Big Finish Main Range
Due to a quirk of alphabetical spelling, I ended up listening to Quicksilver before this story and I am ultimately glad I did. That’s a more interesting story as this story has a lot of little head scratching moments at first. Our evil corporate head, Lyam Yce, is just a bit of a caricature and over the top enough to seem to not have much of a brain in his head. Apparently power went straight to his head and out dribbled his brains! I was a bit suspicious of the motives of Florrie from the start, though I couldn’t say exactly why. Other than there are no characters in these stories who are what they seem or have no real point in being there. The stories are always too well written and no cast member is wasted. And Constance seems pretty laze fair when it comes to danger, which is pretty darn remarkable. I do love that about her and it a very consistent character trait!
So the Doctor and Constance land on a planet with ruins and are mistaken for archeological society members. Yce is always suspicious of them, from the first moment, yet isn’t suspicious of his girl friend? Weird that. They eventually get to translating the inscriptions after the main professor, Aryan Wyke, is killed by an experiment he was running. Which turns out to be something else completely as he is up and walking around later on. And of course aliens are involved and the Doctor has to stop them!
There are moments of amazing writing and moments that just don’t seem to go together. Thus the lower rating. It’s a fun story to listen to but there were some early plot holes that really bothered me, but they got us to a good ending, eventually. Plus the title is actually mentioned in the story but I just don’t buy that Yce would have absolute power over life and death with sentient electricity, so I didn’t really think the title fit well. The interviews are rather enlightening on this one though.
Colin Baker (The Doctor), Miranda Raison (Constance Clarke), Paul Reynolds (Lyam Yce), Jenny Bede (Florrie/Medical Doctor), Arian Nik (Ammar Elkady), Neil Edmond (Professor Aryan Wyke/Mine Worker), Gary Martin (Kohrbal), Esther Hall (Pheenan). Other parts played by members of the cast.
Writer/Director: Jamie Anderson
Release: December 2016