Glory Days Absence Venus Mantrap Secret Origins

Big Finish Benny Season 10

• A Review by Stephen Maslin

A Review by Stephen Maslin 12/9/10

Let's summarise what we know, shall we? Professor Bernice Summerfield started life as a companion in the Virgin New Adventures book range of the 1990s; a more grown-up kind, the type of which the Doctor had so skillfully avoided on TV (with the possible exceptions of Barbara, Liz, Romana and perhaps Tegan). So successful was she that when the 1996 Doctor Who TV movie came along and copyright considerations forced the NAs to become Doctorless, they continued with Benny as the main character and, for the most part, with some pretty good books.

It's hard to recall the end of the 90s in Doctor Who terms but that time was about as bleak as things got. The TV movie seemed to have been one final televisual opportunity criminally wasted, DWM had become a sad anachronism desperately scrabbling for something to write about, BBV never got it right and the NAs had only vague connections to their parent show. There were of course the BBC's own range of Eighth Doctor novels but reading them simply made one acutely aware of the sense of melancholy and loss that pervaded Who fandom. The NAs book range went bi-monthly in 1998; their end (and Benny's) seemed just over the horizon.

Yet even before the NAs cancellation in 1999, the licence to make audios adaptations of a handful of their previous output had been secured by Big Finish (founded in 1998). They were professional enough (and enjoyable enough) for the company to get permission to do proper Doctor Who stories and those stories became the central focus of a franchise that refused to die. The rest, right up to Rose and beyond, is history.

Perhaps many thought that Benny's raison d'etre was successfully discharged but as the new century dawned, she was still around, albeit left to her own devices. She was given a second season of audios, then a third and, with their funky new Adrian Salmon covers, brought us some quirky and original stories, shaping into a rather neat little franchise of its own (aside from a misguided experiment with an utterly dreadful new theme tune for season two).

Alas, 'Harsh Economic Truths Lesson 17' kicked in and seasons four through six were little more than attempts to put money in the coffers, bringing in a handful of cast-off Doctor Who monsters in some not-very-good scripts, alongside mercenary attempts to interweave plot lines with books. The whiff of cynicism mingled with the heady aroma of Eccleston's approaching leather jacket and cancellation of the Benny range seemed imminent, perhaps even deserved, the more so when the unlikely choice of Simon Guerrier was named as producer. With a less than stellar track record as an author (The Lost Museum and not much else) confidence was not at a premium but, despite two rather tedious plot strands (the Draconian-Mim War and Braxiatel not being very nice), there were some genuine returns to form during Mister Guerrier's two seasons in charge. Things were looking even rosier when the Benny range got Big Finish wunderkind Eddie Robson in as his successor. With the curse of the story arc a thing of the past and a whole bunch of minor characters from the Braxiatel Collection mercifully off-loaded, he assembled a fab little reboot for Season Nine: four splendid stories, ending on a real high with Matthew Sweet's tiny slab of genius, The Diet Of Worms.

So, with the stage set for a triumphant tenth season, what happened?

Glory Days.

Season Ten, Story One. Anyone hoping for a continuation of the fresh, new-broom approach of the previous three years was soon disappointed. Very soon in fact, as within one minute, in walks Adrian, the father of Benny's child, carrying a whole load of Braxiatel Collection-related, emotional baggage. In a few minutes more, we have Bev Tarrant back from the grave and a plot. "It's a bank job, pure and simple," says Bev and she's right. That's it: a bank job. Fair enough, all the employees at said bank sound like Benny's nemesis Braxiatel but it is still merely a bank job. There are some flashbacks (about a painting or something) but it's just a bank job. There are some really tasteless, unfunny jokes about Bev's assumed name and a truly dreadful comedy-clone scenario and it's still just a bank job. One has the feeling that the author reluctantly agreed to do comedy but just wanted to do a bank job. Harry Myers is splendid as the newly downbeat Adrian and there's a double plot twist at the end but all we've had is a bank job, pure and simple... and as dull as ditchwater.

Absence.

Since the pushing to the fore of Benny's boy Peter, there was an unspoken dread that he may at some point get his own episode. Prior to The Diet Of Worms, he hadn't even had much of a character, certainly not much to act with. In Absence, Peter is chosen for an expedition ahead of his mother so that Thomas Grant can take the lion's share of the action. We needn't have worried: he does a damn fine job. (Let's not forget that Peter's survival is always less certain than his mother's; his name is not above the title on the CD cover so there can be a real sense of threat.) The idea of cluster worlds spontaneously fusing together from space junk is a fine one and with characters having to communicate by radio in semi-darkness (a set-up made for audio), it's intriguing, atmospheric and well-structured. Peter's adolescent crush side plot is well-handled as is his mother's helpless fretting for his safety. Aside from Thomas Grant, Trevor Littledale shines as the unscrupulous Aslinides, a much more multi-dimensional villain than we might have expected. On the whole, perhaps not great but good, certainly. Season Ten back on track?

Venus Mantrap.

It doesn't take long into Venus Mantrap to work out that we are in for something akin to a Jewish Seder meal served with chocolate fudge ice cream moulded into the shape of a carrot. Half profundity and depth, half base comedy. Example One: "Since Jason's death..." says Benny, all regretful and broken, cueing sensitive harp music until her rival Scoblow replies in the Packars' trademark comedy-rodent voice and the music goes all cutesy again, from fourth gear into reverse and back again in one easy manoeuvre. Scoblow and Bernice's bickering tries to be entertaining and as the story creaks on, it seems clear that we are supposed to be concentrating on 'funny' - Benny being obliged to pass herself off as a 'Love Drone' for instance - but suddenly, in the midst of her flirtatious exchange with her client N'Jok we get: "I'm not quite sure if I'm ready... I just lost..." Then right back to the hilarious hi-jinx. Problem is, it's not hilarious. Not at all. Nothing wrong with the cast or the production, it's just that the script is not at all amusing when it is clearly trying so hard to be so. Example Two: Twisk's autocue speech (in fact, something from one of Benny's ex-husband's dirty books) goes way over the limit in the smut department (what is this, 'Carry On Up The Cosmos'?), without once threatening to produce so much as a smile. Example Three: Jason's bank account has a lot of money in it, which Benny could well do with but Mister Felterby whom we saw at the beginning is not in fact a tourist but a revenue collector and... Oh, my sides!... all Benny's money from Jason's estate is liable as tax! And a ship explodes... And Peter's been kidnapped... And who the hell cares...

Secret Origins

An Eddie Robson script and, ooh look, there's a nazi armband on the cover! At least the season's going to end on a high, right? Plump up the cushions everyone! One has come to expect intricate plots from Young Master Robson but more recently one has also come to realise that he has been seriously over-stretched. More than a dozen audio dramas in less than four years is a lot. Too many in fact and Secret Origins sounds like a great writer in desperate need of a holiday. The following might give you a flavour of what to expect. Take a deep breath... Benny wakes up in hospital on Earth with Peter (previously kidnapped) at her bedside, talking about someone called Robyn (a goodie) and Frost (a baddie), neither of whom Benny has heard of. Cue flashback and a huge epic plot (amulets, temple gods, the Welsh) condensed into a couple of minutes. Frost is defeated all too easily, Benny faints and wakes up in hospital again. Cue another flashback of a previous adventure with Robyn. Frost easily defeated again. Then another flashback in which Benny tries to secure a 'magic hand'. Then Frost reappears and an ancient Atlantean god comes to life. Benny wakes up in hospital once more followed by another flashback to the first time she met Frost. Robyn freezes time mid-adventure to give us The Explanation, Part One. Then Benny has to retrieve something hidden in a mountain but someone else gets there first and yes, it's f**king Braxiatel! Oh, and it was all in Benny's head. Got that? Here's what it really sounds like. An over-worked author who, being talented, has lots of interesting little snippets on his hard drive but who, having taken one or two writing jobs too many, also has a rather tight schedule. So he hastily links the bits together and puts a frame around it all in the form of an immense, tacked-on postscript (The Explanation, Part Two) which explains away why the story didn't much sense.

And at the end of that postscript, we have the ominous words: "I think it's time to go back..." (What?! To the Braxiatel Collection? I thought we'd ditched all that!) Yes, 'Back' is most definitely the word.

Anyone who has stuck with Benny through all the indignities heaped upon her over the years (fictional and otherwise) was surely entitled to high expectations in Season Ten. Yet one good story, one so-so, and two downright bad ones are not going to secure Benny's continued presence in our ears. In its attempt to become a market leader and expand out of niche fandom, Big Finish has spread itself painfully thin, without finding enough new writers (or indeed sound designers) to fill the breach and the quality across all its ranges has suffered. More has become less. A lot less. I for one don't care if we have sub-standard Sapphire and Steel or sub-standard Judge Dread or sub-standard Sherlock Briggs or sub-standard Dark Shadows or sub-standard Stargate or sub-standard Robin Hood or sub-standard Highlander or sub-standard Donald Duck. Let them all die forgotten in a corner. But Benny kicked all this off. She's been there from the beginning and deserves better. As do her fans.