Thursday, March 10, 2016

Storm Warning by: Alan Barnes directed by: Gary Russell: Adventures of an Edwardian Adventuress Part One

Storm Warning stars Paul McGann as the Doctor.  It was written by Alan Barnes, directed by Gary Russell and released in January 2001 by Big Finish Productions.

 

The prodigal son has returned to grace us with our presence for the first time in five years.  Yes, He’s back and it’s about time.  Paul McGann has returned as the Doctor for the first time and now it’s time to take a look back at the return without the hype to see how good it actually was.  This is Alan Barnes’ first Doctor Who audio drama after editing comics for Doctor Who Magazine, some for the Eighth Doctor, and for a first effort the plot is pretty good.  The plot of Storm Warning sees the Doctor land on the British airship R-101 on its maiden voyage to India, which was made famous when it crashed in France in October 1930 after having unchecked modifications done on it in July 1930.  So it seems like the perfect scenario for Doctor Who to explain the mystery with the mission being to rendezvous with an alien race to begin talks to trade technologies and knowledge.  The plot doesn’t rely on something trying to stop the crash of the R-101, but the rendezvous actually causing the crash.  The script, while never really standing out, has a lot of witty dialogue that brings you into the feel of the time period and you can get yourself lost in the music and direction.  The script also have some great ideas like flying dinosaurs called Vortisaurs which feed off the energies in the Time Vortex including one that ends up in the TARDIS by the end.

 

Paul McGann’s first Big Finish performance is full of energy and life.  He proves just how great he would have been as the Doctor had he been given a full series on television.  He is just the breathless romantic as he waxes on about how he’s met famous historical figures and correcting all the flaws in the logic.  When it looks like he’s going to be thrown overboard for being a stowaway on the ship, he just says he’s a German spy and immediately acts as if he doesn’t understand British colloquialisms from the time period.  McGann is seriously having himself a ball to be back with Doctor Who again.  If this performance is anything to go on the series is going to be great.

 

Any Doctor of course wouldn’t be complete without their companion, but as the rights for the characters of the TV Movie are under Fox, Big Finish had to introduce an original companion to go along with the Eighth Doctor.  So Alan Barnes came up with the character of Charlotte Pollard, Charley to her friends, who would quickly become the main focus of the Eighth Doctor’s story arc.  Charley is a self-proclaimed Edwardian Adventuress who stows away on the R-101 so she can prove a point to a guy that she can get to the Singapore Hilton on New Years’ Eve by herself.  She is an upper class young woman who is headstrong and just wants to see the world.  She doesn’t mind crossdressing so she can get on the R-101.  Charley is portrayed by India Fisher who from the go gives off an attitude of young naivety yet the bravery to get through danger.  She gives a great first impression as the companion and as she was supposed to die on the R-101 we have the makings of a great companion.

 

The supporting cast is led by the flamboyant Lord Tamworth played by Gareth Thomas.  Tamworth is the man behind this mission and won’t have anything go wrong.  He ends up staying with the aliens to lead them on and is obsessed with serving King and Country.  My favorite moment of this story is probably his reaction to the Doctor claiming to be a German spy.  He loves the notion because if he was a civilian he would have had to be thrown overboard, but now the local authorities can see him shot and Tamworth doesn’t have to bloody his hands.  Next up is Rathbone played by Barnaby Edwards who is pretty much scum.  He is power hungry and will take any chance to gain any sort of power.  He even tries to make advances on Charley to have power over her.  Other than these two however the rest of the supporting cast suffers from just becoming those characters that blend into the background without really standing out in the crowd.

 

The biggest problem with the story is the developments in Parts Three and Four.  So throughout Part One there has been intrigue built up about the mysterious passenger in Cabin 43 and it is of course revealed to be an alien.  It is a member of the Triskelion, a race divided into three factions much like the idea of the id, the ego and the superego.  Now the acting is impressive by Helen Goldwyn who pulls off three distinct voices, but it is the Triskelion plight that causes problems.  Basically it becomes a plotline similar to The Face of Evil where two factions become unbalanced because their equalizer has become ineffective and needs to be replaced.  You can see very easily where everything is going by the time this is revealed which makes Part Three in particular difficult to get through.

 

To summarize, Storm Warning starts off the Paul McGann series with a bang introducing us to what looks like a great arc and of course a great companion.  The supporting cast is mostly great but the way the plot decides to go really brings the story down from being some of the best as it could have been so much more original. 75/100

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