Tuesday, June 14, 2016

Terror Firma by: Joseph Lidster directed by: Gary Russell: You Put Your Right Hand In, You Put Your Right Hand Out

Terror Firma stars Paul McGann as the Doctor with Julia Deakin as Harriet Griffin, Terry Molloy as Davros, India Fisher as Charley and Conrad Westmass as C’rizz.  It was written by Joseph Lidster, directed by Gary Russell and released in August 2005 by Big Finish Productions.

 

Well this one is just plain complex.  There’s no other word to really describe the story but calling it complex.  On the surface it sounds like it is doing the standard Dalek invasion of a planet plotline, but then we get quite a few twists and turns that just sort of cause for the complexities of what the story actually entails.  The Doctor, Charley and C’rizz arrive on a planet invaded by the Daleks from the cliffhanger of The Next Life.  Davros wishes the Doctor to help him create a clone or kill him as he has become insane, C’rizz is stuck going off with a Dalek agent called Gemma, and Charley gets herself stuck in a party on the planet where the people refuse to admit that the Daleks are causing any real threat to them.  Now I really cannot go on without giving some pretty hefty spoilers about this story as some reveals are made about the characters and the Daleks’ plan that impacts the quality of the story.

 

Let’s start with the plotline of the Doctor and Davros.  The banter between Paul McGann and Terry Molloy rivals that of Tom Baker and Michael Wisher in Genesis of the Daleks.  While it isn’t as intense as that story, the dark themes of the story lead to the same feel and it is increased in quality with Paul McGann giving one of his best performances in ages.  He becomes extremely flippant to Davros and the danger he poses, not due to recklessness, but because he is back in his own universe he feels one thousand times better as a person.  McGann is just having that sense of fun back in the performance and I sincerely hope that it stays that way for the foreseeable future.  Now that doesn’t mean he is all light hearted as he gets to indulge in some brooding when everything hits about halfway through the story the Doctor is emotionally affected by some of the reveals that disappeared into his mind.  Terry Molloy’s Davros is also a delight as the creator of the Daleks as for him this story picks up after the events of Remembrance of the Daleks where Davros has gone more insane than he was and developed multiple personality disorder.  There are two personalities, the Emperor Dalek personality which wants the genocide of the universe which allows Molloy to flex his shouting muscles for some of the scenes and the kind hearted Davros who just wants to clone himself so he can actually attempt to change his evil ways.  Of course he doesn’t actually wish to change his ways and still goes crazy by the end, but the performance is some of the best Davros has ever gotten.

 

C’rizz after the Divergent Universe Arc remained lackluster on his character, but Joseph Lidster reveals quite a bit about what is going through C’rizz’s mind and what his faith believes about death.  He only came to this universe because Charley and the Doctor were going home and he wanted to be with his friends.  Now he is almost having second thoughts as he feels extremely out of his element for the majority of the story which is only made worse by the experiments done on him by the Daleks.  They want him to become their new Emperor as his DNA is compatible and Lidster puts him through hell in this story which is great to watch leading to a final scene that just feels like development.  Now here’s a spoiler but C’rizz as a priest has the ability to save people by what seems to be absorbing their souls into himself as he does with Gemma.  Gemma Griffin played brilliantly by Lizzie Hopley is the Dalek agent who is along with C’rizz and is introduced as one of the good guys but turns insidious as the story progresses.  She and her brother are the subject of the biggest twist of the story which I will get to quickly.  I do have some criticisms when it comes to this section of the plot.  Mainly Gemma’s deception of C’rizz almost feels a bit forced, but not in the way you may think.  The acting is fine but it is the script that makes the twist come out of nowhere when the plotline is viewed on its own as there are hints in Charley’s portion of the story which are blatantly obvious.

 

Charley gets her own plotline where she infiltrates a party and tries to comfort Samson Griffin, played by Lee Ingleby, in a pastiche of her home time period in the 1920s.  Charley’s portions of the plot are the most enjoyable as the reveal is that before she travelled with the Doctor, he had two previous companions who fell into the hands of Davros.  Davros then made the Doctor forget them and has been watching the Doctor’s TARDIS ever since and used the two companions, Samson and Gemma Griffin to conquer Earth.  Yes the planet which can’t be Earth actually is Earth and the party is the resistance which allows for some great dark comedy as the Hokey Pokey is used to show how they are keeping the Daleks off their scents.  It is intensely funny and creepy as the Griffin twins’ mother Harriet is the leader of the party.  Harriet is the leader of the resistance and a pastiche of the upper class in a really comedic way that Julia Deakin imbues into the performance.  The reveal of Samson and Gemma being former companions is done really well as we flashback to their first and final adventures which allows them to have fleshed out characters.  I won’t give away too much more as I will be ruining some great stuff.

 

To summarize, Terror Firma is a great story that shows just how good of an author Joseph Lidster is.  While not as good as his magnum opus Master, the story does a lot right in my book which is a great way for a story to be measured.  85/100.

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