The Tertiary Console Room: Review - Professor Bernice Summerfield

"Memories, like the flame itself, never die..."

The prospect of a sequel to Trevor Baxendale's The Dark Flame, one of the blandest and most uninspired Doctor Who releases of 2003, seemed unlikely given that Big Finish have largely avoided them throughout their various audio ranges. Cynically, there are two main reasons for their existence - either they are exploiting something successful or a lack of creative imagination in devising something original. And yet Baxendale's Professor Bernice Summerfield and the Draconian Rage is indeed a sequel and as a late replacement for a delayed script, the reliance upon ideas from a previous story is suggestive of the second line of reasoning. But, despite sharing a significant number of the faults that The Dark Flame made, The Draconian Rage is a rare example of the sequel being superior to the original. Like Stephen Cole before him, the move away from Doctor Who has brought out hidden qualities in Baxendale's writing that their early audio work was lacking enabling this bleak tale to achieve some of its intent in a story where little is what it seems.

As is all the rage at the moment in the Benny world, the big selling point is the return of a Doctor Who monster, this time it's the turn of the Draconians whose solitary television appearance in 1973's Frontier In Space was memorable enough to imprint themselves on the collective consciousness of fandom but failed to earn them a return engagement. With their society based on elitism, their inherent superiority makes them an attractive prospect for audio, particularly given their relationship with the great rivals to their Empire - humanity. And so it comes as much of a surprise to the listener as it does to Benny that she has been specifically requested to go to Draconia and examine a recently discovered artefact. Benny is understandably not keen considering that human females are about the lowest form of life in the eyes of the Draconians, but the artefact that was discovered on the world of Treganus, a planet where twenty million Draconians have recently committed mass suicide, intrigues her. Surely the two must be connected...?

Reusing the cult of the Dark Flame smacks of indulgence on Baxendale's part, particularly since it is conceivable there may be listeners who have not heard his Doctor Who play given this takes place in a different series, but he does justify its inclusion quite well by showing that its influence still extends over Benny directly, as it was she who felt the warmth of its lure. This idea that actions have wider repercussions beyond the end of a particular story is something that should be encouraged to show that reset switches are not being pressed at the end of every adventure and the best way to do this is by reflecting changes through the character. While The Draconian Rage was released less than six months after The Dark Flame, the time difference between the two is great from Benny's perspective and although it pushes credibility slightly to suggest that she has carried the legacy of the cult within her all that time, her unwitting duplicity in their schemes is all the more frightening because of its insidiousness. In both stories Baxendale talks of the patience of the cult and through Benny we can see that as the Dark Flame has been lurking in the shadows of her mind until the right moment to strike out.

While the justification for the story is fascinating on a psychological level, Baxendale's script is fraught with problems that prevent The Draconian Rage reaching its full potential. The biggest of these is the interminable manner in which the script goes about establishing mood and setting. A degree of scene setting is always necessary, particularly with the audio medium, but Baxendale labours too hard without rewarding the listener as it takes almost half an hour in order to get to the real heart of the story. Many of these introductory scenes are either irrelevant or overdone, and with harsher editing the story would have been lent greater impact as its early phase badly lacks focus. The now seemingly obligatory introduction scene with Braxiatel and Benny for instance only goes to show her weak will as her resolution to stay with her son crumbles and she's off on the first shuttle to Draconia. While I have in the past lamented Big Finish's reluctance to feature Miles Richardson's excellent portrayal of the mysterious Irving Braxiatel more prominently and frequently, these fleeting cameos do not really serve the character or the series well.

The fundamental similarities to The Dark Flame also mitigate the effectiveness of The Draconian Rage as while some thematic parallels are only to be expected, Baxendale's script contains scenes that are almost interchangeable with those from the earlier play. The most pertinent of these is the moment where Vasar reveals to Benny that he too is an agent of the Dark Flame, as it comes at a point where Benny believes she can trust him and he can help her against another cultist. Whereas in the The Dark Flame, the cliffhanger to the second episode is one of the characters revealing to Ace that they are also an agent of the Dark Flame, coming at a point where Ace things this individual can help her against another cultist. Mercifully, Baxendale's love affair with the words "Dark Flame" is not anywhere near as irritatingly ubiquitous as it was in the original story and while they menacingly worm their way into the dialogue a little too much, it does not appear to be every other line as in the Doctor Who story.

Rather than traverse the well-trodden trail of awakening ancient evil again, Baxendale ensures that The Draconian Rage is more about how individuals can use that power for their own ends. This is a far more appealing approach as it allows the story a greater resonance as well as generating more intensity as the scenario has a greater sense of reality due to the absence of posturing theatrical lunatics out to take over the universe. But as there are only a small group of supporting characters - discounting Braxiatel as he's irrelevant to the plot, there are only three - the cast limitation makes it more difficult to conceal the true agendas of Draconians Shenn, Paranesh and Vasar. This proves to be a problem because Baxendale keeps the motivations of these three rather ambiguous throughout so to keep the purpose behind the double-crossing a surprise, but it does not work. With only three characters it's quite easy to work out the various permutations and given that none of these Draconians come across as particularly trustworthy - despite their lofty positions within their hierarchy as their inherent arrogance proves immediately alienating - it puts the listener into the position of questioning both their actions and their words which exposes the potential for duplicitous deceit and it makes you wonder why Benny can't see it either.

Her shortsightedness is particularly galling in her escape from Lord Paranesh, as while she treats Vasar with disdain she still places sufficient trust into his words to follow his plan, overlooking the possibility that someone who has just assisted to bore a hole in her head might not be exactly being truthful. Given the fatalistic reasoning that follows regarding Benny's continuing association with the Dark Flame, the listener can read into the script that the reason she doesn't see that she is being manipulated is because it was fated this way, but as it is never explicitly clarified it cannot completely excuse the denseness of Benny's actions.

The performance of The Draconian Rage is where it really triumphs. Director Edward Salt specialises in these small cast, contained dramas and he brings out the best of his company. Benny herself suffers from some slightly off-key characterisation early on, as her famed witticisms come off as smug and self-important, rather than as an endearing character-trait. Despite this, Lisa Bowerman soon settles back into the part and shows some fierce determination and passion as her enthusiasm about this unfamiliar world dissipates into a nightmare of pain, as Benny is brutally tortured while her past haunts her. Bowerman is particularly adept at showing the deeper horror of Benny at the realisation that the embers of the Dark Flame that remain in her may have been passed on to her son, Peter, and that he too may be nothing more than a slave to the cult. The terror of the torture inflicted upon Benny is also very well done as the gruesome scenes come across as genuinely disturbing to listen to thanks to bother Bowerman's substance and the realness of the direction.

The Draconians themselves are well realised with the three actors performances evoking strongly the style of their original appearance through their affected voice mannerisms. While the three Draconian characters are all stereotypes to a degree - the paranoid Emperor, the psychotic usurper and the oddball human-sympathiser - the actors bring conviction to the roles and so they do come across very well. Philip Bretherton brings a sly dignity to the role of Emperor Shenn, his cultured veneer disguising the depths that he would go to in order to maintain his grip on power. As Vasar, Johnson Willis' constant about-faces seem consistent because of the atypically interested way that his Draconian is conveyed which contrasts perfectly with the stern arrogance of the Emperor and the snideness of Paranesh. Kraig Thornber sometimes makes Paranesh seem too obvious as the villain as his immediate distaste towards Benny marks him out too clearly, but he never quite goes over the top and as colourful performances go it's just enough to keep the character sinister and not turn him into the ranting cliché he could have been.

The Draconian Rage shows a marked improvement over Baxendale's Doctor Who debut but it lacks urgency which means that the development of the play's momentum is stunted and as it lacks the suaveness to successfully dumbfound the listener with its counterplotting, the play suffers from being too obvious at times, which is certainly not helped by the limited cast. The performances are strong but they cannot lift this out of the mediocre - although a ruthless further edit of the script might have made it into the taunt and bleak thriller it aspires to be.