December 2016 brings the
two final novel adaptations for Big Finish, at least for the time being. The range as a whole has been excellent at
adapting novels into audio dramas. Even
novels that are just mildly good like The
Highest Science have been turned into great audios. Now this trend has to be kept up with the
final two and Big Finish picked some great novels to adapt. What surprised me when the Novel Adaptations
were announced to be continuing past the initial Love and War was that they were adapting Damaged Goods with Chris and Roz, two companions whom I hadn’t been
introduced to yet in prose form and this story takes place pretty deep into the
time they’re travelling with the Doctor.
I was excited when it was announced that Big Finish would be adapting
their first adventure Original Sin
for release in December 2016. That
feeling of wary anticipation set in once I read Original Sin and fell in love with just how good it was.
These reviews have been
not on straight adaptation and loyalty to the book, but on how well the audio
adaptation tells the story, be it changing it for better or for worse. This adaptation by John Dorney has been
written as a labor of love for the Virgin New Adventures and in an interview
with Vortex Magazine Dorney mentioned how easy it was to adapt. All he had to do was to turn the book into a
script and to be honest it really works.
You get the same characterization of the novels characters from Lane’s
original manuscript and as much depth all crammed into some exposition
dumps. Now I usually would be the first
to complain about using an exposition dump as they are often unnecessary, but
as this was a novel that featured quite a bit of world building in scenes that
would see them killed off the way Dorney wrote around this was a stroke of
absolute genius. He takes the newsreader
character in the novel and not only allows her to have a largely expanded role
from the novel, but allows her to be reading out news stories of all these
people’s deaths.
There are two major
deviations from the original novel that while usually I would be annoyed with
because of how it isn’t representative of the original story, but if the
subplots were kept in the pace of the audio would have been dragged down. The first is in the way Chris loses his body
bepple, in the novel he is treated by a Doc Dantalionn, who erased Hith
memories in the novel, but in the audio is there with a diminished role. Second is actually the scenes with Chris’s
family which again could just be cut out completely without having to miss
anything. I sure didn’t the first time
listening to this audio which is a testament to how good John Dorney was at
adapting Andy Lane’s original novel. The
pacing of the story is really good as well considering that the novel was
already pretty long. Dorney mentions he
may have had to adapt it into a three disc release, but that isn’t necessary
with the trims and cuts. The pacing is
also in two part hour long episodes bookended with the theme used in Damaged Goods. It really makes this and Damaged Goods set out as later adventures with a completely new
team for the Doctor and company.
This point on will have
extreme spoilers for the audio so please go listen to the audio before
continuing. Philip Voss was credited on
the front cover for playing this story’s villain who is a classic villain from
the Patrick Troughton era of Doctor Who.
Yes the twist is that after The
Invasion Tobias Vaughn has survived as a brain in a computer and has been
corrupting the Earth with his own influence throughout history. Doing this story is interesting considering
Kevin Stoney, who played Vaughn in The
Invasion, passed away and people usually would have an uproar if it was a
recurring role. The good news is that
Philip Voss, through his already chilling voice and a bit of voice modulation
actually makes it sounds like this is Kevin Stoney playing the character. Sylvester McCoy as the Doctor works as a
great foil to Vaughn and the rest of the cast especially Andrew French as
Provost Major Beltempest who is also translated right from the novel. It makes a lot of interesting parallels to
the rest of the plot when the Doctor and Beltempest go to investigate the
murder victims and the conspiracy though the Adjudicator’s Guild. The character of Pryce also survives the
adaptation unscathed and even better as Jot Davies plays him as a madman in a
way that is chilling.
The other grouping of
characters starts with Lisa Bowerman’s Bernice Summerfield. It’s a great performance as Bowerman always
gives and allowing her another story to play the character is great. From the opening lines of the story which are
chillingly depicting the death of one of the Hith in the arms of Bernice
Summerfield throws you right into the action of the story. She’s just got this way with her that makes
everything interesting. Yasmin Bannerman
as Roz Forrester is great at portraying the nuance in the character. This novel’s arc for Roz from the beginning
was to establish her as a cop and have her world shattered with the betrayal of
Fen Martle whom she ended up killing which makes her break. Her sarcastic comments towards Chris and at
the end of the story are a highlight for the character who gets to be much more
energetic. Travis Oliver as Chris Cwej
allows us to see right into the character’s motivations even without the
subplot with his familial relations.
Oliver and Bannerman work off each other and by the end they have begun
the relationship that would make so many of the later novels.
To summarize, Original Sin is the perfect way of
adapting the originally lengthy novel down into a manageable two hour
story. The cast is all great, but the
amount of actors used can get a bit confusing at times as characters can blend
down to each other. McCoy, Bowerman,
Bannerman, and Oliver all do great work and makes it really sad that they’re
other novels will not be adapted. 95/100
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