Buried Treasures
A Benny Audio Adventure
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Big Finish Buried Treasures A Benny Audio Adventure |
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| Author | Paul Cornell and Jacqueline Rayner |  |
| Released | 1999 | |
| Cover | Lee Sullivan |
| Synopsis: A free CD released to early subscribers of the first season of Bernice Summerfield audio plays. |
"The Planet Mercury Has Two Sides..." by Stephen Maslin 29/3/14
Without wishing to appear ungrateful, Big Finish's subscriber freebies have often been painfully poor (Her Final Flight, Crytobiosis, Return of the Daleks and An Earthly Child are all prime stinkers), outnumbering a few 'not-bad-actuallys' like The Maltese Penguin, Return to the Web Planet and Return of the Krotons. Buried Treasures was the first of these fits of largess (given away as a freebie to those who purchased the three stories of The Time Ring Trilogy: Walking to Babylon, Birthright and Just War). Quite by accident, it manages to prematurely summarize the entire Bernice Summerfield range in miniature. In terms of original fiction, there are but two short dramas - Making Myths and Closure - and they exist at the polar opposites of what the books and audios have served up, from as far back as the New Adventures books until the 2014 vintage. On the one hand "Science Fiction has never been so much fun!" and on the other "She's back and it's about angst!"
Making Myths is of the former variety, with a comedic lightness of touch, very much in tune with the superb audio rendition of Oh No It Isn't!, and enough charm to make one want to return to it, thus passing that time-honoured test of how many times one can listen to or watch something; that is, more than once. Take, for example, your favourite 'classic' Doctor Who TV stories and ask yourself how many times you've seen them and how many times you might do so again in the future. In Benny's audio output, there are about a dozen or so of these and Making Myths is one of them. The relationship between its two leads is perfectly captured, managing to hint at a long-term friendship without directly telling us about it, and provoking a smile without resorting to buffoonery. Despite the slightly cutesy incidental music, the sound design gives the bizarre mud-world of Agravan a genuine sense of place and it's all rather good fun to boot. Particular brownie points go to Sarah Mowatt's endearing portrayal of Ceri the Packah. For those of you who know nothing of the history of cricket, that name is, by the way, a differently spelt in-joke.
Closure, on the hand, aims for an opposite extreme: dark, thought-provoking, earnest. No sniggering. There's nothing particularly wrong with the script or the performance, nor do I have any problem with stories that offer a darker view of things. It is just that when the basic idea is something as well-trodden as what's on offer here, most folk will have already chewed over the central dilemma and metaphorically spat it out, so that one ends up listening to actors showing their craft not out of necessity but out of politeness. It's all very talky, ultimately groping for what so much 21st century science-fiction aspires to: emotional depth; wishing to reinstate an oft-ridiculed genre to its supposedly rightful place alongside Citizen Kane and the novels of Henry James. Closure would have worked a lot better on the printed page but as an audio short, it represents all that I don't want from Benny (or for that matter from the Doctor): the direction that recent Bernice Summerfield audios have in fact taken: that travelling the universe, getting into scrapes and righting wrongs is a serious business.
No. Real life is a serious business. Call me shallow if you will, but what I want from Benny and her chums is escapism. I shall keep my emotional depth for when a close relative passes away. I see no reason for wanting more of that in my leisure time.
Making Myths 8/10
Closure 4/10