The One Doctor

23.06.2022

Douglas Adams done right. All the absurdity with focus on the characters and a loose structure to keep it together. The only problem I have with it is that the hilarious premise is tossed to the side for a while until the end. Nevertheless, it is definitely worth the listen. 4/5

(Originally Written on TheTimeScales)

This is a story that I listen when Christmas rolls around.

It’s just such a breezy, feel good adventure. The Doctor and Mel are just perfection, it’s a shame we rarely saw something like this on screen. The comedy is on point. This is a consistently funny story. The plot is a generic fetch quest but that’s also kinda the point. It definitely helps that the trials of getting these treasures are so creative and funny. Banto and Sally-Anne are fun characters basically being bootleg, scamming versions of the Doctor and companion but they have enough substance to be actual characters rather than a parody.

Just… I love this one. It’s one of those stories that’s just so hard to hate. One of my favorite audios Big Finish ever released.

(DISCLAIMER: THIS IS A STORY WRITTEN BY GARETH ROBERTS, A FIGURE WHO HAS MADE HIMSELF INFAMOUS IN THE DOCTOR WHO COMMUNITY THROUGH REPEATED VILE AND NASTY COMMENTS MADE ON SOCIAL MEDIA. THIS REVIEW IS NOT AN ENDORSEMENT OF HIM AS A PERSON, PURELY HIS WORK. DO NOT TAKE ANY PRAISE I LEVEL AT HIM HERE AS ADMIRATION TOWARDS HIS UTTERLY BACKWARDS VIEWPOINTS. ANYWAYS, WITH THAT OUT OF THE WAY, PLEASE DO ENJOY).

The Monthly Adventures #027 - "The One Doctor” by Gareth Roberts and Clayton Hickman

Comedy in Big Finish is always something I find impressive. Non-visual comedy will rely a lot on script and performance and very rarely can you cheese it, so when it works, it really works (and by extension, when it doesn’t it very much doesn’t). Gareth Roberts, for all his many, many, many faults, is a rather accomplished comedy writer and whilst his efforts in the show rarely land for me - although whether that’s his fault or James Corden’s I’ll never know - his expanded media often do and even, dare I say it, emulate the legendary Douglas Adams’ and his ultra-specific brand of dry British sci-fi comedy. So what happens when the Doctor gets his identity stolen?

Chasing a distress signal, the Doctor and Mel discover a planet in celebration, for he has saved them, along with his plucky companion Sally-Anne. But how could that be? And what will these imposters do when a real alien invasion comes a-calling?

(CONTAINS SPOILERS)

A self-parody was a concept that, by this point, was very overdue in Doctor Who, and I don’t think that there could’ve been a better execution of the concept than this. It is very unfortunate that Gareth Roberts is this good at writing comedy. Centre to this glorious pantomime are Banto Zame and Sally-Anne, the respective Doctor and companion con artists that are paired with our main cast for the duration of the episode and they are an absolute joy to have around. Christopher  Biggins is certainly the stand out performer here: he manages to blend a genuinely good impression of the Doctor with a two-bit crook swindling his way out of situations with Saul Goodman levels of bullshitting. Sally-Anne also is shockingly endearing as a companion and, though the main focus is on her having an oddball romantic fixation on Sixie, she makes for an honestly great one-time traveller. These are two characters that I feel wouldn’t work in pretty much any other context, and I think the creative team of Hickman and Roberts pull it off so well because of their Adamsesque comedy, which encourages mundane absurdity and a teatime perspective of the universe at large. But enough about their imposters, how does the real Doctor and companion fare in this story? Really very well I say; we are on the furthest side of the Big Finish to Twin Dilemma spectrum and Six is very much like a pompous teddy bear, constantly arguing with the vocabulary of a thesaurus and getting hurt by Banto’s less than flattering impersonation - his inherent ego makes me consider him to have been the best choice of Doctor for this story. And I think it’s time we talk about Mel, because she was one of my least favourite companions ever until a few months ago; her lineup of stories and reputation as the 80s’ screamer caused her image in my mind to turn sour, and only because of some of her Big Finish appearances and her glorious return to the revival (or revival’s revival) have I become aware of the more nuanced and interesting side of her character. Bonnie Langford is the main reason I enjoy Mel so much (Langford is just magnificent in the role) but I also feel that, whilst not working quite as well as somebody like Evelyn, she worked so much better as a companion to Six than Peri; their personalities just seemed to fit together well. Her and Seven however? I am yet to be convinced of that pairing’s worth. One other thing I’d like to note is the music, which I found to be incredibly immersive this time around and very reminiscent of the scores found in the 80s era, which is great since the inherent camp of this script is very much a product of JNT’s loud and proud era.

As for negatives, I find that The One Doctor slips up in the same way as many other audios - story troubles. Whilst I found the middle section to be some excellent, witty shenanigans, like trying to end a game show that's been running for millennia or attempting to build the universe’s most egregious IKEA shelf, the beginning and end both stumble. For one, this story takes surprisingly long to start moving - we’ve barely seen our inciting incident and already Part One is over - and really the story only gets good when Banto and Sally-Anne get grouped with our regulars. Also, I found the script to lose steam somewhat by the end and Part Four to be a bit of a drag. Spending twenty minutes waiting for a slime-man’s  (oddly enough voiced by Matt Lucas) package to arrive is a concept that just doesn’t sustain itself for the whole runtime and by this point you’re just waiting for the neat little conclusion at the end, which we do get but only after a peculiar musical number from the aforementioned Matt Lucas slime man.

The One Doctor really was a breath of fresh air, a witty and unique trip that feels as if Douglas Adams wrote for Who in the 80s. A great cast and some absolutely sidesplitting antics make this whole thing an absolutely great time but I find the jokes to take over from the story sometimes, leaving the narrative to fall just shy of the mark.

8/10

Pros:

+ Genuinely really funny

+ Banto and Sally-Anne were really fun as one-time TARDIS members

+ Six and Mel’s dynamic was great, with stand out performances from both actors

+ Great score that really captured the 80s

Cons:

- Part Four didn’t land as well as the previous three

- Takes too long to get going

MR 027: The One Doctor

Mwhahaha, I control everything. You must surrender to my will. I own Park Place ANNNNDD Boardwalk. That'll be 2354 pounds rent please.

Oh my god, what is this and why do I love it so much. I absolutely remember adoring this one and with good reason. This is the second one I explicitly remember from when I listened to all of these years ago, after The Holy Terror. While that one was a comedy AND a tragedy, this one is JUST a comedy. And a very good one at that. It makes fun of the Doctor Who formula quite well, and specifically multi-Doctor stories.

The Doctor and Mel land in the system of... ehem... Generios where an invasion of the evil Skelloids has just taken place. It turns out, though, that that invasion has been coordinated and manipulated by a certain couple of con artists posing as the Doctor and his companion. Banto Zame and Sally-Anne.They're just here for the money. And they're madly in love. Naturally.

But there's a real invasion afoot as a giant cylinder in space (which I imagine looks very like the whale probe from Star Trek 4) demands the three treasures of Generios.

The treasures involve an infinite shelf that exists in multiple dimensions with instructions that you can never quite finish, a quiz bot that knows absolutely everything in the entire universe by sending versions of himself back in time playing the Weakest Link for all of eternity, and an incredibly valuable diamond guarded by a single celled organism called The Jelloid who signed a fifty million year contract to defend it. And has currently been waiting one and a half million years for his television set to arrive. They put him on hold for fourty three thousand years and then gave him a two million year window in which to have it delivered, you see.
Seriously, the jokes here are fantastic. Absolutely everyone is on perfect form with their timings. Colin, Bonnie, and the guest actors who play the imposters. It's also notable for having a pre-Nardole Matt Lucas and he's also quite hilarious.

There are all kinds of running jokes here making fun of Doctor Who in general. I almost don't want to ruin them and just encourage everyone to listen to it yourself.

Whenever I saw that it was written by Gareth Roberts I was a little worried that it was just going to be conservative all the way through. There was a little bit of that with the Doctor bemoaning people not being able to save themselves, followed by the people of Generios saying they were useless in the invasion of the Skelloids, but for the most part it wasn't conservative, it was just making fun of Doctor Who in general.

I whole heartedly recommend this one. This is amazing. If you're invested in Doctor Who at all you need to hear it. It's a joy from start to finish. Not to mention the six minutes of quiz show questions at the end.

✅(8.65) = VERY GOOD!

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

The One Doctor is Big Finish going full farce and constantly surprising the listener with comical takes (beginning with the Monopoly gag!). The real fun starts once Sixie and Mel arrive on the planet Generios to save the day, only to notice that it’s already been saved by the Doctor and his companion—or someone claiming to be them.

Chrisoffer Biggins is simply perfect as the impostor Doctor, whose fraudulent ways are very un-Doctorish but whose gentlemanly ways make him very likable. His companion is hilarious, and the two of them remind me of the two frauds in Carnival of Monsters.

Colin Baker and Bonnie Langford are in top form. They are constantly funny, but they don’t make fools of themselves. The central quartet is amazing.

So this adventure relies on the mystery of the One Doctor (and his psychic screwdriver and STARDIS) and the constant, small, but ridiculous turns that maintain a jolly, light-hearted, and fun tone. Then there's a real alien threat as well, which needs to be solved.

While Part 2 is a little bit more of messing around, turning the story into a silly fetching mission, Part 3 surprises with a different opening tune followed by the Doctors joining a The Weakest Link-style eternal game show (yup, BF did it before RTD!), while Mel tries to assemble a seemingly impossible-to-assemble piece of furniture. This entire Part 3 is one of the funniest single episodes in BF history.