A Journey Of A Thousand Eons...: 36.2.2 Return To Terror (Domain of the Voord Episode Two, Big Finish, 2014)

Sound Designer Toby Hyrick Robinson, Writer Andrew Smith, Producer
David Richardson and Director Ken Bentley

Now that the Hydran flotilla has survived the attack by the Voord, Ian and Susan are left believing that the Doctor, Barbara and the Tardis, have been lost at the bottom of the sea.  The one Voord that Ian captured, Nebrin (Andrew Bone) is not cooperating much except when it comes to talking with Susan.  The Admiral of the flotilla (Andrew Dickens) decides to send an exploratory party to Predora City with Nebrin in tow as a hostage....and things go pear shaped.

Andrew Smith's script continues to take advantage of using the audio drama medium to tell a story grander than would have been possible with its budget back in 1963.  There is a scale to parts of the Predora City segment that would be impossible to do on those small BBC sets, and the fact that Smith has literally thousands of Voord making their presence known in a key scene paints a really vivid picture.  More importantly, Smith does something Terry Nation simply never bothered to do--he fleshes out the Voord.  We get a sense of what the Voords are actually about, with Nebrin hinting at a kind of ruthless missionary society in his conversations with Susan.  These hints make them into more than just guys in funky scuba suits and I really like what he's building with them.

Since this particular segment is more character driven, I became really impressed with the music composed by Toby Hrycek-Robinson because it feels very authentically of that first season, emphasizing electronic sounds that seems like it came out of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop.

To be honest, even though the David Bradley serials are literally full cast audios, this is shaping up to be my favorite of the three I own (we'll come across another Bradley drama, The Destination Wars, soon...basically so I can move on to the Vicki audio dramas!).  I am very engaged with this story, and I am intrigued by where this is going.