Big Finish Main Range
This audio starts out strong, at least. Battle at a planet, alpha energy power converter important to the boss man, Erimem shot, Dr. playing at being an inspector, Peri kidnapped by the witches… What more excitement do you need? The archivist from the university is a bit annoying as he sounds like he’s threatening—takes Erimem and Peri into his confidence yet says he’ll kill them without hesitation. An uncertain element to the story, which is interesting and yet doesn’t hold as much threat as it should. An historian with weapons.
Shara and the relic are a big part of this adventure but it all comes down to money and power. Beating up Erimem, now that is very strange part of the story. What’s the point? To prove that Erimem is a soldier/fighter at heart? Harlon’s an evil dude at heart? It doesn’t do much for the story, in my mind.
<spoiler alert>
The best cliffhanger of the BF audios—Dr. gets his head chopped off. Wha-wha-what??? No Time Lord can regenerate from that! Shara is the guy behind it all, traded his physicality for a moment of perfect happiness. Everything always comes down to rupturing the space-time vortex, too. A boom big enough to rip apart the universe. Blah, blah, blah. No offense but it gets tedious after awhile. The Doctor can’t do anything to prevent it. Without a little help, of course. And it all goes awry. Naturally! When does the Doctor ever get in an easy adventure? Only one I can think of is No Place Like Home, one of the mini BF adventures, which is really fun and short.
<spoiler alert done>
Everything is going along a path in the story but then the mumbo jumbo takes it down the tedious path and the cackling of the witches just seriously gets on my nerves after awhile. Crazed witch, Jal Dor Kal, is a bit nuts after centuries of studying the centaur. The Doctor is returned as a duplicate of himself? Oiy vey. That would wreak merry havoc on his regeneration, wouldn’t it?
Shara was a brilliant physicist? Whatever. He sure was blindsided by the greed of humans. Wouldn’t he have run into that somewhere along the line and at least considered it? To get the setup on the planet, he would’ve required a lot of funding or somehow to deal with people to get the equipment. It would sure require some finances! Sometimes the science babble is a bit much. Oiy vey. This is one of the stories where Erimem gets beaten up and it seems to happen to her a lot more than Peri or any of the Doctor’s other companions. So perhaps being a warrior means not just fighting but be fought against.
Peter Davison, Nicola Bryant, and Caroline Morris
Writer: Austen Atkinson
Director: John Ainsworth
Release: February 2003