Short Trips, Seven Deadly Sins 15.01: Sloth - The Duke's Folly, by Gareth Wigmore

It's that man again! Mr. Wigmore must be a fan of Hartnell's Doctor, because there's still one more of his for me to review and after that only one each for the next two incarnations.

This is a slightly tricky episode to review individually, because the book has such a strong thread which runs through the stories in the collection. Many of the Big Finish Short Trips have some theme, which generally sets the tone (e.g., horror for A Universe of Terrors) or setting (historical for Past Tense, Christmas for several volumes of which I've only read the first). A few tie all the stories closer together (much as Virgin did in their first Decalog collection), and this is one of them.

There are, of course, only seven deadly sins and eight Doctors to include in the book. Editors Jacqueline Rayner and David Bailey handle this by assigning one sin to each of the first seven incarnations, and adding a framing story starring the eighth in the form of prologue, epilogue, and short introductory pieces for each of the individual stories. This works well, and is a model I have subconsciously borrowed for my own "Short Trips: 2013" fanfic collection. The stories themselves are linked to their respective sins in differing ways; this one approaches the subject by having a main strand revolving around a guest character who exhibits sloth while the plot revolves around him. It makes sense; a slothful story would be a hard one to enjoy!

Having said that, though, the part of the story that I enjoyed least was the one with the most action. A subplot which sends Ian and Susan trekking across America during the days of the Wild West - and fits Ian into the role of wanted sharpshootin' gunslinger - really didn't work for me. I think the idea was to provide a contrast to the slothful Chilgrove, but it raised my hackles (like all the takes on Ian that involve him being hypercompetent).

Back in Blighty, the Doctor being a member of the House of Lords while Barbara joins the hunting and shooting fraternity also felt wrong; but the character work here - in particular the obvious affection the Doctor has for Chilgrove, despite the claim that he's only doing it for the feckless young man's father - makes up for the shortcomings of this strand. The message at the end was also just far enough away from trite to work for me. Another good thing is the dialogue, which rings true to the characters; but these positives aren't enough to save the story for me.

Published:
Date: March 2005
ISBN: 1-84435-146-7

Rating:
3/10.

Next Time:
The Reign of Terror DVD.