The Valley of Death
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Big Finish Productions The Valley of Death |
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| Written by | Philip Hinchcliffe and Jonathan Morris |  |
| Format | Compact Disc | |
| Released | 2012 |
| Starring Tom Baker and Louise Jameson |
| Synopsis: A century after his great-grandfather Cornelius vanished in the Amazon rainforest, Edward Perkins is journeying to the depths of the jungle to find out what became of his ancestor's lost expedition. Intrigued by what appears to be a description of a crashed spacecraft in the diaries of that first voyage, the Doctor and Leela join him on his quest. But when their plane runs into trouble and ends up crash landing, everyone gets more than they bargained for. The jungle is filled with giant creatures and angry tribesmen, all ready to attack. But in the famed lost city of the Maygor tribe, something far, far worse is lurking. Something with an offer to make to mankind. Who are the Lurons and can they be trusted? Will the Doctor defeat the plans of the malevolent Godrin or will he become just another victim of the legendary Valley of Death? |
A Diary Holds the Secret to the City of Gold by Jacob Licklider 27/12/23
Seasons 12 through 14 offer an interesting style of story where classic films, especially horror films, had their archetype's adapted into Doctor Who serials. The Mummy became Pyramids of Mars, King Kong became Robot, The Manchurian Candidate became The Deadly Assassin and Invasion of the Body Snatchers became Terror of the Zygons. This was partially down to Philip Hinchcliffe as producer and Robert Holmes as script editor who wanted to emulate the style of gothic horror for the show, annoying critics like Mary Whitehouse. This also made the show much more accessible to all audiences, as the focus was not on children, but the family much more so than Barry Letts and Terrance Dicks, their predecessors. While Holmes wrote for the show several times during his period as Script Editor, Hinchcliffe never did, although he had several scripts and story ideas that he worked on and tried to get them submitted during the time of his successor Graham Williams. It wasn't a surprise when Big Finish got in touch with Hinchcliffe to adapt one of his scripts from this period of time, Valley of the Lost, a story that takes inspiration from the ideas behind Heart of Darkness and the idea of a city of gold with an alien twist with the Doctor and Romana thrown in the mix. However, the adaptation process, while keeping the main story, had to change the companion. Why? Because the story was originally meant to feature Lalla Ward's Romana, and Big Finish thought it would be better to keep Baker and Ward separate. They would eventually work together when doing the Novel Adaptations, but to keep Baker in a good mood they changed the companion to Leela.
The plot is very much in the style of The Seeds of Doom, working as the Doctor and Leela are attending a conference where Edward Perkins is proposing an expedition to the Amazon where his great-grandfather disappeared over one hundred years earlier. They go on the expedition with Perkins and journalist Valerie Carlton, who make up the main cast, where they find the lost city of the Maygor tribe where an alien called Godrin is being worshipped as a god and Cornelius Perkins is still alive and hasn't aged. It turns out Godrin has placed the area in a time bubble and tricks the Doctor to take him back to London so he can take over the world. It's a story that is very in tune with the Hinchcliffe era of the show, as there are a lot of gothic-horror factors and elements taken straight from alien-invasion films. The plot, however, is flawed, as the entirety of the Doctor being duped is extremely convoluted, as the Fourth Doctor could easily have figured out that Godrin is up to something. As a four-part story, it is extended to two hours, and it really feels very drawn out and split in half, very much like Parts Three and Four were supposed to be Parts Three, Four, Five and Six divided into two. Jonathan Morris did the adaptation, and he did very well with the story from the original storyline with a lot of things similar to the way Hinchcliffe would have made them.
Tom Baker as the Fourth Doctor is on top of his game, but it is odd considering he plays the part very similarly to the version of the character seen in Season 15. The Doctor is still very dark, but much more likely to crack a few jokes about the situation and of course makes that lapse in judgement that made this story become a four-part story, when it really could have just been two or three episodes long. Louise Jameson also serves the story well as Leela, even if the part was originally written for Romana. Either Hinchcliffe didn't know what Romana was going to be like or Jonathan Morris rewrote the part specifically for Leela, which is really quite good for the terms of the story. She, however, is pushed in the background for Valerie Carlton, who is pretty much a replacement for Sarah Jane Smith, and Tom Baker working with the character can obviously feel it. Baker isn't bad or mean, but whenever interacting with the character he is slightly more irritable, though it's probably an expression of grief for the sad passing of Elisabeth Sladen who passed just a few months before the recording for these stories took place.
To summarize, The Valley of Death is a story that is honestly really good from Philip Hinchcliffe with a great adaptation for audio by Jonathan Morris and brought to life by Big Finish Productions. The actual story is really good for the era and decent enough, but Hinchcliffe does show that he isn't an actual writer, but a producer. The story has several flaws, even when there are some great gags and little Easter Eggs to previous stories and the workings of the team behind this era. It is definitely the weaker of the two stories in this box set but is still worthy of being part of the return of Tom Baker. 78/100