Doctor Who and religion never really have mixed with
very successful results. The Aztecs
touched on how religions can become flawed and end poorly and Meglos did the whole science versus
religion storyline and wasn’t very good.
The Holy Terror sets itself
apart from the rest with its writer being Robert Shearman. Shearman is first and foremost a cynic. He likes The
Space Museum and knows exactly how to tug at your heartstrings with bleak
storytelling and some gutting moments.
His first Doctor Who script is mainly a comedy with a lot of biting
satire on how religions and even normal people treat tradition as law even when
they are quite silly. The plot involves
the Doctor and space detective Frobisher landing in this castle where the
emperor is the people’s eternal god and if the god dies, anybody still
worshiping the previous god has the choice to recant or be executed. This allows Shearman to point out just how
crazy people can be going forward to religion by using parodies and caricatures
of people to keep us interested. I mean
the people eventually worship Frobisher because he’s a big talking bird who
appeared with a big blue box. The
commentary on human nature is extremely fascinating as everyone falls into
these traps and before you know it the laugh out loud comedy changes into a piece
of heart wrenching drama about sins of the past. I’d go further into the plot except for the
fact that Shearman is famous for his story twists changing the direction of the
story.
Where Shearman succeeds the most is with the
characters and the best place to start is with Frobisher. Frobisher is a companion from the Doctor Who
Magazine comics and just so happens to be a big talking penguin who can also
shapeshift. So yeah, why hasn’t this
been done before? It would happen
partially again with C’rizz, but here it is so good because Frobisher is played
up as a clichéd detective which really works within the context of the
story. He is played by Robert Jezek who
is having a ball with the part and as someone who hasn’t had any exposure to
the character, this is a great introduction.
I honestly wish Big Finish would have featured the penguin more than he did. Next up is the Doctor who is extremely
softened here and Colin Baker is loving every minute of the script. He gets himself embroiled in the mystery of
the castle and society as things don’t quite add up. Yes he gets away from Frobisher for most of
the play, but the bookends are some of the most entertaining pieces of Doctor Who
and should be heard immediately. The
supporting characters consist of a bunch of clichés with the power hungry Queen
Livilla who is just awful but delightfully so.
There’s the emperor Pepin who is a complete wimp throughout the story as
he gives his power to Frobisher. There
is the backstabbing high priest and the evil hunchbacked younger brother. The most interesting character has to be the
scribe Eugene Tacitus played masterfully by Sam Kelly who has the entire story
be revolved around him and his past. The
main villain of the piece is credited as The Boy and is one of the scariest
villains to ever grace Doctor Who. I can’t
give too much away as to the fate of the story, but know how good the reveals
actually are.
The direction was done by Nicholas Pegg who shows just
how different he is compared to Nicholas Briggs and Gary Russell. I can’t quite put my finger on it but after
Briggs and Russell this story just feels like a refreshing change of pace. Also the music is beautifully medieval as the
setting is a castle and you can really get yourself lost in the setting.
To summarize,
The Holy Terror is absolutely brilliant and sets the standard for all the
Robert Shearman stories. The acting and
characters are on point with Colin Baker and Robert Jezek hitting it off so
well it becomes a shame that Frobisher didn’t really have his own series of Big
Finish adventures. Again seek this out
to figure out why I’ve been so vague and this review is quite a bit shorter
than it should be. You will not be
disappointed and I can definitely give this one 100/100.
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