Review: The Vengeance of Morbius

The final episode in this series of Eighth Doctor and Lucie stories is The Vengeance of Morbius, by Nicholas Briggs. As well as being the final CD of the second season, it's also the concluding part of the adventure which began in Sisters of the Flame.

After a hasty resolution to the cliffhanger from the last episode, the villainous Zarodnix is about to put his plan into action: he's got a Time Lord in his grasp, and he's also got all that remains of former Gallifreyan President Morbius. By combining the two, Morbius can be resurrected, to conquer all of time and space. The Doctor and Lucie are, unusually enough, in a race against time to stop him - but on this occasion, the stakes are higher than ever before.

In contrast to last year's two-part finale, an effort seems to have been made to separate The Vengeance of Morbius from Sisters of the Flame. Where both parts of Human Resources were very much a continuous story, Sisters and Vengeance feel more individual - the locations are different, characters who were very significant in the former story appear very briefly in the latter, ten years pass during Vengeance, and so on - in the same way that Utopia, The Sound of Drums and Last of the Time Lords were consciously self-contained and different, despite being one long story. Whilst this probably makes Vengeance a little more accessible for people who haven't heard the preceding episode, it also means some of the earlier tale's strengths haven't been carried over, because so much has changed.

That all might be less of an issue if Vengeance worked as an individual adventure, but it doesn't. As the title suggests, Morbius is back, but this isn't nearly as dramatic as I'd hoped or expected. He turns up a good way through the episode, and Briggs doesn't emphasise the importance of his return - for all the impact his first scene has, he might as well say "I am... DOT COTTON!" and shuffle away into the launderette, never to be heard from again. His subsequent actions are equally unimpressive - we're told he's been conquering the universe for a decade, but we don't see any of it happening, nor do we have a sense of how powerful he's become. Other than a brief reference to the Statue of Liberty being taken as a trophy, we have no real idea of the scale of things, and the story is a long way from being as epic as the writer wants. Appearing so late in the story, Morbius isn't given much development as a character; as someone who's never seen his sole television appearance, he might as well have been any old Doctor Who villain, because the man isn't fleshed out in this adventure. That said, Samuel West plays the role competently, and he really deserves to return to this series in a more prominent part.

Paul McGann makes a triumphant return as the Doctor, after his reduced part in the previous episode, and Sheridan Smith gets the chance to do some more terrific work with her character, after her mind-blowing brilliance in Sisters of the Flame. Both actors have some good character material to deal with from Briggs, and they're as strong as ever. Nickolas Grace, as Straxus, makes a much bigger impact than he has done in any of his previous appearances, and I've really started to enjoy his scenes. However, other characters who were great in Sisters - such as Rosto, who barely features here, and Sisterhood of Karn members Haspira and Orthena - are underused, which is a huge shame.

The story ends with two cliffhangers: one before the closing theme music, in which the Doctor's fate is unknown, and Lucie's adventures with him seem to have ended, and one after the music, which adds an unexpected twist to Lucie's post-Doctor life. The latter is a huge surprise, and is very effective indeed. The former, though, only works on a smaller emotional level - Lucie's reaction to the Doctor's apparent demise is heart-breaking, and Sheridan Smith performs superbly, but Briggs never convinces the audience that the Doctor is really gone, and the scene loses its kick.

The bonus features on the CD include a great interview with closet Doctor Who fan Samuel West, and some insights from the writers and producers, who explain the logic behind Straxus's return and their desire to create an internal continuity of recurring characters for this range. Admittedly, a lot of this stuff is very, very interesting, but I'm still longing for Big Finish to play with the format. Having an introduction from Nicholas Briggs, who acted as a "presenter" for the extras, worked very well on a couple of earlier releases, and musical suites have been extremely enjoyable on the Companion Chronicles series - I'd like to see the same variation in content, or extra polish, applied here.

There have been some absolutely blinding stories in this second season, and the quality has been quite high on average, just as it was for the original run. However, this final episode ends things on a weak note, and it really isn't up to standard. A third series is already in the pipeline, and it'll be interesting to see where things go from here . . .