Past Lives [AUDIO/2023.5.3]

★★☆☆☆

  Well, this wasn't quite what I was expecting my first 2023 (60th anniversary year! Phew.) Dr. Who adventure to be. I wouldn't have guessed the giant crocodile aliens, but I would've at least liked something baseline enjoyable.

  This, of course, implies that I didn't enjoy Past Lives, the first installment of Big Finish's 60th anniversary series Once and Future. Now, if you've read this blog for some time, you'd have a general sense of my opinion towards Big Finish's writing in recent years, and you'd also be able to guess that I think much the same with this installment. In fact, I think the issue's particularly egregious when the main narrative deals with a past, unexplained adventure and its fallout... by spending the majority of the runtime doing absolutely nothing with it (it's not a "rewrite" of the original timeline, nor is it a fun little coda since it does not deal with the aftermath in any interesting way). I'm guessing Robert Valentine was on a rush when he wrote this, since I find his works to be far more enjoyable on most days and Past Lives has the unmistakable sense that it was written quite hastily. 

  I'm not saying this is the pits. On the contrary, Tom Baker and co. are reliable hands (especially Kate & Osgood, they're always a pleasure) and they make it listenable. That's the point, though -- they're just listenable. They could've been given so much more to do, so many more ways they interact with the surrounding narrative, setting, anything! Here, they're simply riding the waves of the plot and making "aha, that's so totally [insert character]!" lines here and there and call it a day. Sarah Jane and UNIT are given nothing to do, the Doctor is given barely anything to do, and -- here's the biggest crime of all -- the Monk is given barely anything to do. Rufus Hound is an amazing Monk, and props where it's due, he gets to be the delightfully scheming and pathetic time meddler for the first... seven?... minutes of the play before he loses all personality and becomes another unremarkable piece in Valentine's chessboard. 

  When there is practically nothing for me to spoil since 1) the central premise is gladly advertised ad infinitum by Big Finish and 2) nothing else in the audio drama is in any way remarkable, I know deep down that I simply do not like this installment at all. I don't hate it, no, but i just do not like almost all of what's inside. A very big shame, that, since this is the beginning of a supposedly ambitious 60th anniversary celebration series. Past Lives is held by the iconography of the characters it has, and that's about it. By not giving any of them interesting roles to play (especially the Monk -- how could they waste the talent of Hound?), the entire adventure turns out as soulless and non-emotive as the AI art used on the cover.