There’s no explanation given as to why the Fifth Doctor might be travelling alone at the start of this new Monthly Range adventure from Big Finish, and those who like to slot the audio adventures neatly within the television continuity will be scratching their heads over where to put it, but freed up from the trappings of his TV counterpart Peter Davison revels in the opportunity to stretch his oft-frustrated screen persona in very agreeable ways; it’s rather nice that it’s not his companions who are harrying him for once.
The Helliax Rift is the first instalment in a new UNIT continuity, and it’s a slightly odd story to launch the conceit. For a start, our replacement Brigadier – Lieutenant-Colonel Lewis Price, as played by Julian Rhind-Tutt sound-alike Russ Bain – is a bit of a jobsworth with little of the attendant twinkle we’d have expected from his predecessor. That’s not an issue in itself, but it’s a shame he isn’t given someone to bounce off and help bring out a little more colour in the performance; instead, he seems determined throughout to get the Doctor locked up and taken out of the equation, which seems strange given how readily he accepts the Time Lord’s unofficial position as scientific adviser.
It takes a good two of these four episodes for the narrative to really get started, the Doctor and UNIT’s parallel investigations being rather straightforward and most of the exposition occurring in easily offered explanations in Part Three. And that’s when we get to the heart of what The Helliax Rift is really all about; the fifth Doctor has accidentally materialised in the midst of a Torchwood episode, albeit this one an appropriation of a Jeremy Kyle segment. It’s a good idea and writer Scott Handcock – who feels much more at home in a freer environment away from the Big Finish main range – is thoroughgoing in making everything fit together and work appropriately, but Davison’s Doctor feels wholly out of place once we get to the meat of it. Especially during an explanation in flashback and subsequent mind-meld. If you don’t mind your classic Doctors fetching up in stories they’d never conceivably have appeared in, this might be just the ticket, however.
The rest of the cast, while unquestionably capable, keep things moving along swiftly and enjoyably – and the story certainly comes to life – without ever quite approaching the charm we’d have expected of the original UNIT era. And that’s okay; this isn’t then, after all – but Blake Harrison as pseudo-companion Lieutenant Daniel Hopkins is no Ian Marter either, and it’ll take some convincing for this new variation on the organisation to bed in quite so cheerfully as the first generation did.
DOCTOR WHO: THE HELLIAX RIFT / DIRECTOR: JAMIE ANDERSON / WRITER: SCOTT HANDCOCK / STARRING: PETER DAVISON, BLAKE HARRISON, RUSS BAIN, GENEVIEVE GAUNT, DEBORAH THOMAS, ANNA LOUISE PLOWMAN / PUBLISHER: BIG FINISH / RELEASE DATE: MAY 31ST
