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