The last Companion Chronicle I reviewed had a very sparse framing story; this one does not, which presents me with something of a problem. It is very explicitly set after the Eighth Doctor audio An Earthly Child, which was given away free to Big Finish subscribers; and while that is now available to buy I haven't bought or heard it yet. Moreover, it talks about Susan's life after the events of serial K, which I haven't reached in my marathon. I don't want to jump ahead of myself, but neither do I want to wait to review this until I get there. With Quinnis it wouldn't be too much of a problem since I'm reviewing the framed story out of order anyway, but there are others which would cause more difficulty (imagine skipping The Transit of Venus until after serial R).
For now, then, wherever possible I'm going to review these when we reach the appropriate time for the main narrative. The Sara Kingdom stories will probably throw this out, but those are a way off yet.
There's another decision to make, though, which I mentioned when reviewing my first Companion Chronicle: whether to divide up the reviews by episode. I originally decided not to do so this time around, but as I was writing and shot past the thousand-word barrier I changed my mind. I've split it in half, which is a compromise position since if I were doing it like a TV story (or The Transit of Venus) it would be three - one for each episode and one for the story as a whole. Here, that would be overkill.
Splitting introduces another complication, which is how to refer to the two episodes. I haven't found any official names, and while could just say 'part 1' and 'part 2', that's boring. So I've come up with my own titles; hopefully you'll find them appropriate for the story and the era.
Right, preamble out of the way; I'm leaving my comments about the performances until next time and I haven't yet figured out how to judge direction on audios, so I'll move straight on to the writing. Marc Platt is one of a group of adventurous authors who came to prominence as the classic series of Who ended. He wrote one TV script - the complex and (some say) impenetrable Ghost Light - and a few novels, including the quite frankly bizarre Lungbarrow; but the bulk of his output has been Big Finish audio scripts. When I first encountered his writing it wasn't on Doctor Who at all, though, but on an audio spin-off from the roleplaying game Space: 1889. About which, more another time - if this marathon keeps going for long enough.
The setting Platt creates for the planet Quinnis is lush, full of richly visual images. The soundscape supports this well - is that part of the director's job? - and conjures up a world too heavily-populated to be realisable on TV in the 60s. Events towards the end of the episode would be even more problematic - hard to do well even now, in fact - and this is one place the story differs from The Transit of Venus: it is not trying to mimic the original series' production.
Which is not to say it doesn't fit with the tone of the early stories. Even some of the less pleasant aspects of the first season - such as the travellers' (and especially the Doctor's) sense of superiority in the face of native 'superstition' - are given an airing, and the Doctor in particular is a man driven by circumstance in a way he ceased to be quite early on.
There's a good blend of action, mystery and what I can only describe as atmosphere. Furthermore the cliffhanger is great, introducing the events that lead Susan to comment that they nearly lost the TARDIS on Quinnis in serial C...
Rating:
8.5/10.
Next Time:
Quinnis, episode 2.
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