The finale to Big Finish’s
adaptation of the original Season 27 was the story that was originally slated
to be the season opener, Ben Aaronovitch’s third script for the television
series of course came from his and Cartmel’s idea for a Doctor Who stage play
of War World. This is of course moved to the finale for the
adaptation and only changed to include Raine Creevy as secondary companion for
the Doctor which was rather easy to implement.
Oh and Andrew Cartmel helped with finishing the scripts for the story as
they did not survive completely through the passage of time. The plot involves the Vancouver, a USS
Enterprise like ship tasked with guarding an aid ship full of millions of tons
of grain to a poor planet. A novice
called Ace is in the captain’s chair while the medical officer is the
mysterious Doctor. Everything goes to
hell when the Metatraxi attach themselves to the Aid ship and the Doctor finds
Raine Creevy in stasis on the ship as well as Grubs that eat their way through
the grain. The story eventually takes us
to the home planet of the Metatraxi which gives us great insight into their
past and history with the Grubs. If I
were to rank the three Aaronovitch’s stories in the performed medium, Earth Aid would fall in between Remembrance of the Daleks and Battlefield. The plot is great all around and is really
good at parodying Star Trek: The Next
Generation which was beginning to air and gain traction at the time. It is a loving tribute to the franchise with
all the jabs at technobabble and the incompetent captains that can only come
from a fan like Aaronovitch.
The Metatraxi here are at
their best as they are allowed to be fleshed out without having the comedy of Crime of the Century and their cameo in Animal weighing them down. We get to see the full extent of their
culture and the exact reason why they refuse to fight women, they’re complete
mommy’s boys. John Banks voices them and
is of course great in the role and gives a great scene where they try to insult
the Doctor to death and it almost works.
They pick up on the flaws of those around them and use it to break
them. They have flaws that Ace can
easily exploit the flaws and beat them because of it.
Sophie Aldred as Ace really
shines in this story as she has to be the leader which she is woefully unprepared
for becoming. She has to be the captain
of a spaceship which entails piloting the thing which she cannot do. She has to make the tough calls and is really
quite good at doing it and Aldred is in her element as Ace. Beth Chalmers as Raine, while written into
the script, still has a lot of good moments as she gets to have the awe of going
into space and seeing a different planet and culture. Chalmers pulls it off extremely well in every
aspect as well even if she doesn’t have a lot of things to do early on. Her reactions to the Grubs are also great as
they are a truly revolting race in almost every way. Sylvester McCoy as the Doctor however is
actually in a great element here as now he’s allowed to be his master
manipulator persona as he knows the Metatraxi are going to attack from the off
which is great. This story and Thin Ice are the only two that I can
really feel like McCoy is playing a version of his own Doctor.
The Grubs are voiced by
Alex Mallinson and he gives this creepy performance which is just great in
almost every way for everything because of the way he modulates himself. The Grubs are complete gluttons who get into
the grain and begin to eat the stuff that is supposed to be going to those in
need. They are a nice parallel to the
Metatraxi as they are interconnected as species which is done extremely
well. Paterson Joseph is billed on the
cover for his portrayal of Victor Espinosa who let’s be honest is really good
at being totally insane. He provides a
nice foil for the Seventh Doctor who has to keep his master plan going while
Espinosa is acting like a psychopath.
Ingrid Oliver also appears here as Lieutenant Baraki along with the rest
of the Vancouver’s crew are all good as well because they don’t really believe
that Ace is qualified for being a captain and Baraki is just a good character
in general.
To summarize, Earth Aid is the best story of the
Season 27 Lost Stories as Ben Aaronovitch actually brings in a lot of good for
the story to have the story work. There
are a few flaws in that it is just a little long, but almost everything else
really holds up well. The main cast
really give the sense that this was supposed to be the start of a series of
adventures with Ace and Raine, even if they never materialized. 90/100
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