BIG FINISH’S THE TOMORROW PEOPLE-Audio 15 QUEEN OF SLARVOS

 

BIG FINISH’S THE TOMORROW PEOPLE-Audio 15

QUEEN OF SLARVOS

John and Elena check out an unnatural puddle in the Amazon. Paul, Jo, and Sharon go to the Watchdog 5. The A-E suits fit to size, adjusting. Robert is on the Trig, under observation and feels as if the other students are ignoring him. Paul reminds me a lot of Mike, with less charm. Paul and his two sap friends are transported before the opening credit theme music. John asks about Elena’s mom. She’s closed off as ever, her mum. Elena’s pumpkin seeds in her AE Suit are attacked by spores. She had them there because Paul was showing her a magic trick: it keeps his nephew amused for hours. The trick involves the seeds. Paul, Jo, and Sharon find themselves in some kind of cloud city, the jaunting belt and matter transporter belts burned out. Tnawi Emperor Temgachi has been murdered with a tri-onic laser beam weapon and Paul is framed—a gun was in his suit. The owner of the office they are in, is in  a painting…orange and like an aggressive pixie: this is Temgachi. The Tonomi people look like Pixie’s but their bite has some power. Someone also stuns Paul: this IS getting like DOCTOR WHO (NIGHTMARE OF EDEN for one).

 

In the lab, Elena stumbles across a hiding fugitive in an emergency storage cupboard: Benson. Jo and Sharon are in an alien bar in disguises. Benson claims he is on the run from the Cartel, crooks out to take economic command of the civilized universe. Benson can overhear their telepathic communication. Benson tried to alleviate the chairman of some funds and is on the run from them. Benson wants to claim asylum with the Galactic Federation. In the bar, someone starts talking with the girls. This is PA Plumbridge. A mysterious voice calls to her and tells her to bring the girls to him, very Master/Great Intelligence/Sutek like (DOCTOR WHO again).

 

The spores are of extraterrestrial origin. TIM send Elena to the telepathic call of something from NY…it has the signature of a homo superior. In the Lab, John is gassed by Benson and TIM seems to be put out of commission, stealing parts from him. Benson has been lying to them.

 

Plumbridge’s boss, the Mother, wants to meet the girls and sends them on their own in the spaceship there. She claims not to be Plumbridge. The girls’ dad liked to “enjoy life” but seemed like an alcoholic. The girls annoy me as I don’t know which one is Sharon and which one is Jo. Their dialog is filled with clichés about fathers, dating (!), and taking in the TP world as well as their talk about Paul. Jo tells Sharon, her sister, that there’s nothing to worry about with her and Paul. Elena returns from her mission, which blew up in her face and which was a distraction from Benson. Of Plumbridge, one of the girls (Jo?) calls her a bitch. There are clones of Plumbridge.

 

When Paul wakes up, he’s trying to remember Ellie/Eleonore. He is being interrogated by an alien about the murder. When Paul doesn’t know anything, he’s zapped. END OF EP 1.

 

Ep2:

Joanna Plumbridge is her full name. Her mom is a communications clerk for IC Zed C, the inter-commune Zedly Corp. Her dept was supposed to be made redundant. She claims to be abandoned. Jo or Sharon claims they are all trapped now (cue credits and main theme). Benson stole a communications circuits and info (entry codes to the Fed data bases which gives him access to every computer on every Federated world). The codes can be changed. Paul was arrested on Tnarr 4 and is on trial in two hours. John finds Benson following his tracking device. Benson is with Quavv, whose brother was an emperor who is now deposed. They are on a Slarvian ship and Quavv is the emperor elect to have them join the New Federation run by the Cartel—thus having protection from it! More cliché (“I am the one who asks the questions!”) as Paul is interrogated. The planet used to have a temporal barrier. Temgachi had arms deal and slave camps but he was a good man according to Elena, who’s met another Plumbridge. Her mother took charge. What? She locks Elena in somewhere. The being (his aide Tengora) questioning Paul uses threats against Jo or Sharon.

 

Benson blames John for arranging the mating site for the Slarvian Queen. The Plumbridge with Jo and Sharon wonders who would want to clone her.

 

Okay, I’m confused. What is going on and do I care?

 

The Queen plans to mate with a human being. I can’t understand the Slarvian on the ship with Benson and Quavv. A fight was supposed to be between three rival females (prospect Queens?) and the winner procreates with another Slarvian male. Plumbridge tells the girls she plans to eat them as her rivals. Benson then tells John the Queen also eats the Emperor…something called a karack and fight and the one winner will eat the other. Earth will become sludge. When the Queen is in a moment of eating, they will kill her.

 

This is not a bad plot but it’s really a lot of talk and really somewhat poorly presented in such talk.

 

 When the interrogator tells Paul that Jo and Sharon will be safe and freed if he confesses, Paul confesses. Jo says, “Everyone has a weakness, an Achilles’ Hill,” and also references International Rescue. Plumbridge tells Sharon she’s not human.  She would avenge every put down and be elevated to a high position and her will would be law.

 

In the cliffhanger, a Slarvian attacks Jo (or Sharon). Sharon tries to save Plumbridge (?) and is apparently killed.

 

Four zero zero beta one is Prime Instigator Paul’s number, he is on trial for killing Findlay G’ahart Temagachi  on the 22^nd hour of the 3^rd cycle of Diagon 17 (?) shooting him three times in the head with a trionic laser, item 246. Paul is not allowed to talk and is sentence to death. He will be held until the 1^st hour of the 6^th cycle of the Moon something or other. He will be disintegrated under the New Federation regulations.

 

The Plumbridge with Sharon and Jo is the Queen of Slarvos. She attacks Jo and seems to kill her. One of the aliens frees Elena but the dampening field makes communication difficult. Much like trying to understand what ALL the aliens are saying. Elena appears as a formal rep from the Federation to help Paul.

 

John can mind link with the trig and find the spores if the Slarvians help him stop them once found. Plumbridge was once a biped but has a chance to mate with the Slarvian Emperor---or she would have died. Somehow this turned her into one of them and she ate the Emperor. The other Plumbridges come from her children. Jo and Sharon are not dead. She can produce drones from eggs as necessary but also can make clones at will. What a mess of a story.

 

Paul’s family lives in Redding, two up and two down. He retired early because of his back, Paul does not know what. Dad wears glasses to do the cross word in the evening. Mom works a couple of mornings in the local post office to bring in extra cash. His sister in law pops round every week with the baby. A cup of tea. His brother works in the bank. In the last three years, Paul feels he’s done more with his life than they’ve done in 50. This is basically Paul’s good bye speech but…he doesn’t die here! He almost calls her Ellie. He wants her to tell his mum and dad something. He feels it was all wonderful and he wouldn’t have changed anything for the world. “That’s what we do, isn’t it? Make miracles,” he says after she leaves, vowing to get him out.

 

Tnawi used anti-gravity physics once cold war over. With Cartel funding they used more military objectives. It’s hard to hear a lot of the dialog from Benson here but basically the Tnawi are just as disgusting morally as the Slarvians!

 

The New Fed death penalty regulation law as ratified by Cartel lead organization 2.0.3-4 is called upon at the execution of Paul.

 

Plumbridge’s plan was…to replace Benson after framing him for murder and send him to a Slarvian planet to be her slave? What?

 

John gets the dampener, has contacted the Federation, and threatens Benson with Plumbridge the Slarvian Queen. He also had the Fed tractor beam in place all along and let them think the Farrakon energy pulse disabled the Fed tractor beam. With TIM’s help John reversed the mating ritual process on Earth. Scooping Benson at the time she did helped John sort things out. Nice and tidy! And a cheat. John also used a holographic projector. Two Fed penal ships are arriving. This makes Slarvians leave?  Jo helps John but I don’t know how. She does offer him coffee.

 

Elena arrives at the Lab, sad Paul was killed. Paul comes out of his area (room?). The other knew it was a Slarvian clone. Sharon convinced Plumbridge that if she cloned Paul and substituted him for the real Paul, they’d turn Benson over to her. So the Paul that was killed as a clone.

 

Elena says, “I don’t think I can take much more of this,” which echoes Sarah Jane in PLANET OF THE SPIDERS.

 

John tells the Tp that they have undercover agents in the Cartel on the ground level. Benson was after the information that showed a Fed agent’s progress over the past three months. One that the Cartel wants and will pay a lot of money for: Mike Bell.

 

There’s a COMING SOON for the next story.

 

REVIEW:

 

Although he did write one of my favorite DW audios, Shadow of the Scourge, Nigel Fairs, is not one of my favorite writers, especially of THE TOMORROW PEOPLE.

 

This is actually pretty bad. If it were on TV, it might have been a bit better. Nothing actually seems to make much narrative sense and there are many Plumbridges, the Slarvians and the Tnawi cannot be understood much, Jo and Sharon sound a lot alike, and  not only does John come up with a last minute resolve for almost ALL the problems, so does Jo and Sharon, fooling Plumbridge, making this villain seem as dumb as everyone else. There are those who think this was funny. It’s not. Trust me. The races of the Slarvians are not fun or funny and the pixie race is as cold and unlikable as they are. Almost nothing about this audio works except maybe Paul’s goodbye speech—and some background about his family.

 

Then, there’s the fact that the Tp allow Paul’s clone to be killed…isn’t that sort of like them murdering him? The holographic thing is not explained well and in fact, John’s entire solving of everything is not explained all that well. The Feds were arriving or were they? Was it all fake? The Slarvians just fled? I guess there’s the hint of a good story in here somewhere but the execution is poor. Dialog is hard to hear including Benson’s, Jo’s, Sharon’s, the aliens, and Plumbridge. People either mumble or are drowned out by sound effects and/or music.

 

The writer DOES focus on details but they seem more jumbled in and around the plot, as if to confuse us or show how smart the writer is by including continuity and numeral codes and things like that. 

 

This is actually much worse than almost any of the 1990s series AND the 2005 CW series. It was tedious, cliché, and boring and nothing that happened was to be trusted (at one point Jo thinks Sharon is dead and at another Plumbridge attacks Sharon…only to not kill her?). What?

 

Which is what I might say about the entire audio series and this story in particular: what?

 

I’m so glad the series was cancelled by the rights being taken away before Nigel and others could continue to ruin it.

 

Of note: Mark Wright intended the home world be called Slarvia and not Slarvos. This would have been corrected and retconned in season six’s WAR OF THE SLARVIANS (see the files).

 

What a mess.

 

 

 

 

Once again there's so many things wrong here and so much incompetence on display, I don't know where to start. First, this resembles another of Nigel Fairs' (not my favorite writer though he did write one good Dwho story: Shadow of the Scourge) stories, an off planet murder mystery again with the wrong person being blamed...again. 

 

Second, this also seems a lot like DOCTOR WHO (yes, again and chiefly NIGHTMARE OF EDEN but others as well and one of Elena's lines comes right from Sarah Jane Smith in PLANET OF THE SPIDERS).

 

Third, Nigel recorded Benson's lines separately and he's hard to hear through the mix of sound effects and music. In fact, the aliens are also heard to hear and/or decipher.

 

There are clones of Plumbridge, which she/it can make at will. So why the fuss about laying and hatching eggs then? The scenes of all the Plumbridges becomes confusing. If that's not bad enough, Jo and Sharon sound a lot alike, too so it's hard to distinguish them from each other.

 

The Slarvians are supposed to be gross and immoral but the alien Tnawi are just as immoral and unlikable in almost every way. Still, one of them seems to help Elena get out of a closet she's locked in or something. When did Elena get to the planet?

 

I agree, for once with Andy Davidson's review of a story: this one is confusing for all the wrong reasons and lacks something. Writer Fairs seems determined to show off by giving us continuity and details (including the numbers designated to Paul, laws regarding the death penalty in the New Federation) about a lot of stuff but it would have worked better if he had established who was who and where we were in most scenes.

 

Jo dies. Sharon dies. Only...they didn't. For some reason, the Queen just ...well attacks them, sort of. She's also duped much too easily, creating a Paul clone...WHO THE TP LET DIE (!) and not getting Benson in return. So the Tp and their friends (just how did Jo help John? do what?) are okay with lying? And letting an innocent clone die?

 

If all of that wasn't bad enough: John's scheme...just about doesn't work but does. It's not really explained all that well either. He contacted the real Federation, made sure the Farrakon energy pulse DIDN'T disrupt the Fed tractor beam...or was that all another lie and he used a holographic image projector? Do I care at that that point? John also seemed to ask the Slarvians for help in reversing the process of the mating (or was it the birthing rites) ritual on Earth in the Amazon. Although Davidson thinks that raised the stakes for the Tp, that whole sub plot seems tagged on at the beginning and the end. John then doesn't need their help but solves it with TIM? Another lie? I don't know. Really bad. So then, John solves everything in the last few moments.

 

The whole thing is a mess. Lines drown out. Plots dribble on. Then there's the fact that Mark Wright, the original creator of the Slavians, Sharon and maybe the Tnawi (?), wanted the planet called Slarvia and not Slarvos and that would have been changed in season six's WAR OF THE SLARVIANS. Sigh.

 

I only hope if the Tp returned again and returns to BF in particular, they keep Nigel far, far, far away from it. His approach is very unTP like and not at all to my liking. In fact, I have given the 1990s series a rewatch and liked it more than when I first expected it to be the TP. I also started out liking the CW Tp but it wore on and was bad in the middle and end, with a negative atmosphere and an almost total misunderstanding of what made the original show what it was. BUT this audio convinces me that BIG FINISH was just as bad...

 

This thing is a huge mess all around. It just doesn't work and it was tedious, mundane and frankly, hard to get through. The one good scene has Paul recount his family's life but then he does and ruins it by saying he's done more with his life in the last three years than his family have in 50...conceited git.

 

As much as TC Kirkham gave fans a lot of trouble, his stories, while repetitious and sometimes far too soap like, had a much better grasp of what made the original show so good while updating it for current times and using the older cast with new cast...both coming off likable. It seems to be the realm of GOOD TOMORROW PEOPLE continuations remains in the hands of fan fiction (and even Kate Orman did one).

 

Sorry to be so negative but this series of audios is quite poor IMO.