Colditz

Overall a pretty good audio. This was only my third 7th doctor story, (including the show,) so I'm still pretty new to the duo. It was fun hearing David Tennant in this before he came the Doctor. And the Doctor was unknowingly up to some shenanigans :)

I will say that I had a little more trouble following along with this than previous audios. Not sure if it was something specific with this audio, or if it was because I had to listen to it in a different environment/situation than normal.

Despite that, I would be willing to listen to this again.

19.06.2022
BFDW: The Monthly Adventures
e25: Colditz

Very solid even without the fact that David Мать Его За Ногу Tennant is playing the antagonist here. He elevates it even further. Tennant is very good at playing a pathetic weasel sucking up to his command while simultaneously grasping for any bit of control he has. Truly an amazing performance.

The setting is great. It feels like it fills the void, something DW lacked, but fits it perfectly. The plot is fine, nothing too boring. It tends to slow down towards the second half when it should be accelerating, but it still wasn't a chore to listen through. I'd give it a 4/5 for Tennant alone, but it wouldn't be fair. 3.5/5

MR 025: Colditz

You shot my friend! Oh hey it's David Tennant. You shot my friend! First appearance of Klein, nice, I remember her. YOU SHOT MY FRIEND!

Well this one was quite good. There's some very interesting ideas about time travel here which I'll go into in a second. The Nazi stuff makes for some very interesting backdrop for the arrival of a mysterious woman named Klein who may not be what she claims to be. Also, a pre-Tenth Doctor David Tennant playing a creepy/sleezy Nazi guard! He orders Ace to take her clothes off and implies sexual favors from her. Tennant is always good at playing the villain and he's good at it here too.

The TARDIS makes a landing right outside of Colditz Castle, a famous Nazi prison. The Doctor and Ace quickly get captured. Ace tries to escape while the Doctor gets taken by Klein. Klein gives the Doctor's TARDIS to the prison's commander and then takes off. But it turns out her method of transport is gone. This is where it gets interesting.

Klein, it turns out, is from a timeline where the Nazis won. She's from the 60s in the UK in that timeline and is working on a government project studying the TARDIS. In this original timeline, Ace gets shot trying to escape Colditz and the Doctor leaves in his TARDIS, only to come back a decade later and get captured and shot when the Nazis won. They were able to use the technology in Ace's CD walkman to win the war, using lasers.

However, it turns out Klein has been tricked by a future version of the Doctor into coming back in time and changing history. She works with a future Doctor who convinces her to go back and capture the Doctor. She tampers with her own timeline and her intervention is what prevents Ace from being shot and prevents the TARDIS from falling into Nazi hands and prevents them from winning. Hence the trick. The future Doctor has been clever, seeing how her interference would wipe out her timeline.
The discussion between the Doctor and Klein is very interesting as well. The Doctor argues for his usual "changing history is bad in and of itself" bullshit. And Klein rightfully calls him out on it. Yes, it is absolutely good to change history here so that the Allies win, but there are plenty more times when changing history would be good as well. Why stop at changing history so my timeline doesn't exist anymore? Why not go back and save the people colonized by the British? Or the people who died in the numerous wars before WW2? The Doctor's going after her "paradise built on the back of genocide" rings holo when he's not willing to stop any other genocide. Only because in the history that he's familiar with, the Allies won WW2 so that's the only genocide he's willing to stop. It makes me look forward to Klein's further appearances if she calls the Doctor out on his hypocrisy even though, you know, she's a literal Nazi.

Ace's B plot is definitely less interesting as it's just her planning an escape attempt and getting ratted out by one of the other prisoners. And getting harrassed by David Tennant. It's not bad at all, just not as interesting as the meat of the time travel discussion.

Ultimately they end up leaving Klein in the 1940s, which could potentially have devestating effects. It's interesting that, when her timeline gets aborted, she doesn't cease to exist. She's a person from a timeline that no longer exists living in a time before her time. That could potentially be dangerous to to the war effort as well. Maybe if she positions herself well enough, she could help the Nazis win. Or maybe she could just get herself shot. We don't know. I'm sure we'll find out later when she's brought back.

The Monthly Adventures #025 - "Colditz” by Steve Lyons

Colditz is probably one of the most important audios in the entirety of the Main Range. Introducing Klein, who would go on to be a recurring companion of Seven, and beginning the line of stories that would eventually turn into the Hex arc, it’s impossible to understate just how many stories came out of Colditz. But how is the story itself? Its influence goes far, but where did it begin? With this - the 25th release - we’ve reached the first milestone of The Monthly Adventures, and with it a damn good story.

The Doctor and Ace step out of the TARDIS, and are immediately arrested. They’ve landed in Colditz Castle, the most secure prison in Germany, and their imprisonment might just mean victory for the German Reich.

(CONTAINS SPOILERS)

There is a lot to love in Colditz, but I’ll begin with what I think is the highlight; Ace is at her best here and Aldred is giving a stunning performance. The Doctor’s out of the picture for a majority of the runtime, so Ace (or McShane for a few audios but damn if I’m calling her that) is our main character this episode. Rebellious, intelligent, destructive, this is where we begin to see where Big Finish would take Ace, and she’s my favourite companion in the history of the show. As for antagonists, we have two stand out adversaries - one for the Doctor and one for Ace. On one hand, you have Klein, who is an incredibly fun foil to the Doctor and really feels like a villain that works well with Seven and his megalomaniacal schemes, and on the other hand you have Ace facing up against Nazi Sergeant Kurtz, played surprisingly enough by David Tennant, who is truly incredible at playing a slimy piece of shit. In fact, I think pretty much every character here is great, from the ally-sympathiser Schäfer to the cowardly Wilkins, these all feel like real people and none of them fall into stereotypes. As for the story, we have a plot in two halves. Ace has a pretty decent but not outstanding pure historical as she tries to escape Colditz Castle, and the Doctor is running around with a refugee from a rogue timeline where Germany uses Ace’s CD Walkman to win the war. And it’s this latter storyline that gives us the twist that the Doctor from the aborted timeline died, regenerated into the Eighth Doctor, and spent years manipulating Klein so that she’d go back to Colditz and stop her own timeline from occurring. Seven has a number of insane, time bending plans over his run in Big Finish, but this might be my favourite, it’s such a hilariously mad left field turn.

As many people have pointed out however, there is one big flaw to Colditz: the sound design is atrocious. Seriously, so much of the dialogue sounds tinny - I understand that it’s because these scenes are taking place in dank dungeons with echoey walls but you can convey this well without putting your actors in tin cans. And sometimes, background noise will just abruptly cut with no warning so our characters can talk, which just feels like the cherry on top. And whilst I like Ace’s escape plot, which took a majority of the story’s runtime, the Doctor’s stumble through the woods with Klein was a lot duller, even if it had some great dialogue. Eventually, both stories do kind of lose steam and begin going in circles, with our character nearly getting away, then getting caught, then meeting up, then getting separated, before meeting up again. You’re probably bored just reading my description of it so you can imagine listening to it.

Overall, Colditz is a personal favourite of mine. Not only is it incredibly notable in the Main Range’s history, it’s also just a damn good script from fan favourite writer Steve Lyons. Ace and the Doctor are at their best and we have multiple brilliant antagonists, which I think excuses an imperfect story and some dodgy sound design.

8/10

Pros:

+ Ace is at her very best

+ Klein seems like a very unique and interesting character

+ Kurtz made for a brilliantly sinister and vile antagonist

+ Love the madcap reveal of the Doctor’s masterplan

+ Good cast of interesting, layered characters

Cons:

- Truly abysmal sound design that was incredibly distracting

- The Doctor’s subplot is noticeably uneventful

- Plot started to circle by the end

I think this is really good. The plot is quite clever with lots of moving parts that fit together like a puzzle, one that you're solving alongside the Doctor. The characters all feel nicely developed and well-rounded. The sound design and music was good.

👍🏼(7.03) = GOOD!

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

World War II usually makes for a fantastic setting for a Doctor Who adventure (The Forsaken, Operation Werewolf, The Empty Child), and when you add in the manipulative Seventh Doctor, we get even more intriguing stories (The Curse of Fenric, Timewyrm: Exodus). Colditz, penned by Steve Lyons, is no exception.

We are transported to Colditz Castle, used by the Germans to hold prisoners of war during WWII, where Seven and Ace get entangled in war politics. Believed to be British spies, the Nazis soon learn about the TARDIS and want to use its secret to secure a victory in the war. Lyons kicks the plot into high gear right away, as the Doctor seemingly plays into the Nazis' hands while Ace spends time with other prisoners, trying to convince them to attempt an escape.

Colditz is most notable for introducing the inimitable Tracey Childs as German science doctor Elizabeth Klein, who’ll later become a companion for Seven. Even more intriguing is the Doctor Who debut of one Scottish actor named David Tennant, in a rather colourful and fierce (and, arguably, exaggerated) role as a sadistic German officer named Kurtz. He’d move up the ranks to become the Doctor themselves merely four years later.

Sophie Aldred is wonderful in this one, as she constantly rubs the Nazi characters the wrong way. Sylvester McCoy excels, particularly when confronting Childs and revealing his cunning aspects. Peter Raye is excellent in the role of sympathetic Wilkins.

Colditz is a straightforward adventure, relying on its characters and the natural tension of the era to carry the narrative. Part 2 ends with an intriguing revelation, as the Doctor realises that there is more to Klein than meets the eye; she has travelled to 1944 in the Doctor’s TARDIS.

At its most basic level, this is a Doctor Who take on a very simple paradox story. The problem is that Steve Lyons does very little with the story beyond the initial premise, so the four parts float around a bit until it's time to wrap things up. Ace, in particular, doesn’t get anything useful to do.

The story ends with an intriguing spin, as a piece of late 20th-century technology left behind in 1944 creates an alternate future where Germany has won the war, making it possible for Klein to travel back to 1944 and later become the Doctor’s companion.

The sound quality (editing and mixing) is occasionally very poor, which means that some of the dialogue has a strange echo to it. This ruins many scenes because they are difficult to listen to. The soundtrack is also pretty intrusive in some places, which makes the experience worse.

Doctor Who – The Monthly Adventures

#025. Colditz ~ 10/10

◆ An Introduction

I’m absolutely fascinated by stories set during World War II, especially those that teach me about a place or event I had little knowledge of: it’s time to dive into one of the greatest early Seventh Doctor plays.

Surrounded by fellow prisoners of war in the infamous Colditz Castle, getting away alive will be the least of the Doctor’s concerns… especially when confronted with a walking, talking Wolfenstein paradox!

◆ Publisher’s Summary

October 1944: As World War II draws towards its conclusion, a Nazi defeat begins to seem almost inevitable. But that might be about to change...

Two intruders are captured in the grounds of Colditz Castle, the most secure POW camp in Germany. At first, the guards think they're dealing with British spies. But the strangers arrived in an advanced travelling machine, the like of which they've never seen before.

With this TARDIS in their hands, the Third Reich might triumph after all.

◆ The Seventh Doctor

Sylvester McCoy delivers one of his best performances in ‘Colditz’.

The Doctor expects that interrogation, threats and torture have already been lined up for him by the camp Commandant. He takes great pleasure in frightening Schäfer, who has clearly realised that he’s an alien. He can get out of anything, according to Ace; he can pick locks, distract people with slight of hand, or just bluff his way out of a situation. The Doctor knows that in the wrong hands, his TARDIS is an extremely dangerous weapon, but he’ll give it up if the alternative is seeing Ace shot dead! When discussing paradoxes with Klein, he informs her that you cannot just dismiss history… because it’s more fragile than she could ever imagine.

◆ Ace

‘Colditz’ gives Sophie Aldred a lot of excellent material to work with, and she more than rises to the occasion here.

Ace feels safer than usual already; if the Doctor doesn’t know where they are, then she can’t be walking into one of his big master plans. The main reason she knows about the various escape routes at Colditz is because she’s played the board game. Her real name is Dorothy, but if Tim repeats that she’ll bray him! Following the events of this adventure, Ace wants some time off to think about things, without anybody trying to kill her. She also decides that it’s time to grow up, and decides to ditch her nickname… it’s just McShane now.

◆ Story Recap

Colditz Castle gained international infamy during World War II for its use as a Nazi prisoner of war camp. Often known as the “escaper’s prison” due to the fact its inmates had often made repeated escape attempts from other POW camps, it was believed to be the most secure prison in Germany at the time.

The Doctor and Ace arrive slap-bang in the middle of the castle grounds during 1944, and soon end up joining the large number of Allied detainees. Whilst Ace garners the unwelcome attention of the vile Feldwebel Kurtz, the Doctor comes face to face with a loyal servant of the Reich… a time traveller who claims to have come to Colditz from 1965, in the Doctor’s own TARDIS!

◆ The Oldest Paradox in the Book

There are some BigFinish releases where I just get a major boost of dopamine from reviewing them, and that is most definitely the case with ‘Colditz’. What starts out as seemingly another sublime pure-historical adventure, soon strays into the path of alternate history and the oldest paradox in the book. That is reason alone to kick off this section of the review by discussing one of the greatest creations in BigFinish history – Elizabeth Klein.

The idea of the Nazis somehow gaining a last-minute advantage and winning the Second World War has been present in the world of fiction for donkeys years! Whether your point of reference is the work of Phillip K Dick (The Man in the High Castle) or the critically acclaimed Wolfenstein franchise, you have likely encountered this idea on your travels before.

Klein makes her presence known towards the end of the first part; a fervent believer in National Socialism and the benefits of fascism in general. The Seventh Doctor is the incarnation most likely to be in control of a situation, most likely to be pulling the strings, but Klein sweeps into Colditz and immediately feels like she has an advantage over him. She’s an incredible force of nature, utterly ruthless and in control.

In her timeline, Ace accidentally left her CD Walkman behind at Colditz Castle, which allowed the Third Reich to reverse engineer its laser technology. That technological edge catapulted them to an unprecedented victory, and helped them to win the race against America to create the first atomic bomb. A timeline that the Doctor managed to avert in this adventure. By the end of ‘Colditz’, Klein has become a refugee in our reality… and it’s only a matter of time before she crosses paths with the Doctor again!

Klein is such a phenomenally interesting character, and Tracey Childs does an incredible job at bringing her to life. I absolutely cannot wait to dive into the trilogy where she returns, because it genuinely features what I consider to be the greatest Seventh Doctor adventure of all time (‘The Architects of History’).

◆ Sound Design

Anybody who has read my reviews of the early ‘Bernice Summerfield’ range will be aware that Toby Richards and Emily Baker have gained a fair bit of notoriety. I use this saying a lot, but their sound design is genuinely enough to make me take an orbital sander to my eardrums! So imagine how shocked I was to hear that they did an absolutely excellent job with ‘Colditz’. The titular POW camp is brought to life with a really high degree of quality, and I was genuinely very impressed.

Floodlights wink into life as Nazi soldiers storm the castle’s courtyard, their heavy boots marching in unison on the stone ground. Gunfire, as Feldwebel Kurtz shoots the Doctor in the shoulder. Modern dance music blasts out of Ace’s CD Walkman. A piercing siren acts as a morning chorus for the inmates of Colditz Castle. Allied prisoners chat amongst themselves in the castle’s courtyard, with one even playing a harmonica. Clanking cutlery and crockery in the prison canteen. Klein fires her pistol at a fleeing Doctor. Kurtz and a pack of dogs chase after Ace and Gower, as they make their escape attempt. The ending of this story is extremely gruesome; Kurtz is ripped apart as the TARDIS dematerialises, with only half of him aboard!

◆ Music

Richards and Baker are also handling the score for ‘Colditz’. They make excellent use of hard-hitting drum beats, which almost act like an analogy for the jack-boot of Nazi oppression. It’s an extremely well composed piece of music.

◆ Conclusion

“It’s never worth it Klein. There’s no excuse for genocide!”

The Doctor and Ace get stuck at one of history’s most infamous prisoner of war camps, only to be confronted by a woman who claims to be from the future… a future where the Third Reich lead a new golden age following their victory in the Second World War.

‘Colditz’ starts out like any other superbly written BigFinish pure historical, before veering into the realm of alternate history. Like the Doctor says in this adventure; it’s the oldest paradox in the book. What if the Nazis won the war? But more importantly, how can this horrifying fascist future be averted?

Sylvester McCoy and Sophie Aldred both deliver some superb performances, and a pre-Tenth Doctor David Tennant does a fantastic job as the utterly vile Feldwebel Kurtz. However, it’s Tracey Childs who steals the show here as Klein.

‘Colditz’ is one of the best written stories the Seventh Doctor has ever received, and that is a hill I’d happily die on.

Colditz is a lot of fun and has a lot of interesting facets to it. David Tennant as Kurtz is memorable and he really conveys this sense of being an unhinged lunatic. It's hard to not to hear the Tenth Doctor in his performance but I think it's just because we're so familiar with him as a performer, because I think if anything he elevates the role past the more limited secondary villain content that was in the script. Ace is outstanding in this story, showing her uniqueness as a companion by being a consistent cog in the gear of the Third Reich. Sophie Aldred is so good here. The setting is well done and feels like, in spite of being a dark period, it is done justice.

I only have a couple of critiques. First, though a lot of people seem to like Klein, I found her a bit off-putting. I didn't quite enjoy her performance and found her storyline interesting but the execution ever so slightly lacking - not quite living up to her potential. Still, it was enough to leave me curious about the future of her character and I look forward to hearing those audios, too. And the Seventh Doctor, while a delight, was a little hard to understand around the music and effects. I had trouble hearing him a few times and even a couple other characters which kind of stinks because otherwise Colditz is fantastic, full of great ideas, and absolutely worth any Who fan's time. The effects and music are good too, they just can't ever get in the way of the dialogue during a listening experience.

Colditz is one of Big Finish’s earlier releases and has a number of claims to fame. It’s the story which introduced Elizabeth Klein to the Whoniverse. It’s the one that’s got David Tennant in it playing a nasty Nazi and it’s the one with the really, really, really bizarre and horrid sound design that makes you wonder how Big Finish even let it past quality control.

The 7th Doctor and Ace arrive at Colditz Castle, are immediately captured and spend the rest of the story trying to escape – but with the added complication of the appearance of Klein, a Nazi agent who has a surprising knowledge of the Doctor and his TARDIS. It transpires that Klein is from the future – a future where the Nazis won the war and she has travelled back in time to capture the Doctor.

The timey-wimey nature of this tale is a little difficult to get your head around to begin with (although get’s clarified greatly in the later releases ‘Klein’s Story’ which was released as part of a trilogy of stories where Klein temporarily becomes the Doctor’s companion) but it is a good conceit for a story which, ultimately, doesn’t have much else going for it.

Putting the time travelling Nazi plot aside for a moment, Colditz is a simple tale about the Doctor and Ace being trapped in Colditz castle and trying to escape. There is a ‘stiff upper lip’ RAF commander; a traitorous English civilian; a nasty, lecherous Nazi and a considerate, compassionate German officer. Ace is bolshy and defiant in the face of the Nazis and the Doctor runs rings around them, or at least before he gets dragged off into the time travel plot. It feels a little like the TARDIS has materialised in a black and white war film rather than the real history.

Fortunately, the mystery of Klein lifts the story beyond it’s rather mundane trappings and gives the listener something more original to enjoy. That said, the ‘Nazis win the war’ trope isn’t exactly original itself but I do want to find positives in this story. The guest cast is also excellent. Nicholas Young (from The Tomorrow People’ is excellent as Flying Officer Gower and David Tennant and Toby Longworth contrast each other well as the bad cop and good cop Nazis. Tracy Childs is superb as Klein and it’s easy to see why she eventually returned in a more regular role. McCoy and Aldred are both on top form and overall the cast make a really good job of what, to be honest, isn’t the most original of scripts.

But why am I so desperate to find the good in this release? It’s because it is a really difficult story to listen to – physically. The sound design on this is utterly atrocious. Interior scenes sound like they’ve been recorded in a metal box. Characters walk, accompanied by a clip clop sound effect. Background ‘wild tracks’ of prisoners chatting literally cut off dead when a main character starts talking. It is really, really bad and when there are audio stories which predate even Big Finish’s early releases that have better, more accomplished sound design it is surprising this was allowed out of Big Finish Towers. I’m also surprised more online reviews make barely a mention of it because, to my ears, it almost made the whole thing unlistenable.

It’s also the beginning of the rather odd narrative decision that BF took to have Ace start referring to herself as McShane in an attempt, I assume, to ‘mature’ the character. It doesn’t work and, I’m assuming BF realised this, as it doesn’t last past many 7/Ace releases. The maturing of Ace is achieved far more effectively with the introduction of Hex.

I do like Colditz. It contains a number of the tropes which have become common the World War Two stories and it isn’t the most original of stories but the cast make the best of it and Klein and her story are intriguing. The sound design is appalling but if you can ‘hear’ past it, it’s an enjoyable four episodes.