A Journey Of A Thousand Eons...: 0.6.1 The Sleeping Blood (The Sleeping Blood Part One, The Companion Chronicles: The First Doctor Volume One, Big Finish, 2015)

...and here we are all the way back to the time before 'The Unearthly Child'--before the Doctor and Susan ended up on Totters Lane, even!--in a dramatized reading from the first Hartnell-themed Companion Chronicles adventure.

When an injury the Doctor received from an alien plant becomes seriously infected, Susan has to venture forth in search of medicine.  She finds herself in what seems to be an abandoned hospital on a colony world that uses nanotechnology to monitor wellness.  Unfortunately, that reliance on nanotech has left the populace open to terrorist acts from a mysterious hacker, as evidenced by the soldier she comes across that is simply...shut down.

The story, by Martin Day, of 'The Sleeping Blood' is at turns compelling and sound.  It surprises me that the various writers working with Big Finish haven't exploited the time before 'The Unearthly Child' more. However, I found this first part lacking.  Day spends so much time in expository mode where he explains the technology, the culture and the world--he even takes a few lines to explain how this planet was named--that the plot doesn't seem to start until the last few minutes of the episode.  And because it takes so long for the story to get underway, I get no sense of the stakes or the characters--when one is killed by the hacker shutting down the nanotech in her body, I felt nothing.  There had to be a better way to either better disseminate the backstory or put everything in one place.

I'm not sure where this story is going, but the feeling I got was that this segment of the play spent a little under a half an hour to get to the point where the story actually begins.  In these two parters, I should feel in the middle of the second act by the time I get to the cliffhanger...but I feel like we're in the earliest part of the first act.  I'm still interested in what develops...I just worry I am about to be disappointed by this serial overall.

A Journey Of A Thousand Eons...: 62. The Centre (The Web Planet Conclusion)

In wrapping up this too-long serial, we finally get to meet the Animus, and it's...a spaghetti-monster perched over a high-intensity flashlight.

Much like the Optera, the Animus' obvious artifice--you can see the dome that gives the mass of felt ribbons its shape--takes away from the story, and no amount of bright lights flashing in our cast's faces can hide how shabby our ultimate villain looks.  Even with the amount of time focusing on getting Ian to the Animus to put paid to its machinations and Hartnell and O'Brien squirming about as if 'possessed,' I can't take this seriously as a Big Bad.  Thankfully, this thingie is put out of business pretty quickly....

...or it would be a thankful thing if we didn't get such an extended 'saying goodbye' sequence where it seems more attention is spent on the various alien races than on our heroes.  Look, I understand the design staff worked hard on coming up with all these costumes meant to represent non-humanoid lifeforms and they want us to appreciate all that work, but the impact is decidedly lessened due to the length of our exposure to it.

This serial as a whole should have been shorter, and there are scenes that could've been cut whole to aid with its plodding pace.  Spending extra time watching the Optera frolicking under the smeary moon does not help any.  I wonder if there is an alternate universe where this serial, rather than the next one (The Crusade), that's missing literally half its episodes.

I respect what was intended.  I just am glad it's finally over.

A Journey Of A Thousand Eons...: 45.5 The Fragile Yellow Arc of Fragrance (The Lost Stories: The First Doctor Box Set, Big Finish, 2010)

This is another product line from Big Finish Audio, apparently the brainchild of producer David Richardson, which digs up abandoned scripts, outlines and pitches for Who and adapts them into audio plays.  In this case, it's a dramatized reading of what we now call a Spec Script written by Moris Farhi in the week leading up to his meeting with then script editor David Whittaker.  Based on the strength of this script, Farhi was commissioned to write 'Farewell, Great Macedon,' a six part historical about the last days of Alexander The Great for the first season...which did not make it into production.  As such, it's a fascinating bit of ephemera, a 'proof of concept' from Farhi that was never meant to see production.

On the impossibly colorful and peaceful planet of Fragrance, young Rhythm declares his love for Barbara and asks her to stay.  Barbara politely refuses...not knowing that this is dooming the man to suicide due to the planet's cultural beliefs.  The story examines the reaction of Rhythm's family and the Who Crew as Rhythm goes off to his destiny.

It's an interesting little story, very reminiscent of some of the better Short Trips (like them, it's just under a half hour).  As with Domain of the Voord, William Russell and Carol Ann Ford switch off the narration with John Dorney and Helen Goldwyn providing voices for Rhythm and his sisters.  The production flows well, which is probably helped by its brevity.  But what I like the most is that I get the sense that this story works better in an audio medium, as it's more philosophical than action-adventure-y.

Of course, what's interesting about the Lost Stories concept is that Big Finish is doing something akin to media archaeology, giving life to these never-were and putting them in the context they were intended.  'The Fragile Yellow Arc of Fragrance' not only feels like a First Doctor story, it feels like it would fit right in with that first season of the show*, where the intention was to do science fiction that wasn't about ray guns and bug-eyed monsters.  In listening to this, I got vibes of literary science fiction of the 60's that focused more on softer sciences like sociology and psychology.

I will admit that I have a weakness for the Lost Stories format as a whole, so I'm somewhat biased.  But even with that bias being acknowledged, it's a pretty decent tale.

*--although you'll notice I placed this just before 'The Dalek Invasion of Earth.'  There's a minor plot element about the Doctor fixing up the Tardis to get Ian and Barbara back to London that made it a natural place to slot the story in.

Meanwhile Over At DREAD MEDIA 710

Wolfmen and witches dominate this week's episode, as Des and I endure the high concept gunslinger-versus-wolfmen tale High Moon and Rich The Monster Movie Kid comes back with an amorous vibe as he covers 2016's The Love Witch!

The trailers are below, as is a discussion of how to categorize your werewolves, a feature on actual spell-casting witches in Romania, and music by Martin Gore of Depeche Mode and Burning Witches

Listen to Episode 710 here

(...that's right. baby--I'm back!)

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.

A Journey Of A Thousand Eons...: 61. Invasion (The Web Planet Part Five)

So here we get the equivalent of a Corridor Chase for this serial.  With their attempt to foil the control collars successful, the Doctor and Vicki escape the Animus (with a controlled Zarbi in tow that Vicki dubs 'Zombo') and eventually connect up with Barbara and what's left of the Menoptran Spearhead.  The Menoptrans have an implosion bomb that will destroy the Animus, and the Doctor volunteers to go into the Animus to plant it there.  Meanwhile, Ian and the...Opterans endeavor to escape the tunnels underneath Vortis.  Needless to say, it doesn't go off as planned....

The thing that struck me the most in this half hour is the information that could have been, maybe should have been imparted earlier in the serial.  There's a somewhat extensive monologue about Menoptran culture that I can't help thinking needed to be in the second or third episode to prevent that suspicion I had back then that the Menoptrans might've been the villains.  The plans--and the connected discovery of what the Animus is using to fulfill its dark purpose--should have been more spread out, as the mystery of the extra moons was mentioned in passing so far back we might not make the connection.  This is integral stuff to keep this six episodes flow better, and it's so packed in to this fifth episode that it feels overstuffed.  I once more come to the opinion that this serial should not have been as long as it is.

...and if you ask me, I'm positive that we just didn't need the Opterans.  So far they've contributed nothing other than giving Ian something to do--and I suspect William Russell knew it, as there's little moments where the camera catches him stifling a laugh at the ludicrousness of what he's doing.  A moment when one of the Opterans die has no impact, and there's nowhere in this serial that has any impact other than this whole sequence.  I'm sorry, but the felt-and-foam costumes of these third race just prevents me from seeing them as anything other than silly.

There are some good moments, especially with our female members.  I laughed out loud at Vicki's reactions in the opening scene, and I still take great joy in the way she gives a little sass to the Doctor when he's being crotchety.  And Barbara is in prime action heroine mode, devising a plan and acting strong in the face of mockery.  I know that my time with Jacqueline Hill is coming to an end, and I'm going to miss her steely resolve when she's gone.

So...yeah, a 'corridor chase'.  The cliffhanger seems very non-sequetorial, but I am taking some solace in knowing next episode is the last of this so well-intentioned but just isn't able to achieve its goal.

A Journey Of A Thousand Eons...: 36.3 Rise and Fall (Short Trips Volume One, Big Finish, 2010)

This is the very dawn of the Short Trips range over at Big Finish, the first story in a collection of eight short stories, each one focusing on one of the eight doctors the company had licenses to produce stuff for (a little later, the BBC will extend the Who license to all NuWho material through Peter Capaldi).  The intent at that time was that Short Trips would be audio chapbooks, with each story designed to be listened to during a typical commute--this is the only story in this anthology that's over twenty minutes--and would be read by an actor associated with that Doctor.

...which brings us to this story by George Mann, read by William Russell.  It tells of how the Doctor and Ian stop for a brief respite and end up influencing the rise of an entire civilization...for, you see, said civilization is living in an accelerated pocket of time, which means a few minutes to our heroes means eons for them.

It's a wonderful, simple little story that shows what can be done with the Short Trips format--focusing not on the TARDIS crew but on how they influence those around them.  I felt a real sense of delightful awe at how this story played out.  Some of the best Short Trips I've experienced are like this (wait until we get to the Pertwee era and I get to talk about a little gem called 'Damascus'), little tales about people and how they are impacted by the Doctor's presence. Mann does not let the story outstay its welcome, and leaves the listener satisfied.

Later, when the Short Trips line becomes a monthly line, the stories stretch to sometimes as much as forty-five minutes, and I think a lot of them lose sight of the original remit.  But right now at the beginning, this (and many of the stories in this collection, which we will get to as we reach the other Doctors) is a satisfying, bite-sized little bit of science fiction.