With speculation rife about plans for the Doctor's 50th birthday, it's interesting to see how Big Finish, the carriers of the torch while the TV show was off air, handled the Doctor's 40th anniversary and what lessons can be learnt from it. Zagreus is an epic undertaking, a story told over three full length CDs, featuring four Doctors and many returning familiar voices. It also attempts to move forward the adventures of the Eighth, and then incumbant, Doctor played by Paul McGann. Though to be congratulated for their ambition, Big Finish make the mistake of the hard core fan and try to give their listeners everything they could wish for instead of shaping an engaging and coherent story. The result is an overblown mess - a party you've been looking forward to but one that goes on too long and leaves you more than a little jaded and worn out.
Following on from the events of Neverland, the Doctor has saved his companion Charley (India Fisher) and the Universe from Anti-Time but at the cost of infusing himself and his TARDIS with the deadly sentience. The Doctor is now two people - his usual self and the Anti-Time, using the name of Gallifrey's nursery tale villain Zagreus. While the Doctor is fighting for his sanity, Charley is being helped by a manifestation of the TARDIS itself, in the guise of the Brigadier (Nick Courtney). In a parallel to A Christmas Carol, the TARDIS shows Charley three places and times, where various characters, all voiced by former Doctors and companions, encounter a strange alien dimension that is home to The Divergence. Can the Doctor and Charley survive? Can the TARDIS be trusted? What part do old companions Romana, Leela and K-9 have to play and what does this all have to do with Gallifrey's greatest hero, Rassilon?
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| Found this while googling images - thanks to whomever made it! |
As directed by Gary Russell and written by Russell with Alan Barnes, Zagreus has some interesting ideas and the odd great moment. At times the Doctor seems in real jeopardy and McGann relishes the opportunity to play an evil version of his nice Doctor. Charley having to evade her best friend is also an effective development with the TARDIS interior no longer a haven but a deadly prison. The trouble is that there is just no need for this to be so long. At normal length this could have been a great listen but instead, stretched to nigh on three hours, Zagreus has to have huge sections of padding and nonsense. Having the TARDIS use Alice in Wonderland as a holoscape within the time machine is an intriguing concept but it just ends up with McGann talking to characters like the Cheshire Cat without really forwarding the plot much. Worse are the embarrassing cameos for previous companions, especially Sophie Aldred and Lisa Bowerman as animatronic animals on WinkyWorld and Nicola Bryant hamming it up as a scientist. Others work better, especially Anneke Wills as Charley's mum.
With the original Doctors far older than their TV days and some virtually now unrecognisable as their Doctor, TV supremo Moffat has to decide if they can be brought back or whether to cast them in new roles. Zagreus does both, firstly by having the TARDIS use familiar faces to people its three scenarios - Davison as a vicar, Colin Baker as a vampire and McCoy as Uncle Winky - to varying degrees of success, and then by having these three contain elements of the Doctor. Neither works that successfully, although McCoy has fun as the slightly lecherous Walt Disney-alike and Baker is good as usual, but Moffat will have learned little from listening to this attempt. Using old recordings of Jon Pertwee is a cute way of getting him into the story but his contributions are nigh on inaudible.
The last disc is the best, with the disparate threads coming together more successfully. Don Warrington as the long dead but still very dangerous Rassilon, makes an excellent villain and it's nice to see Leela again and a funny relationship is developed between the warrior and President Romana. The concept of a sentient TARDIS, corrupted by Anti-Time and bitter and vengeful regarding its treatment over the years by the Doctor is great but the Brigadier feels like the wrong voice - Elizabeth Sladen's Sarah-Jane Smith would have been a much better fit. The ending has the Doctor having to travel into the Divergent Universe because he is permanently tainted by Anti-Time and remains a threat to our Universe. He departs, expecting never to return, not knowing that Charley has stowed aboard the time ship. Zagreus is a good try but gives far too little quality for its huge running time.
GK Rating: *** The Blog of Delights
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