Big Finish: The Doomsday Contract Review

Following on from Return of the Cybermen, Big Finish treated us to another lost Doctor Who adventure, The Doomsday Contract. This time, the show would have been in the late 1970s, early 1980s and would feature, The Fourth Doctor, Romana and K-9. And much like Return of the Cybermen, one wonders why The Doomsday Contract never made it to TV.

Originally written by John Lloyd, whose work includes QI, Blackadder and The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, among many other BBC comedies of old, The Doomsday Contract is much more of a fit for The Lost Stories range than Return of the Cybermen. Return felt a lot like an alternate version of a story, Contract however is a true ‘lost’ story, having gone through many drafts and pitches but ultimately never made it to screen in any shape or form.

Listening to this adventure is a real shame because this was great fun. The great thing about audio is that it isn’t hard to imagine any environment and one does wonder how they would have created the sets for much of this adventure. But it isn’t hard to imagine this adventure coming hot off the heels of City of Death and it does fit perfectly into the Graham Williams and Douglas Adams era nicely.

Handling the adaptation is Nev Fountain, a comedy writer who has actually worked with John Lloyd in the past. And he handles the script and characters perfectly. When the Doctor finds himself having to defend Earth in the question of whether there is intelligent life on it, he quickly finds the TARDIS impounded and the mysterious Children of Pyxis haunting the corridors of an intergalactic courthouse.

With two separate plot strands in the opening two episodes, these neatly come together in the end in a way that only a seasoned Big Finish writer like Fountain would be able to do. But I was surprised by how sciency the story actually was, especially as Lloyd had only previously really written comedies, though when researching for the production of this adventure, it was discovered he was also a big Sci-fi fan.

Tom Baker is on fine form here. He always seems to effortlessly re-create whichever era of the show the script demands, here you would think it was still 1978, not 2021. Lalla Ward is equally as excellent and Romana remains well written, following the trend of her era. Some of the stories might have been a little wishy-washy, but Ward always had some great material.

John Leeson is also great as K-9. Its not often that writers really give K-9 much to do, he was a little problematic behind the scenes on the television series, but on audio, its always great to hear him getting as stuck into the story as Romana or Leela, or Adric, even though he is a robot dog!

Overall, The Doomsday Contract is another great story for The Lost Stories range and another story, much like Return of the  Cybermen, where you wonder why it was never chosen to be made as an actual story. I’d happily see stories like Nightmare of Eden or The Horns of Nimon swapped with this one. But alas it was never to be. Instead, we can now enjoy it on audio.

Nev Fountain does a great job handling these characters, especially as I don’t think he’s done this TARDIS team before and the whole production, even down to Howard Carter’s music score, perfectly recreates the Graham Williams era. This is another story that is well worth a listen!