This being just a fairly standard story, nothing standout, nothing offensive. You kind of get the impression that they were mostly just playing it safe for this release, being so early in Big Finish's lifespan, which makes sense. That all said, some things do seem to come out of nowhere or just feel a little disconnected.

Gatiss hamming it up is always a bit of fun though, definitely my favourite part of the experience.

Doctor Who – The Monthly Adventures

#002. Phantasmagoria ~ 5/10

◆ An Introduction

Two companions from the Davison era had actually turned down the chance to join these audio adventures, and it would take many years for them to change their minds.

This meant BigFinish had to get creative in the early days, by controversially lengthening the amount of time Peri spent alongside this incarnation, and bringing a failed Egyptian Pharaoh aboard the TARDIS. I personally adore the Erimem tales… aside from THAT one, which I will unfortunately have to review one day!

Perhaps the most interesting thing they did to ensure variety in the Davison era stories was focusing on the period prior to ‘Planet of Fire’, when the only companion present was everyone’s favourite master of self-preservation: Turlough.

This unique TARDIS team would actually receive some excellent scripts, such as the jaw-droppingly good ‘Singularity’, or the politically charged ‘The Blazing Hour’.

This is NOT one of their good scripts.

◆ Publisher’s Summary

The TARDIS takes the Doctor and Turlough to the London of 1702 where a mysterious highwayman roams the streets, a local occultist has made contact with the dead and gentlemen of fashion are disappearing, only to find themselves in a chamber whose walls weep blood…

The time-travellers become enmeshed in the hideous plan of Sir Nikolas Valentine, a gambler at the mysterious Diabola Club who always seems to have a winning hand…

◆ The Fifth Doctor

Gatiss has been around the block more than a few times with this franchise, so you’d expect his characterisation to be on point, if nothing else. There is something truly endearing about the Doctor trying to teach his companion the rules of cricket… even when Turlough finds the game completely silly!

‘Phantasmagoria’ is far from being one of my favourite adventures, but you cannot deny that Peter Davison delivered a confident performance. He clearly had good chemistry with Steven Wickham too, making the friendship between the Doctor and Holywell seem quite believable.

Accused of being thieves in Holywell’s house, the Doctor quickly turns on the charm when he expresses an interest in his collection of exquisite artefacts. The Doctor actually manages to trick Valentine using his copy of the Wisden’s Almanack… because it just so happens to contain one of those deadly playing cards: the psychopathic killer of Daodalus touched it with his bare hands, signing his own death warrant!

◆ Vislor Turlough

This morally dubious misfit has long been one of my favourite companions, so it saddens me that he spent most of this outing teamed up with two of the most aggravating characters! Look on the bright side: the next adventure featuring this TARDIS team – ‘Loups-Garoux’ – gives Turlough more than his fair share of the action.

Mark Strickson is an excellent actor, as anyone that’s seen my reviews of the “Older Nyssa” arc will know. Unfortunately, his performance in ‘Phantasmagoria’ was incredibly wooden.

Turlough thinks the whole game of cricket is silly; he can’t think why the Doctor is so keen on it. He liked learning history at Brendon.

◆ Human Spark Plugs

A psychopathic murderer from the planet Daodalus managed to escape execution, but his biomechanical spacecraft was damaged whilst doing so, and he was forced to land on Earth in 1672.

Adopting the guise of Sir Nikolas Valentine – scholar, landowner and astrologer – this serial killer spent the next thirty years abducting humans of high intelligence, and draining them of their life energies to aid his ship in repairing itself. By using homing beacons disguised as playing cards, he could scan each human, drawing the collective unconsciousness of his previous victims to the next target, which would teleport them back to his craft.

Unbeknownst to Valentine, another member of his species was looking to avenge the death of her parents, and she had finally tracked him down. Hannah began working as the maid for a local antiquarian, but finding Earth of 1702 to be extremely sexist, she adopted a second identity as highwayman Major Billy Lovemore, allowing her to go places a woman could not.

The concept of draining actual human souls and treating them like spare parts for a battered old Volvo is genuinely horrifying, and Gatiss could’ve went so much further with it. Can you imagine what this adventure would’ve been like if it leaned into the body horror of draining these people? A biomechanical craft with vampiric tendencies, and all the brutality of a Cyber-conversion unit! Anyway, Valentine becomes so incredibly cocky that the collective unconsciousness of his previous victims band together… and begin tearing him to shreds.

◆ Sound Design

Historical soundscapes are usually much more polished than futuristic ones, as a rule, during these early adventures. Alistair Lock has been one of the most prolific contributors to BigFinish over the past twenty-something years – working with them from the very beginning, before they’d even been granted the Doctor Who licence – and he did a pretty good job with ‘Phantasmagoria’. My biggest complaint is that we didn’t hear more of London during the Stuart Restoration.

Horses trotting through the night while town criers shout at passing folk. Punters of the Diabola Club can be heard entertaining themselves with gambling and debauchery. A crackling fire burns in Holywell’s house, an antique clock ticking in the background. An advanced intelligence, with a synthesised voice, observes our protagonists from afar. A horse and cart rushes past Turlough, knocking him down in the process. A thunderstorm breaks above Cheapside, and rain begins pouring from the heavens. Tortured souls wail in agony as they are slaved to Valentine’s biomechanical spacecraft. Church bells chime at the dawning of a new day. Valentine fires his energy weapon, melting Jasper’s gun! The biomechanical spacecraft explodes with some force.

◆ Music

The soundtrack for ‘Phantasmagoria’ is full of string instruments playing energetic melodies. The score also does a good job at amping up the drama, such as the scene where Flowers confronts Valentine about his friend’s disappearance. Overall, some solid work from Alistair Lock.

◆ Conclusion

“Amongst the dozens he has slaughtered were my mother and father! I swore I would avenge them, and now my chance has finally arrived.”

A serial killer from the planet Daodalus has been trapped on Earth for thirty years, abducting humans of high intelligence and draining them of their life energies to repair his biomechanical ship. He does this by using homing beacons disguised as playing cards…

A couple of you on the TARDIS Guide forum tried convincing me this was an excellent early Davison adventure, but that’s certainly not how I remembered it. Having completed my review, I can confirm that ‘Phantasmagoria’ is still insufferably boring.

This is easily one of the most interesting TARDIS teams, so it saddens me that Turlough was lumbered with two of the most aggravating side characters! It also doesn’t help that Strickson’s performance was as stiff as a board. Quite frankly, Davison was carrying this entire production.

From the man who brought us ‘Nightshade’, here’s an adventure through Restoration London that could easily have been half the runtime. I cannot understand the appeal of this one… and it contains that creep David Walliams, so that’s instantly a mark against it. Christ, this adventure is seriously held together with duct-tape!

Well, continuing on with the Main Range. Here we have Phantasmagoria, this is the first Big Finish story to focus around one doctor and the first to feature a companion. Given how much of an important story this is for Big Finish it's disappointing how much of a nothing burger it is. I don't even have an awful lot to say on it, it's not a bad story by any means, in fact there's a number of good elements, it just struggles to actually be entertaining of memorable in any way. I suppose starting with the things I do like about this story, I think the setting is very good for Five. He works well in this kind of environment, he particularly plays off characters like Holywell quite well; in fact this story has some good moments of humour from both Turlough and the doctor. Turlough is probably my favourite part of this story. He has the perfect level of snark and pessimism, yet still ultimate kindness that he should have by this point in his character arc. So the characterisation is good but the story is just... eh. Even now I'm struggling to remember what exactly happens, it doesn't help that the audio format makes it a bit harder to follow. The plot just moves along too slowly and even though I like the setting, it's not really used very well. Things do get a tad more interesting in the final part where the villain's plan comes together but it's just too little too late. Not a bad story, just sadly a bit forgettable. 5/10 / 2½ stars.

02.01.2022

Meh. Surprisingly hard to follow, I don't think it's just the audio format. The villain is evil for the sake of it, the setting is not interesting enough, the side characters are forgettable. 1/5, there's nothing in it for me.

Well we're not off to an amazing start after Sirens. I wasn't particularly impressed with it. It's a Mark Gatiss script and it shows.

The plot is a very basic one of an alien warlord kidnapping people off the street in 18th century London to escape the Earth. There's nothing super interesting about it except for another alien who is both a highwayman and a lady servant in an antiquarian's house.

Peter Davison gets his first real audio but I wasn't super impressed. He has a tendency to mutter his lines a lot and it makes him hard to hear. I'm not sure if that's purposeful or not. He's still a very passive Doctor, letting the plot happen to him and waiting to see what happens before jumping into action. He does trick the villain into touching his own playing card which links his biodata to the system which is cute. In the first audio he was being tricksy as well so maybe that's what they're going for with him? I do like how he gets very interested in the antiquarian's collection when they land.

It's interesting that they went with Turlough as the first companion from the show. Maybe he was just the only one they could get. But he doesn't really have his usual mischievous/trouble making personality here. No "Face it Tegan he's drowned!" to be found here.

Also, I don't know if I'm racist against white men or the 18th century period accents through me off or what because it's kind of hard to keep track of which character is which. I'm also surprised the villain wasn't the Master. It feels like he was meant to be.

This is part of a series of reviews of Doctor Who in chronological timeline order.

Previous Story: Resurrection of the Daleks

There's not really much to say here, this is a very traditional historical. I'd like to praise the soundscape here, I feel like early Big Finish is very atmospheric and the soundscape does wonders for that. You're fully immersed in the hustle-and-bustle of the Diabola Club.

The cast all do a good job, I find that recently made historicals have an issue of the actors often sounding too modern but it seems this is something that at the very least this story doesn't suffer from. I'm not always a fan of forcing alien plots into adventures that could be lovely as pure historicals but I find the alien aspect of this story to be very good. It leads to an absolutely fantastic cliffhanger that still stands the test of time.

Peter Davison and Mark Strickson are great from the get-go, both seamlessly entering their roles again after nearly 20 years. Overall, it's nothing experimental or remarkable but it's the story that proved Big Finish can emulate and elevate the Classic Who formula perfectly.

Next Story: Loups-Garoux

The Monthly Adventures #002 - "Phantasmagoria" by Mark Gatiss

The Fifth Doctor is the one pre-Whitaker Doctor I never gelled with. It’s not that he’s too human, or irritable, or catty, I just found him to be ultimately very dull and fall short of the other Doctors before and after him. This isn’t bashing the incarnation, I still find a lot of his stories fun and I don’t even dislike him all that much - Davison is a stellar performer - it’s just that compared to his predecessors and successors, he doesn’t quite reach the heights they did. However, since it’s Big Finish that ultimately turned me around to loving the Sixth Doctor, I expect them to at least get close to the same with Five, beginning with an eerie mystery set in Stuart England: Phantasmagoria.

Landing in 18th Century London, the Doctor and Turlough become embroiled in the occult research of a local physician and the machinations of the mysterious Sir Valentine and the victims of his card table at the local gambling club.

(CONTAINS SPOILERS)

Gatiss is not a writer I would label as a favourite. On one hand, he did write Nightshade, which stands as one of my favourite Doctor Who stories period, but he also wrote a litany of bland and overall unimpressive stories for TV, all of which fail to wow me. His audio output seems to be somewhere in between - Phantasmagoria is certainly not a bad audio or a poor introduction to the regular formula of The Monthly Adventures, but it’s definitely not a story one would remember after listening to it. It’s an absolute joyride - fun and lighthearted without feeling shallow or childish - but past that, it isn’t much. Davison and Strickson are both great and they carry their respective subplots, easily slipping back into their characters. David Ryall’s performance as the infinitely eerie Nikolas Valentine is another great strength of this audio and his inherent otherworldliness helps the horror elements of the audio break through. As for plot, it’s nothing standout, a simple mystery that is slowly revealed to be alien in origin but I will highlight the part three twist of two characters - Hannah, the kindly maid, and Lovemore, the dashing highwayman - being the same alien in two disguises hunting for Valentine was a genuinely fun reveal that breathed some new life into the story for the final part.

However, as with most of Gatiss’ works, Phantasmagoria is really nothing unique. It boasts a bunch of great ideas - an alien masquerading as nobleman gambler, the Doctor performing a seance, Valentine’s living spaceship - but it never focuses on any of them for too long and we only ever see glimpses of more interesting stories passing us by in favour of the narrative’s next fixation. Another flaw of Gatiss’ script is that he cast himself and his mate - David Walliams - as two characters that are just ridiculous: overacted caricatures that turn the episode into a pantomime and frankly, they have next to no reason for being so over the top. Eventually, the story wraps up in a pretty lacklustre way with Valentine being tricked easily and most characters escaping completely unharmed, nothing to write home about.

Overall, Phantasmagoria was a fun if narratively lacking story that never spent enough time on all its conflicting ideas. It’s a Gatiss script if I’ve ever seen one, inoffensive but far from bad, certainly a worthy opener to the Main Range formula going forwards.

7/10

Pros:

+ Tremendous fun that really keeps up a great pace

+ Valentine was a terrifically creepy villain with a great performance behind him

+ The reveal of Hannah/Lovemore’s identity was a fun part three twist

+ Strickson and Davison both nail their performances on the first go

Cons:

- Full of great ideas that are minimally explored

- Gatiss and Walliams play overacted and unfortunately prominent characters.

- The ending falls mostly flat

bit of a pantomime in places with the acting, gatiss..... this story was just fine? and a common complaint i'm gonna have with this range is i really prefer 2 or 3 part stories at the most, so the fact this range is pretty much mostly 4 parts.... ah well.

Phantasmagoria is a very special story.  In my eyes, it was the first ‘proper’ Doctor Who story that Big Finish released.  Yes, I know, of course The Sirens of Time came first (and very exciting it was too – I still have photographs of my two friends and I on the train back from an autograph signing at the 10th Planet store in Barking clutching our signed copies of that CD with ridiculous expressions of glee) but it isn’t really representative of either Big Finish’s output or the ‘classic’ Doctor Who they were trying to emulate in the early days.Phantasmagoria, on the other hand, is a traditional Doctor Who story (although with its 5th Doctor/Turlough pairing it could still be argued that ‘proper classic’ Doctor Who doesn’t appear until Whispers of Terror with the 6th Doctor and Peri seeing as Turlough only ever appeared as a ‘solo companion’ with the Doctor once and that was when he was leaving, Peri was joining and the production team suddenly remembered that Kamelion was still on board the TARDIS).

There are three Big Finish releases I can remember precisely where I was when listening to them.  ‘Dust Breeding’ was in my bedroom at my parent’s house with the CD in the stereo sitting on my sofa.  I had to replay the cliffhanger to Episode 2 about 3 times because I couldn’t believe the reveal that had just occurred.  ‘Scherzo’ was whilst driving to work one day because I almost crashed the car when a sound effect was used to shocking effect.  Phantasmagoria was sitting on the floor of my bedroom.  I punched the air moments before the reveal at the end of Episode 3 of who Major Billy Lovemore was as I finally twigged.

I love Phantasmagoria.  I remember thinking at the time that 18th century England was a time and place Doctor Who rarely visited (as this marathon’s upcoming schedule proves) and as a result this felt like something a bit different and a bit, for want of a better word, exotic.  Mark Gatiss’s script is a little rough round the edges and does betray a lack of experience with audio only writing as a few too many characters talk to themselves (Turlough is a particularly bad offender in the early episodes) but his characters and plot more than make up for it.  Every character is well written with some brilliant dialogue (similes spout forth from practically every character and I lost count of the number of glorious outbursts such as ‘tish’ and od’s fish as characters reacted to the bizarre events unfolding around them) and this is rewarded by performances which are top notch.  Particularly delightful are David Walliams as Quincy Flowers (and Ned Cotton) and Julia Dalkin as Hannah.  Mark Gatiss himself takes the role of Jaspar Jeakes and although he sounds a little ‘League of Gentlemen’ he clearly loves playing such a grotesque character.  David Ryall is simply wonderful as Sir Nikolas Valentine, the villain of the piece.  He is gloriously over the top towards the end, but it fits the florid, hyperbolic nature of the story.

The plot is interesting as it revolves around apparent supernatural occurrences, which seems to be a bit of a running theme for the 5th Doctor in Big Finish’s productions.  The 5th Doctor also faced spirits in Winter for the Adept and elements of the supernatural such as werewolves and living gods like Kwundaar in Primeval.  What’s interesting is the contrast in approach to the supernatural in Phantasmagoria and Winter for the Adept.  In the latter, the Doctor seems very open to the idea of supernatural beings such as poltergeists and doesn’t set out to find a rational explanation.  In Phantasmagoria however he is the rational foil to Dr Holywell’s believer in spirits.

The atmosphere of the piece is fairly horrific, even when the science fiction kicks in during the final episode.  Valentine’s ‘house of blood’ is gruesome.  Much of this story was, apparently, inspired by a League of Gentlemen sketch which I can well believe.  I’m a big fan of The League of Gentlemen and their dark humour and there is, in fact, a section in the film, League of Gentlemen Apocalypse which very much echoes the atmosphere of this piece (and features Sir Isaac Newton himself, David Warner as a villain not far removed from Valentine.

Historically, Phantasmagoria probably has more in common with The League of Gentlemen and Blackadder the Third than it does with anything approaching reality.  That said, it is very specific about its placing in 1702 and the recent death of William of Orange which discussion about who will ascend to the throne (with the agreement that Princess Anne is the most likely candidate).  Also, the presence of gentlemen’s clubs and the foppish nature of characters such as Quincy lend a historically atmospheric air to proceedings.  What I found interesting was how this background to the story hints at a shift in English society.  So far in this marathon, the historical stories have had a clear divide between royalty and peasants.  Here I believe we see the beginnings of the middle classes.  Characters such as Jeakes, Quincy and Holywell and not nobility but nor are they servants like Hannah (and even she is not really poor).  They are people who have money (either through inheritance or work) and are free to spend it how they wish, whether that is collecting antiques and curiosities (in Holywell’s case) or gambling, drinking and eating (Jeakes and Flowers).  The nearest we’ve come to characters like this, so far, have been people such as Richard Mace and Shakespeare, but they have been stand out characters among the more traditional divides between rich and poor we have been accustomed to.  Phantasmagoria is populated by this new breed of character.

The other aspect of note is the first Doctor Who appearance of a highwayman.  This romantic notion is immensely popular throughout literature with the likes of Dick Turpin, but is something mysteriously lacking from Doctor Who, at least on television.  Again the closest we have is Richard Mace in The Visitation.  Big Finish finally delved into the highwayman trope with The Doomwood Curse, but even that is not straightforward.  The Hannah/Lovemore reveal in Phantasmagoria owes a lot to the common conceit of highwaymen being women in disguise but even that is given a science fiction flourish and consequently it seems we are still waiting for Doctor Who to do a ‘proper’ highwayman-based adventure.

One weird thing I did notice was how obvious it was that certain people were playing more than one part.  It’s probably because I’ve listened to this story quite a few times and also because David Walliams character voices are so familiar now from Little Britain and his other projects.  Also, the duality of Hannah and Lovemore is actually really obvious when you know its coming and there are plenty of clues littered throughout the first three episodes before the big reveal at the end of Episode 3. But then, that’s a bit like watching The Sixth Sense once you know the twist (and no, I didn’t get that one till about five minutes before it was revealed – I’m a bit thick like that sometimes!)

Phantasmagoria is, as you can probably tell, a favourite of mine.  It is fun, atmospheric and has a good villain at its heart.  The cast are clearly enjoying themselves and it shows how, even right at the beginning, Big Finish knew exactly what they were doing, rough round the edges though it might be.  The presence of Big Finish stalwarts Steven Wickham and Jez Fielder adds to the nostalgia value for me and all in all this is a story I could revisit time and time again and never grow tired of.

Sadly the second audio of the original Main Range is one I also find a little lacking. With a pretty boring story I don't think Phantasmagoria is really worth the time of a lot of Who fans for various reasons. I wish the story took more advantage of the setting, but it feels like a trivial detail of the audio rather than a front-and-centre feature. Turlough has potential but it doesn't feel realized here. The music and sound effects are just fine, leading to a very average experience overall, and one that was slow/dry enough that I hardly want to revisit it any time soon.

I was somewhat surprised. The story is far better than I remember, the comedy is excellent, and the period setting is well-realized. The problem with the story is mainly that it feels very cut down in places and padded in others. The twist cliffhanger for Part Three happens with minimal buildup, and the plot changes focus quickly.

A great outing from the Fifth Doctor in his first solo release. The plot is fairly simple, but with enough going on for the entire cast to get a good scene or two. It is paced fairly well, with no real lull. The voice cast is stacked, with a few familiar voices, and they all perform great. The audio work is solid, with the music and effects done very well. Overall and solid release by Big Finish.