Big Finish Productions The Demons of Red Lodge and other stories

Written by	Jason Arnopp, Rick Briggs, William Gallagher and John Dorney
Format	Compact Disc
Released	2010

Starring Peter Davison and Sarah Sutton

Synopsis: Four one-part stories in which the Doctor and Nyssa endure a dark night in 17th century Suffolk and face off against a prog rock symphony. Plus, the Doctor spends some time in jail and offers his thoughts on a DVD commentary.

• The Ghost of Robert Holmes (Again) by Stephen Maslin

The Ghost of Robert Holmes (Again) by Stephen Maslin 23/3/13

Call me old fashioned, call me out of touch but...

Once upon a time, Doctor Who was extremely quotable, a quality almost single-handedly created by the late, great Robert Holmes. It wasn't just plots and scares, it was something whose very turn-of-phrase occasionally made you tingle, you ham-fisted bun vendor. (This quality occasionally resurfaces even now in the CGI 21st century.) Other writers came to the TV series with Mr Holmes having set the standard to which one should aspire: David Fisher, Douglas Adams... Lest you think I'm setting the bar a bit high, for a while Big Finish actually did a pretty good job in acquiring writers who had something approaching that same quotability: Mark Gatiss, Paul Cornell (both of whom had already demonstrated it in the New Adventures book range and elsewhere), Rob Shearman, Nev Fountain, Eddie Robson...

Then...

Well, I'm not sure why it happened but a few years ago, Big Finish retreated away from character, away from charm and from cracking a smile into po-faced, colourless straight ahead Sci-Fi; boys and their futuristic toys, more Colony in Space than Carnival of Monsters. If this was perceived as a necessary counter-balance to shiny new TV, it was a mistake. Personally, I think it was a dearth of decent writers and the lack of any real process with which to uncover new ones.

The Demons of Red Lodge. The eponymous first story is a case in point. Though rushed, it is well enough put together; coherent, everything happening in the right order. Yet it is marred by an unremarkable alien presence, a lot of dreadfully cliched and awkward dialogue, and an all-too-typical treacly postscript. It lacks any sparkle or any reason to treasure it as part of an expanding canon of greatness. One can't imagine anyone listening to this twice (and there are quite a few earlier BF releases that really do bear repeated listening). If it hadn't taken itself so seriously, this might have given a little more to write home about. Alas, it's much too earnest and very poor indeed. 2/10

The Entropy Composition. Rotten title notwithstanding, this starts intriguingly with an odd little sound collage (though the count-in is essentially non-functional). Yet when the first non-regular character arrives, announcing himself by merely stating precisely who he is (and then the outlining the plot), we know we're not in for a feast of under-description. (One realises that with less than half an hour to play with, the author has to get a move on but even so. Why the script editor didn't remedy such blatant exposition is anybody's guess.) Nor is any of the rest of it remotely convincing: Nyssa's lapsing into sixties hippy speak (written for a different companion perhaps?) is utterly out of character; the cheese in the ears, no doubt supposed to funny, isn't; the dragging into the plot of the music of the spheres (Entropy Sirens for heaven's sake?!) is just preposterous; the ending is extremely contrived (and having the villain survive for a possible sequel - please, no - is just depressing). 2/10.

Doing Time. Disc Two is a vast improvement in all departments. Doing Time is a lovely piece of work: right from the opening parody of British 1970s prison comedy Porridge, we have some great characters, a wonderfully compact plot with snappy dialogue, the drama sustained right to the end. With its mixture of light and shade, Doing Time has a similar feel to the only decent story from previous four-shorts release, Circular Time. Thankfully, this time its status is not unmatched... (One grumble though: headphone wearers should beware two or three rather unpleasant bits of sound design that seem to imply the sound designers have been to one too many raves). 9/10.

Special Features. Hats off to John Dorney for a superb take on rotten DVD commentaries and on the rotten film releases that require them. (Don't kid yourself: Doctor Who has made a speciality of them too.) Special Features gets the requisite inanity off to a tee with lots of hilarious inconsequential detail while still managing to pack a dramatic punch at the conclusion. Very well-observed, very funny and very clever. 9/10.

The lesson here is that neither story on the second disc tries to cram a supposedly epic grand narrative into half an hour as those on the first disc attempt (and fail) to do. Both Doing Time and Special Features are perfect one-parters, written as such.

It's hard to believe that Big Finish were either unaware of or did not care about the immense quality gap on offer here. No other release has shown the extremes of what they as a company are capable of, both good and bad. For that at least, it deserves your attention.