Friday, June 17, 2011

[New post] Doctor Who Big Finish- Seasons of Fear

Doctor Who Big Finish- Seasons of Fear

dailypop | June 17, 2011 at 6:09 am | Tags: doctor who big finish audio adventures, doctor who paul cornell, paul mcgann doctor who | Categories: Big Finish | URL: http://wp.me/p4kUt-2CL

Seasons of Fear

"How would it be if everything was always the same? If you never got too big for your dresses? If you never got to pass them on to your sister? If the rainy Autumn lasted forever and Spring never came? At least I change. I'm stumbling my way through bodies like I own a particularly dangerous bicycle."

Story 30
Written by Paul Cornell and Caroline Symcox
Released March 2002

The Doctor finally gets his companion Charley to Singapore as he had promised long ago. While the Doctor checks to see the news coverage of the wreckage of the R-101, Charley runs off to meet her friend Alex. The Doctor is interrupted by a man who not only knows him but despises him, Sebastian Grail. Grail establishes that he has already won in his little battle with the Doctor that has extended throughout time and has devised this manufactured version of reality to shame the Doctor one last time. Perplexed, the Doctor is nonetheless convinced that Grail is genuine and uses the genetic connection to Charley's friend Alex to track his foe to his family lair. This leads them to ancient Rome where they find a strange young Roman taking a ritual in a different direction for his own ends.

Grail may appear to be of a kinder personality, but he clearly has access to alien technology and is hell bent on achieving a goal that sets him apart from his fellow Romans who are frustrated as their empire slips between their fingers. The Doctor is reluctant to take too direct an approach (Charley simply suggests that they catapult him into the sky and be rid of him), but falters as he does not have all the details yet. A plot wrapped around time, it is difficult for the Time Lord to ascertain how Grail is getting his power and from whom. The tech looks familiar, but when you've traveled around as much as the Doctor, that is hardly any help.

An army of Daleks shows up, attacking the Romans as they vocally ask the same question I was wondering, what has this to do with anything? The plot is nonsensical that it actually points this out to itself several times. Aside from the attacking Daleks, there's the reason behind Sebastian Grail's thirst for power. Even the Doctor cannot see why Grail would put the entirety of the world in jeopardy just to get at the family fortune. The fact that this is then easily achievable with the assistance of his mysterious benefactors barely registers and Grail simply moves on to having aspirations toward immortality. After it becomes clear that Grail's masters will need him around to assist in their transference, requiring that his life be prolonged, he forgets that ambition as well and simply becomes driven by his hatred of the Doctor.

Squashing Grail's attempt to sacrifice the Roman camp to appease his masters, the Doctor becomes a blood enemy. The plot of Seasons of Fear takes on a comical tone as the Doctor flits along Grail's time line only to see the near immortal's convoluted grabs at power toward a repetition of the ritual fall apart at the last minute. Grail fluctuates from cool indifference to maddened rage on each occasion and still the Doctor is mostly detached from the action, simply undoing the cats cradle that Grail had so carefully constructed before flying off again. All along, the story is interrupted by sequences where the Doctor is providing unnecessary linking narration to an unknown party in an unknown location (is it the Matrix? It sounds like it).

When it is finally revealed who is behind Grail's power, I have to admit that I audibly groaned. It became clear that nearly the entire story was the set up for a gag referencing a somewhat obscure classic story renowned for its camp monsters (thankfully that doesn't give anything away). I wouldn't have minded if the story was decent but as it was the whole adventure hinged on this one detail that seemed to be yanked out of a list of possible bad monsters written on bits of paper and thrown across Paul Cornell's office. It's such a let down that it taints the rest of the story.

Look at it this way, the character of Grail makes no real sense (why did he need to gloat over the Doctor in the first place? If he hadn't, he would have won to such a degree that the Time Lords themselves would have been powerless), his purpose is as shifting as the wind and the only hope that the story has lay in the revelation of the big bad monster hiding behind the intergalactic radio. Too much importance was placed on this plot point for it to just be a joke, but that's exactly what it is... and it's a bad one.

I don't wish to take too much wind out of the sails of this one since it is still enjoyable, has some fantastic performances and a thrilling sound track. McGann again shows that he is Doctor Who for the 21st Century with his air of romantic spirit and madcap style tempered by a soulful dedication to the cause of what is good and 'right.' This is something that Colin Baker touched upon in 1984 when he picked up the part. To him, the Doctor wasn't necessarily about righting wrongs for the good guys but more setting things straight as he saw them. This fits with the Doctor's insistance that saving Charley from the R-101 crash doesn't threaten the 'web of time' simply because he can't accept that saving one life would cause so much bother.

Of course the R-101 crash and Charley's fate are very much a problem that will soon take precedence over everything else. But that's for another time.

Doctor Who – Seasons of Fear can be purchased at local retailers such as Mike's Comics and online from Big Finish.