Sunday, September 11, 2016

The Elite by: Barbara Clegg adapted by: John Dorney directed by: Ken Bentley

The Elite stars Peter Davison as the Doctor, Janet Fielding as Tegan Jovanka and Sarah Sutton as Nyssa with Joe Coen as Aubron and Ryan Sampson as Thane.  It was written by Barbara Clegg, adapted by John Dorney, directed by Ken Bentley and released in October 2011 by Big Finish Productions.

 

Doing Season 23 and Season 27 as Lost Stories adaptations as well as the return of Tom Baker and some missing sixties stories made Big Finish look at filling in some of the random gaps in the series with stories that were never made.  This was the format mainly used for Season Three of the Lost Stories which would do a couple of famous 1960s stories, three stories originally considered for Season 23 after it was announced to be fourteen, twenty-five minute episodes and beginning with a trilogy of Fifth Doctor stories up for consideration between the end of Season 19 and Season 20.  The format was really just a bunch of random stories that were thrown together so they could get these stories recorded and released, which let’s be honest that really isn’t a problem as the two trilogies and the double feature of sixties is organized well.  It keeps the season moving along from Doctor to Doctor and era to era.

 

The season opener is The Elite, a release that originates from a storyline idea from Barbara Clegg and of all the Lost Stories thus far, The Elite had the least material to adapt available.  There were scripts worked on, but they have been long since destroyed and only some references in Doctor Who Magazine and a story outline survive.  What’s weird is that as a way to adapt this into an audio, Big Finish brought in John Dorney to adapt it although he had only written a few other stories up until this point.  Dorney actually had the freedom to adapt the story in whatever way he chose as long as he stayed within the rather broad storyline Clegg originally set out for the story.  The plot had to see the Doctor, Nyssa and Tegan immediately after Arc of Infinity and Omega taking a vacation to Florana, a planet famous for its roses when the TARDIS is thrown off course and lands in a fascist state ruled by the elite under the Wizard of Oz like High Priest.  The Doctor of course wants to save everything in the best way he can as he is against fascism in every sense of the word.  The mystery of the story is what this planet is and who the High Priest actually is, but I will not be spoiling that as it is a big part of what makes this release work so well, if you don’t know too much about the plot going in.  I will say that this release is what makes John Dorney really stand out as a writer as he makes every scene in the release extremely memorable.

 

Peter Davison as the Doctor is really at a standout as while the story is a very dark story, it puts the Doctor in a situation similar to The Caves of Androzani where the Doctor is the one trying to lighten the mood.  It’s a script that plays to Davison’s strengths and really makes you feel bad for the Doctor who has had Tegan thrust back upon him which is hilarious.  He also reacts very coyly to the authority of the planet they land on and just sort of wanders around through the story.  Sarah Sutton as Nyssa is really the only character who I have a problem with in this story as she just gets hypnotized.  Sutton has some great stuff early on in the story which works as the Doctor steals some chocolate from her.  It even has relevance later on in the plot and is honestly a funny scene.  Janet Fielding however is the crowning glory of this story as she gets to be the mouth on legs we know and love as well as just being a generally good character.  She doesn’t put up with anything the story has to throw at her which is great.

 

To summarize, The Elite is a story that is nearly perfect in almost every way but is an extremely difficult story to talk about due to the fact of several twists contained involving the characters and the progression of the story.  The acting is spot on and the writing from John Dorney takes a story outline and turns it into something brilliant.  97/100

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