Planet Mondas

[singlepic id=729 w=208 h=208 float=right]He’s back, and it’s about time!

True in 1996 and true in 2014, but true for different characters, for 2014 sees the return of everyone’s favourite snivelling, sadistic capitalist, Sil.

Doctor Who does satire very very well, and this is up there with The Sunmakers. Sil is representing the “Universal Monetary Fund” offering exorbitant bailout loans to a struggling ConCorp (a future UK run by a board of directors, no less), does this sound familiar? Just look at Greece, Spain and Portugal and the way their bailout loans were handled and the parallels are clearly there.

Into this come the Sixth Doctor and his companion Flip, lured from a holiday by a distress call from another TARDIS. For the uninitiated, Flip is short for Phillipa Jackson, she has been travelling with the Doctor since “The Curse of Davros”, played brilliantly by Lisa Greenwood, a great addition to the pantheon of companions. Flip is brave, compassionate, impatient, inquisitive, in fact everything the Doctor looks for in a companion and is a great foil to Colin Baker, a companion in the mould of Rose Tyler and Lucie Miller.

24th Century UK (or ConCorp) is a depressing place, democracy died there 150 years ago and now everyone wears a happy face as the populace is kept docile by drugs, which ConCorp exports to the rest of the world. It really is a cracked mirror held up to the UK today, a docile populace letting corporations get away with eroding their rights in exchange for a quiet life.

But why has The Doctor been lured here, and why does Sil need a Time Lord?

It is a fact that Doctor Who does dystopian futures very very well, and the future in Antidote to Oblivion is no exception, it truly is an Orwellian world gone mad. Think The Sunmakers, The Happiness Patrol, Bad Wolf and you won’t go far wrong. Con Corp is a society devoid of humanity where Capitalism has been taken to its unfettered unregulated immoral end and is a cautionary tale.

There are surprises, revelations and some excellent character pieces. Nabil Shaban is as flesh crawlingly revolting as Sil as he ever was and is heartless cold capitalism personified, inciting mass murder of the population by cholera to reduce “welfare payments”. Colin Baker is incapable of playing the Doctor badly, and as I have said before, if he had been allowed to play the role this way on TV,  perhaps Tom would now be perceived as the “other Baker” and Lisa Greenwood’s Flip is fast becoming one of my favourite companions, up there with Romana II, Donna Noble and Lucie Miller.

So, excellent world building, fantastic characterisation, but what about plot? In a word “gripping”, two hours flew by, I was repulsed, incensed and exhilarated, but boy is it bleak, with episode three being some of the darkest and most disturbing material ever featured in Doctor Who in any format.

Sil would fit in very well with 21st century Who, his villainy is relatable to the worst excesses if 21st century society. I hope he returns to Big Finish soon.

Final Score 9/10

Written by Ed Watkinson

SYNOPSIS:

Future Britain is bankrupt, its corporate owners facing financial ruin. Fortunately, the Universal Monetary Fund, and its slimy representative Sil, are willing to give its President a multi-billion credit bail-out… but terms and conditions apply, and Sil’s proposed austerity measures go far beyond mere benefit cuts.

Responding to a distress call, the Doctor and his companion Flip land in a London whose pacified population has been driven largely underground. But the horrors down there in the dark are as nothing to the horrors that await them at ConCorp HQ, where a young biochemist in Sil’s employ is working on a permanent solution to the nation’s terminal unprofitability.

Because in the final account, Sil plans to make a killing…

CAST:

Colin Baker (The Doctor), Lisa Greenwood (Flip Jackson), Nabil Shaban (Sil), Dawn Murphy, David Dobson (Pan/Lord Mav), Mary-Ann Cafferkey (Cerise), Scott Joseph (Boscoe/Voda/Knight Marshal), Mandy Weston (Kristal/Mistress Na/Velena)

Written By: Philip Martin
Directed By: Nicholas Briggs

BUY YOUR COPY HERE

[singlepic id=729 w=208 h=208 float=right]One of the most memorable villains of the classic series of Doctor Who makes a welcome return this month courtesy of Big Finish.

Sil, played by actor Nabil Shaban, first appeared in the TV series in January 1985 in a story by well-known writer Philip Martin, Vengeance on Varos. The character, a ruthless money-grabbing envoy from the Galatron Mining Corporation, is on Varos negotiating a deal to buy the planet’s only export, zeiton 7 ore, which the mining company has convinced the authorities is almost worthless. In reality the ore is extremely rare and valuable and Galatron has been paying off corrupt local officials for years in order to buy it for next to nothing. Unfortunately for Sil the Doctor and Peri arrive on Varos in search of the ore, which the Doctor needs to repair the TARDIS, forcing Sil and his cronies to resort to ever more drastic measures to prevent the Time Lord revealing the ore’s true value.

Sil’s first outing proved so popular that he was brought back in October 1986 for the second story of the Trial of a Time Lord season, Mindwarp, again penned by Martin. This time the Doctor and Peri encounter Sil on his home planet of Thoros Beta where Kiv the leader of his race, the Mentors, is dying and in desperate need of a life-saving brain transplant operation from a scientist named Crozier. Into this chaos come the Doctor and Peri who soon become caught between their old adversary Sil, the ruthless scientist Crozier, and rebels led by a very angry Krontep Warrior King called Yrcanos. With one eye on the leader’s throne and another on the warpfold relay what wouldn’t Sil do to finally dispose of the Doctor, seize power and turn a huge profit?

Sadly this was Sil’s final appearance in the classic TV series but the character returned in 2009 for the Big Finish audio adaptation of Mission to Magnus. The Philip Martin script was one of the original stories planned for Season 23 which were abandoned when the production team decided to go with the Trial of a Time Lord concept.

Now in 2014 Sil makes a welcome return in a brand new audio adventure, Antidote to Oblivion, written by the character’s creator Philip Martin.

Sil remains one of the most memorable and much-loved characters in the long history of Doctor Who, largely due to Nabil Shaban’s unique and inspired interpretation of the role, so it’s no surprise that many fans would like to see his character brought back in the new series. Hopefully the success of this audio adventure will bring that reality one step closer.

Written by Mike Nuttall

SYNOPSIS:

Future Britain is bankrupt, its corporate owners facing financial ruin. Fortunately, the Universal Monetary Fund, and its slimy representative Sil, are willing to give its President a multi-billion credit bail-out… but terms and conditions apply, and Sil’s proposed austerity measures go far beyond mere benefit cuts.

Responding to a distress call, the Doctor and his companion Flip land in a London whose pacified population has been driven largely underground. But the horrors down there in the dark are as nothing to the horrors that await them at ConCorp HQ, where a young biochemist in Sil’s employ is working on a permanent solution to the nation’s terminal unprofitability.

Because in the final account, Sil plans to make a killing…

CAST:

Colin Baker (The Doctor), Lisa Greenwood (Flip Jackson), Nabil Shaban (Sil), Dawn Murphy, David Dobson (Pan/Lord Mav), Mary-Ann Cafferkey (Cerise), Scott Joseph (Boscoe/Voda/Knight Marshal), Mandy Weston (Kristal/Mistress Na/Velena)

Written By: Philip Martin
Directed By: Nicholas Briggs

BUY YOUR COPY HERE