David A. McIntee while
nowhere near a bad author has always struck me as a traditional Who author with
his novels highlighting periods of history.
This I must emphasize is not a bad thing by any means as it has allowed
for the emotional rollercoaster that was Sanctuary,
but his one and only audio drama for Big Finish Productions, Unregenerate!, is anything but
traditional. Taking the form of the
Seventh Doctor’s second ever adventure he is barely in it as he has been
captured by a group of Time Lords basically doing the plot of The Doctor’s Wife because they are
basically the equivalent of animal rights activists thinking the TARDIS’s
deserve to be free souls inhabiting humanoid bodies. This was six whole years before Gaiman’s idea
reached our screens and honestly McIntee pulls it off almost better as he has a
whole two hours to flesh out the story and characters. The thing that makes this story stand out is
also just how little it is ever mentioned among fans and when it is the
reception is usually an oddly negative one.
Now I will admit that the story is nowhere near perfect. The plotting is rather predictable and every
twist can be guessed around every corner and of course the title just sounds
plain silly. I mean considering the plot
it makes sense but it’s got an exclamation mark on the end for no reason except
to know you are supposed to shout it.
Bonnie Langford as Mel
Bush acts as the main character and pretty much the Doctor for most of the
story which I honestly think works well.
Mel has taken a vacation after the events of Time and the Rani to recover but the Doctor doesn’t come to get her
as he is stuck in an asylum. It’s up to
Mel to unravel the mystery of what happened to the Doctor and the story behind
the asylum. Langford is able to pull it
off extremely well showing just how diverse she is as an actress even if Mel
can come across a bit out of character as you can’t really imagine her solving
some of the larger leaps at least this early on in the plot which just ring
untrue to me for some reason. Of course
with Mel in the form of the Doctor she gets a companion in the form of the
Cabbie with No Name played by the brilliant Toby Longworth who is there to ask
questions and that’s about it. Longworth
should be wasted in a role like this but somehow he really makes the Cabbie
extremely memorable a character. He’s
extremely witty and there are hints that this character may be more than he
seems, but nothing conclusive is revealed throughout the story.
Sylvester McCoy as the
Doctor actually gets to have that developmental leap from Time and the Rani to Paradise
Towers as he is left insane, but it is revealed all to be an extremely well
thought out master plan much like the later Seventh Doctor would be doing. There shouldn’t be a problem except for the
fact that McIntee doesn’t do it at all subtly and stops the plot dead in its
track to reveal how it was done. This breaks
the rule of show don’t tell as we only need the hints and not the entire
plot. Other than that McCoy does a great
job in the background which really works for this story. The supporting cast however are really
stereotypical mad scientists and don’t necessarily stand out too much from the
rest with a few exceptions. Louis is one
of these as he is the ruthless Time Lord who of course is allowed to regenerate
in the story and both actors really rub off the performance. This comes off especially in the opening
scenes where he lures people to agree to come to the asylum and give up their
lives. Jennie Linden, famous for her
portrayal of Barbara Who in Dr. Who and
the Daleks is the head scientist, Professor Klyst who actually has a
morality in this project. It is nice to
actually have someone moral in a story like this to offset everyone else.
To summarize, Unregenerate! is a pretty underrated
story with some great ideas and an atmosphere expectant of David A.
McIntee. It has several problems with
the way its plot predictably plays out and has side characters that don’t
really make too much of an impact on you in the long run. Mel is out of character for some of the run
time and the Doctor’s explanations for how he did what he did took up way too
much of the run time for my liking to be perfect. 65/100
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