Disk 2, like Disk 1, ended with some brief audio commentary, this time from the returning Doctor Who actors. Most of that was Deborah Watling, and she’s utterly charming as she talks about returning to the character and a bit about what it was like to make the show back in the 60s. As for Colin Baker and Nicola Bryant, neither said a whole lot, but it seems I have finally heard Bryant’s actual accent, and that was rather cool in and of itself.
As for the adventure itself, I dug the hell out of it. The Doctor manages to defuse Victoria, hypnotized to find the destroy the Doctor, and her general ignorance of regeneration works to his advantage. Basically, it means that because she doesn’t recognize the Doctor, it takes her enough time to eventually shake off the programming since she really doesn’t want to destroy anyone, and by the time it’s over, the Doctor has convinced her that yes, he is the same person she used to know.
She and Peri also get along great when the two meet up.
As for the space cops, when the Doctor finds out about them, he mostly wants to know what the heck he’s even wanted for. Short answer: Dominic, the mysterious man who runs the nuclear plant Victoria’s environmental group is protesting, is not human. He’s an assassin, hired to destroy the Earth. Of the two space cops, he bribed the senior officer to fudge some paperwork so the Doctor is the top suspect instead of Dominic. That does mean the junior officer can be something of an ally, but it does explain why the cops are looking for the Doctor while tying the power plant plot into their narrative.
And yes, Dominic is using the plant to destroy the Earth for a client. He’s got some mind control gas that temporarily takes control of the women, and Peri at one point tries kneeing him in the groin, but he just says his species doesn’t have any particularly sensitive bits there like human men.
In the end, the Doctor and his friends save the day, with Victoria’s pal David sacrificing his life to take down Dominic once and for all. The Doctor offers to take Victoria on more travels, but she politely declines as she has things on Earth she would rather focus on. And that’s that.
You know, I’d heard that Colin Baker became something of the fan favorite for the Big Finish audio works, and it’s easy to see why. He never slacked off when he was on the show, but he likewise rarely seemed to get scripts to match his output. Here, he has a good script, and he has a good voice for the audio work. Yeah, he’s much older than he used to be seeing as how this came out thirty years or so after his time in that rainbow waistcoat, but he still sounds like that Doctor, and that helps out quite a bit. I will certainly try to find more of his audio work at this rate.
As for next time…well, I haven’t decided yet what’s next.
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