Big Finish’s 60th Anniversary series reaches part two with Once and Future: The Artist at the End of Time. In case you didn’t catch part 1, the story focuses on The Doctor (most likely his Eighth self, but possibly the War Doctor) “degenerating” into past bodies due to the effects of an unknown weapon, and that’s why this story starring Peter Davison is technically not a Fifth Doctor story. Most importantly though: is it a good story? Well, it’s more focused than the first at least, though at times it feels more like Colin Baker’s episode than Davison’s!
After cycling through a few more old faces The Doctor settles on his fifth self (Peter Davison) and heads to the end of recorded time to find his daughter thanks to a tip off from the Monk (though it acts like it’s a coincidence sometimes…) and find her he does! Jenny (Georgia Tennant) and The Doctor both visit an art gallery where paintings and objects from lost worlds are on display, known as the “Final Gallery”, overseen by an A.I. curator (Abi Harris). Something doesn’t add up though as The Doctor realises all the paintings are from the same artist and so after meeting up with Jenny the two go searching and find The Curator (Colin Baker), sitting down and painting the Eye of Orion.
The original cover, where the Curator’s double tie tipped everyone off is was done with AI assistance, leading to a big enough backlash that they changed it (but I’d already made the thumbnail and couldn’t be bothered to change mine!)
The Curator eventually admits that every time he paints a world it soon gets destroyed, not knowing if it was coincidence or just fate, so all he does it paint uninhabited worlds so they might live on in memory. The Doctor and Jenny decide to put that theory to the test as things are far too coincidental…
It’s a good story, mostly thanks to Colin Baker’s meloncoly performance as The Curator and how well that bounced off with The Doctor and Jenny’s more cynical and cheery personalities, respectively. Some good dialogue and a fun, if not predictable, end as well. Much more focused and plotted than the first story, anyway!
The Continuity:
The new cover with no AI weirdness in sight, not that I have a great eye for it if I’m honest (but even I caught the weird tie!)
Ignoring the obvious Once and Future Part 1, The Curator first appeared in 50th Anniversary story “The Day of the Doctor” (which is directly referenced in the story), where as Jenny first debuted in 10th Doctor TV story “The Doctor’s Daughter”. Funnily enough this isn’t the first time Davison and his real-life daughter have done a story together as they were paired up in “The Legacy of Time: Relative Time”, so the “clever pairing” of this story wasn’t even original!
Overall Thoughts:
Oh and of course the dull Special Edition cover. Wow, three covers for the same one hour story, that’s got to be a record!
“The Artist at the End of Time” tells a good, short story with strong performances and great dialogue, a great improvement over part 1. That being said, part of me still thinks that instead of this prolonged set of releases with random elements I’d have preferred just a bog standard six part multi-Doctor story or something. Oh well!
The Doctor gets the Curator to paint a planet that’s still inhabited and sure enough nothing happens (bloody risky gamble though!) so the two, along with Jenny, head back to the Final Gallery and find out that the owners of the establishment intentionally destroyed the planets after the Curator had painted them so they works would be more valuable to sell, but obviously weren’t so cold hearted they’d wipe out a planet worth of people. Angry the Curator quickly paints a scene in the Gallery itself, causing its own weapons to be used on itself, as The Curator would rather the pictures be destroyed than just used by some soulless people to make money.
The Curator parts ways (after showing Jenny the “Gallifrey Falls No More” painting from Day of the Doctor that as it turns out he himself painted, apparently) and then so do The Doctor and Jenny, the former having been “stabilized” by her presence. In the console room he darts forward into his Sixth body before moving one forward to his Seventh, so I guess we’re not going in a straight line with these releases!
Hogan Reviews 