After his initially-dramatic snubbing of their scripts and subsequent disinterest, I was both surprised and elated to see the online announcement that Tom Baker would be reprising his Doctor for Big Finish Productions. I was just plain surprised, though, to find that his first release would be a Lost Story, as opposed to one of the undoubtedly countless original ideas that must have been kicking around the office since the company acquired its game-changing Doctor Who licence in the late 1990s. Having now listened to The Fourth Doctor Box Set’s centrepiece six-parter, however, it all makes perfect sense.
.jpg)
The Foe from the Future is the quintessence of a Big Finish Lost Story; I’d even go so far as to describe it as the apotheosis of the range. Until relatively recently, when 2 | entertain put out a special edition of The Talons of Weng-Chiang on DVD, there was little known about Robert Banks Stewart’s planned finale for Season 14 beyond that it fell through fairly late in the day, leaving script editor Robert Holmes in the position of having to write a replacement serial almost from scratch. But the Revisitations DVD feature expounded up the planned narrative, even delving into the writer’s surviving synopses, which alluded to a tale that, save for its eponymous time-travelling terror, bore no resemblance to the frequently poll-topping Talons. Lost Stories producer David Richardson was thus presented with the irresistible opportunity of not only resurrecting a script that most Big Finish listeners had recently become aware of, and were becoming increasingly interested in, but, in the style of Farewell, Great Macedon, offering them an insight into a parallel world where one of Doctor Who’s most acclaimed serials never came into existence – but one of near-equal eminence did.
.jpg)
Whereas The Talons of Weng-Chiang was a dark and often grotesque foray into Victorian horror, its “foe from the future” a temporally-displaced Phantom of the Opera, The Foe from the Future is a bucolic but invariably chilling science fiction caper that flits between a quaint little village in the 1970s and an ultramodern dome in the 4000s, its central villain a mad professor with a spirit addled by love and a body metamorphosed beyond all recognition. Both stories are emblematic of the lauded Philip Hinchcliffe / Robert Holmes ‘gothic horror’ style, and both are carried by stellar characterisation and dazzling performances, the amusing banter of Jago and Litefoot challenged here by all the poetry and puns of Devon’s finest.
Written by John Dorney from the original synopses, The Foe from the Future is as close to an authentic fourth Doctor adventure as I think it’s possible to get today. Particularly in the earlygoing, where I understand that Dorney had detailed scene breakdowns to work from, the production feels so much like a television serial from 1997 it’s almost like listening to a cleaned-up off-air soundtrack; only the slightly more seasoned vocals of Louise Jameson and slightly more measured performance of Tom Baker betray the fact that this is actually an audio drama produced decades after the event.
As the narrative progresses, and the story becomes more Dorney and less Banks Stewart, it does take on a few slightly more modern sensibilities – some deliberate, such as the number of female characters featured; some probably not so, like the tragic depth afforded to Jalnik, which, whilst not unprecedented, was seldom seen in classic Who – but these are so insidious that they only lend to the story’s appeal, rather than detract from it. The production is further buoyed, again a little atypically, by its impressive visuals, which in this medium rely upon the listener’s imagination instead of an end-of-season BBC budget. Compare Leela having her leg chobbled by a fairly unpersuasive giant rat in Talons to her triumphantly emerging from the Time Vortex straddling a flying monstrosity in Foe, and note the difference.
.jpg)
What really sells The Foe from the Future through is its star-studded cast, which encompasses the imperious Paul Freeman – a powerhouse of a performer, bombastic enough to hold his own against the usually-dominant Baker – as the titular tormenter, as well as Sherlock starlet Louise Brealey as makeshift companion Charlotte, whose equable West Country tones make her every bit as adorable as the bashful boffin who lusts after Benedict Cumberbatch’s Holmes on the telly. The biggest stars of all though are, of course, the returning Tom Baker and the actress who finally convinced him to embrace the big finish that his illustrious career demanded, Louise Jameson. The latter is particularly extraordinary here, well-served as she is by Dorney’s script, and whilst it took me a little while to get used to the Big Finish fourth Doctor, who seems a little calmer somehow in this production (but every bit as witty, inventive and scathingly authoritative), before too long I was lost in his Bohemian rhapsody once more, ruing the lost years and lost chances while slavering over the many, many remaining possibilities.
.jpg)
With hindsight, then, the decision to induct Tom Baker into the world of Big Finish with a Lost Story the calibre of this one was not only defensible, but inspired. How better to sate more than a decade’s worth of Baker hunger than with a full-cast dramatisation of a script that was originally slated to crown arguably his finest season as the Doctor; a script that pushes every Hinchcliffe / Holmes / horror button, and plenty more besides? Make no mistake, I’m a huge fan of Paul Magrs’ various audio book series featuring Baker’s Doctor, but there is a world of difference between highly-stylised stories told through lyrical prose and occasional interaction, and something that was intended to emulate Doctor Who as it once was, and does so with such effortless poise. Those debating whether it’s worth paying the higher-than-usual price for what is essentially a two-story box set have their answer: remortgage if you have to, it’s worth every last penny.
The Fourth Doctor’s Lost Stories Box Set is available to download from Big Finish for £45.00. The CD version (which also comes with a free download) is ten pounds extra.
.jpg)
Whereas The Talons of Weng-Chiang was a dark and often grotesque foray into Victorian horror, its “foe from the future” a temporally-displaced Phantom of the Opera, The Foe from the Future is a bucolic but invariably chilling science fiction caper that flits between a quaint little village in the 1970s and an ultramodern dome in the 4000s, its central villain a mad professor with a spirit addled by love and a body metamorphosed beyond all recognition. Both stories are emblematic of the lauded Philip Hinchcliffe / Robert Holmes ‘gothic horror’ style, and both are carried by stellar characterisation and dazzling performances, the amusing banter of Jago and Litefoot challenged here by all the poetry and puns of Devon’s finest. Written by John Dorney from the original synopses, The Foe from the Future is as close to an authentic fourth Doctor adventure as I think it’s possible to get today. Particularly in the earlygoing, where I understand that Dorney had detailed scene breakdowns to work from, the production feels so much like a television serial from 1997 it’s almost like listening to a cleaned-up off-air soundtrack; only the slightly more seasoned vocals of Louise Jameson and slightly more measured performance of Tom Baker betray the fact that this is actually an audio drama produced decades after the event.
As the narrative progresses, and the story becomes more Dorney and less Banks Stewart, it does take on a few slightly more modern sensibilities – some deliberate, such as the number of female characters featured; some probably not so, like the tragic depth afforded to Jalnik, which, whilst not unprecedented, was seldom seen in classic Who – but these are so insidious that they only lend to the story’s appeal, rather than detract from it. The production is further buoyed, again a little atypically, by its impressive visuals, which in this medium rely upon the listener’s imagination instead of an end-of-season BBC budget. Compare Leela having her leg chobbled by a fairly unpersuasive giant rat in Talons to her triumphantly emerging from the Time Vortex straddling a flying monstrosity in Foe, and note the difference.
What really sells The Foe from the Future through is its star-studded cast, which encompasses the imperious Paul Freeman – a powerhouse of a performer, bombastic enough to hold his own against the usually-dominant Baker – as the titular tormenter, as well as Sherlock starlet Louise Brealey as makeshift companion Charlotte, whose equable West Country tones make her every bit as adorable as the bashful boffin who lusts after Benedict Cumberbatch’s Holmes on the telly. The biggest stars of all though are, of course, the returning Tom Baker and the actress who finally convinced him to embrace the big finish that his illustrious career demanded, Louise Jameson. The latter is particularly extraordinary here, well-served as she is by Dorney’s script, and whilst it took me a little while to get used to the Big Finish fourth Doctor, who seems a little calmer somehow in this production (but every bit as witty, inventive and scathingly authoritative), before too long I was lost in his Bohemian rhapsody once more, ruing the lost years and lost chances while slavering over the many, many remaining possibilities.
With hindsight, then, the decision to induct Tom Baker into the world of Big Finish with a Lost Story the calibre of this one was not only defensible, but inspired. How better to sate more than a decade’s worth of Baker hunger than with a full-cast dramatisation of a script that was originally slated to crown arguably his finest season as the Doctor; a script that pushes every Hinchcliffe / Holmes / horror button, and plenty more besides? Make no mistake, I’m a huge fan of Paul Magrs’ various audio book series featuring Baker’s Doctor, but there is a world of difference between highly-stylised stories told through lyrical prose and occasional interaction, and something that was intended to emulate Doctor Who as it once was, and does so with such effortless poise. Those debating whether it’s worth paying the higher-than-usual price for what is essentially a two-story box set have their answer: remortgage if you have to, it’s worth every last penny. The Fourth Doctor’s Lost Stories Box Set is available to download from Big Finish for £45.00. The CD version (which also comes with a free download) is ten pounds extra.
The universe is falling apart. A demon from another universe has left a hole in time and space. The Doctor teams up with Sir Justin to prevent the demon from destroying the entire universe. But first, they must battle creatures of nightmares to find the lost matrix....
Read retro Doctor Who reviews @
