BIG FINISH’S THE TOMORROW PEOPLE-audio 2-THE DEADLIEST SPECIES

 

BIG FINISH’S THE TOMORROW PEOPLE-audio 2-THE DEADLIEST SPECIES

1-WRITTEN ON THE TABLETS OF ETERNITY

2-UNRIGHTOUS DEEDS

3-THE PRICE TO BE PAID AT LAST

 

It’s hard to like this. It’s difficult to hate it. Gary Russell’s never been my favorite writer and those fans who say that this is more like THE NEW ADVENTURES novels of DOCTOR WHO are not too far wrong. Just because you put a lot of continuity references into a play that come from the original series, doesn’t mean you’ve crafted a good story or an interesting one or one that the TP fans want to hear. Don’t get me wrong. There are some good parts of this but more often than not, it’s annoying, frustrating and highly antagonistic to TP fans.

 

At first, Paul seems to hate being a TP…and if our main character hates being a TP, along with at least one of the original TPs who’s had a hard time of it (unlike his time on the series and yes, I’m talking about Stephen), then why should we want to have the escapism of the TP as our entertainment. This veers so far from a joyous experience as to be almost purposefully written to destroy whatever merit the original show had. It’s almost suspect as if the DOCTOR WHO writers got together to see how they could deconstruct the TP. Of course, they didn’t do this purposefully but…

 

I guess it’s just teasing but Paul calls Elena Ellie when she does not want to be called Ellie. Paul doesn’t know Kenny. Now, it’s never been specified on the series and I guess over long distances TP cannot communicate telepathically with each other but shouldn’t he at least know of who Kenny is/was?

 

There are several mentions of Timus’s clone brothers: Tybus, Tyjam, Timon, Tiffon, Tybor (a giant carrot from LOST IN SPACE?).

 

To get back to Paul: he, at one point, wishes he could have been asked to be a TP, which implies he would have said no. Again, not a great way to have a character, reluctant to be a TP and being one anyway. Ellie mentions something about eventually being able to deflect a bullet as one of their powers.

 

From the planet Desh comes Hollis, a defector from the planet after it was taken over by the Sorsens. Timus comes to John and TIM to tell them that Kenny has been shot and killed. John thought he was just the ambassador to Gallia.

 

The first cliffhanger is the news that Kenny is dead. Ellie and Paul did not know Kenny so they go about their day…even though the series stated more than once that if a TP were to die, there would be a huge hole felt in the emotions of the other TP.

 

This death and more bad news: that Hsui Tai is also dead, does spur TIM and John into a long conversation about the past. They talk about Timus’s clone brother Tykno as if he died. He did not. It was a near death. They talk about Colonel Masters as if his death was a shock to them.

 

John mentions a 1990s group of TP, five or six (that would be six) and that one of them is Liz’s niece (so either Ami or Lisa I guess?). They managed on their own. WHY? HOW? Why couldn’t TIM contact them? Was John away from Earth, too? If so, now that he’s back and he and Ellie seem to have been operating on Earth for a while, why haven’t these TP and our TP come into contact with each other? At one point later on, TIM seems to start an explanation that they do not have a TIM but this is bogus of an explanation and makes no sense and is interrupted.

 

OH, yes, Tim is corrupted by a Sorsen virus, a plot that could have been made more use of. Instead, it just seems like an annoyance to the TP …and to the audience.

 

The writers seem to write, at times only, the Sorsens as Daleks, “We are the supreme rulers!” and such. In fact, a lot of the writers seem to be DW writers of the dark, grim ilk. They also have a typically Doctor Who named weapon called an Eridigun. As if we didn’t have enough continuity references (without actual continuity!), one of the Sorsons here is related to the Sorsen General in WAR OF THE EMPIRES (Vishinu). He might be his cousin (if Annelids have cousins!).

 

I also wonder if some of the writers read TP fan fic. Stephen’s cover story (maybe?) seems to be that he was in New York or in America. He’s also worked with Andrew. A fan fic STEPHEN IN NEW YORK deals with both of them in NYC.

 

Another fan fic idea (TC Kirkham’s universe…see the files) was of a space station base of the TP in geo synchronous orbit above the Earth. THIS audio gets it totally wrong and has us believe that the Trig is above the Earth. It’s not. It never was, nor will it ever be! The Tp are mentioned as saviors of the Vesh.   

 

 

 

One interesting aspect is that Stephen stalks out Ellie at her travel agent place (I didn’t hear a type writer as some fans have) and he tells her stories about being on a beach of sandy silk and red dolphins (is this from one of the novels, maybe the novel of A MUCH NEEDED HOLIDAY before it became a TV story?). He also goes on about a living organism, like living art in a museum. He mentions the event of INTO THE UNKNOWN in the Pluto 5 region and the hole in space.

 

Which brings me to the main thrust of this “story.” Stephen has Stockholm Syndrome or he’s been brainwashed by the Sorsens…which was it? Was it both? We’re not fully told. If it was just the former, this is total bull. He and Mike found Hsui Tai’s body; Ellie once met Hsui Tai.

 

John has TIM try to find out more info. TIM contacts Liz and Tricia Conway, who are both on the Trig. Carol already knew Kenny was dead. As if there’s not enough grim, awful things going on…and it’s as if the writers thought just because Kenny and Hsui Tai weren’t the most popular characters, that it was all right to kill them off…we get more bad news. In some kind of accident (we NEVER find out what) in some kind of experiment, Tyso has lost ALL his powers and no longer talks much to Professor Cawston, who is working to reverse those effects. Was that necessary?

 

Then Stephen discusses with Ellie how he left the TP and John. All of it sounds like PVC’s experience getting kicked off the series and there’s more of this in episode 3 as Stephen turns out to be the killer. He shoots and fatally wounds Hollis, the Desh defector (the wonderful Lisa Bowerman, who’s always great). HE killed Hsui Tai and Kenny. He knows Andrew is still being held by the Sorsens (and this plot thread is NEVER resolved). He later tells John, as an excuse I think, that if he didn’t do what the Sorsons wanted, they would kill Andrew. What guff.

 

Paul, like the 1990s TPs, can jaunt and bring someone with him (something the original TP could not do). He jaunts Hollis to the Lab, which, judging by Stephen’s reaction is the New Lab from the later episodes of the Original Series (LOST GODS to WAR OF THE EMPIRES). TIM, however, is the old version, having been converted back from the table top mobile TIM, which is said, here, to have had less powers and abilities (again, what crap that is).

 

Stephen even says a variation on the old DW joke, “You’ve redecorated. I like it!”  This is a running gag over the decades beginning with THE THREE DOCTORS and going to THE FIVE DOCTORS and even into the NEW DOCTOR WHO series with David Tennant and Matt Smith.

 

Stephen tells John he hadn’t seen much of Mike before all this business. When John says it is really good to see him, Stephen mumbles and I can’t hear what he says. In the cliffhanger, Stephen, shockingly, shoots Hollis down and in episode three, she dies.

 

Hollis dies giving a long explanation to Paul AND experiencing seeing her family BUT she never seems to have enough time (she does) to stop and give Paul the trigger word to the info she implanted in his mind to stop the Sorsons. It’s like an old GET SMART gag. It takes forever for Hollis to die but she never gets to give him the trigger word. Paul’s reaction to her death is one of the genuine things he says since this BF series started. He seems a lot like Mike at times.

 

Stephen kidnaps Elena to hyperspace (which could have used the same sound effect used in THE SLAVES OF JEDIKIAH but didn’t). He explains his motives here. And…he’s a cry baby whimpering wuss. He tells her he and Tyso were out once Mike Bell broke out. John kicked him out. This echoes PVC’s experience in the actual production of the original show. It doesn’t really work. John tells TIM and Paul that the Tp were Stephen’s only friends. If you read the novels and watch the show, this sort of is not totally true. Stephen had a friend or two in the novels and then there’s Chris Harding, who seemed close to Stephen. There is also strange dialog when TIM says of the killed TPs’ (Kenny and Hsui Tai) relationship to Stephen, “At least one of them was a close friend.” Why not just say that Kenny was the close friend? Not that that should matter…killing should not be allowed to happen…if a TP like Stephen kills, he dies or cannot do it. It’s just cast aside as if…well, Stephen can do this.

 

When John finally talks Stephen down, it’s sort of anti-climactic and even boring. It’s as if I’m watching different characters being voiced by the same people who played the same characters in the original series saying and doing things they would never say and do. I guess it’s dramatic to have Stephen and John have had a fight in the past and to have Stephen leave in a huff and not have much contact with John and TIM over the years but it never feels right, nor rings true…at all. While Stephen’s recovering, his parents are on the Trig with him. I am guessing in the planned future of the BF series (which never happened) he would have returned.

 

The only really satisfying thing here is Paul vs the Sorsens. He shows them up real good and I enjoyed that. Everything else is just okay and some of it leaves a huge hollow hurtful feeling in my stomach as I listened to this. It’s just really upsetting and the problem is most TP fans have ideas and fan fic and whole universes of how these characters progressed throughout the years AND THIS ISN’T IT. It’s far too grim and nasty in almost every aspect. IMO.