Friday, March 19, 2021

A Journey Of A Thousand Eons...: 36.2.4 Fightback (Domain of the Voord Episode Four, Big Finish, 2014)

Okay, I'm willing to call it--of the few audio productions I have heard featuring the Hartnell Doctor, including both full-cast plays and dramatized reading, this is my favorite.

Everything comes together, as Ian discovers both the Doctor's fate and the purpose of the dome full of the revolving blades (it's designed to amplify the Voord's limited telepathic range so that Tarlak can control his minions planet-wide), Susan is forced into participating in a Voord Harvest ceremony to flush the others out.  The Rebellion makes its move, leading to a big combat sequence, a surprising and unlikely ally intervening on Susan's behalf, and things work out.

This is the best example of Big Finish trying to capture the feel of the period of the series while also providing a scope that the series couldn't have achieved back in the early 60's.  Smith orchestrates a full scale battle between the Voord and the Hydran Resistant, contrasting it with the much more personal conflict between Tarlak and Nebrin over Susan's fate.  I felt the cutting back and forth between the big scale action and the smaller battle taking place on the ceremonial stage was very well handled, and I never lost track of what was going on.  And while I was not surprised at Nebrin's face turn, I was surprised at the reasonings behind it, as it makes sense within what we've learned about our villain species.

Even with the limited cast, I was super impressed and more than a bit surprised at how much fun I had with this story.  And considering Andrew Smith took what was just men in funky scuba-style suits and turned them into breathing, plausible and scary does, I am going to seek out his other audioplays.

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