The Wormery

I'm always a fan of Paul Magrs, though he has a rather particular format. A mad, over-the-top (and sometimes hard to follow) plot; bonkers ideas pulled together into some sort of sense with Iris Wildthyme swanning through the plot like a chaotic juggernaut.

The Wormery follows this format, but it's not quite as successful as Magrs' other work. There's an oddly grim tone to the whole thing, rather than his usual tone of surrealist comedy. The framing device an elderly Mickey telling the horrid tale to a mysterious investigator (who later turns out to be the Seventh Doctor) adds a layer of abstraction to an already overblown plot, and the layers of inter-worm (and shadow) politics leads the plot to be rather all over the place, and not in the fun way.

Iris having her own Valeyard-esque figure in Bianca isn't necessarily a bad choice; I just wish it were better executed. That said, I wish that the Valeyard himself were better executed as a dark reflection of the Doctor, too. Neither the Valeyard nor Bianca feel like a reflection (however twisted) of the character they purport to be – they just feel like rather two-dimensional baddies. Perhaps this is just personal preference, though. I can see how a dark reflection of Iris would be obsessed with order and stability, but I am fonder of a dark version of the character having their existing flaws twisted and exaggerated into wickedness, rather than being a simple opposite.

All that said, The Wormery is still a decent episode. I was never bored throughout it; it always had something fun to throw at me. Was it all one elaborate way to make an episode about wormholes having actual worms? Perhaps. But I find that sort of thing hilarious, so I won't complain.

I had a good time with the Wormery, having gone into the audio without knowing much about the story itself. This wound up being an early Iris Wildthyme story for me, and I'm glad it was so. Katy Manning does a good job and she is pretty funny, even if some of her lines are a little cringey. It's not the most remarkable audio in the world, but I found it entertaining and nicely paced out in such a way it was easy to follow and enjoy. I wish they had done more with the setting. The bar and the loungey feeling of the first half pretty quickly gives way to a more standard Doctor Who style adventure. I do like how Baker's Doctor was still coming to grips over his trial, though, and he bounced off of Manning well as a partner when they were in scenes together. Not much more to say for this one, other than that it starts out so solid only to gradually descend into a bit of a chore to get through. Colin Baker is just so reliable as the Doctor in these Big Finish audios.