“The Trials of a Time Lord” is the latest in a run of overly-long boxsets where to celebrate a milestone since a Doctor’s first TV appearance Big Finish decided to throw literally everything into a blender and see what happens, and once again it’s just not very good. It’s thankfully better than the Seventh Doctor’s “Last Day” duo but that’s damning with faint praise if I’ve ever heard it. Featuring the Cybermen, Davros, Daleks, Androgums (yes, Androgums!) and The Master, with a plot that’s basically just Vengeance on Varos again it could have been a fun ride in expert hands, maybe, but instead it’s just a “remember him?/them?” fest with little going for it… So, let’s take a closer look! Yay?
The Doctor (Colin Baker) and Mel (Bonnie Langford) arrive on the wrong planet, as they tend to do, and soon find themselves captured by the Cybermen, led by their Cyber Leader (once again voiced by David Banks!) They escape and join up with some local resistance members, as per usual, and even meet an old acquaintance called Tiffany Jenkins (Aruhan Galieva), though for the record this is her first appearance, it retroactively adding in a returning character for the simple reason that she soon gets captured and cyber-converted for some good old fashioned Sixth Doctor outrage and a cliffhanger sting. To everyone’s surprise though the plot takes a twist (the first of many…) by revealing the whole thing is a very real reality show and that the planet is one big studio lot, the Cybermen having been popped into a massive soundstage and contestants are forced to “play the game” as resistance members and try to escape, all for the sake of ratings. So, as I said, Vengeance on Varos (or “Bad Wolf/The Parting of the Ways” if you want to get a bit more current, I guess).
Mel escapes with one of the resistance members but the Doctor is captured and the “Muskoids” in charge of the facility decide to make him the star of his own show known as “The Trials of a Time Lord”. His next Trial is having to outrun some Androgums who wish to eat him, as they do, and during this he’s saved by Peri (Nicola Bryant), the warrior version who married and had three kids with Brian Blessed, the poor girl. Together they manage to fight there way through to the next trial, revolving around viruses and a crowd of people, then make it to the next which has Davros appear, and much like the Cyber-Leader (who is now inhabiting Tiffany’s cyber-converted body, for the record) he has been captured and forced to play the Muskoid’s assigned role but wants out, so it doesn’t actually take long for him to make a deal with the Doctor in order to escape. Meanwhile Mel meets a washed up actress called Val (Holly Jackson Walters) and the two try to free The Doctor and Peri, which they manage to do alongside a man with the odd name of Stunrib… Ahem.
That’s a lot of recognisable characters on one cover, that’s for sure!
This leads to the two-thirds-through cliffhanger reveal that Val is still an actress and the whole escape plan, on both ends, has been planned and broadcast as part of the Trials and that Stunrib is actually The Master (the Anthony Ainley version, meaning it’s played quite poorly by Jon Culshaw, sadly… again, he does a great Brigadier, but his two Master voices are not great) who has been behind the Muskoids plans all along… Sort of.
Man, it’s a lot to try and take in, and yet in the middle of the story it really sagged and as the “you thought you escaped? Well actually…” reveals kept on coming I stopped caring. Plus the Muskoids were just Sil minus the tongue-waggling laugh, zero depth with plenty of nerdy stereotype stuff and talk of ratings being more important than peoples lives. That old chestnut, emphasis on old sadly. It’s another release that’s just a muddled mess of ideas and characters, basically that ends up as just noise. Plus there are scenes where the Doctor apologises for what happened to this Peri, leaving her behind against his will, and it just felt like old news, I’ve heard Peri and the Sixth Doctor reconnect after Trials what feels like 100 times at this point…
The Continuity:
As mentioned already, the plot is another rehash of the violent TV entertainment plotline, first seen in Doctor Who land in the Sixth Doctor TV story “Vengeance on Varos” and later seen in the Ninth Doctor TV story “Bad Wolf / The Parting of the Ways”, among other comics, novels and even audio dramas. It’s really not a new thing but unlike a lot of reused sci-fi clichés it’s hard to do a fun or original spin on it, so it always comes off as the same. As for the Sixth Doctor meeting up with Peri post-Trials, “Peri and the Piscon Paradox” shows us there are multiple Peris out in the universe due to a Time Lord cock up, “The Widow’s Assassin” has this Peri get saved from her life on the warrior world after her husband was killed seven days into the marriage and travel with him again in the audio,and this Peri with all the kids appeared in the comic “The Age of Chaos”. That’s just off the top of my head, I’m pretty sure there’s more…
Obviously I’m not going to list Cybermen, Davros or Master stories, though I will point out the Twelfth Doctor TV story “The Magician’s Apprentice / The Witch’s Familiar” has a scene where The Master (then known as Missy) meets Davros and claims she “always wanted to meet” Davros, so I guess at some point the Master forgets the events of this story, which I don’t blame him for really… (okay that’s a bit harsh) Androgums have only appeared in the Sixth Doctor TV story “The Two Doctors”, so it was nice to see them finally make a return, not that they were particularly good or anything, but at this point, why not a quick gag appearance?
Overall Thoughts:
As you can probably tell, “Trials of a Time Lord” was a bit of a mess. It had some fun moments dotted about here and there but generally it was throwing everything at a wall and instead of seeing what stuck they just published the wall itself. I can’t see myself giving it another go, honestly…
As Mel and her latest friend (whose name escapes me) head to a major broadcasting tower to take the channel offline The Doctor and Peri have to deal with a full-on Dalek invasion that Davros has arranged, including another Cybermen / Dalek showdown like we get every now and then. The Master meanwhile visits the Muskoids leader only to find out its just a computer in classic fashion. Eventually The Doctor wins the day thanks to the Cyber-Leader becoming Tiffany again briefly, and the Daleks, Mudkoids and Master all being driven off by each other, or The Doctor and Mel’s meddling. It really was hard to concentrate at the end, let alone try to remember the following day… Sorry. *shrugs*
Hogan Reviews 