The Tertiary Console Room: Review - Doctor Who

"We must push ahead ... No more tests, no more questions."

The Divergents' universe storyline has dominated the bulk of Big Finish's Doctor Who output for over a year and it's widely known that 2004's final story, The Next Life, will end this arc prematurely due to concerns about alienating potential new listeners cultivated from the audience of the new Doctor Who television series. While the rationale for this abrupt curtailing of a "three or four season plan" is perfectly understandable, the suddenness of it has made the arc as a whole seem very imbalanced. The preceding seven stories are notable for their very slow, patient development of the Doctor's quest to recover his TARDIS, which, when we last heard him, he was going to use to chart the unexplored wonders in this new universe. Now one final - extended - story will seemingly address all the unanswered questions and mysteries remaining, returning the Doctor at its end to the real universe once more. Writers Alan Barnes and Gary Russell do well in highlighting that there has been a pattern within the preceding stories but can The Next Life be anything other than a rushed end to the arc?

This is the second time that Barnes and Russell have collaborated on a self-proclaimed big event story after the 40th anniversary release Zagreus and it's the fourth Eighth Doctor story for Barnes, all of which were significant in terms of this Doctor's ongoing story. With that in mind, you have to start questioning whether it is wise to continually use the same people to script this type of adventure as there are obvious patterns emerging which makes the story more predictable as to what we can expect from them with the central story never quite doing what it's built up to be. Neverland is a perfect example as the crux of the story was the wider threat that Charley's continued existence caused, but ultimately the Doctor's fate was what should have caused greatest concern. When that story ended, it looked like the anniversary special would examine the danger the Doctor-now-Zagreus posed to time itself but in the end, he spent two-thirds of the story as a gibbering wreck in the TARDIS while the hitherto unknown threat of the Divergents emerged instead. The Next Life follows a similar pattern as previous stories have suggested that the Divergents are behind the games and tests the Doctor has endured, while he is searching for Rassilon, this adventure plays with our expectations as to who the villains really are and which arc questions were important in the first place.

As the final story in a long-running arc, The Next Life has to balance both the need to resolve these ongoing issues against the obligation to tell a good story in its own right. Barnes and Russell succeed fairly well in the former but not in the latter as the plot here feels very ordinary, almost perfunctory. While Zagreus opened itself to accusations of trying too hard to be special, The Next Life is almost the total opposite as it takes the very basic storyline of putting the regulars onto an isolated island and pushing them towards the centre where they will find answers and the way home. Structurally, this play has the distinction of being the first original Doctor Who play released by Big Finish delivered in six episodes. Unlike the full disc spanning monster episodes typical to these epic stories of the past, the format does make the drama more accessible but it's at the price of making the momentum rather fragmentary. It feels as the decision to adopt this structure was taken late in the day as many of the cliffhangers aren't particularly noteworthy, being neither tense dramatic scenes (oh no! the Doctor's being threatened with death ... again!) nor interesting moments of plot revelation.

Despite the bitty approach to the presentation, the play does have distinct phases to it with its opening the least successful as it repeats many of the errors of the writers' last work. - with its preponderance of artificial realities, fake character avatars, a conspicuous absence of the Doctor and an obsession with exploring the psyche of the companion, episode one feels very much like Zagreus II. Unlike that story, where the projected realities were simply a means to introduce a concept that had not featured before, these scenes of The Next Life have purpose to highlight how duplicitous the Doctor's actions can be seen, from a certain point of view, with regard to the effect they've had upon those who've chosen to follow him into fire. While it takes C'rizz a little while to work things out, Charley - who's been there, done that already - sees the façade for what it is - simply one of this story's many villains' attempt to divide and conquer the TARDIS team for good.

C'rizz's scenes are the most interesting during this prolonged period of introspection for they reveal the "big" secret he's been keeping all this time. It's a revelation that isn't particularly unexpected due to his keen propensity to turn to violence in previous stories, but learning his history is fascinating due to the irony that when those brutal acts of aggression were dismissed as him "not being himself", they were the moments when he was more himself than any other time since he's been introduced. Charley's voyage into the realm of self-pity is less engaging for several reasons. Barnes and Russell clearly want to continue their love affair with the character they created by going over old ground once again with the re-introduction of her mother and the steward whose place she stole on the R101 and a protracted discussion over how she's been affected by her travels with the Doctor. More fundamentally, The Next Life wipes away all hope that anything is ever going to be made again of the remarkable relationship of dependency that grew between the Doctor and Charley in Scherzo, with it now downplayed and dismissed as a "mistake." Particularly irritating are the inclusion of the scenes with Murchford, which The Inside Story tells us were exercised from Zagreus for being rubbish and they still are. The essential problem with Charley now is that she's been developed so much that she's become so jaded and cynical - shown in the her dialogue that there's "not much left to surprise me" and her awful self-aware dialogue about how a companion should act in the first TARDIS scene - that there's little of interest left about her. All this pensive thought could have led to the end of her overlong stay, but her unyielding puppy-dog devotion to her Master and the fact that Barnes and Russell never really convince that they're actually prepared to let her go, undermine the narrative's mystery as to which companions will believe Rassilon's convincing case against the Doctor. C'rizz's predilection for falling under the influence of all and sundry makes him the dead cert to turn and predictably, it isn't long before this is proved correct.

The Doctor's eventual reappearance in the second episode injects some life into the story, despite an irritatingly verbal crab attack, since he sides with the feisty and flirty Perfection - played by Paul McGann's 1996 TV movie co-star Daphne Ashbrook. This might be stunt casting of the highest order (the inevitable "grace" reference is, of course, present and correct and as groan-worthy as expected) but it works due to them reprising their wonderful banter and vigorous repartee that they demonstrated in his solitary television outing as the Doctor. Barnes and Russell clearly had fun throwing these two characters together with the playfulness between the Doctor and Perfection carrying a lot of the play's overlong middle section where the plot begins to sag as they carefully craft a sense of suspicion that gives hints and clues that Perfection is much more than she seems.

The central phase of the play, comprising episodes three to five, suffers from a number of problems that severely limits the drama's effectiveness. The idea of forcing the Doctor (and Perfection) into a situation where the locals, egged on by the owner of the Foundation religion, are hunting them down in revenge for the death of one of their number has great potential. But to realise that it must be dangerous and exciting and Barnes and Russell never really generate this sense of peril, so instead of a mad dash for survival through a harsh, oppressive jungle environment, it seems far more akin to a gentle stroll in the park. As the prey, the Doctor and Perfection encounter some hazards - such as bloodsucking leeches - but it never feels like they have to put any effort in to fighting for their lives. Their pursuer, the dastardly Daqar Keep, who's more interested in explaining the plot to Charley rather than hunting and killing, doesn't help this either.

This is rather symptomatic of the script's inherent problems as most of it seems to be an excuse for characters to tell each other what's happening, culminating during episode four when each of the regulars are paired with a character specific from this adventure to have the plot of the arc clarified for them. The script does a valiant, if not entirely successful, job of tying up aspects of the narrative and placing them into a broader context but it's done in a contrived manner as it seems everyone the Doctor and company meet on this small, blue planetoid knows all the secrets of the Divergents' universe and are more than willing to share. With the majority of this information delivered in a massive seven-minute stream of constant exposition, it's very unsatisfying and because there is only a selective contextualising occurring these facts are unlikely to provoke a total re-evaluation of the arc as a whole and given the pacing of what's gone before, it seems very hurried. Some of the ways Barnes and Russell connect some of the most seemingly insignificant past events are ingenious - such as the explanation behind the insect attack on the Doctor and Charley in The Creed Of The Kromon - but parts of it are unconvincing. This includes the crucial explanation for the Divergent featured here which doesn't really tally with the conclusion of the story it references.

Particularly troublesome for Barnes and Russell is where the focus of villainy lies. Their decision to include a multitude of iniquitous villains leads to a bizarre series of one-upmanship as Rassilon, Guidance, Keep and another lay claim to being the big bad through countless revelations about themselves that just get silly after a while. Steve Johnson's cover suggests a titanic battle of wills between the Doctor and Rassilon, something that The Twilight Kingdom also hinted would be at the conclusion of this whole arc, but this is just typical misdirection as the fallen founder of the Time Lord society is limited to floundering on the sidelines. He's not even the lead villain, nor a sort of sidekick henchman. Disappointingly, the big confrontation between him and the Doctor never materialises as one of the other villains disposes of Rassilon in a most rudimentary manner. This is repeated again with the other villains as the Doctor isn't involved directly with any of their downfalls as they squabble with each other and while they're busy with that, he slips through the middle and away from the Divergents' universe in the process. This approach might have been more fruitful in a script emphasising how the Doctor uses Machiavellian manipulation to achieve this result (it certainly would have suited the Seventh Doctor of the New Adventures), but there's no sense that the Eighth Doctor is playing each of the villains against each other, merely that he's blundering through without style or panache. Given this, the ending is hardly the resolution needed to give this long-running storyline the dramatic finale it needed. Without enduring any real hardship suffered by the Doctor to end his self-imposed exile, the absence of any real emotional depth makes The Next Life feel like a slight return for everything that's gone before.

If it weren't for his incredible acting in Caerdroia, this would be Paul McGann's best performance of the season as he makes his Doctor spirited and energetic, but it's a good display in a disappointingly limited role. As the culmination of an arc stretching back to July 2002 when Neverland was released, The Next Life should have had the Doctor at its centre, making his struggle to stop Rassilon and the Divergents from entering the real universe again paramount as well as facing the possibility of his own return too. Yet events move around the Doctor, rather than him influencing them, making him something of a peripheral figure substantively. Barnes and Russell deal with the question of the Zagreus infection, which caused him to exile himself in the first place, in an extremely off-hand manner that smacks of convenience and simplicity. When you think it took four hours to make the Doctor into Zagreus, it's unbelievable that it's undone with no more than half a dozen lines of dialogue here.

The casting of the main guest roles is good with the returning Don Warrington giving Rassilon a more balanced approach than in Zagreus that makes him more sinister and less of a cliché. His level of conviction when leading the Doctor's companions astray is superb and it's a pity that the script never really makes more out of his aspersions upon the Doctor's motivation as it is at least plausible, even if neither Charley nor C'rizz seem to think so. As this is likely to be the final appearance of this Time Lord figure in the audio series, it's a double shame that he isn't integral to the plot in any way and is also denied a memorable final confrontation with his nemesis. Blake's 7 and Kaldor City star Paul Darrow lends his distinctive voice to Guidance, another Eutermesan with an unforeseen connection to C'rizz. It's quite a restrained performance although Darrow's role is underwritten thus overshadowed by the other villains. Stephane Cornicard is enjoyable as Daqar Keep - the richest man in the universe, but another person with something to hide. His accent suits the over-the-top part that makes him seem (very appropriately) at times like a James Bond style villain.

Another aspect of the ongoing story that Barnes and Russell seem keen to bury for good is the nature of Charley's feelings for the Doctor. Zagreus and especially Rob Shearman's Scherzo redefined the nature of the Doctor and Charley's relationship, examining their love for each other, based upon their need for each other rather than some form of romance. Regrettably, all the stories that followed Scherzo ignored this development, preferring to return to a much more traditional Doctor/companion relationship with Caerdroia beginning the downplaying that The Next Life now completes. Charley says at one point that she needed the Doctor but he didn't really need her, which is at odds with the substance of Shearman's incredible play that depended on their mutual reliance. The Next Life makes Charley's feelings seem more like a silly schoolgirl crush, complete with irrational pangs of jealousy and hissy fits at anyone she has to share him with like Perfection, C'rizz and even the TARDIS. It's ironic that there's much jokey dialogue about the typical role of a generic companion character when that's precisely what Charley has become thanks to all this rapid back-pedalling.

Barnes and Russell convey the breakdown of the friendship between Charley and C'rizz well through plausibly developing their antagonism, and as the foundation of their friendship has always seemed very false, it's very believable that their camaraderie should be so fragile that a few choice words from Rassilon could set in motion divisive ideas. Despite the potential in a TARDIS team who don't like each other (there are similarities with the direction of the excellent New Adventures run of late 1993 and early 1994 when the relationship between the Doctor, Benny and Ace almost reached breaking point), the writers include a terribly forced scene at the conclusion where the Doctor - in what is arguably his most effective role during the whole play - bangs the heads of his wayward companions together in an attempt to unite them behind him once more. This reconciliation is very affected and it feels suspiciously like a reset switch for the characters, but hopefully not. While it's too late for hopeless Charley, C'rizz is becoming more interesting with each release and requires more attention to examining his conflict between wanting to fit in with the fear that his dark background could be exposed.

Although The Next Life is a perfect place to start afresh in the way that the television series always did when new companions were introduced - and the Eighth Doctor is the only one Big Finish can do this properly with - that isn't to be, despite all the pre-release hype, as the ending suggests a return to more traditional fare. Logically, there are two possible storylines that could follow the Divergents' arc with Zagreus threatening us that if the Doctor ever tried to return, Romana and her cronies would be there to stop him. But given that the arc was curtailed due to possible alienation of new listeners, the same reasoning is applicable. The other alternative is to use the history of Doctor Who which has been denied while the story was contained within the alternate universe. So it's not surprising that the most iconic element of that is used here and if this is indeed a "teaser" for Terror Firma (what a great title) then it might be just what's needed to begin rebuilding the consistency of the Eighth Doctor range.

This arc is over, and it seems unlikely there will be a next. The Next Life marks the end of a storyline that was ambitious in scope with high concepts at its core, but was badly executed despite the occasional flash of genius. Whatever the original plan, the arc can only be judged on what has actually been recorded and released and so while the protracted hunt for the TARDIS may have been intended to be merely part of a much larger background, when circumstances changed it became the main focus of the arc which The Next Life provides a hurried end to. This play gives good enough answers to most of the questions of the arc, even if they are delivered very unsubtly, but that cannot compensate for it is the story itself that proves so disappointing. As I said in my review of Faith Stealer when this season began, when you know the ending to a story the journey realising it is paramount. The Next Life takes the easy route to reaching its destination through perfunctory plotting, coming across as an unwieldy and indulgent adventure rather than the grand finale of a long-running storyline. Where's the epic scale? Where's the hardship and endurance? Where's the passion? Where's the drama? There's something seriously wrong when a three hour, three-disc spectacular's most exciting moments are its last thirty seconds...