INVADERS FROM MARS

Written and directed by MARK GATISS

Starring PAUL McGANN
and INDIA FISHER

BIG FINISH

£13.99 CD


RATING: 8/10

Welcome as it was, Big Finish's first Eighth Doctor "season" was a bit average overall, and anyone who listened to the stories in sequence will have noticed a drop in quality across the four (although personally I'd rank Minuet In Hell above its predecessor). However, one consistently enjoyable element was the performance of the leads, and it's good to see India Fisher returning as Charley.

Although writer and director Mark Gatiss' only previous Big Finish work was the decidedly average Phantasmagoria, that was only the second release in the range and since his novels have been consistently enjoyable, hopes were high that this new "season" would get off to a good start.

And those hopes aren't dashed, with some good performances and an enjoyable script combining in a good season opener.

After an opening TARDIS scene with the Doctor namedropping as usual (and having some fun with the name "Canute") and promising to finally get Charley to Singapore, the story proper begins. Of course, they don't actually arrive in Singapore, with the skyline and a dead body leading the Doctor to conclude that they're actually in New York.

More precisely, its Halloween 1938, and Orson Welles is soon to make himself infamous with his broadcast of The War of the Worlds. This isn't exactly an original setting - the late 1980s TV series of the same name had an episode based on the idea that the radio broadcast was actually a cover-up for a real invasion, but it's still a good idea and it works well.

Alongside this, Gatiss throws in Nazis, Communists, mobsters and some great characters. Aside from David Benson's Welles, we've got Bix Biro ("a pen name?" asks the Doctor), the menacing mobster Don Chaney and the sultry Glory Bee. The usual Big Finish problems about less than convincing American accents apply, but in this case it's almost part of the fun, with some great dialogue along the way.

Gatiss' sleeve notes state that he wanted a film-noir feel to the production, and this is well captured by the production. Alistair Lock's music contributes to this feeling - there's not a lot of it, but the few bars used to separate scenes work very well and add to the period feeling.

All in all, a good start to "season 28". BACK TO THE TOP