In Destiny of the Daleks, we were introduced to the deadly enemies of the Daleks. A fanatical race of robots, they had thick eyeliner and mops on their heads, and could be defeated intellectually by rock-paper-scissors, and physically by grabbing an unsecured power pack from off their belt. Clearly they were one of Doctor Who’s greatest villains, yet they never appeared again.
2017 turned out to be a banner year for the Movellans: absent any reappearances for 38 years, they turned up twice this year. Once on screen, once on audio. One of these appearances treated them with exactly the respect they deserved, the other appearance treated the return of a group of aliens from the waning years of Terry Nation’s never-exactly-expansive creativity as an event all of us Doctor Who fans had been salivating for. I’ll leave you to guess which one was produced by Big Finish.
Yes, while the appearance of a number of Movellan corpses during a Dalek war in Steven Moffat’s The Pilot had me laughing so hard my wife thought there was something wrong with me, there’s not a single laugh to be found in Andrew Smith’s The Movellan Grave. Nor, come to think of it, any emotional reaction beyond frustration. Monotonous and dull in the extreme, it feels like a leftover gasp of the misguided chain of thought that brought us Fourth Doctor classics like The Oseidon Adventure and Zygon Hunt. There’s nothing of interest to be found here: stock characters who contribute so little you wonder why they bothered to cast actors, a hackneyed story about an android who goes beyond his programming, more sniping from Lalla Ward’s Romana.
The Movellan Grave would have been a misfire in any context. Put it up next to Steven Moffat’s take on the Movellans, and it’s hard to justify it at all. Andrew Smith managed a new and interesting take on the Sontarans in The Lost Stories, but this new take on an old monster fails to justify its own existence.
The Movellan Grave (by Andrew Smith; starring Tom Baker, Lalla Ward) was released by Big Finish Productions in July 2017.
Hi,
I really do find the negativity within many of this critics reviews very challenging to cope with. Ultimately, Dr. Who is not fine art – it is one of the most over done genre fictions available. Much like Star Wars. In particular, AudioDramas are made for fans, devoted fans. Everybody else prefers to watch cinema or television, and it’s not like there’s any shortage of it nowadays especially with the proliferation of cable television on the internet, eg. Netflix.
The point I’m trying to make here is that devoted fans like myself who make up the vast majority of BigFinish’s customers are very forgiving when it comes to Dr. Who story telling. We don’t expect every story to be 10/10. We don’t even mind if the stories are 4-5/10. Truth is, we’re still going to laugh, be excited and throughly enjoy ourselves. For example, unlike this critic whose slammed many of the latest Fourth Doctor Titles, I’ve loved every single one. I’m simply overjoyed each time one is released. It’s one more opportunity for me to hear my favourite Doctor in action, within fantasy worlds I just love to bits. Sure, some stories are more brilliant than others. But truth be told, for me and most Dr. Who fans, we’re a very forgiving bunch. We just want more stories with our favourite classic Doctors and characters.
And for this fan, I’ve yet to buy a BigFinish story I haven’t loved to bits, and in 2017 I bought every single title they released and even more of their back catalogue. So if your new to BigFinish and Dr. Who I’d ask yourself- are you a devoted fan or not? If not, then I’d definitely listen to this wise fella here, for he most certainly has a great eye for fiction. However, if your a fan like myself- don’t get put off by these criticisms. Because for the vast majority of Fourth Doctor fans we loved every single release! It’s probably why I’ve bought them all, well almost- just got the last of Series 5 to buy. I think I’ll get them for free as I begin buying back catalogue subscriptions of BigFinishs Monthly Range this year (with every subscription you get a Free £10.99 Title & the 1st 100 Titles only cost £32 for 12x 2 Hr stories! Pretty awesome deal isn’t it :))
Thx everyone