🙏🏼64% = Fine! = Recommended!

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

NOTES & COMMENTS ON “LOUPS-GAROUX”

Marc Platt (Ghostlight; Spare Parts; Cat's Cradle: Time's Crucible; Lungbarrow) makes his Big Finish debut with this 5th Doctor adventure set in Brazil and featuring a Doctor Who take on werewolves.

The opening installment sets the scene and introduces the characters, though it's slightly confusing to put things together at first. The main plot takes place in Brazil in the 2080s, with Five and Turlough joining the carnival and meeting a mother, her sickly son, and a mysterious physician who are currently escaping an unknown danger.

I like the energy of Five and Turlough together in the TARDIS. I usually struggle with Five audios, but these two mostly work for me. Peter Davison is his usual self, while Mark Strickson is uncommonly good, and Turlough gets the most intriguing scenes in this adventure.

This one is occasionally confusing to follow because of the editing. Platt also likes to go to strange and abstract tangents sporadically, which adds to the confusing feel.

The guest characters don't leave much of an impression here, and the performances feel a bit like caricatures. The best ones are Nicky Henson as the comically villainous Pieter Stubbe and the classic monster hunter Rosa, as played by Sarah Gale.

Asian actor Burt Kwouk, who also starred in the 4th Doctor serial Four to Doomsday and the 1964 Bond film Goldfinger, plays Hayashi.

This story is fairly slow, and Part 2 hardly develops anything. The dialogue establishes the werewolf lore, which is interesting, but it also builds tension very slowly.

It's refreshing to hear a Doctor Who story set in South America, which is why it's a pity that most of it is set inside a moving train.

Turlough's arc in this story is somewhat unusual. Werewolves stalk him, after which he joins Rosa, the werewolf hunter, and seemingly gets laid.

In a pretty effective cliffhanger, the final moments of Part 2 finally turn tense and exciting!

Part 3 begins to tighten the atmosphere a bit, especially in the cliffhanger, which sees the Doctor getting accidentally betrothed again (as he did in The Aztecs).

Part 4 is arguably the most intriguing episode. It sees the Doctor get relationship advice from Turlough while confronting Stubbe. However, the story reaches a very minimalist conclusion by the end, completely deflating the suspense.