Telling single-narrator short stories in the Doctor Who universe sounds like an easy ask, but it probably actually isn’t. Big Finish is set up to fit their new adventures into the television continuity, and so although they’ve been known to experiment with form and content, there’s always the nagging question of how well the stories they’re recording in the twenty-first century fit with the TARDIS teams of thirty-plus years ago. Mel-Evolent is a case in point; there’s a lovely idea at the heart of Simon A. Forward’s forty-odd minute tale, but it’s slightly a shame that the author pulls back from going fully at it, and instead settles for giving a plausible enough Science Fiction Reason for the events that unfold. Because this really wants to be a fairy tale, but there’s a need in Doctor Who – particularly in that variety of Doctor Who that exists to mimic the programme we saw on the television – to rationalise things in a way that can rob them of some of their magic.
The plot concerns an apparently evil doppelganger Mel that the sixth Doctor’s latter companion discovers in the TARDIS theatre one day while old Sixie is practising his soliloquising. It’s not long before the Pease Pottage computer programmer is heading through the mirror – actually the Time/Space Visualiser – while the Doctor keeps fit in the console room in order to maintain a signal keeping the two in contact. So far so fun, and when the reason for all this kicks in it concerns a link to beyond the Doctor’s past that elevates Mel-Evolent beyond the inconsequential. There are questions raised that the story probably does well not to address too deeply, and in the end, this fits itself neatly enough into the ambience of mid-1980s Doctor Who. But it is a shame that the Snow White allusions only go as far as they do.
Also elevating Mel-Evolent is Bonnie Langford’s reading of it, which other than being perhaps not quite as brisk as it might be, is as lively and engaging as you’d expect from the once sorely underappreciated companion. Langford is a genuine national treasure, and you can sense how much she’s enjoying this, from her amusing efforts at capturing Colin Baker’s Doctor to the moments she slips back into Mel circa 1986 – quite distinct from the first-person narrator. She’s a joy to have in your ears, quite frankly. And if it’s worth listening to just for Langford alone, the story also overcomes its limitations to the point at which, if not quite profoundly, it at least stretches the imagination as much as it does the continuity. This isn’t wholly successful, but even for a Short Trip, it pushes some boundaries.
DOCTOR WHO SHORT TRIPS: MEL-EVOLENT / DIRECTOR: HELEN GOLDWYN / WRITERS: SIMON A. FORWARD / STARRING: BONNIE LANGFORD / PUBLISHER: BIG FINISH / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW
