive version of the story will, to me, to be one that feels like Shada from 1979. While I can understand it feeling like the story has been updated (after all, the reason why you adapt something is to make it fit for a different audience, I don't think that in the case of Shada, it's something that should be attempted. I think it needs to feel like it could have done at the time, and that's something that's sorely lacking, particularly in this version of Shada.
Overall, Shada is good, but only because Shada was always good. Certainly, the production team on this version take what they can, and make the best of it, but I'm not sure if it was the best idea to attempt something like this, the way they did. Certainly, there's a sense something is missing from the lack of Tom Baker, and some of the dialogue necessary for the audio version isn't that well implanted. However, Shada is certainly a release worth picking up and having a listen too, even if it is only once. It's nice to hear a fully-performed, completed version of Shada, and the obvious enthusiasm of Paul McGann makes this a fun, exciting listen. However, I'd be hasty to say that this is the best we're going to get, and I certainly wouldn't call this 'the definitive edition'.
Rating - 7/10
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