Doctor Who – The Monthly Adventures

#070. Unregenerate! ~ 8/10

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◆ An Introduction

After enduring an utterly abysmal Eurovision parody, and a story with some extremely bad political takes, I’m glad to say that the next few adventures with the Seventh Doctor and Mel are actually really good. Regeneration is an extremely traumatic event, but I doubt it helps when the Celestial Intervention Agency decide to capture you and do extremely unethical neurosurgery on you!

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◆ Publisher’s Summary

In a run-down asylum, screams echo in the halls as mysterious creatures roam, terrorizing the staff. Patients complain of betrayal rather than illness, and no-one is quite what they seem.

Mel knows that the Doctor is the best person to find the answers - but she is stranded on Earth, and the TARDIS has returned without him...

Why does a medical facility need to be under armed guard? What procedures are the staff carrying out, and to what purpose? What is the price that must be paid for making an agreement with those who run the asylum?

As the answers begin to be uncovered, the Doctor finds that the past may yet come back to haunt him...

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◆ The Seventh Doctor

‘Unregenerate!’ was among the first BigFinish plays I listened to, way back in 2017, and it used to be one I had an intense disliking for. Whilst my opinion on the adventure overall has drastically improved, I can’t say the same for Sylvester McCoy’s performance here – having him spend nearly an hour and thirty minutes babbling away to himself like he’s had one too many bottles of Smirnoff does not make for a fun listening experience (I’m honestly reminded of the abysmal depiction of clinically insane McGann gave us, way back in ‘Minuet in Hell’… and you really don’t wanna be reminding me of that adventure!)

The Doctor’s list of convictions and outstanding warrants would be the envy of anyone in the Underworld, according to Rigan – he apparently has a penchant for overthrowing “legitimate national governments”, and there are even grounds for genocide charges, alongside numerous smaller crimes!

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◆ Mel Bush

In complete contrast to McCoy, ‘Unregenerate!’ sees Bonnie Langford absolutely firing on all cylinders and delivering a performance to really be proud of. This is definitely her story.

Mel doesn’t think much of the 21st century, thinking that all people care about is footballer’s haircuts and people who lost silly game-shows (Good god, nobody tell her about Love Island!) The Cabbie thinks she’s a pretty bad liar, and that it shows like a bright red beacon. She’s not a police woman, in fact, she’s a computer programmer. Mel read the entire Sherlock Holmes canon by the time she was nine!

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◆ Story Recap

The Klyst Institute is a giant complex hanging in the middle of deep space, ran by the clandestine Celestial Intervention Agency, with the goal of placing TARDIS consciousnesses into organic life-forms. If such an experiment were to be successful, then Gallifrey would have pilots with a perfect understanding of Block Transfer Computation.

The Doctor decided to investigate, only to be driven insane himself, thanks to one of the many TARDIS consciousness the Institute had on hand. Luckily, he had a contingency plan set up just in case something happened to him.

Accompanied by the world’s most charismatic Cabbie, Mel has to infiltrate the Klyst Institute and restore her friend to sanity. Only then can the trio set about dismantling this amoral facility.

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◆ TARDIS Grafts

‘Unregenerate!’ was an extremely unique story when it first released, and played around with some brilliant ideas. Having the mind of a TARDIS grafted onto any sort of organic being sounds like a really misguided and stupid thing for the CIA to be doing, and it turns out that that is exactly the case.

The grafts constantly fail and cause the hosts to lose their marbles faster than Paul Gascoigne! Despite all this, Professor Klyst continues to send out her charming assistant to make a deal with many people from across the universe; to make sure they will come to the Institute the day before they die and surrender their minds for “medical science”.

It’s an incredibly fascinating plot, but it does suffer a bit from McIntee’s decision to tell the story with a somewhat non-linear narrative – making use of flashbacks to fill the listener in on how the Doctor actually found out and ended up in the Institute. It does feel like it overcomplicates an already complex adventure.

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◆ Good Omens?

Whilst I definitely believe that the ideas on show in ‘Unregenerate!’ are really brilliant, there is another reason why it’s very rarely talked about nowadays. Six years after its release, an incredibly well known writer called Neil Gaiman created a televised Doctor Who story that played around with the idea of TARDIS consciousnesses being implanted into humans… and it’s fair to say that ‘The Doctor’s Wife’ is still considered to be one of the greatest scripts for the revived era (possibly even in the history of the entire franchise). It sadly means that this little BigFinish script is often overshadowed.

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◆ Coolest Cabbie in Fiction

Before we move onto the topic of post-production, I just want to say that BigFinish really missed a trick with this adventure. ‘Unregenerate!’ introduces us to a nameless cab driver who acts like a second companion, and I absolutely wish he’d joined the Doctor and Mel on their travels at the end of this story. Massive kudos to Toby Longworth for making the Cabbie such a delightfully roguish and charming character, and someone who deserves the title of “Coolest Cab Driver in Fiction”!

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◆ Sound Design

Ian Potter has made the Klyst Institute sound extremely convincing, like someone set up a TASCAM inside of a mental asylum that’s come straight out of a creepypasta!

Screaming inmates and rattling shackles, in the grim corridors of the Institute. A radio broadcast in 1957 informs listeners that the Soviet Union have just launched the Sputnik satellite, before fading into music typical of the decade. A bustling pub in 2007 has loud music playing on the radio, whilst a news anchor talks about the imminent United States and United Kingdom victory in the Iraq War. There is a strange scuttling behind the walls of the Klyst Institute, almost like rats scurrying up and down the place. Alarms blare throughout the Institute, as Rigan initiates a lockdown in K-Wing. The voice of Shokhra is really trippy, with multiple beings speaking in near unison. Rigan and her security staff begin firing old fashioned guns at Mel, the Cabbie and Shokhra.

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◆ Music

Haunting, eerie and truly alien, the whistling music here is absolutely gorgeous.

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◆ Conclusion

“He’s recently regenerated!”

Those complete mad-lads at the Celestial Intervention Agency are attempting to graft TARDIS consciousnesses onto organic minds, in the hope that they can get some expert pilots out of it. It’s completely amoral, and with the Doctor incapacitated, it’s up to Mel and the Coolest Cab Driver in Fiction to deal with the mysterious Klyst Institute.

‘Unregenerate!’ gets a bit of a bad rap from the fandom, and speaking as someone who used to despise it, I can somewhat understand why. If you can get past McCoy’s questionable performance though, you unlock a really unique and complex adventure (whose ideas would go on to feature in a story that is revered by the entire fandom).

The highlight of this whole adventure is, without a shadow of a doubt, Bonnie Langford and Toby Longworth. The two of them work so incredibly well together, and the fact the Cabbie didn’t become a new companion genuinely hurts my soul. #JusticeForTheCabbie.