07.10.2022
BFDW: Bernice Summerfield
s01e02: Beyond the Sun

A few cool concepts, but nothing much otherwise. The communist utopia society had an interesting idea of love as possession. It's refreshing to see a nuanced utopia I disagree on certain points with for once.
The story is forgettable though. 3/5

This one is really basically a bit dull. Benny is on a hunt for Jason Kane, and bumbles her way through a plot that doesn't really do anything. It wants, I think, to be a story that condemns capitalism and corporate greed, but manages to flounder its way through this alien world which should by all rights be pretty interesting. But it basically isn't.

The side characters are kind of pathetic and annoying, but there are some good character beats for Benny, at least. One of my favourite things about her is how she's a disaster, and she's allowed to be. She's divorced, she's rash, she's horny, she's short-tempered - and she's delightful for all of those things. SF has this horrible habit of forcing women to be 'likeable' above all else, often to the detriment of the character, but Benny has a real flavour of Indiana Jones and I think it's brilliant that she's allowed to be like that.

Bernice Summerfield

#1.02. Beyond the Sun ~ 1/10

◆ An Introduction

Matthew Jones is most well known for that incredible two-parter which introduced the Ood, so I was understandably looking forward to hearing his adventure with Prof. Summerfield.

Clearly he did a lot of growing up as a writer in the intervening years, because this was hot steamy garbage!

◆ Publisher’s Summary

"You're on your own, Bernice"

Bernice Summerfield has drawn the short straw. Not for her the pleasures of intergalactic conferences and highbrow lecture tours. Oh no. She's forced to take two overlooked freshers on their very first dig. And just when it seems things can't get any worse, her no-good ex-husband Jason turns up, claiming that he is in deadly danger. Benny finally begins to believe his wild claims, but unfortunately only after he has been kidnapped from his hotel room.

Feeling guilty, she sets out to rescue him. Well, let's face it, no one else is going to. Her only clue is a dusty artefact that Jason claimed was part of an ancient and powerful weapon. But Professor Bernice Summerfield PhD knows that's just silly nonsense. She's been an archaeologist long enough to know that lost alien civilisations do not leave their most powerful weapons lying around for any nutter to find. Do they?

Once again Benny is all that stands between Jason and his own mistakes, as she tries to prevent the wrong people acquiring this terrible and somewhat unlikely weapon – a weapon rumoured to have powers beyond the sun.

◆ Prof. Bernice Summerfield

I cannot believe how quickly this range spewed up something atrocious! Lisa Bowerman made absolutely no impression during this adventure: the only thing I remember her character doing is shouting at two idiotic students.

◆ Jason Kane

This episode introduces us to Jason Kane: the estranged ex-husband of our favourite archaeologist. Stephen Fewell would deliver some fantastic performances throughout this range, but this isn’t one of them.

◆ Story Recap

After two students missed out on their first term at St Oscar’s University, the Dean sent them off with Benny on a field trip to Apollox Four; a planet on which the Chelonians had a slave camp. The field trip is soon interrupted by the arrival of Benny’s estranged husband, Jason, who has came to her with an artefact… and he wants her to look after it.

The next day, it soon becomes apparent that Jason has been kidnapped by those attempting to locate the artefact, which is actually part of an alien weapon. Accompanied by her students, Emile and Tameka, Benny heads towards the planet Ursu, in search of her ex-husband.

◆ Gormless Air-heads

Can you believe this was written by the same person who created ‘The Impossible Planet’? Matthew Jones has delivered the earliest example of an audio adventure being so infuriatingly awful that I would rather endure an Ian Levine interview than listen to it again. This script genuinely has no redeeming qualities, so let’s kick off by discussing the irritating side characters Benny finds herself lumbered with!

Tameka Vito (Jane Burke) is your stereotypical popular girl: an arrogant air-head with an ego the size of Jupiter! She also spends most of the runtime bullying her fellow student, and that includes being really homophobic towards him. What a vile character!

Emile Mars-Smith (Lewis David) is clearly a character the script wants you to be invested in, even creating a character arc that sees him struggling to accept he’s gay: he was brought up in a strict religious family that looked down on such things. I take serious issue with how this story arc was handled, because it basically amounts to another character trying to sleep with him, when he clearly isn’t comfortable with it. Are you starting to understand why I’ve given this story the lowest possible rating?

◆ Blandest Story

Another negative to go over is the actual story, which essentially boils down to, “Jason kidnapped by evil aliens. World where population has been enslaved by another alien race. A doomsday like weapon.” It’s insufferably boring! There’s nothing in ‘Beyond the Sun’ that hasn’t been done elsewhere and better.

◆ Sound Design

Harvey Summers essentially vanished from BigFinish before the conclusion of this series, and his first impression wasn’t what you’d call good: I genuinely have zero notes on the sound design for this release. I don’t think that’s ever happened before.

◆ Conclusion

“The thing is, I rather suspect my husband has been kidnapped.”

Where do I even start? Matthew Jones would create an exceptional two-part adventure featuring the Tenth Doctor and Rose, which still holds up really well today. It featured the exceptional talents of Gabriel Woolf, in what was the second time he lent his voice to a god-like villain with immense power!

It wont have escaped your attention that I’m stalling for time, because ‘Beyond the Sun’ was such a vacuous script that I genuinely don’t remember half of what happened. All the characters had the depth of a paddling pool, and the acting skills of an amateur dramatics society at the mental asylum. You should honestly skip this one: don’t endure two hours of misery like I did.

Yeah, this was just alright. I shouldn't have expected much, given the nature of reviews around Beyond The Sun so far, but sometimes one sees something other's don't, and it isn't like this story has no fans.

So, there are aspects of this story I did like. Jason and Bernie were both pretty great. It is refreshing, not just in this franchise, but in science fiction and even just genre fiction in general, to have a focus on a divorced character. That isn't shaped up like something she should have regretted or been ashamed of, rather, it feels like a reflection of Bernie's age, maturity, and world-weariness. There's also some neat ideas of Jason being kidnapped, a mysterious cult, and a free-wheeling rule-less colony.

Unfortunately, the story struggles a lot more in the actual writing of dialogue and execution. The ideas feel a little too sprawling and all over the place to properly explore them. The story is very sexual too, but in a way that kind of reminds me more of Torchwood or the Virgin novels from what I've seen of the latter, too. These kind of stories seem to relish in their ability to cover more mature content and freedom from the more typical content associated with Doctor Who. Unfortunately, in doing so, too often these types of stories, Beyond the Sun included, stumble into being the most immature stories in all of Who because they don't really grapple with these topics, like human sexuality, with the level of sophistication those ideas kind of merit. So it comes across as silly and grabbing for salacious content over something organic or to be taken seriously.

So yeah, in spite of some serious potential, Beyond the Sun kind of deserves its status as one of the lowest among this range. It just isn't all that great.

The plot is meandering and can be a slog to get through. At some points things are just rushed through while hoping you remember what was said, and other times there are scenes where the plot doesn't seem to happen. The looming threat is talked about, but as a listener, you have no connection to them. The audio design is better than Oh No It Isn't, but without a character 'narrating' what is happening, it just sounds like noise. While an improvement in one way, the plot is very lacking and leaves one wanting more.