The Tertiary Console Room: Review - Doctor Who

"The Dark Flame never dies... Somewhere, somehow it always burns. It can never be extinguished."

Nearly thirty stories after their first audio appearance together, the New Adventures novel team of the Seventh Doctor, Benny and Ace are reunited again in Trevor Baxendale's debut Big Finish audio, The Dark Flame. Baxendale seems an odd choice for this story as the original remit of the New Adventures was to tell "stories too broad and too deep for the small screen" and yet Baxendale's own novels for the BBC Doctor Who range have been typified by their conformity to the traditional aspects of the series, shying away from experimenting with new ideas and different storytelling techniques which has resulted in the bulk of his output being very conventional in both tone and style.

Knowing this, it's not surprising to find a veritable clutch of over-familiar ideas and elements featuring prominently in The Dark Flame ranging from the space station Orbos filled with mad scientists to their attempts to reactive a long-dead ancient evil. Besides this, there are aspects such as Cults, powerful Relics, and armies of the Dead thrown into the mixture, which is unfortunate given that they all featured in the previous release Nekromanteia too!

The story does start fairly promisingly with the Doctor and Ace, onboard the TARDIS, on their way to pick up Bernice from the space station Orbos around the planet Marran Alpha, where she's supposed to be meeting an old friend, when a psychic attack warns them to beware of the Dark Flame. Unfortunately after this it all becomes rather formulaic with the remainder of the opening episode unfolding predictably as it becomes clear that the station is home to a dangerous experiment, which is due to be subverted by the malign influence of an ancient evil exerting itself while a captured archaeologist is forced to find the vital missing component - a holy relic - to complete the procedure.

This predictability is a big problem with The Dark Flame as its recognisable plot elements give it a sense of familiarity that it has all been seen/read/heard before. The failure to try something new and different means that there's little to get excited about with regards to the story itself. The idea of the Dark Flame is interesting as it's a powerful force in its own right but as it is couched as an awakening ancient evil, the originality of the idea is lost amongst the usual clichés that awakening ancient evils bring.

Baxendale never wrote for the New Adventures himself, but the production notes contained within the CD booklet indicate that this was what the Big Finish production team wanted for the writer of the next Seventh Doctor, Benny and Ace audio. The fact that he's writing within this series, gives Baxendale the opportunity to show his opinion of them through the story. This generally takes the form of some self-referential dialogue, poking fun at the type of conventions that the New Adventures built up for themselves over the years which is a bit hit and miss as some of it works and others stand out quite badly. Most significantly though is a scene where the Doctor reminisces with Remnex about their last meeting, which was during the time that Mel travelled with him, when the universe seemed a 'more innocent place' but now he spends his time outwitting the danger before it occurs.

While The Shadow Of The Scourge showed that it was possible to tell interesting audio New Adventures, it did so by subverting the expectations of the era brilliantly as the manipulative Doctor found the tables turned upon him in spectacular style. Baxendale tries something a little similar in that the reasoning for the fact the Doctor hasn't anticipated the threat of the Dark Flame is that he believed the trip to Orbos was just to pick up Benny, but by choosing this route Baxendale is effectively returning the Doctor to his more regular characterisation of just blundering into events and working as he goes to achieve the best result he can. While, of course, there's nothing fundamentally wrong with that it just seems like a wasted opportunity that in a story set during the New Adventures that the full potential of the darker Doctor is not exploited in favour of a story that would not be out of place as a regular Seventh Doctor audio. As the New Adventures were a 'Golden Age', the idea of audios using the type of scenarios they created is certainly appealing but given that they were such a special time for Doctor Who fiction perhaps they are not such a good idea in practice as the expectation levels for the finished audio is much higher.

Baxendale's plot is perfunctory, but there are some flashes of inspiration amongst the dialogue, particularly in the humour with Slyde's reaction to Broke's observances on the health of Remnex being a particularly memorable example. The tone could also have done with being darkened considerably. With his novel, Eater Of Wasps, Baxendale showed that he had a flair for the macabre, but with The Dark Flame there is some mild horror but it's not enough to create a chilling atmosphere which would have benefited the story which neglects to thrill or chill. Some of the cliffhangers are also a bit disappointing, as they are so ordinary. It seems rather pointless to go back to the clichéd school of cliffhangers and have as a high point of drama the fact that one of the companions seems to have been killed off when you're dealing with a part of Doctor Who when you know that they continue in subsequent stories (although I'm sure one day one writer will try this same trick but make it for real and it will be terribly shocking, but this is not the case here with The Dark Flame.) The idea of having characters possessed or controlled by others and turning against the Doctor also seems tired and unimaginative. Big Finish supremo Jason Haigh-Ellery directs his second Doctor Who play with this one, and while it's noticeably less experimental in style than his first, he keeps an urgency amongst the cast which ensures the story has pace and this fast movement prevents it becoming dull.

Personally, I consider Sylvester McCoy's performance in The Shadow Of The Scourge to be one of his very best as the Doctor to date. He really seemed to appreciate the chance to make the Doctor an even darker and manipulative figure than was often seen on television and as such his display seemed more dynamic and vivacious. Here, the Doctor is characterised much less intensely which is a pity as it gives McCoy less meat and the result is that his role within the story is akin to the persona regularly seen in the audios, undermining the point of making this a 'side-step.' That's not to say that McCoy isn't good here, as his performance is certainly lively and full of energy rather than the somewhat lethargic ones he has occasionally delivered in previous audios. He's particularly strong in the rousing climax to the story which is certainly the most dramatically interesting part of the story overall.

Lisa Bowerman makes a more than welcome return to the Doctor Who audios as Professor Bernice Summerfield here, and as usual her display is spot on. She injects just the right amount of humour into her performance to prevent Benny coming across as sarcastic as she shows her cynical side but also her compassionate nature too. Perhaps her best scene comes towards the beginning of the fourth episode where Benny and Ace share some choice words in a powerful scene which has good dramatic impact and examines Benny's deepest and darkest feelings about her friend.

Sophie Aldred's performance as Ace suffers from a lack of consistency as her boundless enthusiasm creates conflict between the differing aspects of her role, meaning that Ace can be sullen and hard one moment, but extremely chirpy the next. While there is a conscious effort on the part of the script to tailor Ace's character to be the Ace of the New Adventures, particularly in her use of weapons, it fails to succeed properly because of the lack of balance and real conviction in Aldred's performance. She has her moments though - the scene where she escapes the scientists at the start of episode 3 for example - but without consistency they're not enough.

Michael Praed's character, Professor Slyde, is telegraphed as a villain from the moment he first appears thanks to both the way that Praed plays him (very much channelling Paul Darrow with a gravely intensity in his vocalisms) and the fact that his name is so close to the word 'snide' that there is an implication that he is a devious individual and likely to be up to no good - which turns out to be true. Once this is out of the way though, Praed does well with the material he's given because it's a fairly restrained performance which makes him believable as a villain.

Unfortunately the same cannot be said of Andrew Westfield, who portrays both Professor Remnex and the Emissary of the Dark Flame, and it is in his role as the latter that he becomes the main point of conflict for the story as the principal villain. While he doesn't particularly convince as being old enough to be the aged Remnex, his performance there is less clichéd and typical than that as the Emissary, where he fails to convince as a credible threat despite the actions that are performed. His rich voice is certainly appropriate for audio drama, but his archness is difficult to accept and as such leaves the confrontational scenes lacking resonance as the Emissary is too banal to be a compelling villain.

Hannah Smith, who seems to crop up a lot recently in Big Finish's other audio ranges but is making her Doctor Who debut here, is striking as Professor Lomar particularly so as she instils a real belief into her character that she comes across as genuine, establishing an easy rapport with Benny early on and also providing a good foil to the Doctor, that it is a real surprise when she turns out to be also a follower of the Cult of the Dark Flame. It's a predictable development when taken in the context of the story overall, but thanks to the assurance of her performance the listener is caught unaware. Lomar as a character seems to get a bit lost in the plot towards the end and this is a shame as the potential to show her inner conflict between her scientific instincts and the lure of the Dark Flame itself is never really resolved satisfactorily.

Steven Wickham plays the dual role of the captured archaeologist Victor Farrison and his robot, Joseph, who will be very familiar to listeners of Big Finish's Bernice Summerfield range. Wickham is a very reliable character actor and his display he is assured, particularly in several scenes where his two characters are the only ones present and he ends up talking to himself! The inclusion of Joseph (not yet the Porter) is a strange one as it feels unnecessary to give him an origin story in the way that is done here as the he's already been introduced perfectly well elsewhere and the events here put a rather odd perspective on those already established. The cast is completed by the prolific voice of Toby Longworth, showing yet another side to his range with the sinister Broke.

Given the length of time since The Shadow Of The Scourge was released for The Dark Flame to arrive, it's bitterly disappointing that this further 'side-step' into the world of the New Adventures is so bland and uninspired. Despite a few fine performances and polished direction from Haigh-Ellery, the inherent weaknesses of the script in its reluctance to become anything more than a standard runaround is ultimately its undoing.