(DISCLAIMER: THIS IS A STORY WRITTEN BY GARETH ROBERTS, A FIGURE WHO HAS MADE HIMSELF INFAMOUS IN THE DOCTOR WHO COMMUNITY THROUGH REPEATED VILE AND NASTY COMMENTS MADE ON SOCIAL MEDIA. THIS REVIEW IS NOT AN ENDORSEMENT OF HIM AS A PERSON, PURELY HIS WORK. DO NOT TAKE ANY PRAISE I LEVEL AT HIM HERE AS ADMIRATION TOWARDS HIS UTTERLY BACKWARDS VIEWPOINTS. ANYWAYS, WITH THAT OUT OF THE WAY, PLEASE DO ENJOY).

The Monthly Adventures #039 - “Bang-Bang-a-Boom!" by Gareth Roberts and Clayton Hickman

Perhaps the easiest and quickest way to ruin a perfectly good story is to make it a comedy. Comedy is hard to get right and, whilst something like horror is simply subjective, comedy will ruin a piece of media if not catered to the viewer. So, in an audio-only format, writing a humorous take on our favourite time traveller feels like walking a tightrope atop a pit of bad fan reviews and half-listens. The duo Clayton Hickman and, unfortunately, Gareth Roberts walked the tightrope once before in The Monthly Adventures #27 - “The One Doctor”, which, for the most part, succeeded and was a fun if sometimes over the top good time. So, having proven themselves as talented comedy writers before, can Hickman and Roberts replicate their first success in a Christiesque murder mystery set in space Eurovision?

The Intergalactic Song Contest is currently being overseen by Dark Space 8, a high tech monitoring station that’s just lost its commander. But luckily, a new commander is on his way, except upon entry, he is murdered. The Doctor and Mel, stumbling across the corpse, take the place of the commander and play detective as a mounting pile of corpses grows.

(CONTAINS SPOILERS)

I don’t think Bang-Bang-a-Boom! is a particularly good story, I don’t think it sticks with you or makes you think or makes you weep, it is simply a good bit of fun. This is a witty and intelligent script that moves like wildfire with a lightning fast yet smart and consistent plot. There is fluff that could be cut out, which I will talk about in the negatives section, but it’s never slow, simply bloated at times and I think any story that can keep such a momentum going is worthy of some credit. And I think the primary reason Bang-Bang-a-Boom! remains so entertaining is because we have such a great set of characters to listen to. It’s a Christie-like whodunit and any story trying to live up to the mother of the murder mystery has to have a compelling set of suspects, which Bang-Bang-a-Boom! brilliantly delivers on with a group of zany and all-together odd song contestants that fit right at home in space Eurovision. They’re all convincingly real people and the way each of them interacts makes for some pretty nice and subtle character growth, not something one would expect from an oddball little murder mystery. Leading our cast is of course, our regulars, this time around Seven and Mel both of whom are delightful. McCoy once again gives it his all and is characterised in this really nice sweet spot between Season 24 Seven and Season 26 Seven, cunning and plotting but still winning Eurovision with the spoons (so, Season 25 Seven, I suppose). And, I am surprised to say, I think I like Mel now. She was never really given much of a chance in the show but here, with the opportunity to be taken even a little bit seriously, Bonnie Langford delivers a really grounded and relatable performance that makes her a great pairing with the more outwardly idiosyncratic Seventh Doctor. But, of course, Bang-Bang-a-Boom! is not primarily a mystery thriller, it is a comedy… kind of. It’s not as laugh out loud funny as The One Doctor and, surprisingly enough coming from the same writing team, the whole brand of humour comes off as completely different. The One Doctor was more absurdist and Monty Pythonian - dry and nonsensical - whilst what we have here can be described more as quirky, with bombastic, loud and very proud characters all squabbling and deliberating. It’s a series of bizarre and outlandish situations juxtaposed with a murder most foul and I think it’s a little bumpy. Sometimes, it doesn’t land at all but when it does, it’s fine, there are a couple great moments, like the aforementioned winning the space Eurovision by having Seven play the spoons. Bang-Bang-a-Boom! is not a deep story, it is a fun story with a great setting and fun cast, something to turn your brain off to.

But, that doesn’t mean I can overlook its faults. For as fast and swiftly as the script moves, I think the ending drops the ball. The reveal that alien interpreter Loozly was the killer admittedly did get me, his constant affiliation with another character caused me to sort of group them together in my head and I forgot about him, but the reveal is short lived and done with forced theatrics. And after that, the story ends, shortly before the credits are interrupted by Mel prolonging the story by pointing out Loozly was going to blow up the ship and they still haven’t found the bomb. This whole section feels like a rush job with very little tension, even if there are some fun moments (once again, spoons). I think this helps contribute to another issue of the story just being too long; it’s almost two and half hours, far longer than this silly little whodunit needed to be and because of that there’s a lot of wasted time and running around aimlessly. Also, as I mentioned before, the humour is imperfect, and I have to highlight when it doesn’t work because those parts are grating on the soul. Specifically the whole subplot of one of the contestants successfully seducing the Doctor, which was painfully awkward and not in the least bit funny. On top of this, the story makes this weird choice to constantly have 1950s sci-fi b-movie sound effects pop up for emphasis such as in dramatic moments or at the end of parts and it utterly breaks the flow of what's happening, eventually becoming a common irritant. Actually, I think the whole sound design for this audio is crap, especially with some of the voices, from the orotund and exhausting Anglia to the painfully shrill Geri (another annoyingly voiced character played by Jane Goddard surprisingly, sorry Robert).

Is Bang-Bang-a-Boom! good? That remains to be seen, but it is fun. Not as much of a triumph as The One Doctor felt (it certainly has less to say) but it’s a genuinely enthralling murder mystery with some really entertaining characters and a distinct style that separates it from other, similar audios. Idiosyncratic and imperfect, it's not hard to find something to love in this odd little story.

7/10

Pros:

+ Well paced and interesting plot

+ A cast of fleshed out and likeable characters

+ The Doctor and Mel are both at their very best

+ An imperfect comedic set but one that impresses on occasion

+ The setting of an intergalactic Eurovision is incredibly fun

Cons:

- Ending that feels rushed and all together disappointing

- Awful sound design that got progressively more intrusive as the audio went on

- Far longer than it needed to be

- The humour doesn’t always land and can be soul-crushingly awkward

MR 039: Bang-Bang-a-Boom!

Or the one where Patricia Quinn pushes Sylvester McCoy's face into her bosom.

It's the intergalactic song contest on Dark Space 8! Worlds from across the galaxy are competing, but there's been a murder or two in the background and it's up to our plucky protagonists to stop them before the song contest is ruined!

Yes, this is a sort of spiritual successor to The One Doctor. It's a parody, this time of Star Trek and Eurovision. It's definitely not as good as The One Doctor, though. I am big into Star Trek, but the parody was not as direct as the parody of Doctor Who itself in The One Doctor. It's still VERY good though. It's a shame that we don't do intentionally comedic/ridiculous stories like this anymore.

The Doctor and Mel land on a shuttle carrying the new commander of Dark Space 8, only it blows up just in time for them to get pulled onto the station via transmat. The Doctor gets mistaken for the commander and it goes from there. It's quite entertaining to hear the Doctor playing commander on this Star Trek type space station. He gives orders and talks to the principal crew, the Doctor and the scientist while investigating a series of murders.

The main story here is that two of the competitors in the song contest are Angvia and Gholos, a gestalt entity, two species that have hated each other and fought for years. There's a peace conferance going on, but in the meantime the song contest is a symbol of that peace.

However, there's a little secret. The song contest is actually the REAL peace conference. The arbiter of the song contest is the arbiter of the peace conference, all of it conducted psychically and subconsciously so that the singers don't know that they're negotiating.

It's mostly just a fun little romp with much hijinks and murders along the way. I particularly enjoy the parodies of Star Trek where the commander gets killed in an appropriately Star trek episode fashion, leading to the Doctor becoming the new commander.

The space station scientist and doctor are actually quite incompetent at their jobs even though they look and sound quite profession. In fact the doctor gives stardate logs of what's happening. But she is not very good. She can't revive someone who's just got a bump on the head and doesn't know what smelling salts are. And she says "I feel so helpless" a lot. It turns out that she stowed away and just said she was a doctor because she wanted to live the life of a star trek doctor, running down corridors with a tricorder in hand and saving people. But she actually got a lot of people killed along the way.

As for the scientist, he was drunk the whole time. Whenever anyone asked him something, he just said whatever random crap popped into his head. Reverse the polarity of the neutron flow indeed. He, doubtless got a lot of people killed as well.

As for the eurovision parodies, we get some fun parodies of the announcers and voting when the Ice Warriors cast their vote for Mars' delegation. But the actual performances sure are... something. There's a pop star from Earth named Nicky Newman who has stage freight and has a bomb that goes off when he's stressed inside of him (true story) so the Doctor goes on for him instead. Guess what he plays, and then wins the whole contest with?

The murderer is revealed to be the translator to the gestalt entity trying to sabotage the peace conference. The idea of a translator being the only one who understands what someone is saying and thus manipulating them and lying about what they say is a fun idea.

I also particularly enjoyed the theme starting and then cutting off when Mel says it was too easy to just wrap up. Speaking of which, I find it interesting that both parody/comedic stories use Mel as the companion. Presumably Gareth Roberts thought she contributed well to comedy, which was a good call, she does. Definitely a fun romp, not as good as The One Doctor, but still a good time. And a reminder of what we could have had if they kept up the comedy stories.

📝8/10 → VERY GOOD!

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

FIRST IMPRESSIONS: “BANG-BANG-A-BOOM”

As was radiation for Big Finish in their Main Range, the last release of each release was meant to be a light-hearted or fun Christmas special or parody. Bang-Bang-a-Boom! parodies the Eurovision Song Contest and the Star Trek franchise.

What we get here is Seven and Mel arriving at a space station and encountering dead bodies, all the while the three-hundred-somethingth Intergalactic Song Contest is underway. The political tension between two participating neighbouring worlds causes stir-up and conflict behind the scenes of the production, so the Doctor gets involved in trying to solve the problem.

The writers know their Eurovision and write a fantastically sharp political satire that perfectly mirrors a lot of the political shenanigans involved with the real-world contest (especially so in recent times). Seven and Mel are also the perfect TARDIS crew to get involved with such a story, especially since the Doctor’s decision to impersonate a spaceship commander further complicates things. 

Sylvester McCoy goes all in on being light-hearted and fun here, and it’s a nice change of pace from the manipulative and sinister Seven we so often encounter. Bonnie Langford is wonderful, especially when paired together with the intergalactic pop star Nicky Newman (Anthony Spargo), who is delighted to meet someone who has no idea who he is.

The Star Trek elements come from the science-y and space-y stuff that both sound believable but also so out there that it's impossible to determine whether it's realistic or not. The cover art also mimics the poster for Star Trek: The Motion Picture.

And there’s the murder mystery element here as well, which is nothing new to Doctor Who. That makes this something of a The Curse of Peladon or The Robots of Death parody as well, or even a twist on a classic Agatha Christie-style whodunit.

The supporting cast is colourful and fun. Angvia is a fun character, exaggerated and romantic, with an East-European accent; Geri is a rodent character with a cute voice (she sounds distractingly like Alpha Centauri; both are voiced by the inimitable Jane Goddard); Loozly is a hot-headed interpreter; and Dr. Harcourt is a medical officer working closely with the Doctor. David Tughan’s Logan the Commentator is also a very fun character and a parody of typical Eurovision commentators.

One gripe I have is that the individual episodes are all over 30 minutes in length, making this adventure a tad overextended.

The music is nice, especially some of the dramatic musical cues whenever a dead body is discovered. Which happens a lot, by the way.

The constant small twists and turns keep the story fresh, even though there isn’t a whole lot going on. There were so many twists that I couldn’t keep up with them all the time.

The strange romance subplot between Angvia and the Doctor is bizarrely funny.

The dialogue is frequently funny and over-the-top, with the cast delivering them in a way that makes them even more amusing. I found myself giggling more than once while listening to this.

Part 4 finally offers some “performances” from the Intergalactic Song Contest, and they are horrible and funny. It also features one of the funnier takes on a classic “murderer reveal” I’ve heard. The entire episode is the strongest part of the story and one of the best single episodes I've heard in the Main Range.

I love the little fake-out ending before we get the real reveal of the killer. And how the Doctor inadvertently wins the contest for Earth.

RANDOM OBSERVATIONS:

• I adore the continuity announcements by Nicholas Briggs at the start of every part. Feels like a nice callback to the TV days.
• They finally begin using era-appropriate theme tunes from this release onwards!
• The title of this adventure is a play on Lulu’s song Boom Bang-a-Bang, which won the Eurovision Song Contest in 1969 for the UK.
• It took me a bit too long to realise that Angvia is a deliberate anagram of a different word (it begins with a “V”).

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!

Doctor Who – The Monthly Adventures

#039. Bang-Bang-a-Boom! ~ 1/10

◆ An Introduction

Comedy is such a difficult thing to get right in any context, but it’s something that Doctor Who writers really seem to struggle with. Not everyone can have the witty hilarity of Nev Fountain, or the absurdity of Paul Magrs, but most writers seem to crash and burn whenever they try to do an outright comedy.

The team of Hickman and Roberts impressed me a great deal with ‘The One Doctor’; a really funny parody of Doctor Who itself that featured the legendary Christopher Biggins as an intergalactic con-artist. I was understandably looking forward to hearing their second comedic parody.

You’ve probably already seen my score for this release, so please don’t get your hopes up: it’s easily the second worst McCoy adventure!

◆ Publisher’s Summary

Dark Space 8 – an advanced monitoring station floating serenely among the stars. Its crew – a dedicated and highly-skilled group of professionals, calmly going about their vital work. Its mission – to boldly host the Intergalactic Song Contest.

With representatives from myriad worlds competing, the eyes of the universe are on the station. But dark deeds are afoot aboard Dark Space 8... and people are starting to die.

The haughty Queen Angvia, the gaseous gestalt Gholos, disposable pop idol Nicky Neumann, erratic Professor Fassbinder and the icily-efficient Dr Helena Harcourt – all are suspects. Could old political rivalries be manifesting themselves among the contestants? Is this the work of a breakaway terrorist faction? Or has someone just got it in for singer-songwriters?

With peace in the galaxy hanging by a thread, it's vital that the mystery is solved – and fast! Can Dark Space 8's unconventional new commander, with the help of his personal pilot, Mel, find the murderer in time to prevent a major intergalactic war?

Or will it be nul points for the entire universe...?

◆ The Seventh Doctor

Whilst certain incarnations can make even a bad script bearable with a great performance (such as Colin Baker) there are some who genuinely seem to just give up when they are handed the script equivalent of a horse manure sandwich. Sylvester McCoy delivers one of his absolute worst performances in ‘Bang-Bang-a-Boom!’, and it really saddens me to say that.

The Doctor didn’t have a plan and was just making things up as he went. Getting involved is his stock and trade. The scenes of him and Angvia “loving it up” genuinely make me want to scoop out my eardrums with a dessert spoon!

◆ Mel Bush

‘Bang-Bang-a-Boom!’ features Bonnie Langford really trying to add some personality and charm to this adventure, but the writing has really done her dirty; practically blasting all of her character’s personality away with an orbital sander!

Mel claims that it takes more than a stroppy alien to shake her up.

◆ Story Recap

The Gholos and Angvian Empires have been at war for centuries, and every peace treaty that has been formed between them has eventually broken down. But the two factions have finally decided to try and put their differences aside, and two peace conferences have been set up.

The one held on Achilles 4 was the obvious target for extremists, but was in actuality just a diversion.

The true peace conference is taking place telepathically on Dark Space 8, with the two ambassadors acting as participants in the 309th intergalactic song contest. Unfortunately, it seems that there is a murderer aboard Dark Space 8, killing people using what appear to be Angvian methods.

If the Doctor and Mel don’t stop the killings, the prospect of peace between these two empires could be completely wiped off the table.

◆ I Hate the Eurovision Song Contest

My description of the story for ‘Bang-Bang-a-Boom!’ honestly makes it sound far more interesting than it actually is. Much like the previous Hickman and Roberts script, this is an adventure that pretty much falls under the category of a parody. It’s basically Eurovision in space with a hint of Star Trek added in for good measure… and it’s diabolical!

I have actually tried writing this review several times – the first time was directly after I published my review of ‘The Fires of Vulcan’, which should tell you just how much trouble this release has given me – so I apologise if this entire review comes off as a pessimistic and bitter rant, but I need you to understand quite how much I absolutely despise this waste of a double CD.

◆ Masterclass in Atrocious Acting

I love that the artwork for ‘Bang-Bang-a-Boom!’ proudly shows off its apparently star-studded cast, and pretty much all of them deliver dreadful performances and play characters who are either bland or utterly insufferable.

I’m aware that Patricia Quinn was in The Rocky Horror Picture Show, but I will always remember her for the drama that went down between her and Aiden Zhane, after the latter’s portrayal of her during Season 12 of Drag Race (it was genuinely quite abysmal)! She is playing Queen Angvia like some sort of drunken stereotype of a Viking dame, and I really do mean drunken. Quinn honestly sounds like she decided to neck Smirnoff like it’s tap water a couple of minutes before stepping into the recording booth.

Graeme Garden is legendary amongst us BigFinish fans for his portrayal of the Meddling Monk, so it honestly saddens me that his performance in this story is so flat and boring.

Sabina Franklyn could easily take the award for worst performer of the story, because she has absolutely no range, delivering every line with the same lack of enthusiasm (probably doesn’t help that the character she’s been given is lacking a personality).

Humour is obviously subjective, but I genuinely don’t think I laughed once at this story, and I’m genuinely shocked it’s written by the guys behind ‘The One Doctor’. How do you go from doing some really witty and intelligent comedy to… whatever this mess was meant to be? I remember wetting myself with laughter at the Jelloid singing away to itself and the infinite game show with Mentos, even the Shelves of Infinity – you cannot deny the quality of the writing in Hickman and Roberts previous parody adventure. There is just no charm to this script at all, and it turns what is meant to be a comedy into a depressing slog of a story.

◆ Sound Design

Oh look at that, it’s a generic space station! Hooray! I hate this story so much! Gareth Jenkins didn’t put any effort into his soundscape, so why should I when describing it?

The red alert alarm is accidentally triggered by Dr Harcourt (which will happen at various points throughout the adventure). Bleeping consoles in the command deck of Dark Space 8. The static filled transmissions of Dark Space 8 traffic control. A bomb completely destroys the new commander’s shuttle, narrowly avoiding killing the Doctor and Mel. The electronic zapping of the Gholos gestalt. The Doctor plays his spoons during the Intergalactic Song Contest.

◆ Music

The score for ‘Bang-Bang-a-Boom!’ is being handled by Andy Hardwick and Gareth Jenkins. I wrote absolutely nothing in my notes for the music in this story, which should tell you just how bland it was. I vaguely remember it being this melodramatic, atmospheric Star Trek-esque piece.

◆ Conclusion

“If we don’t stop him, it’s Bang-Bang-a-Boom!”

Dreadful to the point of nausea, ‘Bang-Bang-a-Boom!’ made me want to surgically remove my ears like the parrot man who appeared on the Jeremy Kyle show!

I’ve actually tried writing this review several times and given up half way through because this story genuinely makes me so angry… God, I hate the fact you can’t swear on this site, because I genuinely think this review would be more accurate if I just spammed the f-word several hundred times. There is literally only one other Seventh Doctor story I consider to be worse than this, and given what a pain in the backside this review was… I’m likely going to need to be black-out drunk to review ‘The Dark Husband’, if I want to retain my sanity.

Seriously, just avoid this one. It’s a complete waste of your time and money to hear some of the worst writing imaginable, to hear McCoy deliver one his worst ever performances, and to endure a cast that sound like they were all drinking neat Absinthe in the recording studio! Oh good God, I’m so happy I never have to listen to this absolute pile of horse manure ever again!