Big Finish Productions Exotron and Urban Myths

Written by	Paul Sutton
Format	Compact Disc
Released	2007

Starring Peter Davison and Nicola Bryant

Synopsis: On a distant colonial outpost of Earth, a group of terraformers is under threat from the planet's most fearsome predator: the giant carnivorous Farakosh. All that stands between the colonists and a grisly death are the Exotrons - huge robots equipped with devastating firepower, designed by the outpost's leader, Major Taylor. But all is not as it seems. How are the Exotrons controlled, and where did the colonists find the resources to build them? The Doctor wants answers and Taylor is reluctant to provide them. Meanwhile, outside the compound, the Farakosh are massing...

• A Review by Thomas Tiley

A Review by Thomas Tiley 24/3/26

Landing on a desert world, the Doctor and Peri are experiencing weird psychic phenomena. The duo are separated after they are attacked by the planet's native wildlife, then saved by the colonist's giant robots called Exotrons. They then get involved in uncovering the colonists' dark secret, missing corpses, massing alien forces and psychic networks. Add in a divorce, and you get a pretty busy story.

First of all, the nice stuff: the cover is very good, giant robots battling giant alien beasts, all very evocative and helpful in imagining the action bits, it's nice to have a story set on an alien world with really alien-aliens (giant hyena-wolf type psychics), and everyone gives a good performance especially Isla Blair as Paula the scientist and ex of the colony's administrator. She and Peri get along nicely throughout the story, and the subplot regarding her failed marriage is at least diverting. Peri gets to be smart for a change, even if her having the solution to the communicate problem is a bit odd; she gets the idea from insect behavior but is a botanist (I suppose botanists might need to know that stuff for study, but it is strange that she solves the problem that another scientist has been working on for months).

The bad, well, it's a bit stereotypical, predicable and cliched. Consequently, the whole thing is just a little bit boring and paint by numbers, which, considering the subject matter, is bizarre. Had this been a television story, it would probably have been one of my favorites (the robots and aliens would have looked dreadful no doubt), but without any visuals it's all a bit dull. The action is very rushed as this is a three parter. There's no chance for the story to breathe and so the characters have to reach conclusions/actions much quicker. They do say that in any four parter you could cut an episode and not miss much besides some capture and escapes, but I think this release does suffer from a lack of time for the ideas to develop and breathe and for some more character moments. As I said, it's cliched: military backing secret projects, dark secrets involving what's really inside the Exotrons, the reveal that the aliens are intelligent and not just animals and the robots controlling network is driving them to attack, the Doctor hooking himself into one to find out the truth/solve the problem (and, despite the warning that he couldn't be disconnected from the system, does so with relative ease), the dead lover coming back to save old flame, the Exotrons sacrificing themselves to save the day, cliche upon cliche. Not always a bad thing, but they don't help this story much.

Basically everything from Stephen Maslin's review is correct, it's just a waste of talent and dull.

This three-part release also contains another story, Urban Myths, which is better but not that much better, involving some Time Lords discussing what to do about the Doctor at a restaurant, with some flashbacks, as the same story is retold in different ways, more interesting than the parent story with the Doctor and Peri getting the chance to act very differently in the retellings, including one where they are right little thugs, but I didn't particularly like it that much, it just came across as stupid. Why were secret agents holding an important meeting in a restaurant? How could they believe the Doctor would set out to deliberately destroy a world? It's just stupid.

The only thing of note is that Steve Wickham uses his Doggle voice (the character he plays in the Bernice range) when he plays Harom in this story.

I enjoyed writer Paul Sutton's earlier effort Arrangements for War very much, so you can imagine my disappointment when it came to this release. Very disappointing. If you want a good story or at least a better one about giant robots, just watch the Tom Baker story instead. If you're a fifth doctor/Peri fan, then get this or if you can borrow it or get it cheap then give it a listen otherwise get it only if you want to complete your collection.

Solely for some good performances and a nice cover, I would give this story 3/10.