Se destacar no gênero comédia quando aplicado em Doctor Who sempre é uma tarefa muito delicada, não é a atoa que temos inúmeros exemplos de histórias puramente cômicas que deram completamente errado em seus diversos formatos seja na Série de TV, áudio dramas, HQs entre outros. Felizmente não vem ao caso do brilhante e hilario roteiro de Gareth Roberts que brinca e debocha das duas principais figuras da série. Ao chegarem no sistema de Generios composto por dezessete planetas, os tripulantes da TARDIS se deparam com um casal estranho que possuem um status de grande fama – Logo sabemos que o motivo de tanta reverência vem pelo fato de terem salvado o povo de Generios de uma raça alienígena chamada “Skelloid”, na verdade “Banto” e “Sally-Anne” são dois farsantes que se passam pelo o ”Doctor e sua fiel companion” usando dessa mentira para ganharem recompensas seja elas dinheiro, créditos ou cristais preciosos. Sua suposta máquina do tempo se chamada “Stardis” que possui o formato do que os ingleses chamam de “Portaloo” traduzindo para o Português um banheiro químico hahaha e ao contrário da original (da TARDIS) ela é menor por dentro e maior por fora hahaha. Quando o casal cruza o caminho do Doctor e Mel nos embarcamos em uma aventura, uma corrida contra o tempo divertidíssima envolvendo itens coletáveis. O ponto forte do áudio é como ao decorrer do enredo as duas duplas lidam com o desentendimento existente entre elas fazendo um contraste cômico do “farsante” com o “original” – Além de dar um incrível dinâmica a eles, Gareth Roberts insere seus personagens em situações completamente inesperadas que geram muitas risadas do ouvinte, um planeta de robôs montadores de moveis que obrigam Mel e Banto a montarem uma prateleira seguindo as instruções de um manual complexo, um reality show de conhecimentos gerais onde o único candidato participante é uma inteligência artificial de busca de informações e dados o tornando infinito, o Doctor sendo engolido por uma Gelatina gigante de voz com o famoso efeito wacky “EEeeEEeeEeeE AAaaAAaaAAAAa” (essa parte é impossível não rir). Em resumo, é nítida a total influência de Douglas Adams em “The One Doctor”, uma história divertidíssima que conta com um humor de muito bom gosto onde temos uma ideia GENIAL, o original Doctor Who contra uma paródia muito mal feita de sua obra. Provavelmente a história mais engraçada de Doctor Who de todos os tempos, que supera qualquer especial de Natal feito pelo Série de TV.

Colin Baker truly shines in this one. You grow to love and appreciate his Doctor and also Mel (who I’ve never been particularly interested in) through their comparison with the fake doctor - who is everything the doctor shouldn’t be.

Baker is, of course, amazing in audio but does particularly well here because they don’t write him as too pretentious or judgmental - it’s a well judged portrayal. This story also proves that Doctor Who does not have to be serious to be engrossing. It’s properly funny.

I enjoyed it! I must say I was surprised by it, I went in not knowing what to expect by that title, but I must say it’s pretty good, actually. It’s not a masterpiece by any mean but from the early plays I listened from BF they did have some struggle to remain memorable in my head, for example it’s been longer since I listened to Dust Breeding, but I can’t remember much of it, besides the aspects I liked, this one on the other hand? Memorable for sure! The Idea is one that I am surprised wasn’t done much before (referring to the Idea of a “Fraud Doctor”) and the Comedy in this story really gives Colin a lot to work with in his Performance. In many way this feels like a much better Execution of the Core Idea of the Next Doctor, even if both differ from each other with having one being aware of being not the real thing and the other doesnt.
Overall, I enjoyed it!

Far and away one of my favorite Big Finish audios because it's just so damn funny. It had me cackling at some points.

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.