The Trials of a Time Lord

➡️6/10 = OKAY!

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

“A MISHMASH OF SIXIE: A COMMENTARY”

Big Finish continues celebrating 40 years of the 6th Doctor with the second 6th Doctor set of the year—this time joining him with Mel against the Cybermen. The Quin Dilemma was a fairly uneven release for me, so will The Trials of a Time Lord serve any better?

• THE STORY

Part 1 goes all in on conversions and sinister atmospheres, to a point where I felt that I’d jumped straight into an adventure rather than to the beginning of it. It also sets up the plot of this strange planet, used by the Cybermen as a major cyber conversion factory, filled with prisoners who end up on the planet out of nowhere. Still, this opening installment is a bit of a rough start for the adventure.

Interestingly, we get a very intriguing ending to Part 1, which reveals everything to be part of a scripted reality horror series, thus changing the rules of the game significantly (and tapping into that 1980s media critique feel of the televised Sixie stories; see Vengeance on Varos). What makes it more intriguing is that we learn that the Cybermen are in on the ruse, just to receive more bodies to convert. And so begins the greatest show in the galaxy, the very first TV show starring the Doctor!

I guess part of the charm of this release comes from the way Big Finish tells a meta-level narrative here and pokes fun at the very show they are contributing to.

First off, Sixie has to make it through a cooking show with the Androgums in Roshana Patel’s Part 2. It doesn’t achieve much as narrative development goes.

Katharine Armitage takes over writing duties for the middle two parts. She brings the older warrior queen Peri into the fray and makes Part 3 a parody of The Traitors. It’s sort of annoying how there is a lot going on, yet somehow, the story barely moves an inch.

Part 4 brings in Davros, who is the “big boss” behind everything but really another pawn in the game. This proves to be a more fun episode, as the Doctor and Davros have to work together to make it through.

The final two episodes complicate things further as the Master pops up and reveals himself as the big bad. Jon Culshaw makes another great performance here.

The very last episode turns things tense again as Davros takes over and begins using Daleks and Robomen in an attempt to take over the universe.

• THE PEOPLE

Mel is mostly on her own, learning about the wider background of the people involved in the story. Bonnie Langford is delightful and plays as well along with ally Voss Nimm (George Naylor). Similarly, Peei is as energetic as ever, and since this is her older version, she is a bit more seasoned than usual.

Tiffany Jenkins takes on the role of the primary companion. She has supposedly been travelling with the Doctor and Evelyn previously, and her constant battle between her normal self and her Cyber self brings good dramatic tension to the plot.

The Cybermen show up right off the bat, as the TARDIS takes the Doctor and Mel to Siberia. We don’t have to wait three episodes until a sloppy cliffhanger reveal for once!

I really love to hear the legendary David Banks back as the Cyber Leader. He pops up here and there, but the focus is never on him, sadly. Similarly, Terry Molloy is a delight as Davros, whose cliffhanger reveal at the end of Part 3 is spoilt by the cover art. Davros is used well here, as he begins the story as an unwilling ally to the Doctor before attempting to take over the show from everyone.

The Androgums from The Two Doctors pop us as well, and they bring plenty of colour and humour into the story. John Culsahw provides yet another perfect impression of the race in his performance as Stunrib.

The aliens running the show are sort of annoying. They constantly stress about appreciation indexes and ratings but end up more grating than villainous. They are meant to parody all these TV channel bosses, but I think that the writers have overshot the characterisation a little.

There are a lot of minor voices here, and it is sometimes difficult to keep up with everyone.

• MUSIC AND SOUND

The sound design is quite nice. The conversions sound horrifying. The cold winds of Siberia sweep over you. The music is very reminiscent of the era.

• ATMOSPHERE

This story is mostly a mishmash of ideas, references, and plot points plucked from the Sixth Doctor's TV era, and it’s too thin to make for an exciting plot to fill out six episodes. The exciting ending means that it's not completely wasted, though.

There are many elements to this story that I enjoy, such as the commentary on the future of television/streaming/AI. An obsession with viewing figures, cancelling shows before they're even given a chance. Focusing on reality TV because that's what gets the big numbers, art be damned.

But ultimately it feels as if it's guilty of the very thing it's trying to critique.

With endless cameos, it almost becomes comical at how many character reveals there are. I think it's supposed to be intentional but at points it doesn't feel like commentary, but just fan service.

I think the premise has been done before in Vengeance on Varos, and done better there imo.

All in all, I think our main characters had quite a bit to do, and Mel was a real joy. It was an enjoyable listen, but I think at six episodes, it's premise runs out of steam and turns into a Monster Mash. I prefer conversational Big Finish over Action Set Pieces.

Folks, this one just didn't do it for me.

Firstly, it was way too long. Emphasis necessary. The plot and the conception of said plot was not done interestingly enough to warrant a three-hour story. I got bored early prior to the half-way point as the obligatory set-up episodes felt like they dragged on and on even though the credits kept rolling into new segments. There was never a moment where I felt like, "Okay, now the good stuff's happening". Everything blended together like white paste. I understand that this set was meant to celebrate S23, but the storyline was basically a G-rated rejigging of S22's Vengeance on Varos with emphasis on the tired joke of how Doctor Who had ratings issues and got cancelled during Six's run. I honestly feel like being meta was the entire reason as to why they decided on this plot. I wish they would've created a story that paid homage to the season itself, rather than creating one giant reference about something that happened outside of the DW universe. It felt like a cop-out, like they couldn't decide on any other plot without resorting to that tired joke. Let's put Six in a show where he causes the ratings to go down and eventually gets the show cancelled! So very funny. So very original.

And this probably wouldn't have been an issue if they would've chosen different writers. Trials tried to be lighthearted but fell flat from the beginning. Rayner has done a similar storyline much better with "Like" from the Six and Peri Boxset, and the Ninth Doctor TV episode was great also. There was actual humor and jocularity infused within those, but without turning it into a mockery of itself. Nev probably would've done a fine job of it also, as would have the duo who wrote The One Doctor. There were too many characters in Trials, and yet too much of nothing going on.

I was pleasantly surprised that Warrior Queen Peri made an appearance that sustained throughout the setions, but even she couldn't save this story. Considering this was the first time she'd seen the Doctor since Mindwarp, they didn't seem too shocked to see each other, nor was there much in the way of "catching up with old pals". For all of the audios in Big Finish's backlog where Six literally chases after her and tries to bring her back to him (not to mention all the times he weeps or mourns for her in conversation with other characters), he was incredibly understated here in terms of her arrival. She, too, didn't sound that ecstatic to see him.  Peri's grown up now but, considering their history, I was expecting more saccharinity and expressions of gratitude and friendship. On that same note, Mel and Peri, who have never met before, didn't have much of an introductory conversation either. They acted as though they'd known each other for years which didn't make sense.

I looked up each of the three authors who wrote Trials on the Big Finish site to see what their bibliography consists of. Lo and behold, none have written for Six, Peri, or Mel. I can tell. This entire set read like a story in which none of the authors were too familiar with how the characters should interact with each other; as if, once they were asked to write for the set, they watched an episode or two of the series and started writing. Everything was just off. I also came to learn that one of these authors also wrote for the Bayban the Butcher set. I had this same experience with her in that audio as well, as the characterization of Bayban was astoundingly inaccurate compared to the show. I could be weird, but I wouldn't hire someone to write a fannish story when they aren't fannish about the requested characters. The inexperience shows in their writing. (As an aside, while the Bayban set was out of character almost from start to end, it was, without a doubt, a more entertaining set than this).

It's disappointing that both anniversary sets for Six were effectively middling for me. This one wasn't terrible, but aggressively average; while Quin Dilemma wavered between entertaining and boring depending on the episode. The latter remains my preference, however. It had Rayner, Peri, emotional scenes, humorous scenes, oh, and stuff actually happened. There were absolutely no highs and lows in Trials; everything stayed at an even keel which, in this case, made it something I easily tuned out of.