Unregenerate! [AUDIO/2005.6.?]

 

★★☆☆☆

  Sylvester McCoy is sometimes presented with material that he struggles to bring to life; it's happened on the telly and it occasionally happens, to this day, on audio. His performance in three-fourths of Unregenerate! seems to be a point of contention, and my two cents on the matter are that while he's not... spectacular... there is something about his unique voice that allows his Doctor to be even more mysterious and menacing in a brainwiped state. In any case, this story is not exactly his finest outing as Seven. 

  I just feel down whenever I listen to something like Unregenerate!; it's got heaps of potential to be a genuinely interesting exploration of Time Lords and the Celestial Intervention Agency. The mental hospital setting actually works well, and the first episode utilizes the menacing atmosphere of the place very nicely. I was ready for whatever the story was going to throw at me — and then the second and third episodes did practically nothing to keep my interest. Wasted potential, that's what saddens me the most. Time Lord scientific experiments pertaining to injecting TARDIS minds into human bodies seems like such a rich topic to explore, and yet Unregenerate! does almost nothing at all to create an interesting scenario... or even a sequence. It's all just by-the-numbers Doctor Who in an enclosed setting, and it's also pretty boring. I have very little to say about this story anymore; I wouldn't recommend it to anyone.

*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ  

  Dear me, I've just realized. Unregenerate! is supposed to take place immediately after Time and the Rani... I can't imagine something of this atmosphere and setting would have gone well with the direction of the show at the time.