Doctor Who - The Third Doctor Adventures Volume Three

Starring Tim Treloar, Katy Manning, George Watkins, John Banks, Amy Newton, Nicholas Briggs, Robin Weaver, Iain Batchelor, Robert Hands, Richard Derrington, Ian Cunningham & Jake Dudman.

Features the episodes:
-The Conquest Of Far by Nicholas Briggs.
-Storm Of The Horofax by Andrew Smith.

Directed by Nicholas Briggs.

After two very successful previous volumes, it was a dead cert that Tim Treloar was going to be back as the Third Doctor for another set of adventures. And this third set is something very special: for the first time since, incredibly, 1974, the Third Doctor is back up against the Daleks! As well as that, we have a good old-fashioned Earth-based story alongside it. And while I'd say that this third volume wasn't quite as strong as the second set (released last November), this third volume has two enjoyable, and, at times, surprising stories, that are an enjoyable recreation of early 1970's Doctor Who.

The first story, The Conquest Of Far, is certainly born out of love for that era: in particular, for the two Dalek stories that Terry Nation wrote for Jon Pertwee, Planet Of The Daleks and Death To The Daleks. I don't think any Doctor Who fan would call either of these tales particularly novel or ground-breaking, but for a certain subset of fans, these tales were crucial in forming their enduring love of Doctor Who. And that's certainly the case with Nicholas Briggs, who channels the essence of both those stories here. The premise is pretty straightforward: the Doctor and Jo arrive on the planet Far, which the Daleks have invaded. The pair are separated: Jo finds herself involved with the rebels on the planet, while the Doctor ends up with the Earth Empire forces making a tactical strike against the Daleks. There's a countdown, a traitor, an army of Daleks under the surface of Spiridon Far and it's up to the Doctor and Jo to stop their plans for universal domination. This story even begins right after the end of Planet Of The Daleks. This story is brimming with so many Pertwee-era tropes that if you were to give this to the Restoration Team, I'm certain they'd see if the CD print contained any croma-dots. That's the main appeal of a story like this: you know it isn't going to bring anything new to the table, but it's a lovely recreation of a bygone era of TV programming in general. This is what Big Finish do so well, and here is no exception. This is an absolutely perfect evocation of that era of the programme, produced from a heartfelt, nostalgic place, and the simply truth is that it's (mostly) all down to Nicholas Briggs. His writing here shows a level of understanding that goes beyond simply having done some research and watched some episodes. His script has a level of nostalgia to it that goes way beyond most other writers work. Here, he proves he has a knack for capturing a period of televisual history in his writing. It's a talent he's demonstrated on the Fourth Doctor Adventures, The Prisoner and here, with The Conquest Of Far. Sometimes, it can be nice to push the boat out and try something different (something Nick has done very successfully elsewhere), but here, it works to go for that totally old-school approach to Doctor Who. It's not perfect - there are parts of the story that start to veer towards Dalek Invasion Of Earth territory, which is fine, but considering how much Big Finish have plundered that story for inspiration in the past, it would have been nice if they could have stayed away from it here, and there's no real explanation as to why the TARDIS actually ends up on Far. The opening seems to build it up as this big mystery, but, by the end, we never get any explanation as to why it's happened. That being said, though, Briggs clearly injects a lot of passion into the script, and also laces the tale with the emotional maturity that classic Who could occasionally lack. The complex, layered relationship between Delralis and Elaquon. Sure, you never really get a sense of what they were like as people pre-Dalek invasion, but that would be out of keeping with a story like this. The whole point is that this fits in with the kind of story we would have had in the 1970's, and, to that end, this story achieves that aim admirably. I certainly think that Nation was better at creating characters than people give him credit for, and here, Briggs shows that off in style. In the past, Briggs has been guilty of using shortcuts in order to get us to care about the characters that he's writing for. Here, however, that's definitely not the case. He gives us plenty to be interested and invested in, and the ending that the pair get is well deserved and doesn't feel cheap in any way. I'd say Briggs spends less time with the other characters, but they do their job well. Jickster, in particular, is a lovely creation, coming across like a cross between Wester from Planet Of The Daleks and Bellal from Death To The Daleks.

One thing that surprised me about the production of this story was that, for such a large and expansive story (it certainly has the scale of Frontier In Space or Planet Of The Spiders), this story featured such a small cast, totalling only to only six actors. The reason why I comment on this is because the small cast is in no way detrimental to the story's scale, or disrupts the listener with multiple similar voices. In fact, the cast across the board in this story are excellent, with each one turning in superb performances. I particularly loved George Watkins as Delralis: the part needed a lot of conviction behind it, something that a lesser actor might not have captured as well. However, to my mind, I thought that he brought that part the right amount of believability: you could truly believe that he would do the things he had done to save his wife, and that believability is key to that plot threads' success. I was also hugely impressed with Nicholas Briggs as the Daleks. Now, Nick's Dalek voices are always fantastic, but here I thought they were on another level. Normally, Briggs' Daleks sound just like the new series models (obviously, since he's done the voices for them since the show returned), and that's fine, really enjoyable in fact. Here, however, Briggs alters the modulation ever so slightly, so that the Daleks in Conquest Of Far sound a little more like their Planet counterparts. And it's a wonderful touch, because they sound like they should belong in this era of the programme. It's another of the ways that this feels like a piece of nostalgia - they sound exactly as they did in 1973. And, of course, both Tim Treloar and Katy Manning give lovely performances. I'll talk a little more about Treloar's performance later in this review, but I think that Katy does a wonderful job here of capturing Jo as she was. Katy, more so than most Who girls, can occasionally sound much older than when she was on the programme (not that she's ever given a bad, or even half-decent performance. In fact, she's one actress who, since joining Big Finish, has always given a fantastic performance, no matter what role she's in). Here, however, she sounds just like Jo did in the 70's, and, while her and the Doctor are separated for large parts of the story, it's nice to see that Jo is quite capable of just getting on with it. I particularly loved the interrogation scene, where Jo was still scared and terrified of the Daleks, yet was still bravely defiant and was standing up to them. I loved that: just a little moment to show that, while Jo was still scared of them, she wasn't afraid to stand up to them. Nicholas Briggs' direction was first-rate: of course he wrote the script, so he's going to be comfortable with the material, but he did pull all the stops out here to give it some extra flair. I really liked the conversation with Jickster as the Doctor's passing out, as that, I felt, was something they wouldn't have tried in the 1970's, so it was a neat trick so that we could skip that section of the story without feeling cheated. Finally, on the post-production front, we have David Nagel on sound design and Jamie Robertson on music, and both turn in some fantastic work. Nagel, in particular, manages to capture a very authentic Dick Mills-style sound for the story, grounding it in the classic series, while still allowing it to sound expansive and epic. The same goes for Robertson: now pretty much the go-to guy for authentic, Dudley Simpson-esque music. He also maintains a good balance between the intimate and epic, something I can commend all his productions for. Overall, I thought that The Conquest Of Far was an excellent story that managed to recreate that distinct flavour of Pertwee-era Dalek stories, without ever feeling stale and undeveloped. While it does have some plot holes, and sometimes the characterisation can feel a little forced, The Conquest Of Far is still a lovely story that sits up with Transcendence Of Ephros as my favourite Third Doctor Adventure thus far.

Storm Of The Horofax, on the other hand, takes a very different tack. While having a flavour of the Jon Pertwee era, Andrew Smith's script plays around with the Pertwee formula a bit more, so that it ends up feeling more like a generic slice of classic Doctor Who. And that might be this story's problem - it's not really that noteworthy, in the end. The whole thing starts really promisingly: the Royal Navy have found a alien spaceship in the North Sea. On-board is an alien pilot who can see into the future and is a time sensitive, so UNIT (basically the Doctor and Jo, plus some UNIT major we've never met before) are sent to investigate. So far, so good. However, it's around the second episode where something gets a little lost. I expected to spend the four parter on a ship where time ripples and distortions could wipe anyone out at any moment. However, we end up leaving the destroyer (which is then apparently destroyed) and spending a further two episodes in some woods near to an old UNIT bunker, while Jo chases after the Doctor, the Doctor chases after Arianda (the alien time sensitive) and Arianda chases after the Doctor and Jo. The whole thing sadly becomes little more than capture and escape routine, and it's a shame to criticise, especially because the story is never not compelling: Smith keeps up an excellent pace, and the whole thing never becomes boring or a drag to listen to. I just feel that it's a shame, considering that this had the chance to be a rather different sort of Third Doctor story. I also have to take issue with the portrayal of Arianda, which I thought was far, far too one note. It's a massive disappointment to have to say that about Andrew Smith's work, especially considering that his villains are, for the most part, usually so well rounded: the Marshmen in Full Circle and Mistfall, the Voord in Domain Of The Voord, Roath and Jask from The First Sontarans, Erys from The Brood Of Erys: all of them felt to me like well-rounded, complex creations. Arianda, however, is your standard, revenge seeking alien threat. There's something in there about her being persecuted on her home world for her time sensitivity, but it's not built upon or developed, and, to be honest, feels a rather twee reason as to why she's joined with the Horofax. If they'd included something extra, say one of her parents was killed because of they were also sensitive and they'd passed that onto her, I'd feel that might be a little more believable. As is, however, I just feel like Arianda is far too underdeveloped for me to be interested in her. The Horofax themselves are certainly an interesting creation: various members of different species forced to create one almighty army. However, they're sadly underdeveloped, with, bar one member of the Horofax horde, them being little more than grunts for the Doctor to beat up. In the end, to me they just end up feeling like the Voord from Domain Of The Voord, with the most interesting aspect of that being excised (the idea that they have to want to become Voord, or the mask kills them). The story does pick up again once the action shifts into a time frozen London, but I just feel like it's not quite enough to make the story notable in any way.

The characters are, as mentioned above, rather flat and un-notable. While, of course, you could argue that this was common practice in the classic series, I'd argue that the guest characters in the Jon Pertwee era were, for the most part, developed in an interesting way. And, if Nicholas Briggs can do interesting things with the guest cast, I don't see what Smith's excuse is. I will say that the guest cast in this tale are excellent: Robin Weaver, in particular, gives a wonderful performance as the entrancing and hypnotic Arianda, and captures all of those aspects in her performance. She's easily the standout of a fairly impressive cast, despite the fairly lacklustre characterisation they are given. I was particularly impressed with Robert Hands as Major Hardy, who managed to create a full-formed member of UNIT who has encountered aliens before, despite the fact that this is the first time that we've seen (well, heard) him. Sadly, however, Smith erases the character from history at the end of the story (to explain why he was never seen in Terror Of The Autons or The Claws Of Axos). It's a lovely emotional scene for Jo, as she struggles to remember him, and a lovely moment for the Doctor, where, when he's alone, he reflects that he remembers all the UNIT soldiers that have fallen in the line of duty. The rest of the cast do the best they can with fairly un-notable parts, and the direction from Nicholas Briggs was as strong as in the previous episode. One important aspect of this box set that I haven't talked about is Tim Treloar. Ever since his cameo appearance in The Light At The End, he has come on leaps and bounds, to the point where it can be hard to distinguish him from Jon Pertwee. It's clear that he puts in so much hard work and effort in each and every story that he appears in, and I love that he has that same connection with Katy Manning that Jon and her had back in the 1970's. There cannot be any doubt now that Tim is capable of playing the Third Doctor, and it's nice to see both writers here give Treloar material that, more often than not, Pertwee didn't get the chance to tackle. The scene at the end of this story in particular: it's the kind of rare, contemplative moment that classic Doctor Who could sometimes lack. It shows that, not only is Treloar able to mimic Pertwee's performance, but that he is also able to extrapolate and guess at what Pertwee's performance might be like, were he given this script. It's wonderful to see, and a clear indication of how far he's grown in the part. The release is finished off with some fantastic post-production work by Joe Meiners, and some wonderful music, once again composed by Jamie Robertson. While Storm Of The Horofax is a decent story (while the things I've outlined above are issues with the story, I did still enjoy more than I didn't), there are a few things that stop it from being quite as good as it could have been. Sadly, therefore, it's become my least favourite Third Doctor Adventure, but there is still plenty of merit to be found here.

Overall, while this third set of Third Doctor Adventures isn't quite as strong as the fantastic second volume was, there's still plenty to recommend. Conquest Of Far, in particular, was, for me, a clear highlight, and while Storm Of The Horofax wasn't quite my cup of tea, it was a decent adventure tale. And, if anything, these stories should be celebrated for successfully bringing back the Third Doctor and Jo Grant for more adventures in the vein of the Barry Letts/Terence Dicks era. The Third Doctor Adventures Volume Three is a must purchase for any Pertwee fans.