Big Finish Audio Dramas: Sympathy For the Devil Reaction Post
Since I knew that David Tennant's Colonel Brimmicombe-Wood also appeared in Big Finish's Sympathy for the Devil, I followed up listening to the UNIT audio "The Wasting" by listening to it yesterday. My thoughts (and consequently spoilers) are under the cut.
The Doctor Who Unbound series, of which "Sympathy of the Devil" is the second audio play, features new Doctors in new situations, and is linked thematically by the question "What if...?" In the instance of Jonathan Clements' Symathy for the Devil, the "What if" is "What if the Doctor had not been UNIT's scientific advisor?"
In 1997 a lone exile arrives on Earth, years later than planned. It's the eve of the handover of Hong Kong to China and an advanced Chinese stealth bomber crashes in the hills above Hong Kong. The discredited UNIT has just 24 hours in which to steal the technology, rescue the passenger and flee to international waters.
Meanwhile, down by the harbour, there is the "Little England" pub which is owned by an old soldier who simply wants to forget the past, but an ancient evil is stirring in a place of peace and he's about to be rudely reminded of his past.
The Doctor (played by David Warner), newly regenerated after the events of The War Games, arrives in Hong Kong and finds a world on the brink of terror, a world that has had to live without him for 30 years...
The story begins with two Future Traders - Marcus and Adam - being barred from a pub; as they walk onto another pub named the "Little England", a somewhat intoxicated Marcus walks straight into a Police Box. Its occupant exits and becomes very angry upon hearing the date.
Entering the "Little England", the man from the Police Box is pleased to discover that one Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, who's been dismissed from UNIT, owns the pub and he reveals himself to be the Doctor, mentioning the Yeti incident to confirm his declaration.
Whilst Adam and his girlfriend Ling are taking a walk across a hill, an invisible aeroplane crashes nearby and UNIT soon arrives to deal with things (enter David Tennant as a slightly less nasty but no less choleric Colonel Brimmicombe-Wood - you can see this as an AU version of Wood since this is an AU Whoniverse). Then the Doctor arrives to see what is going on - but things take a turn for the worse as the aeroplane’s pilot mentions a known scientist - Ke Le - who was in the plane with him, and who wanted to land on the hill. But Ke Le is nowhere to be seen, and neither is Adam. A body is found, but it is Adam's; Ke Le is no ordinary person - in fact, Ke Le is not even human - he's just "changed" because Ke Le is The Master (and played by the acronymous Sam Kisgart - ie Mark Gatiss).
Nearby there is a monastery which is famous for its occupants chanting constantly in a bid to put the sins of the world into a "soul jar". However, it turns out that this "soul jar" is much more than just a symbol, it is in fact full of a parasitic entity that feeds off people's fear - the same entity found in the Keller Machine in the Third Doctor story The Mind Of Evil. (Which I now need to watch !)
The Brigadier is a rather different version of the well-known character. In the Third Doctor story Inferno, we saw an alternative version of the Brigadier, there named Brigade Leader. This version was about as different as the one we know, but in "Sympathy", we see recognisable traits of the Brigadier we know from the outset. This is a man who has been let down and feels like he has failed in life, but it only takes a bit of prompting from the Doctor to convince him otherwise. He may be an implied heavy drinker, but this Brigadier is the same man whom we know and love.
The Master too is instantly recognisable, scheming and killing here, threatening and cowering there, and generally causing as much trouble if not outright disaster as possible. However this version of the Master is also bitter and twisted, and instead of wishing the Doctor was as far away as possible, he has in fact been causing trouble all over in a bid to attract the Doctor's attention since the Master has lost his TARDIS. This twist is a rather clever one, and sees the balance of power between the two Time Lords reversed for a while.
This is a fairly gripping drama - with a real race-against-time element (which seems to be a fairly common theme amongst most of the BF audios I've listened to this week !). But the ending was somewhat abrupt and anticlimatic and left me wondering if Clements had forgotten to give the actors the final page of the script !
On the whole though, it was good and I'm now going to track down the rest of the Unbound audios to have a listen...
The Doctor Who Unbound series, of which "Sympathy of the Devil" is the second audio play, features new Doctors in new situations, and is linked thematically by the question "What if...?" In the instance of Jonathan Clements' Symathy for the Devil, the "What if" is "What if the Doctor had not been UNIT's scientific advisor?"
In 1997 a lone exile arrives on Earth, years later than planned. It's the eve of the handover of Hong Kong to China and an advanced Chinese stealth bomber crashes in the hills above Hong Kong. The discredited UNIT has just 24 hours in which to steal the technology, rescue the passenger and flee to international waters.
Meanwhile, down by the harbour, there is the "Little England" pub which is owned by an old soldier who simply wants to forget the past, but an ancient evil is stirring in a place of peace and he's about to be rudely reminded of his past.
The Doctor (played by David Warner), newly regenerated after the events of The War Games, arrives in Hong Kong and finds a world on the brink of terror, a world that has had to live without him for 30 years...
The story begins with two Future Traders - Marcus and Adam - being barred from a pub; as they walk onto another pub named the "Little England", a somewhat intoxicated Marcus walks straight into a Police Box. Its occupant exits and becomes very angry upon hearing the date.
Entering the "Little England", the man from the Police Box is pleased to discover that one Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, who's been dismissed from UNIT, owns the pub and he reveals himself to be the Doctor, mentioning the Yeti incident to confirm his declaration.
Whilst Adam and his girlfriend Ling are taking a walk across a hill, an invisible aeroplane crashes nearby and UNIT soon arrives to deal with things (enter David Tennant as a slightly less nasty but no less choleric Colonel Brimmicombe-Wood - you can see this as an AU version of Wood since this is an AU Whoniverse). Then the Doctor arrives to see what is going on - but things take a turn for the worse as the aeroplane’s pilot mentions a known scientist - Ke Le - who was in the plane with him, and who wanted to land on the hill. But Ke Le is nowhere to be seen, and neither is Adam. A body is found, but it is Adam's; Ke Le is no ordinary person - in fact, Ke Le is not even human - he's just "changed" because Ke Le is The Master (and played by the acronymous Sam Kisgart - ie Mark Gatiss).
Nearby there is a monastery which is famous for its occupants chanting constantly in a bid to put the sins of the world into a "soul jar". However, it turns out that this "soul jar" is much more than just a symbol, it is in fact full of a parasitic entity that feeds off people's fear - the same entity found in the Keller Machine in the Third Doctor story The Mind Of Evil. (Which I now need to watch !)
The Brigadier is a rather different version of the well-known character. In the Third Doctor story Inferno, we saw an alternative version of the Brigadier, there named Brigade Leader. This version was about as different as the one we know, but in "Sympathy", we see recognisable traits of the Brigadier we know from the outset. This is a man who has been let down and feels like he has failed in life, but it only takes a bit of prompting from the Doctor to convince him otherwise. He may be an implied heavy drinker, but this Brigadier is the same man whom we know and love.
The Master too is instantly recognisable, scheming and killing here, threatening and cowering there, and generally causing as much trouble if not outright disaster as possible. However this version of the Master is also bitter and twisted, and instead of wishing the Doctor was as far away as possible, he has in fact been causing trouble all over in a bid to attract the Doctor's attention since the Master has lost his TARDIS. This twist is a rather clever one, and sees the balance of power between the two Time Lords reversed for a while.
This is a fairly gripping drama - with a real race-against-time element (which seems to be a fairly common theme amongst most of the BF audios I've listened to this week !). But the ending was somewhat abrupt and anticlimatic and left me wondering if Clements had forgotten to give the actors the final page of the script !
On the whole though, it was good and I'm now going to track down the rest of the Unbound audios to have a listen...