4️⃣🔼 = UNENJOYABLE!

Thworping through time and space, one adventure at a time!

"REFURBISHED DEMONS"

In 2002, Big Finish released a trilogy of connected stories known as the Excelis Trilogy. This is the first release, Excelis Dawns, written by Paul Magrs and featuring the 5th Doctor with Anthony Stewart Head and Katy Manning.

Paul Magrs sets the tone immediately with the opening scenes, one of which introduces the nuns discussing what to do about their latest visitor, and the other which sees Grayvorn (awesome name) narrate this mission to travel to the mountain of Excelis looking for an artefact, teaming up with the Doctor on the way.

I absolutely adore Anthony Stewart Head’s pompously funny take on warlord Grayvorn. His performance is the best of the story, but I don't quite get the point of his character.

This is the first time I come across Iris Wildthyme in any medium. Katy Manning certainly put a lot of colour in the performance, perhaps a bit too much, even grating at times. Her constantly dropping references to other adventures grows a bit old (though she calls Zarbi a rubbish monster, so she gets an extra for that).

Patricia Leventon is wonderful as the Mother Superior of the nunnery. She emits similar vibes to Julie Andrews in Sister Act.

Then we get these cutaway scenes with this strange Zombie King character, who sounds like the demon from Minuet in Hell.

The colourful characters take centre stage here, and most of the early parts of this story revolve around Iris and Grayvorn, with even the Doctor taking a backseat. What we get here is Iris and Grayvorn bickering and Iris trying to win the Doctor’s affection.

They also hang around in the TARDIS talking but not doing much. This is the main problem I have with the story: it’s simple and not much happens.

Peter Davison seems very bored by the entire thing, as if he didn’t put his heart into the performance.

Part 1 doesn’t even end on a cliffhanger. It just ends, and then Part 2 begins immediately thereafter. Part 2 is much shorter and builds up to a nonexistent finale, leaving a pretty sour taste in my mouth.

This entire story is simply three or four characters talking about stuff, but none of that carries much tension, and the strange soundtrack feels very haphazardly plastered on top of everything.