Big Finish Doctor Who: Silver and Ice – Review

Its been a few years since we last had a proper Seventh Doctor audio adventure. Sylvester McCoy has been surprisingly busy over the last few years with various projects both in the theatre and on the big and little screens. Bonnie Langford on the other hand has done a lot more Big Finish in the last couple of years than she has done for a little while and more Mel stories aren’t a bad thing, especially when one of them sees her come up against the Cybermen for the first time. But how do these stories stand up with the rest of Series 24?

The first story, the ‘silver’ part of the title is A Bad Day in Tinsletown, written by Dan Starkey. Of course, the cover doesn’t hide the fact that the Cybermen are involved in some shape or form and Starkey doesn’t keep them hidden for long. Instead, we are met with a 60s Cyberman almost right off the bat with it accosting Mel who has been instructed to follow it. The 60s Cybermen sound great here, their voices working particularly well on audio, the 80s Cybermen, or the new breed of them, less so, but more on that in a bit.

The location for the story feels like something straight out of Series 24, you’ve got a bar in a wild-west frontier town and it wouldn’t be hard to see this story taking place before Dragonfire. Starkey for his part handles the location well, and his handle on the Seventh Doctor and Mel is pretty good too. I really like Mel on audio, and it’s made me get a new appreciation for her on television too, but there was one plot thread that I think should have been followed here that wasn’t really done.

If the Cybermen have escaped their entombed ship, why not get Mel inside and get her to do her computer programming wizardry to make the Cybermen stop?

Of course, this story only runs for two episodes, clocking in at about an hour for the whole thing, so in this quick runtime there isn’t too much one can do. Starkey handles himself well with the script, even if the wrapping up is a little too quick. Where the story really gets let down is in its very dodgy American accents. Why aren’t actually American’s cast to do to the voices, or maybe get Nicola Bryant in to give them a voice coaching lesson? These accents were awful and then giving the Cybermen the voices of the town inhabitants was ludicrous. If they are Cybermen, give them the booming David Banks voice, please!

What I also thought was strange was that all the tinsel in the town comes to life, given how it isn’t decoration but instead Cyber-technology that can turn people into Cybermen. We’ve even got people in this story who have made their dresses out of tinsel, do they not know how itchy that would be? There was a lot of stuff in this story that just didn’t work for me.

But it was nice to hear Sylvester McCoy and Bonnie Langford again, even if it wasn’t the big ‘first-meet’ she deserved with the metal meanies. It’s a shame because Starkey handles them really well. Maybe had the story had a third episode then it would have given the whole thing a chance to breathe and expand on some of the plot points that don’t really seem to go anywhere?

Having a computer programmer just running around and not doing anything that would give the Cybermen a run for their money seems like an odd choice, and it would have worked as a much nicer conclusion, especially given how hopeless the Seventh Doctor seems to be here.

The second story in the set, the ‘Ice’ part is The Ribos Inheritance, written by Jonathan Barnes. I’ve never really the original story, The Ribos Operation, so I was a little nervous coming into this story. While McCoy and Langford do another cracking job, I was a little uncertain if a revisit for one of the most boring Doctor Who stories was a good idea.

When the Doctor and Mel arrive at Ribos, the Doctor is surprised to discover that the Sun Time hasn’t begun. Instead, the planet is still stuck in Ice Time, much like it was in the Fourth Doctor story. For their part, Sylvester McCoy and Bonnie Langford still sound like they’re having a great time, clearly enjoying being together again and it’s still nice to have brand new Seventh Doctor and Mel stories.

David Rintoul is great as Garron, having been recast since his last television appearance. Garron is a character that didn’t make much of an impression on me in his television appearance so I’ll give Rintoul some credit in that he was possibly one of the best characters in this, clearly having a ball and Garron here is never anything other than a lot of fun.

But roguish charm will only carry a story so far and Jonathan Barnes does a decent job at giving Ribos more mythos, fleshing it out to feel like a real world. But until the final episode, there isn’t really a reason for the action to take place on Ribos and not some other planet. It’s not great when the reason why this had to be a sequel is only revealed in the final episode.

But what I did really like was hearing the beginning of the Seventh Doctor’s more manipulative and darker side. He keeps the reasons why they’ve landed on Ribos secret from Mel until the final moments and indeed, keeps his actions secret from her. I also liked that this is the first time we hear what might be Mel’s final run of adventures, giving her more of a reason as to why she left at the end of Dragonfire, she’s not sure she likes this new side of the Doctor, and not sure that she can put up with it for too long. It might not sound like me when I’m writing it but it does work brilliantly on audio, McCoy and Langford giving us another display of how good their characters are together.

The Ribos Inheritance is the better story of this boxset but it’s still not all that exciting. Barnes does a good job of creating a more fully realised world and there are some genuinely great moments littered throughout the script. But the middle two episodes are quite dull and plodding and the plot isn’t too interesting either. It’s better than Bad Day in Tinseltown, but not by much.

I was really excited when I found out we were getting more Seventh Doctor and Mel adventures and was really looking forward to what sounded like some great stories. Unfortunately Silver and Ice feels like one of the weakest Big Finish boxsets that have been released this year. Tinseltown is just bad, the use of the Cybermen is shocking and Inheritance is just boring and if Doctor Who shouldn’t be one thing, it’s boring.