There's not as much truth for the sake of "Cosmovision" here as you'd expect from an audiodrama about the contest. Yes, all the events take place against the backdrop of the contest itself, there's a Terry Wogan impersonator (Graham Norton's predecessor as British commentator) and even a couple of songs, but it all feels a little lacking. Honestly, I think there are more references to Star Trek (we'll get to that) than to Eurovision. Moreover, in the finale, the Cosmovision turns out to be not what it seemed.

The whole plot revolves around a series of murders at Dark Space 8 station, which are an attempt to disrupt the contest. It is fuelled by the fact that, among other participants, the competition involves representatives of two species - the Golos and the Angvii - who are in a state of war that has been going on for generations and a peace conference between the two states is taking place just as the song contest is taking place, adding to the mix of prejudices, motives and resentments.

And in fact, it's hard... What started as a ‘hee-hee, ha-ha, an audio drama about space Eurovision’ quickly turns into a rather unhappy drama, because you start paralleling it all... Especially given the current context, where on 15 May there will be both the second semi-final of Eurovision and potential negotiations between russia and Ukraine, literally like in Bang-Bang-a-Boom... And that's not even all! In one of the skirmishes between the representatives of the Angvies and the Gholos, the Queen of England and the Gholos, the topic of violation of territorial borders is raised, where the representative of the Angvies says that they entered the planets controlled by the Gholos because they were invited by the natives... And you just listen to this and you're like

So at some point, I decided not to hyper-analise this plotline, because it wouldn't work. Given that the whole audio drama is quite comedic, it wasn't that hard to get distracted. And when I say it's quite comedic, I mean it's very comedic. Just the melody that plays literally after every death, which makes even the death of a character in the plot become a comedic element in itself.

Adding to that specifically comedic references to Star Trek:

• Dark Space 8, in the original Dark Space 8, is an obvious reference to Deep Space 9
• The Doctor makes Star Trek references throughout the audio, for example, asking the guards to get phasers instead of lasers and so on.
• There is a logbook in almost every part of the four, which is very similar to the Star Trek logbook in its manner.
• The past adventures of the station, as recalled by the crew, are suspiciously reminiscent of the plots of some episodes of various Star Trek series.

But they are not the only ones. Among all this, there is also a nod to Babylon 5 and the little-known in Ukrainian circles British Space: 1999. It seems that the authors collected all their favourite elements of pop culture and carefully wove it all into the script of the audio story so that in the end it looks organic.

Another obviously comic element is the Doctor's romantic (and apparently not only...) connections in this story. The first one is more normal - the head doctor wants to romance the Doctor. The second is more, um... Strange?

The Doctor is being romanced by Queen Anglia and her species has some kind of special pheromone (???) that makes the chosen ones fall in love with women of that species. And the strange thing is that, judging by the ‘text’, it all goes back to the fact that the Seventh had sex with her... And it's not said directly, but it's so ambiguous that it's a bit of a mess... It's not that I'm against eroticism or the fact that the Doctor has sex (absolutely not), but in Bang-Bang-a-Boom! it's just so strange. Especially given that it's presented in a rather comical way, even though the Doctor is actually being forced into a relationship by chemical exposure (which is horrible! never do that!). And it's all for the sake of rigging the Cosmovision scores...

Also, the titles of the songs mentioned in the audio play, for example, Don't Push Your Tentacle Too Far, flirt a little with strange eroticism. Well, at least My Love is as Limitless as a Black Hole, and I'm Pulling You Over the Event Horizon sounds quite romantic and cool (but not winning, who the hell likes love ballads at Eurovision?).

As for the Doctor and Mel themselves. They're absolute sunshine and a gorgeous chaotic duo, considering that they have to pretend to be other people for almost the entire audio frame - the new head of the station and his pilot, on whose shuttle our protagonists landed right before it exploded. And honestly, this fact adds a great dimension to the jokes, especially for the Doctor, who is getting in good shape and therefore delivers pearls of style:

Not to get involved. Getting involved is my stock and trade. It is very nice uniform, wich I must show of to someone.

Mel's situation is also quite interesting, as she goes from wanting to stay out of the way to being overly active and overly spacialistic towards the voices, because they are not humanoids, and their language is semantically complex and unlike any other language. Therefore, on the basis of the unknown, she immediately begins to suspect their representative, without absolute evidence. Before that, it makes a few more suspicions of others without any reason. In fact, this theme is a great way to show the difference between Mel and the Doctor in their approaches to solving problems. Just like the fake ending of the audio story shows that Mel is still more perceptive than the Doctor, although she suffers from jumping to conclusions.

Mel also has a rather hackneyed line about her friendship with a local super-ultra-mega pop star from Earth, Nicky Newman, whom she knows nothing about because he's from the past. So Nikki hangs out with her and tells her the standard story about how hard it is to be a superstar (and it is really hard, I don't argue), but in 2025 it feels a little bit hackneyed, but camon, the audio is 23 years old, she can do it.

In conclusion, it's a pretty cute (apart from the historical parallels...) humorous audio novel with a lot of references to science fiction and Eurovision, and a light-hearted detective storyline. If you want to sit back and listen to the Seventh Doctor win the Eurovision Song Contest with a game of spoons, this is the audio novel for you.

This ticked every box for me. Camp? Eurovision parody? Politics? Comedy? Murder Mystery? Mel? Oh I ate up every second of this story. The camp music, the camp Nick Briggs recaps at the start, the music stings every time someone was murdered? I did guess the murderer towards the end, but it didn't lessen my enjoyment at all. So many memorable guest characters from this, and as always with a murder mystery there are plenty of reveals that have nothing to do with the murders! Superb!

a fun and silly romp, and probably the only way i will ever enjoy anything even remotely related to eurovision

except abba i guess

I was not a fan of this one, and gave it a 2.5/5. Minor spoilers throughout.

I found the parody to be veering between fun and mean-spirited and the attitude of the audio felt rather nasty towards Star Trek and the other parodied shows and events. I am not sure if that was the intention, but it was how it came across to me. However, it was easy to listen to/follow, the pace wasn't too fast. I found the critique of technobabble surprisingly engaging, though it sadly didn't last long.

The murderer was very obvious and, as the mystery was all there really was, it left the audio a little empty. Still, it was fun to listen to, so still worth it I suppose. The ending that was supposed to be a twist was also very expected - though, the Earth national anthem being I Will Survive was a stroke of genius. Lovely ending for Eleanor!

I can understand why some people like this audio, but it really wasn't for me.

This is part of a series of reviews of Doctor Who in chronological timeline order.

Previous Story: Terror of the Sontarans

After the brilliance that was The One Doctor I was really concerned that the next comedy wouldn't be able to live up to it. Well I was right, it didn't live up to it... it exceeded it. I'm impressed that this story seems to get such a marmite reception because it's utterly hilarious. While the last one was a direct parody of Doctor Who, this is more a parody of things like Star Trek and Space: 1999.

The Doctor and Mel arrive on a shuttle that's immediately blown up. Luckily they're beamed out of there just in time. The catch is they're believed to be the replacement Commander and shuttle pilot for the ship. This is a brilliant opening and paves the way for a fairly unique structure. It reminds me of The Curse of Peladon with the Doctor immediately being trusted as an authority figure.

Speaking of the Doctor, McCoy takes on the role of the Doctor taking on the role of the Commander brilliantly. He's a great Doctor to put in the detective role of a murder mystery and hearing him boss about a bunch of annoying aliens was fantastic. I also think the supporting characters, while sometimes grating, were great. Particularly Geri, who acted in a similar way to Alpha Centauri, also from The Curse of Peladon.

I'm a sucker for a murder mystery and I always love the scene where the detective gathers everyone into a room and reveals everything. I absolutely loved the way it was done here with all the twists and turns. Listening to this entire story was a roller coaster, normally in murder mysteries you sus out who did it pretty quickly so long as you don't fall for a red herring. I genuinely had no idea at any point. Of course, in hindsight, it makes a lot of sense.

I'm sure I could go on about this story long enough to fill out the runtime of of my own Main Range story but I think I'll put a pin in it here and say this is a fantastic story if you love something silly that doesn't take itself seriously in the slightest while still forming a really compelling and interesting story. Really great stuff.

Next Story: Flip-Flop