The Tertiary Console Room: Review - Doctor Who

"Don't deny you love a good sing-song!"
"And you love a good mystery!"
"Then we'll both be as happy as sandcastles!"

All humour is subjective, and what makes one person laugh can make another cringe embarrassment, but Gareth Roberts and Clayton Hickman's The One Doctor proved irresistible for many with its affectionate and memorable lampooning of the Doctor Who format itself. For their second Big Finish story, Bang-Bang-A-Boom! they've turned their attentions to such series as Star Trek and Space: 1999 as the victims of their satirical style of spoofing. Set against the backdrop of the Intergalactic Song Contest, which is being boldly hosted on the final frontier of known space on the Dark Space 8 station, the Doctor and Mel soon find themselves in the midst of murder. The bodies are beginning to pile up and the singing hasn't even begun yet...

Framed by continuity announcements full of corny remarks typical of television announcers (the worst of which is the awful one for part three where Nicholas Briggs proudly states we're about to "join the Doctor, who is continuing his adventure aboard Dark Space 8" but the one for the fourth episode is brilliantly delivered), the thing that's immediately noticeable about this story is the arrangement of the theme music. Gone is the Delia Derbyshire one, the familiar sound of which has been present on almost every Big Finish Doctor Who story to date and in its place is the Keff McCulloch arrangement which featured throughout Sylvester McCoy's tenure on television. While this version may not be to everyone's taste, it is the Seventh Doctor's theme and by featuring it here, it really gives the story an extra sense of authenticity and appropriateness that the Derbyshire version did not possess. Given that the story faithfully recreates the comedic stylings of McCoy's first season, the use of the 'correct' theme emphasises this perfectly. Having heard one story like this, hopefully Big Finish will repeat this for the other 'past' Doctors in their future releases too so they can benefit from having their own arrangements as well.

Bang-Bang-A-Boom! marks the first instance of Sylvester McCoy's Doctor being teamed up with Bonnie Langford's Melanie "known as Mel" Bush since the release of The Fires Of Vulcan, and while that story went for a very atypical approach to using these characters in a far more serious story than anything featured during season 24, Roberts and Hickman have come up with a much more lighter and fun story reflective of the period. It is fair to say that in tone and style, Bang-Bang-A-Boom! fits in perfectly with the stories it's set between (even down to the light-entertainment guest star in Graeme Garden) but it goes further by telling a wholly satisfying and thoroughly entertaining story too.

The influence of such genre shows that this story spoofs is felt from the outset as Sabina Franklyn's Doctor Eleanor Harcourt begins with a Star Trek style voice over in her personal log. This works as an effective method of setting the scene for the listener convincingly and the characters of the staff are all archetypes that you would associate with this type of series. Even the method of drawing the Doctor and Mel into the story, as they find themselves subject to a last minute matter beam rescue from an exploding shuttle, is a staple of Star Trek and it is with great delight they assume the identities of the station's new Commander and his pilot whilst investigating what some becomes apparent is a plot to silence the Intergalactic Song Contest for good.

Like any good murder mystery story, Roberts and Hickman scatter liberal clues as to the true motives behind the murderer's actions and part of the fun of the story is trying to second-guess the Doctor and work out who is behind it all before them. And since Bang-Bang-A-Boom! is filled to the brim with shady characters, there is no end of suspects with potential reasons to want to bring the proceedings to a halt. While there have been some mystery style stories released in the Doctor Who range by Big Finish previously, Bang-Bang-A-Boom! is much more in keeping with the classical style of the genre, and in this respect the story does develop with some predictability in that you know what is likely to happen, in that the body count is likely to get higher, but Roberts and Hickman manage to keep the listener guessing as to the specifics of what occurs.

The influence of Star Trek and other series' is felt throughout the story with the authors' note highlighting some of their "top five tedious things that happen" in these type of shows and are frequently emphasised in showing up their ridiculousness. Whether it's the brilliant explanation for Professor Fassbinder's spurious use of convoluted and overblown technobabble or Doctor Harcourt's frequent references to their past adventures, none of the conventions of these more po-faced science fiction series are safe from being sent up. The Intergalactic Song Contest is Roberts and Hickman's chance to have Doctor Who do the Eurovision Song Contest on a universal scale, and while this is present throughout the four episodes, it is only really the final part where the contest itself takes place where its inspiration is keenly felt with some typically hideous songs making an appearance! The Eurovision spoofing provides an effective way of introducing many of the main characters and the ideas of the story, such as the war between the Angvians and Gholos, through commentator Logan without being heavy-handed about it. In addition, with the contest being intergalactic, there is a chance to slip in some sly continuity references without them being gratuitous, the most significant of which is the identity of one of the juries at the end!

As you'd expect from these writers, the script is packed with humour although it's not as concentrated as it was with The One Doctor which gives Roberts and Hickman the opportunity to make Bang-Bang-A-Boom! a more focused affair which gives it a slightly more serious and less silly edge to it but given the nature of the story the emphasis is still firmly on making the story into a highly entertaining piece. There are some excellent individual moments throughout the script, including the cliffhanger to episode 2, which plays brilliantly off the listener remembering the first, and a moment about halfway through the final part where everything seems to have been wrapped up nicely where something very unexpected happens. Bang-Bang-A-Boom! is full of small instances of excellence, like the National Anthem of Earth as just one small example, which all build up to add colour to a superb story.

There is a very leisurely pace to this adventure, and the fact that Roberts and Hickman are happy to keep the action moving slowly contributes to the overall running time being significantly longer than the usual Doctor Who releases. Running to a massive 143 minutes, Bang-Bang-A-Boom! is one of the three longest stories released to date by Big Finish but despite this, the story doesn't really drag at all as the humour and the mystery are both engrossing and compulsive.

Since the Seventh Doctor's burst onto the scene in 1987, almost all of his development in the three main media of Doctor Who has been to make him into a darker figure. The television series did it in seasons 25 and 26, the New Adventures novels particularly, and the previously released Big Finish audios have taken him in this direction too. Given this, a return to the more comedic, clownlike portrayal of the Seventh Doctors from season 24 seemed an unlikely prospect, especially when it was never perceived as being particularly successful in the first place. But that's precisely what Roberts and Hickman have done here, and by capturing the essence of the character and combining it with a quality script, the result is very memorable and gives Sylvester McCoy the chance to deliver his best audio performance since The Shadow Of The Scourge, which ironically saw him at the other end of the spectrum with a very sinister performance. In Bang-Bang-A-Boom! he seems to revel in being given this lighter touch and he delivers a vivacious display full of energy which makes him sound much livelier than some of his recent audio appearances.

Bonnie Langford continues her character's rival with another assured performance as Mel. She too possesses an energy in her performance which, unlike her television appearances where it made her irritating, is rather endearing as she gets to play Hastings to the Doctor's Poirot and begins investigating the station herself. Throughout the play, Mel seems very determined to get to the bottom of what's happening which leads her bounding into accusing people baselessly fairly often and Langford builds up a good rapport with Anthony Spargo's Nicky Newman, who accompanies her for most of the story.

Roberts and Hickman have created a veritable plethora of characters to inhabit Dark Space 8 ranging from the command staff to the contestants themselves and even a commentator figure to comment on the action of the Intergalactic Song Contest. It is a tribute to director Nicholas Pegg's skill that he has assembled such an interesting and appropriate cast for the story. As the story is a murder mystery, it's fitting that almost all of these characters are depicted as if they have something to hide and make plausible suspects at one time or another, as Mel discovers.

The Dark Space 8 command staff is largely represented by their medical officer, Doctor Eleanor Harcourt, who is played by Sabina Franklyn, and the chief scientist, Professor Ivor Fassbinder, whom Graeme Garden portrays. Eleanor is the more interesting of the two characters. She gets a more involved role within the story as well as being one of the chief aspects of the parodies at the heart of the story with her logbook voiceovers, her ability to talk endlessly about the past exploits of Dark Space 8, and her fawning over the station's new commander. Franklyn really goes to town with her character from the beginning making her recognisable and yet adding some intrigue about her too as she often seems, well, helpless. Garden could have done with having his role strengthened somewhat as he impresses greatly in the scenes he appears in but as there does not seem to be enough he definitely seems underused. While he gets plenty of opportunities to spout the sort of technobabble that contemporary Star Trek seems to love, the best part about Fassbinder is his explanation for this, which is ingeniously scripted.

An interesting decision was made regarding the names of the characters of the competing contestants in that most of them have the same name as their species. This figures most prominently with the two characters of Queen Angvia and Gholos, whose races have fought a long and brutal war with each other, which has been temporarily set aside for now while a peace conference takes place elsewhere in the galaxy and on Dark Space 8 for the Intergalactic Song Contest.

Of the actual contestants for the Intergalactic Song Contest, the most striking performance is that of Patricia Quinn. She delivers a very big and bold performance as Queen Angvia which gives the character a real larger than life feeling very appropriate for the type of person the script portrays her as. She adopts a Russian sounding voice to realise Angvia that gives her the air of exoticism and demonstrates her fine comic timing to make this role unforgettable. Of particular merit is her dinner date with the Doctor towards the conclusion of the second episode, which is brilliantly played by both her and McCoy, and results in some unusual protestations not usually associated with the Time Lord!

Nicholas Grace does not voice one of the contestants but serves as the human interpreter Mister Loozly to the gaseous gestalt entity Gholos, whose words are realised through a series of crackling effects. Loozly has subsumed himself into the Gholosian culture and this Grace conveys this strongly through his balanced performance, but with hints of how deeply enveloped he is through sudden bursts of passionate defence of the Gholos entity. The fact that Gholos and Angvia are at war felt through Loozly's performance, as he is intensely concerned about the Gholosian entity encountering the Angvians and views Queen Angvia with extreme suspicion.

Anthony Spargo is excellent as Nicky Newman, the Earth entry who is known and idolised by everyone (everyone except Mel and the Doctor, that is). He shows such joy at finding someone who has no preconceptions about him in Mel that it's really believable and given the way the character is written, Roberts and Hickman get to probe what it means to be a celebrity from the point of view of the celebrity, and an unwilling one at that.

The commentator Logan is clearly a pastiche of the type of commentaries that Terry Wogan does for the Eurovision Song Contest every year. David Tughan does an excellent job of spoofing his mannerisms and provides the audio with some of its best moments, with possibly the announcement that one of the murdered contestants has dropped out due to "ill-health" being the best one thanks to Tughan's delivery. Jane Goddard makes her latest appearance as the neutral arbiter, Geri Pakhar. The Pakhar's have appeared in several novels over the years, but this is the first time they have featured in a Doctor Who audio and Goddard assumes a very high-pitched voice fitting for her rodent-like character. While the role is a little underdeveloped, Goddard does very well with the material and makes Geri into a believable character. Vidar Magnussen's Lt. Strindberg doesn't make much of an impression during the early parts of the story, but as he gets thrust into the limelight during the later phase he gets some good comedy moments which help to make his character stand out more.

Andy Hardwick's score is suitably Star Trek-ian in its scope, full of ethereal orchestral tones mixed in with more bombastic ones making sure it compliments the story without overpowering it, although the "terror-twangs" that occur every time there's a death become a bit tiresome by the end. Hardwick and Gareth Jenkins' sound design also adds great depth to the story by making the soundscape come alive so that it's very believable that the characters are onboard Dark Space 8.

Bang-Bang-A-Boom! may not be as immediately arresting as The One Doctor, but it remains another triumph for Gareth Roberts and Clayton Hickman. Thanks to the richness of the performances of the cast members, the comedy of the script is realised superbly and the murder mystery is suitably convoluted enough to keep the listener guessing until the end. The length of the story does not detract from it at all, and the leisurely pace is very appropriate for the mystery element. Unlikely as it sounds, the quality of this story combined with the return to the lighter, more fun-free Seventh Doctor of season 24 has given Sylvester McCoy the chance to deliver his best performance in a Big Finish audio for a considerable time. Hopefully this will act as a springboard for a continuation of better Seventh Doctor stories overall and help close the gap in quality and consistency between this Doctor and the other 'past' ones.