Excelis Rising

I really like the way this follows on from the last part, it feels like a natural progression of the world, Anthony Head continues to give a great performance, and this time he get a lot more of an interesting part to work with.

The interplay between Six and Greyvorn is really fun, both of them trying to figure out exactly what's going on with the other, it's a fun murder mystery, and the worldbuilding you get is especially intriguing and makes me interested for the rest of the saga.

Overall an 8/10 for me, definitely closer to a 7 than a 9 though

7️⃣⏹️ = ENJOYABLE!

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

“MURDER ON THE MUSEUM FLOOR”

The second story in the Excelis trilogy sees the Sixth Doctor return to Artaris a thousand years after his previous visit, chasing another relic and solving another mystery. It’s written by David McIntee, mostly known for penning several novels for the Virgin and BBC Books ranges, in his audio debut.

This story gets to the point early on—there’s a murder and a strange artefact, and the Doctor arrives in time to investigate while also being a prime suspect. The story is strongly centred around the artefact, the mystery of Reeve, and the way the artefact strongly affects him.

Charles Kay appears in a fine performance as the Curator (no, not that one), while Atnhony Stewart Head returns in a different (but really the same) role as Reeve Maupassant. It’s very different (soft-spoken and devilishly calm) from his colourful take on Gravyorn in the previous story, but no less effective.

It’s a joy to listen to the dialogue between Stewart Head and Colin Baker; their chemistry here is even better than the one between Stewart Head and Peter Davison in Excelis Dawns.

The simple guitar jingle that keeps looping across the story is pretty infectious and a great moodbuilder. What bums me a bit, however, is that we don't get a good grasp on how Artaris has evolved since the Doctor's last visit, as the entire story is confined to the museum.

Excelis Rising moves along at a steady pace without being very exciting or action-packed. It’s very focused on its two main plot strands and allows the characters to move the narrative forward. It also remains true to its style and pace all the way through, delivering an interesting finale that doesn’t grow much from what comes before it. Everything is sort of wrapped up neatly and without fanfare.

RANDOM OBSERVATIONS:

• A murder mystery inside a museum featuring the 6th Doctor—where have I encountered such a story before? Oh yes, Whispers of Terror, the third release of the Big Finish Main Range!
• The Doctor mentions here that he is around 900 years of age, which would mean that he hasn’t aged a lot by the time he is in his 9th incarnation.

This was an alright audio. It does feel a little disappointing after all the build-up of Excelis Dawns, which, in comparison, I think did a better job of drawing me into this world.

The Excelis in this story is one a thousand years forward in time, a neat facet of the story but unfortunately Excelis Rising barely explores it. For reasons I can't really comprehend, writer David A McIntee for some reason confines the entire plot to largely interior scenes in a museum around a sort of murder mystery. The Sixth Doctor and Grayvorn - the latter assuming a new identity after all these years, are pretty entertaining sussing each other out and trying to outwit one another - it is basically all that is holding this story together. Thanks to the talents of Colin Baker and Anthony Stewart Head, Excelis Rising would have been a lot weaker.

The story is pretty unremarkable and the ending is incredibly abrupt, anti-climactic, and unsatisfying as a listener. Outside of a few details, like how seances are a legitimate means of investigation on this planet, and some vaguely interesting but unexplored ideas in terms of how this functions as a sequel to Excelis Dawn, this second part of the audio was pretty mediocre overall. Not bad, but pretty disappointing as I feel a lot was relying on it to successfully follow up and build on the first part of this story. If Rising isn't special, than this whole Excelis trilogy suddenly becomes a lot less worthy of being this seperate, special, pseudo-crossover thing Big Finish was going for here.

Finally, I will mention that the special effects were decent. Though not exceptional, I do like how the music and sound effects cued us to this being a different era of Excelis' history, and instantly gave it a distinct feel from Dawns.