I find it weird that The Lights of Skaro is counted as a
different story. It follows on directly
from Guy Adams’s Random Ghosts, but
is written by James Goss instead of Adams.
Goss apparently had the audio written first and Random Ghosts was written to flow nicely into The Lights of Skaro. The
story is again only an hour for a finale and for what it wants to do it has
enough time as the plot is actually really simple. So it turns out Ace had this little planet
that she was allowed to watch over. She
did a good job looking over it, but then she went to her mother’s funeral and
while she was away the planet was invaded by the Daleks. In a fit of emotional rage, she goes back in
between Genesis of the Daleks and The Daleks, puts Skaro into a time loop,
and has caused the problems in the entire box set. It’s up to Benny to put everything to rights
which is really where the general plot ends and some of the deeper meanings
begin. As a plot it really is a back
seat to these deeper meanings which I found a bit annoying as really it is
generic and the twists you can really see coming a mile away.
The deep meaning of the
story is about the Doctor, who is actually barely in this story, who due to his
involvement in The Daleks is the main
cause of the Daleks having to conquer.
He is responsible for all the deaths the Daleks caused which makes Good Night, Sweet Ladies an interesting
example of Chekov’s gun for Benny. She
goes off on the Doctor for all its worth and it’s something that comes across
very well on the audio as Lisa Bowerman is a great performer. Her portrayal of Bernice Summerfield in this
story is probably one of her best. Benny
has her emotional journey of the box set have to come full circle as she deals
with her love affair with Klinus, who turns out to be a Kaled who became a
Dalek. She has to deal with the Daleks
who are at the beginning and actually has a chance to save her mother, but she
cannot bring herself to do it. It’s
catharsis for the character and is interesting to see her come fully to terms
with her mother’s death, but it seems like an almost retread of Good Night, Sweet Ladies.
Sylvester McCoy as the
Doctor actually stays in the background of the story for its majority. Benny describes him as the worst Yoda
ever. It is a performance that does well
at keeping the focus on Benny and when he does interfere it is for the
confrontation, which of course is really all that he should do. The same can be said for Ace as played by Sophie
Aldred who actually disappears halfway through the story and comes back in near
the end. The script plays to Aldred’s
strengths as an actress and she pulls herself through the story. This doesn’t interfere and she could have
been pulled out of the story after her explanation quite easily and without any
real consequences for the quality of the story.
Goss’s writing is very strong, but he just isn’t interested in writing
Ace into the story.
Goss is much more
interested in writing the conflicts of the side characters as he uses Varna, a
Kaled ghost who discovers the Daleks, and is horrified. She thinks everything going on is all part of
the Thal plan to destroy the world, and is tricked by Foster into repowering
the Daleks. The suggestion is that The Power of the Daleks is what is going
to be coming next in the series and it’s a good idea as the scenes involving
the Daleks are all very tense as it is possible that they don’t have to be
awoken for the story to continue.
To summarize, The Lights of Skaro concludes the first
set of The New Adventures of Bernice
Summerfield in a great way. The
story is definitely not as good as Random
Ghosts, but still manages to keep up the quality of the set with an
engaging story that retreads a bit of material that doesn’t have a lot to flesh
out. The acting is great if Ace is still
sidelined for most of the story and really didn’t have to be there to keep the
story moving. Benny is still great in
the story and the box is well worth your time.
90/100
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