Fond Farewell [AUDIO/2022.2.16]

★★☆☆☆

  Something just feels off about Fond Farewell. I don't know if it's the classic 45-minute syndrome, the conflicting feelings I have for the central idea of the piece, or simply Christopher Eccleston's oddly detached performance, but it simply doesn't work for me. I'm not gonna add an "at all" there because I, in fact, did have some fun with the story (I almost always do), but I'm pretty disappointed with this episode of the "first series" of Big Finish's Ninth Doctor releases.

  There is fun to be had in Fond Farewell; the idea of the deceased attending their own funerals is a simple switch of logic that provides a fascinating idea for a Doctor Who story, and for its credit the adventure does try to make it even more interesting by injecting many other complex themes into the mix, such as the morality of nonconsensual memory manipulation and cheating. I'd love to see a Doctor Who adventure that deals with these issues in an interesting way down the line; Fond Farewell simply does not fit the bill, as it deems fit to simply wrap all these disparate elements together hastily and place them awkwardly in the middle of its second half. Everything feels so clinical, so detached from emotion (which is ironic considering the story's dependence on sympathy and emotional connection) because it doesn't try to do anything with these ideas at all.

*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ  

  While not completely beyond redemption, Fond Farewell still stands as a disappointing slice of audio drama. It takes something that would have been a bold idea and turns it into an unambitious linear progression of events. Earlier I mentioned that Christopher Eccleston felt detached from the material this time around, and I still stand by that idea... although his flashback scenes with Beckett, with Eccleston expressing pure joy and excitement in those short moments, are simply glorious. I think the man needs a bit more time to perfect not just a faithful recreation of his Doctor as he was in 2005, but also a more refined and creatively free version that Eccleston himself wants to portray in the years to come. Everyone has their off days, so this must be his.