Big Finish Productions Animal

Written by	Andrew Cartmel
Format	Compact Disc
Released	2011

Starring Sylvester McCoy and Sophie Aldred

Synopsis: Margrave University in 2001, and Raine Creevy is enjoying her first trip into the future. For the Doctor, there are mysteries to solve: what are the alien creatures imprisoned in the science labs? And what are the true motives of the student Scobie and his followers? With enemies on all sides, the Doctor teams up with his old friend Brigadier Bambera and the forces of UNIT in a battle for the future of the whole world.

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You Will Come to Know Harm by Jacob Licklider 30/9/23

Filling in the third slot for the Season 27 adaptations for The Lost Stories was always going to be a tricky task, as the original ideas for the story for that slot were Night Thoughts, Transit and Illegal Alien which were already adapted in the Main Range, the Virgin New Adventures and in the Past Doctor Adventures, respectively. They could have adapted Alixion by Robin Mukherjee or even Avatar by future Doctor Who novelist David A. McIntee, but McIntee already used Avatar in his debut novel White Darkness and Mukherjee never got back to Big Finish for adaptation rights. Then of course the team at Big Finish noticed that Andrew Cartmel actually had a different idea going into the writing of his novel Warlock. It was essentially the same story but safer for television, so this is what they had decided to adapt for the audio under the original title Animal. The plot is very similar to Cartmel's novel, but with quite a few key differences. First, the drug storyline is taken out of the audio drama completely, and the villains of the story are actually the Numlocks, an alien race of beings that make sure we will come to know harm if we eat meat. It is still a story about animal activism and veganism which is really interesting for a story. Second, the story's setting is moved to Margrave University where UNIT has a research lab testing on plants that have become animals, and Brigadier Bambera is in control of the situation.

Third, the story includes Ace and Raine instead of Ace and Benny, which gives the story a completely different dynamic. Raine, played by Beth Chalmers, gets a real chance to shine here, as we delve into a lot of her past. She went to university and can easily fit in to university life, which is hilarious, as she has to be the one to investigate some of the underworld workings going on at Margrave in the first half of the story. In the second half of the story, however, she reverts into more of a companion role where there isn't much for her to do. This isn't as big of a problem as a lot of them can be, but it still presents a problem. Ace, as she never went to university, has a more difficult time, and here it is even funnier as she has to act like she is a vegan for the majority of the story. It's hilarious, and Sophie Aldred pulls it off brilliantly. She also is interesting, because she is written very much like the Ace in the Virgin New Adventures, as this feels very much like it was written off an early draft of Warlock. It really does come across that way.

Angela Bruce returns as Winnifred Bambera, which is a great move on Big Finish's part as if there were more UNIT stories, she would be brought back. Bruce gives a great performance in this story, as she doesn't take anything from her subordinates. She has an operation to carry out here, and she is going to do it and finish everything that she starts. Sylvester McCoy is great as he works with the Numlocks, even if he doesn't have any sort of master plan to get everything to go back to normal and really it lets the story down in quite a few ways. The wordplay is good though.

To summarize, Animal is pretty much a toned-down version of Warlock, with quite a few of the same problems to boot. It does a good job of making itself a really good villain and some creatures that may as well be the Krynoids if the Krynoids weren't as scary as they would usually be. Most everything is good, it just feels like a copy with some shaky characterization in quite a few places and things that really just feel out of place. 80/100