30 Discs Hath November #19: The Worst Thing In The World

Bernice Summerfield 7.3:

The Worst Thing In The World

written by Dave Stone

Dave Stone is a funny one. I have a sort of love-hate relationship with his writing but not in the sense of some worked landing on one side and some on the other. That would be too simple an attitude to have towards The New Adventures' weirdest son, oh no. No, I tend to find his stuff a bit hard to get into but once I'm a few minutes/chapters in I start going with the flow and really enjoying it. Thus it was when I originally bought this CD: I got a couple of minutes into the Eastenders parody that opens the disc and gave up.

Then, when it was getting on for two o'clock this afternoon and I still hadn't written anything for this 30 Discs series and nothing was really grabbing me so I thought “Sod it, might as well get this one out of the way.”.

Whatever else I have to say about the story it made me realise how much I miss Jason Kane and hope that we get to see him again some day, an idea that was briefly mentioned at the end of the old Bernice box set series before they went back to being an explicit Doctor Who spin-off. I love that old chancer and his on-off relationship with Bernice that actually manages to be as entertaining whether its off or on. In this story he's being interviewed for galactic television as the director of a “xeno-porn bondage” movie because that's just the sort of thing Jason gets involved with when Benny isn't keeping him in line.

Anyway, he's being interviewed on “the Drome”: a massive self-contained corporate eco-system entirely dedicated to producing television shows. Everyone is part of the show there with actors doubling as audience members in other shows. Its all the brainchild of Marvin Glass whose brain patterns power the massive “transputer” that runs the Drome and who is inconveniently murdered a few minutes into the story providing us with plot and Jason with a reason to call in the expertise of his ex-wife.

It also gives Bernice a chance to escape the chaos of the post-Braxiatel Collection. I don't really remember the all the context (this has been sitting to one side for quite literally a couple of years) but it turns out that Bev Tarrant is not enjoying running the place after they kicked the boss out and Benny is extremely keen to have an adventure that's just fun and has nothing to do with anything.

The story that follows is one of the more batshit installments in Bernice's series as she and Jason find themselves dawn into various TV parodies as characters between more straightforward scenes of them going undercover to investigate Marvin Glass' murder. Your mileage will probably vary on this story depending on how much you enjoy really comical parodies such as, say, Bernice waking up as the heroine in a bodice ripper period drama and really, really living up to the name of the genre. Its the sort of over the top weird that one expects from Dave Stone which is either a massive selling point or a big strike against the story, in my case kind of both since it first stopped me getting into the plot and then was what kept me listening.

The end of the story promises that Benny and Jason are on their way back to the Collection to deal with ongoing plot which I am rather looking forward to because I do miss the Collection cast and I think I'll spend these next few entries polishing off season seven as listening to Ruler of the Universe reminded me how fun the Bernice Summerfield series is. 

30 Discs Hath November #18: The Green Man

Audio Adventures in Time and Space #33:

The Green Man

written by Zoltán Déry

Its back to the world of semi-legal spin-offs for one of those later run BBV audios where they licensed the rights to monsters and wrote stories about them. In this case its the Krynoids, a vegetable creature that takes over humans and turns them into Krynoids.

In this case the Krynoid has landed in darkest Mummerset sometimes in medieval times. In theory I see the thinking. Medieval times and an alien that possesses people and takes them over. Unfortunately, it doesn't really work out like that. As with in the original story there are two Krynoid pods, the first one takes over a herbalist called Osbert but he's dispatched in pretty short order leaving us with Pod #2 which has possessed a wolf and therefore isn't much conversation. This being an audio drama, an enemy that isn't much conversation is a pretty bad thing to have.

Zoltán Déry tries, bless him, to deliver on impressive visuals but, again, this is an audio and so having people telling me that the Krynoid has got bigger again is just a little underwhelming.

There is some investment to be had with the human cast even if the local (and non-speaking) lady's fever is a pretty bad attempt at raising tension seeing as we never get to meet her and her illness is never really defined. The character of Moses, a Jewish doctor and scientist brought in by the earl to heal his lady, is interesting though his allusions to losing his family during the crusades (and at European hands) serves as little more than a reason for the earl to feel uncomfortable and stop calling him “Jew” to his face.

All in all, I'd say this was a better story in concept than execution. There are some neat ideas like Moses trying to reverse engineer Greek fire using limited resources and a templar knight scientifically proving the Krynoid isn't a demon by dipping his sword in holy water and discovering it does nothing to make the sword more effective.

Oh well, they can't all be winners. 

30 Discs Hath November #14: The Mystery at Crucifix Heights

[This one's a murder mystery. As far as SPOILERS are concerned, I don't say whodunnit but I do talk about the plot a bunch so if you want to go in totally unspoilt do not read and that goes for the next three days and all]

Dark Shadows: The Tony and Cassandra Mysteries 1.1

The Mystery at Crucifix Heights

written by Philip Meeks

In have no real interest in Dark Shadows. Not a judgement on the show or the fandom, just something I never got in to. However, the audios have a supernatural detective sub-series starring Jerry Lacy as private detective Tony Peterson and Lara Parker as the witch Cassandra Collins. I love supernatural detective fiction and I picked up their adventures cheap in various sales. Now they have their own box set series.

Its clear that Big Finish are expecting to draw in new listeners with the box set as Tony and Cassandra start the first story separated and not talking to one another. In fact, the truth behind why they're not talking to each other is probably more important to the story than the resolution of the murder mystery. Actually, talking of the murder...

This story makes a lot of reference to Agatha Christie, mainly through Tony's secretary Rita who spends much of the story (for complicated reasons) undercover as an English aristocrat whose entire idea of the English aristocracy comes from Christie novels. She even offers sage advice based on the format of Christie mysteries. Its clear that Philip Meeks wants to at least evoke the feel of a Christie mystery but, sadly, the hour format doesn't really give him enough opportunity to flesh out his characters before they die.

One of the important things about Christie is that we usually get to know the victim or victims as well as the suspects pretty well before the murder happens. Given the time limit and the lack of a visual element, an audio like this is at a distinct disadvantage. In fact, at one point the team discuss suspects and mention people who have not actually “appeared” in the story who are obviously not the killer because, from a listener's point of view, they don't exist.

Of course, the meat of the story isn't the murder of participants at an occult auction but the renewal of Tony and Cassandra's partnership. Tony is at the auction working undercover security whilst Cassandra has been engaged by a mysterious third party to bid on a particular item, a large preserved wing of unknown origin. We're introduced to other bidders: a Swedish psychic child; a pompous crypto-zoologist; a missionary sister from some Louisiana convent; and, a soothsayer amongst others.

Then, as they say, the murders begin...

To go back to the Christie thing again. It isn't possible, as it theoretically is in a Christie novel, to work out who did it through logic and considering motive. Its a twist ending because this is Dark Shadows and the author (probably correctly) works out its more interesting to study Terry and Cassandra's relationship through the idea that Tony isn't sure she hasn't been the one killing people on behalf of her client. Its not a bad thought for him to have given their past but its also, obviously from the listener's perspective, not true as we've heard unseen forces messing with Cassandra at various points before this. So we know that Cassandra is innocent and we get to enjoy how she reacts to the serious accusation after a few scenes of more comfortable, friendly bickering with Tony.

Its the relationship that sold this series to me back when it was an occasional divergence in the monthly range and Meeks perfectly captures what made me fall in love with these two characters in the first place.

Let's hope the rest of the box set gives me as much to talk about without needing to discuss whodunnit.