Red Dawn [AUDIO/2000.5.4]

★★☆☆☆

  Apart from the crisp sound design, there's nothing in Red Dawn that really strikes out to me. Mind you, nothing here's exactly terrible either, but just because something isn't terrible doesn't mean it's necessarily great either. Whenever I listen to this adventure, I think of Justin Richards trying to come up with an era-accurate Ice Warrior story and focusing on the era (early John Nathan-Turner) too much that he forgets to craft a fun story.

  There's this one plot twist about Georgia Moffett's character being infused with Ice Warrior DNA, and in typical Big Finish fashion it comes into play late in the story. It's a genuinely good twist, with Moffett doing her absolute best to make it convincing (and dare I say, succeeding). Problem is, I suppose, that the twist is about the only interesting thing about Red Dawn. Every actor sounds either bored or confused (Peter Davison is cruising, and Nicola Bryant could not give a darn about the tiny role she's given here; I don't blame her at all), and the script lounges around in Mars talking about NASA protocols for three episodes before everything hits the fan at part 4. Stephen Fewell is either not putting in the effort or simply not cut out for a villainous role, because his Paul Webster is absolutely my least favorite part of Red Dawn; unconvincing doesn't cut it. I like him as Jason Kane, though.

*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ  

  Whether you're an Ice Warrior fan or a Fifth Doctor/Peri fan, Red Dawn has little to offer for both of you lot. It's fairly mediocre as a story about those fascinating Martian warlords, and as a Doctor Who story in general it's saddled by the fact that it takes ages for anything interesting to happen, let alone anything the Doctor and Peri does.