The Divergent Universe
Arc is often slated for being quite a bad story arc which the writers had no
idea on how to figure out where they wanted to go with this. The arc doesn’t ever have its actual villains
show up at all in the arc and it was cut short by two seasons with the
returning of the show to television.
This was of course done not to alienate potential new listeners coming
to see what the fuss was about with these audio dramas and of course the fact
that Gary Russell was unsure of whether or not Big Finish would have their license
renewed for another year. My personal
thoughts on the arc is that it is flat out underrated. Yes it is extremely flawed and never takes
full advantage of going further into the crazy nature of the universe and the
pacing of the two seasons is way off as it was supposed to be four seasons. On the pacing there is a way to fix it all so
it works better. Start by making it
three series and deleting The Twilight
Kingdom from the entire story arc.
Add a third season with the stories being Scherzo, The Creed of the
Kromon, Faith Stealer, and then
end the season with one of the stories originally planned for season 3,
probably Time Works. Have the second season open with The Natural History of Fear, followed by
Scardey Cat, then The Last and of course finish with Caerdroia. The third season open with Something Inside, followed by the
unnamed script from Gary Hopkins, then have Alan Barnes or Nicholas Briggs
write a penultimate story ending in the TARDIS crash from the beginning of The Next Life and then continue with The Next Life. This would make for a much tighter arc and
while we still would have had some duds, the pace would have worked out for the
better and we probably would have gotten a better reception from the fans. The wasted potential is the big problem with The Next Life as it concludes the arc in
a very hasty fashion even though the story is an extended six parter. Good news however that most of the rest of
the story is on top form and it’s only the rather messy ending that takes down
the story quite a few pegs.
Russell and Barnes are
both great at writing the structure of this story as it splits up the story
into a two part opening story and a four part closing story. The two part opening story is the stronger of
the two stories as it takes an introspection on what the impact of Charley and
C’rizz have on the total of history.
Charley is taken back to Cardington where her mother again played by the
brilliant Anneke Wills, to help her find out that her decision to get Simon Murchford
drunk and take his place on the R101 actually helped save a lot of lives and
had larger consequences on the Web of Time.
India Fisher is great in these sections as she gets to flex her acting
chops and deal with the fallout of her decisions which is great. Something similar happens to C’rizz who
instead of seeing the ramifications of his actions, he sees some of the strings
being pulled and we actually get a backstory.
He was originally a monk of the Church of the Foundation which teases us
to the idea that he has killed people before.
It is revealed that it is his lover L’da whose family saved him from
this life of murder and fell in love with him.
Of course the story ends with the Kro’ka, who is working for the
Divergence, pulling them out and acting pretty much like he is a god miles
above them. The Kro’ka here actually
gets to be more menacing in the early two parts of the story and Stephen
Perring is relishing his chance for a good role after Caerdroia pretty much destroyed him.
The final four parts of
the story are also very much split into two parts. Parts Three and Four for the most part takes
the form of a Hinchliffe/Holmes style reimagining of The Most Dangerous Game where the Doctor is accused of killing a
little girl and he is to be hunted as sport which is a perfectly fine idea and
the minimal plot allows for a lot of character development in this section of
the story. The Doctor is paired up with
Perfection played by Daphne Ashbrook who killed the girl’s mother to be hunted
with the Doctor. Perfection is pretty
much the embodiment of sexual temptation and Daphne Ashbrook is a great
performer. She is the wife of Daqar Keep
who bought her for her looks and abuses her and Ashbrook in these parts
displays a lot of subtlety throughout the story. Her relationship with Charley whom she meets
eventually is very much like two catty teenagers vying for the attention of a
boy which is great.
The rest of the
supporting cast really only shine in Part Five and Six where we get the plot
surrounding the payoff to the anti-time infection and the Zagreus entity and
the sound creature from Scherzo. Now the ending is disastrous with it not
being resolved, but comically stopped in its tracks as the Doctor, Charley and
C’rizz are sent back into the universe proper.
I’m going to spoil a lot here so continue with caution, but it is
revealed that the villain working with the Divergence to try and gain control
of our universe is Rassilon played by Don Warrington who has been exiled as
well and wishes to depose Romana as Lord President of Gallifrey. Warrington is the best of the actors to play
Rassilon, yes even better than Sir. Timothy Dalton. The three main supporting characters are
Perfection, Guidance and Keep. Perfection
in these parts has the character shift as she is revealed to be the Zagreus
entity wanting to get into the TARDIS and get to infect time. Ashbrook is great with this as well as Paul
Darrow as Guidance who really doesn’t have a big reveal except he is C’rizz’s
father. Yes don’t ask me how but he is a
religious leader trying to tempt C’rizz.
The performance is great as it is Paul Darrow playing the role. Keep is also the other character who is the
sound creature from Scherzo. He is there to conclude the story and sign
out the fates for the other characters.
To summarize, The Next Life is definitely a mixed bag
of a story, but it does have a lot of good things even though it could have
been done a lot better than it was.
70/100
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