The Next Life
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Big Finish Productions The Next Life |
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| Written by | Alan Barnes and Gary Russell |  |
| Format | Compact Disc | |
| Released | 2004 | |
| Continuity | After The Telemovie. |
| Starring Paul McGann, India Fisher and Conrad Westmaas |
| Synopsis: Washed up on the sandy shores of a paradise island, a wild-eyed shipwreck survivor is rescued by the wife of Daqar Keep, the richest man in the galaxy. Her name's Perfection. He's the Doctor. Together, they face a journey into the dark heart of this mysterious island, to discover the deepest secrets of this timeless cosmos. That's if the giant crabs, killer crocodiles and murderous natives don't get them first. |
A Review by Richard Radcliffe 9/2/05
A triple CD boasting the end of the 8th Doctor arc, with special appearances from Daphne Ashbrook (who played Grace in The Movie) and Paul Darrow (Avon off Blake's Seven). Sounds pretty good so far on all kinds of levels.
First off the 8th Doctor src in the alternative universe needed to be closed. Thankfully the new TV series brought the end sooner rather than later - but Big Finish had already been there too long. There was also the chance that C'Rizz would be left behind. Enough of the negativity though. I was also looking forward to this one for the guests and the main stars.
Three CDs means we get more of the excellent 8th Doctor and Charley. There's also more of Avon and Grace - which personally lit up this story for me. Lit up implies that I liked it very much though - but I have to clarify that by saying I liked the performances of the two guests here, and the continued excellence of Paul McGann and India Fisher. The story is a strange beast - but more of that later.
Paul Darrow plays Guidance, and he does it with no trace of the over the top performances that have graced both DW and B7. Here is a part against type - a religious zealot - the seriousness of the character is in stark contrast to the rest of the play. Daphne Ashbrook plays Perfection, and it's all rather Grace-like - and therefore pretty good. Of particular note is the banter between the Doctor and Perfection, totally exploiting to good effect the Movie relationship of the past. If we can't have Grace, then this more than compensates.
Charley's character in this play is a reaction to this Dr/Perfection interplay. She's gloriously jealous, and this allows India Fisher to shine. Quite a feat to stamp your feet, be amazingly over the top with jealousy (all negative traits) - yet still remain likeable and charming - which Charley remains at every step. I still can't find much to like about C'Rizz though. I was hugely disappointed with the end of this play, and what the future holds for this TARDIS team. I feel C'Rizz has brought very little to this series of audios. The more I listen to the character the more I grow bored by him. Thankfully C'Rizz is only a third of this TARDIS team though. I shall continue to buy the 8th Dr plays, but rarely have I disliked a lead character so much in any medium of Doctor Who.
Now onto the story by Alan Barnes and Gary Russell. After listening to episode 1 I wasn't sure at all. The Doctor was hardly in it, and all this dreamscape stuff with Charley and her mother, and C'Rizz left me nonplussed. Then me and my wife (who enjoyed it for the most part incidentally) listened to episodes 2 to 4 back to back. We were enjoying it, and were keen to carry on with it, simple as that. That's endorsement all by itself, but I quite enjoyed the shenanigans on the island. The Doctor and Perfection were fantastic together. C'Rizz was getting it in the neck from Guidance. It all sounded great, and even though the story won't break any records for stretching the format, it was solid enough on many levels.
The last two episodes were enjoyed in the same manner and, apart from C'Rizz not staying put, the end was all right too. Looking back a few weeks on, The Next Life brings back decent happy recall. A pleasant romp best describes it. And yet I can't say it was brilliant Doctor Who - very much run of the mill Doctor Who. Now I happen to like run of the mill Doctor Who, so it was perfectly acceptable. It just doesn't excel - a bit like the alternative universe arc as a whole. 7/10
The end... by Joe Ford 1/3/05
Hooray! It is the last story to be set in the divergent universe! And boy does it live up to the expectations of the stories that have led us here. Much like the other stories in seasons three and four there is little drama, little humour and lots and lots of dull exposition. Once again the performances are rather excellent but poisoned by some horrific dialogue and of course the production is typically lush with some really exotic sound effects and a dynamic musical score. Why don't you just read my review of Caerdroia... that says pretty much the same thing?
This story is 220 minutes long. That's three hours and forty minutes. I could have a run, have dinner, go on a drinking binge, come home and watch the whole of Talons of Weng-Chiang in that time. What is this bizarre obsession with Big Finish that longer is better? Aside from their Bernice Summerfield range, which at 65 minutes per story keeps a nice pace and rarely outstays its welcome, the Doctor Who stories just go on and on. If they could justify this length it wouldn't be so bad but the story that is told here could be cut to half the length without losing any of the depth at all. Characters babble on and on here and it takes until halfway through episode four (of six) before we actually learn something new and start wrapping up the arc. The first three episodes are far too concerned with trivial matters, the Doctor being hunted (which comes to nothing), Charley and C'rizz squabbling (which comes to nothing) and a whole bunch of characters with truly pretentious names (Keep, Perfection and Guidance amongst them) who spend the first half of the story pretending to be people they aren't thus wasting even more time. You could start the story at episode four and not lose anything vital.
On the plus side it is better than Zagreus but that was the aural equivalent of having your scrotum set on fire. There are some wonderful ideas in play here and one character shines out of all this dreck (which I shall go into later). There are even a few good twists that were entirely unexpected, nothing to the quality of excusing this horrendous side step into the divergent universe but pleasing nonetheless.
I am not a huge fan of The Five Doctors but one of the things it does very well is portray Rassilon in a very good light. The Tomb of Rassilon is a marvellously creepy idea and his gift of immortality to Borusa at the stories end reveals what a duplicitous bastard he could be. You can see why there was so many legends built up around him, this mythic, awe-inspiring character the Time Lords live up to. Well ya-boo! to Big Finish (namely Gary Russell and Alan Barnes) who have taken this one decent thread of Gallifrey continuity and soured it. Thanks to the divergent universe arc I am now convinced Rassilon is nothing more than a faux-Master, a big melodramatic bully who screams and shouts and waves his fists but never actually gets anything done. He is pretty pathetic in The Next Life, a lingering background presence to guffaw and insult the Doctor and his friends but in the end of the day provides no threat at all. We never learn what he was really up to this universe or why, just that he wants to go home. And most insulting of all his spectacular and devious scheme is defeated when a secondary character (not even the Doctor or Charley) pushes him through a door. As I believe I have said before all that build up... for this? Did they bring back Rassilon just to belittle him? My friend Matt would be furious about this because he loathes it when Big Finish take the piss out of the TV series and in this case I would have to agree. Rassilon's return, whilst initially spectacular, was a bloody great flop. A shame because the cover suggests a showdown between the two most famous Gallifreyans but it just never happens. Instead he gets a last scene where he screams "NOOOOOO!" just like every other cheesy villain.
Charley survives again! Will this woman go on forever? For once I see a sunny horizon because it pleases me to admit that Charley was the best thing about The Next Life by a square mile. No matter how badly they fudged the divergents storyline and destroyed any credibility Rassilon might have had nothing can take away what Barnes and Russell achieve with Charley here which is to practically re-introduce her as the feisty adventuress she used to be. For too long now the writing for Charley has been generic and repetitive with nothing new said about her character. She was starting to look a bit stale despite India Fisher's best efforts (and that is some effort let me tell you). Although the conversations with her mother in episode one are nothing but padding they are absolutely vital for Charley who is finally showing some real growth. When she admits that people dying doesn't affect her the way it used to and her recollection of her reaction to Rathbone's death in Storm Warning there is a real melancholic feeling of Charley having lost that naive, childish side to her personality and having grown into a strong young woman. Similarly touching is her memories of going to Crystal Palace and how magical it would be to return there, it brings us back to seeing the story through the companions eyes and here there is doubt that Charley is yearning to return to out universe (I don't blame her).
But best of all is her bitchy banter with Perfection, surely the highlight of the entire story. Listening to ex-companion Daphne Ashbrook and current companion India Fisher throwing some of the most hilarious insults at each other is a delight and more of this sort of rowdy humour would have benefited the play no end. It confirms what was already my belief, that India Fisher deserves plaudits for her portrayal and it was the material that was lacking these past couple of years.
Don't get me started on C'rizz though who must be the most ill conceived companion since Adric yet twice as annoying. Big revelations for C'rizz fans in this story (that's all none of you then): he used to be a mass murderer (SHOCK!), he was brainwashed by his religion (GASP!), his father has been waiting for him on the blue planet ever since he left with the Doctor (SHUDDER!) and he is an evil Turlough clone who betrays the Doctor at the drop of a hat (NOOO!). He's rubbish; but worse he's we've-seen-it-all-before rubbish who's dumped with some truly cringe-worthy dialogue. I thought he had reached his nadir when they drudged up Lyda in the first episode and allowed a little more time to get angsty over her death (again... even Anji wasn't that bad!) but he soon put on his sour face and started viciously squabbling with Charley (I thought they were best friends?) and then when you think he cannot sink any lower they pull out the "Ahahaha Doctor! I'm not betraying you to Keep! I'm betraying you to Rassilon!" Why the Doctor did not just leave him behind at the climax is beyond me. Despite a few sporadic moments of fun C'rizz has frustrated me from day one and The Next Life confirms he was going nowhere all along and will serve as little more than a bland buddy-buddy.
Ever since the start of the chain of stories in this universe I have been wondering where the Zagreus energy went because it did not seem to be affecting the Doctor at all aside from making him a bit dull. The Next Life resurrects this long-forgotten thread in what is probably the best twist in the story. Turns out its Perfection, the sultry babe who has been sticking close to the Doctor throughout the story! The moment she reveals herself is rather exciting but fails to explain the previous three hours of flirty banter with the Doctor, going as far to offer to shag him and re-populate the universe (I kid you not). I can see why she wanted to be near the Doctor, his TARDIS being the key to returning to the "proper" universe and all but in hindsight their relationship throughout the story is a bit perverse.
Caerdroia promised a series of adventures with the TARDIS and a jolly Doctor but both seem absent in The Next Life. The story forgets about the TARDIS far too often for it to be more than a background presence and the Doctor is bogged down in too much nonsense to impress either. He gets to scoff a load of bugs and deny killing a child and hide from crocodiles and chat about becoming Adam to Perfection's Eve and none of it has anything to do with anything. The only reason the Doctor is vital is so Perfection can babble on about the divergents and explain away what this whole misconceived idea has all been about. He also fits a key into a lock that gets them home. Bravo, what a hero.
During one mind-numbingly long piece of exposition Keep and Perfection finally explain about the divergents, the Church of the Foundation, the Doctor's journey through the Interzone, etc. What shocks me is there are some terrific ideas involved, especially the idea of a universe that evolves to a certain point and then starts all over again and a planet that travels around the galaxies and destroys life as it passes your planet. What annoys is that it is just exposition and nothing dramatic is done with these meaty ideas. Audio limits you to simply talking about things but you can still take a great idea (Chimes of Midnight) and dramatise it well. The Next Life tosses its ideas in the air and leaves them there, refusing to assemble them into a satisfying narrative. A shame.
And finally allow me to congratulate Big Finish for what has to be the ultimate sellout, that truly, truly awful cliff-hanger that proves once and for all this company is just pandering to the fans and their desire. Say what you will about BBC books they go down their own path and if you like it fair enough, if you don't it won't change their minds. But having the Doctor walk through a door into our universe and being confronted by Davros and a bunch of Daleks says to me that this company is desperate to appeal to the new audience next year. Another Dalek story. Whoopidedo! Just what we all wanted...
The Next Life isn't diabolical but it isn't very good either. It feels like it goes on forever without ever really going anywhere and as a wrap up for the past two seasons it feels inadequate, failing to deal with a handful of unanswered questions. The story was rush written to get the Doctor and co back into our universe and it skips over all the ideas Gary Russell clearly had in mind for wrapping everything up. I hate to say it but it feels as though the season should be longer to effectively deal with some of the ideas. But let's be thankful it's not and we can get back to good old fashioned adventuring. And let's never speak of the past two seasons again.
A Review by Stuart Gutteridge 7/4/05
Curtailing (albeit prematurely) the Divergance Universe arc, The Next Life is a great tale,thanks to the combined writing of Gary Russell and Alan Barnes. Storywise, the TARDIS seemingly breaks up, attempting to land on a mysterious planet, whilst C'rizz and Charley are tormented by Rassilon via situations from their past, as the Doctor finds himself on an island getting on both the bad and good sides of husband and wife Daqar Keep and Perfection respectively. This storyline alone is only really justifiable as a four parter, but the writing and performances do carry you along.
The first episode is reminiscent of Zagreus, with its dreamscape images featuring Anneke Wills as Charley's mother and Jane Hills as L'da; both of whom give excellent performances it has to be said. This is merely a plot device to sideline the two companions however; it could have been cut out, but nothing is lost by its inclusion. Certainly the pace slows down during the Doctor's segments and thanks to strong performances from Paul Darrow (who surprisingly doesn't ham it up at all) as Guidance and Daphne Ashbrook as Perfection, whose interplay with Paul McGann was one of the highlights of the TV Movie; in this aspect The Next Life delivers.
Similarly, the regulars are great, Charley whilst the least well served is excellently played by India Fisher, whilst Conrad Westmaas gives his best performance yet as C'rizz. Ultimately, the tale is about the lead however, and Paul McGann seemingly tapping into hidden reserves of energy, betters himself yet again in his portrayal. Added to this is a clever and unexpected plot twist, which serves as a teaser for the future and The Next Life bows out on a high.