The Tertiary Console Room: Review - Doctor Who

When the TARDIS brings the Doctor to an enormous spaceship, it seems to be totally deserted, but soon that is revealed not to be the case when he encounters a very odd being claiming to be Captain of the vessel named Vilgreth. But there is much more to Vilgreth than meets the eye...

Commencing with a very unusual arrangement of the title music by Alistair Lock, this half hour Seventh Doctor story, released free with Doctor Who Magazine in addition to the first episode of Storm Warning to celebrate Paul McGann’s audio debut, is itself an unusual tale. Based on the old fan produced Audio/Visuals story ‘Vilgreth’, it marks something of a departure in terms of style of the audio drama with the Doctor acting as narrator at times to move the story along, which is more than a little reminiscent of Tom Baker’s only original audio drama The Pescatons. This is not without it’s problems though because the device of using the Doctor as narrator defuses the tension from certain scenes. In particular one where the spaceship is under threat from a bomb planted onboard, which might have provided a tense moment on audio, is covered simply by a few lines of narration.

Judging by a transcript of ‘Vilgreth’ on the Justyce website, Last Of The Titans follows it quite closely in terms of what actually happens, but writer Nicholas Briggs has revisited the original script and revised it marginally. These slight changes make the story wholly more satisfying as they build upon what ‘Vilgreth’ did, and also expands a little on the character of Vilgreth himself delving into his background.

With the story being structured in the manner which it is, much of it’s success depends of Sylvester McCoy’s performance. He gets the balance of his character broadly right with a measured performance reminiscent of his appearance in the 1996 TVM. In Last Of The Titans, he is a Doctor at piece with himself. But despite this there does seem to be something missing from his performance.

Last Of The Titans features a very small cast, with Nicholas Briggs taking on the role of Vilgreth and Alistair Lock playing the other main character Stelpor. Both of these performances are quite good, with Briggs making Vilgreth appear quite a sympathetic and endearing character. Lock plays Stelpor quite harshly at first, with the characters true motivations being revealed over the course of the play, and it’s a testament to both actors that they pull off the script’s act of playing with the perceptions of the audience and, to an extent, the Doctor, in essentially reversing how they would feel emotionally towards the two characters. There are cameo appearances from both Lennox Greaves and Holly King in small roles which add a lot to the story in that it gives depth to Vilgreth’s background and gives the story more resonance than it would have had, had this element of the plot been missing.

The effects and music for the story are good, up to the high standard that you’d expect from Big Finish even in such a small scale production, and while the theme music might be a little jarring, it all gives Last Of The Titans a good atmosphere.

Last Of The Titans doesn’t try and compete with the longer length stories, but it sets out to tell an entertaining self contained story and it mostly succeeds in doing that. Interesting, but not really essential.