Monday, December 12, 2016

Domain of the Voord by: Andrew Smith directed by: Ken Bentley: You Must Give Yourself Willingly, Or You Will Die

Domain of the Voord stars William Russell as Ian Chesterton and the Doctor, and Carole Ann Ford as Susan Foreman and Barbara Wright, with Daisy Ashford as Amyra, Andrew Dickens as Jonas Kaan and Tarlak, and Andrew Bone as Pan Vexel and Nebrin.  It was written by Andrew Smith, directed by Ken Bentley, and released in September 2014 by Big Finish Productions.

 

The Voord would not be my first choice to bring back a Classic series monster.  They only appeared in The Keys of Marinus on television and weren’t very interesting as a species to garner any real popularity.  Sure they were reused in comics, but to viewers of the television series today and especially those familiar to Big Finish, see them as men in wetsuits.  So you can imagine the fandom collectively giving out a meh, when the title for the debut Early Adventure was announced.  Then September 2014 rolled around and everyone began to apologize for their lackluster reactions to the announcement and praise Andrew Smith for just what he did for Terry Nation’s one-dimensional creations.  Domain of the Voord is a four part story done in the same style as many of the early stories, taking place over the course of several months for the main cast and pushing their emotional extremes to their limits.

 

The story itself actually starts in a similar style to many other William Hartnell stories with a bit of exploration.  The TARDIS lands on a futuristic airship on the planet Hydra where the Voord are invading and slowly taking over the planet.  This one is an interesting concept to have for the Voord immediately by allowing them to be spoken of as a force for invasion.  The dialogue is convincing as the actors give off emotions of total and complete fear and resilience as the denizens of Hydra want to get the Voord off their world.  The first episode is really just an extended battle scene leading up to a cliffhanger that never would have happened on television.  The Doctor and Barbara are dead.  Yes the Doctor and Barbara seem to be killed off in first part of the story.  This keeps the tone of the story both tense as you really feel that the Doctor and Barbara could have been killed.  Even the pulp titles of the individual episodes take on a whole new meaning when thought of with the darker context.

 

The second part of the story, “Return to Terror” is where the real dramatic weight of the story really comes in when more and more is revealed about the Voord.  The Voord it turns out is telepathic and are unified under leaders.  Now the comic strip The World Shapers posits that the Voord become converted into Cybermen at some point, and Andrew Smith plays off this by making the mask of the Voord actually convert other races into Voord.  It extends their life and makes them extremely strong.  They wish of course to convert others, but it is entirely up to others’ choice.  The mask itself has to accept you and if there is any doubt in your mind you will be killed in the process.  Carole Ann Ford gets to have this episode really show off her performance as Susan.  Susan is in complete mourning weeks after she thinks the Doctor has died and almost as a comfort she’s been talking with a prisoner Voord.  Now it’s interesting as they’re manipulating each other so they get information.  That poses a double edged sword for Susan as she of course gets captured by the end and will pay off in the story, but it’s a bit typical of Doctor Who.

 

The third episode while having the darkest themes also deals with lighter subject matter over all with Susan reuniting with Barbara, and the Doctor leading rebels.  In fighting begins among the Voord, and rebellion seems imminent.  Yet this episode sees conversion into Voord and the effects of when the mask is ripped off.  This includes sound design that has these squelching noises that make your skin crawl and it makes it official.  The Voord are a legitimate Doctor Who villain and William Russell, who has many scenes with himself as both Ian and the Doctor sell them as a credible threat.  The story does fall a bit flat in Episode Four “Fightback” with an ending that just sort of happens with rebellion and could really have been pulled off with more finesse.  The release really excels however with its format as the narration plus a full cast story allows this really good storytelling with the setback of actors who have passed away long ago.

 

To summarize, Domain of the Voord is a story that proves that you can teach an old dog new tricks as it revitalizes the Voord as a credible threat to the Doctor.  The story keeps the themes dark and yet can be seen very much like they’re in black and white in the mind of the listener.  The darkness that fills the story works very well in context as Smith has a mastery over the characters and can craft new characters out of bad ideas.  The only problem is really that the ending just happens without any sort of buildup which makes everything feel like a deus ex machina.  It doesn’t affect the story too much, but there is a dip in the quality with that final part. 90/100

No comments:

Post a Comment