Doing a second trilogy of
Sixth Doctor audios is an interesting idea for the reason that many four part
stories were suggested for Season 23 when it was announced to be the Trial of a
Time Lord arc. Doing just a trilogy is
also something really good for Big Finish to do because it’s a format that
really works for them as a mini season.
This trilogy of Sixth Doctor audios starts off very well with The Guardians of Prophecy. The
Guardians of Prophecy is a story taken from a seventeen page story outline
by Johnny Byrne for a sequel to The
Keeper of Traken set after the fact on the last planet from the Traken
Union in the far future. Johnny Byrne
wrote an outline with great ideas as the story sees the Doctor and Peri land on
Serenity where a thief and a scholar are resurrecting Malador, the creator of
the Melkur and the most evil being in the universe. Byrne has a script with good ideas such as a
labyrinth of death which brings some great imagery, but it is Morris who has to
expand most if not all of the original ideas into a full script to be
performed. Morris does an excellent job
of doing this for the audio adaptation as it is a story that wizzes by from one
set piece to the next with a coherent plot with these great characters and
rising tensions for the Doctor and Peri to work off against.
Colin Baker and Nicola
Bryant feel very much like they are coming well off Season 22 and have adjusted
to each other perfectly. The Doctor is
of course going for a lot of the light humor as he realizes that he is
completely safe on the planet as Serenity cannot hold evil even though it is
still politically corrupt. His
interactions with Prophecy, the computer equivalent of the Source are also
great as like any computer, it can easily be confused and be on the Doctor’s
side throughout the story. It however
makes a real tension as the computer is flip flopping on its positions about
the Doctor which worked. Nicola Bryant
as Peri however isn’t perfect here as really she is supposed to be the standard
companion role. Bryant does not give a
bad performance in any sense of the word, but she doesn’t have too much to
do. Peri is captured and kept off to the
side for the first half of the story which is honestly alright as there isn’t a
need, but the back half fails at doing anything interesting with the character
to justify her inclusion in the story. It’s a trap Byrne falls into often especially
in his television stories.
Graham Cole plays the
thief Ebbko and voices the Melkur in this story. It’s interesting that Cole was brought in as
in the classic series of Doctor Who, he played villains who would stand in the
background and get a very small credit. He
did play the Melkur in The Keeper of
Traken, but there was no voice used for that character in the story and why
should there be. It was secretly the
Master’s TARDIS, but this story gives them a very gravelly voice like the stone
they are created from. It’s a
performance that works very well as it emulates their master, Malador. Ebbko who is also played by Graham Cole and
is a real chance for Cole to stretch his comedy muscles as he is an honorable
thief. Ebbko is basically a companion
for the Doctor, who admires his work, which is really quite good for everything
in the story. I really do like Cole as
an actor and looking back on his performances in the actual show he was heavily
underused in the stories he featured in.
Stephen Thorne famous for
playing Azal, Omega, and Eldrad, plays Malador here as the booming voiced
villain. I think the best justification
for my thoughts on his performance is that it is Stephen Thorne so of course it
is a good performance and depth is actually brought to the character. Finally, Prophecy played by Victoria
Pritchard which as I said earlier is a computer that is basically the Keeper
from The Keeper of Traken mixed with
the Source and female. Pritchard gives the computer this airy quality in her
voice which adds to an already good performance for everything to really work
well in the story.
To summarize, The Guardians of Prophecy is much better
than The Keeper of Traken with the
biggest flaw in the story actually being the underutilization of Peri as
companion and using Ebbko in the same role as companion. Morris is great at creating a good story from
Byrne’s original outline in just about everything. 93/100
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