Continuing directly on
from the end of Storm Warning, Sword of Orion sees new companion
Charley Pollard take her first trip in the TARDIS as they have to get medicine
for the Vortisaur they took along with them on the outskirts of the Orion Wars
between the humans and androids. It
doesn’t take long for things to go wrong and the Doctor and Charley get
themselves tangled in a conspiracy to revive the Cybermen to help defeat the
humans. Now the story isn’t very
original as once the Cybermen appear the story becomes a remake of The Tomb of the Cybermen with characters
with better motivation and a bleaker ending.
It also serves as a world builder for the audio Kingdom of Silver released in 2008 and in turn the two seasons of
the Cyberman spin-off series released
in 2005 and 2008. This story would help
with connecting the plots of Earthshock,
The Tomb of the Cybermen. The Invasion, and Revenge of the Cybermen all together into a more tightly knit
history for the Cybermen. Even though Sword of Orion was released in early
2001, it created a solid place for the rest of the Big Finish Cybermen stories
to spring from and firmly introduce what version of the Cybermen we would
see. Yet with all these connecting
threads this is an extremely overrated story because of how much world building
is done throughout the audio leaving very little room for the plot. What’s even stranger is that this was the
third Audio Visual audio to be adapted into Big Finish (The first was The Mutant Phase and the second was Last of the Titans based off the story Vilgreth). I don’t have a problem, but it shows just how
spreading out an originally hour long story to two hours. It makes it suffer as a story. Before I can get into the real problems I
want to stress on the really good elements from the story.
First, Paul McGann’s
performance in Storm Warning was not
a fluke as here he is still the breathless romantic even when at the backwaters
of the galaxy. He walks his way into a
shop and gets the owner to show how shady he is with a few words and with a
glance gets Charley to follow him. He
works out what’s going on before everyone else but stays quiet as he still may
be wrong. He believes in the humanity in
the androids and refuses to take any sort of side in the android vs human war
as even though he knows what androids are, with sentience they should be
allowed to live, but they also are servants.
He knows they aren’t humans, but they shouldn’t still be
slaughtered. He even admits that they
can make mistakes as they want to make an alliance with the Cybermen. I love McGann as the Doctor and this feels
like a true continuation of his era.
India Fisher’s Charley Pollard also gets her first real chance to
interact with the science fiction world of the Doctor as everything fascinates
her but she isn’t naïve. Charley can
handle herself even if she gets herself into the trouble. Nicholas Briggs is also great as the Cybermen
as they feel like they’re out of The Invasion
almost as if this is the missing Jon Pertwee Cyberman story. Props also have to be given to Michelle
Livingstone’s character who I don’t want to give away the twist of the story
which is masterfully done. The music of
this story is very atmospheric and reminiscent of Earthshock with a lot of clanging metal. There are some subtle nods in the score to
the 60s Cybermen stories littered throughout the story. The direction is great with Nicholas Briggs
making this a baby of his as he obviously loves this story and what it means
for Big Finish as a whole. I also love
the extremely bleak ending even if it sort of wraps up way too fast to allow
for much closure.
The bad of the story
however is its supporting cast as they are all sounding really quite
generic. You have the standard salvage
ship crew full of reprobates who won’t hesitate to get someone killed if it
means they get out of the story. They
are united under the fearless leader and there is of course a traitor in their ranks. This story tries to create a moral dilemma
with this, but it fails as the characters are not grey enough to do that type
of story. I also said how much the plot
has problems with the fact it smashes together other Cybemen stories while
Briggs thinks he is being entirely clever.
These flaws may be few, but they are glaring and really make my
enjoyment of the story be diminished from their blatancy and how easy it would
be to fix them.
To summarize, Sword of Orion boasts a great cast,
great direction and some great music. The
world building of the story really is quite a treat to listen to as the
atmosphere and gruesome moments build to what could have been a great
story. There are flaws in its
stereotypical characters making the story black and white and an unoriginal
plot. 60/100
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