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Liam Carey reviews

Doctor Who:
Seasons of Fear

Distributed by
Big Finish Productions

Year: 2002
Rating: 8/10
Cat. No: BFPDWCD8H
Format: 2xCD
Running Time: 110 minutes

Director:
Gary Russell

Writers:
Paul Cornell and Caroline Symcox

Cast:
The Doctor : Paul McGann
Charley Pollard : India Fisher
Sebastian Grayle : Stephen Perring
Marcus : Robert Curbishley
Lucilius : Stephen Fewell
Edward : Lennox Greaves
Edith : Sue Wallace

Someone, or something, has disrupted the space-time continuum.,

Was it The Doctor, who broke the rules of Time travel by saving Charlie from her destined fate on the R-101? Or are there evil forces at work, threatening the very fabric of perceived reality?

After the breathtakingly ingenious and insular Chimes Of Midnight, wherein one single household was caught in a bizarre timeloop, Seasons Of Fear takes the opposite approach. A sprawling epic, spread over two thousand years, the story begins in Singapore on New Year's Eve not long after the events of Storm Warning, as Charlie's pre-arranged rendezvous with her not-boyfriend Alex is fulfilled thanks to The Doctor.

His reverie amidst the stunning surroundings is interrupted by the appearance of a mysterious stranger who claims to be, in no particular order; from the future, working for powerful masters intent on destroying the Earth, immortal, and to have killed The Doctor in a time to come. The man, calling himself Sebastian Grayle, then vanishes into the night.

What follows is a somewhat fraught chase back and forth through time to stop Grayle and his masters from achieving their goal. Vital DNA from the unlikeliest of sources holds the key to The Doctor's hopes of tracking down Grayle before a gateway to Earth for his diabolical masters can be opened.

It needed Caroline Symcox to pull the various strands of Paul Cornell's original narrative together but the balance, between the latter's ambitious concepts laced with snappy dialogue and the former's gift for pace and structure, is just about perfect. Yet, even at this stage the BFs can still feel a bit stagey and convoluted - for all the wit, passionate technobabble and gripping action involving McGann and Fisher, the supporting cast and characters continue to jar more than they should. Grayle would, in an ideal world, be played by an actor with the gravitas of David Warner, but soundalike Stephen Perring does an admirable job in a demanding role without ever quite nailing Grayle's growing meglomania. The other performances range from decent to rather amateurish.

Part Four offers a major surprise when the identity of Grayle's masters is finally and spectacularly revealed; The Doctor admonishes himself for not spotting the clues sooner, and given the references in the story to Roman legends of slaying a demonic bull perhaps the revelation will be more obvious to some. No-one, however, will be prepared for the seriously unsettling and cryptic finale.

Seasons Of Fear - more than a load of old bull.

Review copyright © Liam Carey, 2003.

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The following is a list of all the Doctor Who content reviewed to date :

2010 Series 31, Episode 1 - "The Eleventh Hour", by Dan Owen 2010 Series 31, Episode 2 - "The Beast Below", by Dan Owen 2010 Series 31, Episode 3 - "Victory of the Daleks", by Dan Owen 2010 Series 31, Episode 4 - "The Time of Angels", by Dan Owen 2010 Series 31, Episode 5 - "Flesh And Stone", by Dan Owen 2010 Series 31, Episode 6 - "The Vampires of Venice", by Dan Owen 2010 Series 31, Episode 7 - "Amy's Choice", by Dan Owen 2010 Series 31, Episode 8 - "The Hungry Earth", by Dan Owen 2010 Series 31, Episode 9 - "Cold Blood", by Dan Owen 2010 Series 31, Episode 10 - "Vincent & The Doctor", by Dan Owen 2010 Series 31, Episode 11 - "The Lodger", by Dan Owen 2010 Series 31, Episode 12 - "The Pandorica Opens", by Dan Owen 2010 Series 31, Episode 13 - "The Big Bang", by Dan Owen

2008 2008 Xmas Special - "The Next Doctor", by Dan Owen 2009 2009 Easter Special - "Planet of the Dead", by Dan Owen

2008 Series 30, Episode 13 - "Journey's End", by Dan Owen 2008 Series 30, Episode 12 - "The Stolen Earth", by Dan Owen 2008 Series 30, Episode 11 - "Turn Left", by Dan Owen 2008 Series 30, Episode 10 - "Midnight", by Dan Owen 2008 Series 30, Episode 8 - "Silence in the Library" (part 1 of 2), by Dan Owen 2008 Series 30, Episode 7 - "The Unicorn and The Wasp", by Dan Owen 2008 Series 30, Episode 6 - "The Doctor's Daughter", by Dan Owen 2008 Series 30, Episode 5 - "The Poison Sky" (Part 2 of 2), by Dan Owen 2008 Series 30, Episode 4 - "The Sontaran Stratagem" (Part 1 of 2), by Dan Owen 2008 Series 30, Episode 3 - "Planet of the Ood", by Dan Owen 2008 Series 30, Episode 2 - "The Fires of Pompeii", by Dan Owen 2008 Series 30, Episode 1 - "Partners In Crime", by Dan Owen

2006 Series 28, Episode 1 - "New Earth", by Dan Owen 2006 Series 28, Episode 2 - "Tooth & Claw", by Dan Owen 2006 Series 28, Episode 3 - "School Reunion", by Dan Owen 2006 Series 28, Episode 4 - "The Girl in the Fireplace", by Dan Owen 2006 Series 28, Episode 5 - "Rise of the Cyberman", by Dan Owen 2006 Series 28, Episode 6 - "The Age of Steel", by Dan Owen 2006 Series 28, Episode 7 - "The Idiot's Lantern", by Dan Owen 2006 Series 28, Episode 8 - "The Impossible Planet", by Dan Owen 2006 Series 28, Episode 9 - "The Satan Pit", by Dan Owen 2006 Series 28, Episode 10 - "Love and Monsters", by Dan Owen 2006 Series 28, Episode 11 - "Fear Her", by Dan Owen 2006 Series 28, Episode 12 - "Army of Ghosts" (Part 1 of 2), by Dan Owen 2006 Series 28, Episode 13 - "Doomsday" (Part 2 of 2), by Dan Owen

2005 Series 27, Episode 1 - "Rose", by Dan Owen 2005 Series 27, Episode 2 - "The End of the World", by Dan Owen 2005 Series 27, Episode 3 - "The Unquiet Dead", by Dan Owen 2005 Series 27, Episode 4 - "Aliens of London", by Dan Owen 2005 Series 27, Episode 5 - "World War Three", by Dan Owen 2005 Series 27, Episode 6 - "Dalek", by Dan Owen 2005 Series 27, Episode 7 - "The Long Game", by Dan Owen 2005 Series 27, Episode 8 - "Father's Day", by Dan Owen 2005 Series 27, Episode 9 - "The Empty Child", by Dan Owen 2005 Series 27, Episode 10 - "The Doctor Dances", by Dan Owen 2005 Series 27, Episode 11 - "Boom Town", by Dan Owen 2005 Series 27, Episode 12 - "Bad Wolf", by Dan Owen 2005 Series 27, Episode 13 - "The Parting of The Ways", by Dan Owen 2005 Series 27, Episode 1 - "Rose", by Dom Robinson 2005 Series 27, Episode 1 - "Rose", by Paul Manners

And the Audio CDs :

2000 04: The Land of the Dead 2000 06: The Marian Conspiracy 2000 10: Winter for the Adept 2000 12: The Fires of Vulcan 2000 14: The Holy Terror 2000 15: The Mutant Phase 2001 16: Storm Warning 2001 18: The Stones of Venice 2002 28: The Chimes of Midnight 2002 30: Seasons of Fear 2002 31: Embrace the Darkness 2002 35: ...Ish 2002 39: ...Bang-Bang-A-Boom!

2003 Doctor Who Audio CDs: An introduction

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