Gosh, where to start with this one?

Is there anything of interest to Maxie Masters? Well, it's hard to know from this story, as it's very basic and very by-the-numbers. If ever there was any hope for the 'new age BBV period', it certainly wasn't with the pen-work of Bill Baggs. Best I can discern post-listen is that someone else created this character and Bill decided at some stage to do a story that would act as a quick nice introductory piece for her.

Problem is - there's no substance to it. There's little sense to Maxie beyond 'recruited alien girl with computer skills, who fled a war on her planet' here. At less than 15 minutes, it's not an energetic piece but instead a vague messy one.

Baggs makes some choices - the closing line of this is "Naturally, [Maxie] blushed." in response to a workplace compliment from Giles. Which is only made funny rather than completely cringy by the fact that Maxie's story is narrated by Baggs himself. Despite the fact that the opening minute of the piece having a clear point of dialogue at which Baggs' Giles should clearly be handing over to another narrator to give Maxie's tale "in her own words..." - one wonders if there was a cast dropout, or a budget issue, or if Baggs simply got impatient. (He's got precedent for all three of those, I've heard!)

And, unfortunately, as has always been true with Baggs: he's just not an enthralling narrator. There's no sense of character, and very little in terms of selling the story. It's all rather flat. Very little was already on the page in terms of who Maxie is and how she's feeling about being brought into PROBE... And even less is made of it.

The sound design is competent, but stock, and the theme tune is... well, it's a tune that they've got as the theme. Even £3 is too much for it, and I've been very thankful to have been loaned a copy a friend bought some time ago. (As they've become a resident 'I will loan you this BBV stuff so you need not pay out for it' person.)

But, yeah, I think perhaps only Baggs could write the line "He’s a bright man, and kind. I’m very fond of him — he makes me smile." about Giles (a character created by and played by Baggs) to come from the lips of a character that Baggs is, apparently, playing in this audio. It's the kind of brazen and slightly pitiful thing one expects of a thirteen-year-old starting off. Whoever made Maxie, I hope you've been able to run away with her and get to make something of her one day.