Review: Dead London
After the runaway success of their first season together, Paul McGann and Sheridan Smith are back as the Eighth Doctor and Lucie Miller, in a new run of eight fifty-minute episodes from Big Finish Productions.
The first of these is Dead London, from the pen of Doctor Who comic strip veteran Pat Mills. It sees our heroes in London - or, more specifically, some Londons. Within the one city, they jump from one time period to another, and parts of the landscape appear and move seemingly at random. One man seems to be constant throughout all the Londons, and it seems he might be responsible...
This is an intriguing way to start the season, to say the least. For the first third of the story, the Doctor and Lucie are separated. On the one hand, this reintroduces us to them slowly, allowing us to form a clear impression of each individual character before they unite. It also makes their eventual reunion all the more exciting and satisfying, because we've been waiting for them to find one another for so long. On the other hand, it means the story might not work as a jumping-on point for new listeners, because we spend a fair amount of time with both characters before we find out who they are and what the relationship between them is. It's good to see Big Finish trying something different, and the execution is as good as you'd expect, but it remains to be seen whether this was the best episode to put first.
The other noticeable difference is the theme music. In the past, the Eighth Doctor's previous adventures were topped and tailed by a dark, moody and atmospheric version of the legendary piece, arranged by David Arnold. For this new season, Big Finish has returned to Ron Grainer's original version, remixed by Nicholas Briggs. Unfortunately, this is a case of "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" - the resultant theme sounds messy and clumsy, as if the various component parts of the tune have been chucked together at random. Using the original version is also a bit anachronistic for a series which has driven Classic Who towards the post-2005 version in leaps and bounds. In the grand scheme of things, disliking the opening theme is quite a minor complaint, but rather than setting the mood for the forthcoming adventure, the music is just laughable.
Thankfully, McGann and Smith haven't changed at all, and they're back in fine form. They're full of energy and enthusiasm, and their relationship on-mic is as strong and enjoyable as ever - perhaps slightly diluted, in that they're more friendly and less acerbic than they were last year, but that's understandable given how the last season ended, and it's definitely a good thing. Rupert Vansittart leads the guest cast, and is impressively versatile as Sepulchre, giving us several subtly-different voices. Clare Buckfield makes a welcome return as the endearing Spring-Heeled Sophie, and Big Finish stalwart Katarina Olsson pops up again showing off her astounding vocal range.
Given the loose arcs of the previous eight episodes, it does feel a little different to listen to an entirely standalone story with these characters, but there's no sense of anything being missing, which bodes well for the subsequent releases. Mills's plot is a decent intriguing yarn, but it suffers slightly under the tight episode time. Having listened to it twice, I'm still not quite sure what the villain's motivation was, or why the Doctor chose to resolve things in the way he did - what this story really needs is an extra ten minutes to tie up a few of the loose ends.
The bonus material on this CD is - thank god! - a bit meatier and more varied than we were given last season. Rather than just telling us whether they'd ever watched Doctor Who before, saying what a lovely time they've had during recording, or relating the never-interesting story of how they got the gig, we actually get some quite insightful comments from the cast, with Vansittart making an especially interesting interviewee. The addition of an introduction from executive producer Nicholas Briggs, who acts as the "presenter" for the extra features, gives a little more structure and formality to the interviews, which works well, and spending more time talking to the crew as well as the cast is good.
Dead London is a great purchase, then. It's a good story, and whilst it's not the best starting episode, it's strong enough to have set the bar high once again. I'm looking forward to the next seven CDs!
