Mind of the Hodiac

To wear this coat is to clothe oneself in the universe.

The Hodiac

Synopsis

In the depths of space, the mysterious Hodiac is manipulating the Galactic Stock Exchange to raise money. His aim? To hire mercenaries for a deadly quest across the stars.

Meanwhile, on Earth, an ordinary British family is plagued by a series of psychic events.

The one thing connecting these events is a magnificent patchwork coat – which just so happens to belong to the Doctor!

Review

This audio adaptation Mind of the Hodiac owes a lot to the Doctor Who Lockdown tweet alongs run by Emily Cook during the Covid-19 pandemic, and specifically, the watch-a-long for The Runaway Bride, which saw Russell T Davies reveal this story’s existence. Big Finish, obviously sensing a good opportunity to bring one of the first Russell T Davies penned Doctor Who stories to life, seized the opportunity.

In that way, it is interesting to see elements of Davies’ work that became synoymous with his writing in the revival brought to the forefront here. The early years of the revival featured a strong element of normality by featuring ordinary families, like the Tylers, Joneses and Nobles, to contrast the extraordinary stories that the companions experience through their travels with the Doctor. It’s not something that the show really showed in the original run, with Survival being the closest to depicting this. In Mind of the Hodiac, we have the Maitland family, who are seemingly normal, except for their grandmother, who turns out to be the female half of the Hodiac, who is sought out by the male half. I think that a lot of the interest behind Mind of the Hodiac is seeing how some of Russell T Davies’ ideas have been present from a relatively early stage of his writing career.

That’s, unfortunately, due to the fact that the story isn’t particularly strong. The first part really drags, and in general the story doesn’t justify a run time of over two hours. It feels as though there is a lot of padding in Part One, especially around the Hodiac financing his travel to Earth and creating the new money market to do so. There are a lot of disparate threads in this story which do not clearly connect in Part One and it feels disjointed and glacially paced as a result. The Doctor and Mel feel separated from the story, almost like the Doctor and Peri do in Season 22, with their scenes confined to the TARDIS, and only join it in the closing moments of Part One. Part Two is an improvement, and I understand that this part was mostly written by Scott Handcock to complete the original pitch, but by this point, the damage has largely been done and my interest had faded in the story, and, combined with a conclusion that felt too easy and rushed. Whilst the production levels, as they are with the vast majority of modern Big Finish are high and the music is a nice hybrid between 1980s and that more similar to modern Doctor Who.

Colin Baker and Bonnie Langford are solid in their roles as the Doctor and Mel respectively, although I wouldn’t say that this story is the definitive story for either character individually or collectively. Having had over 25 years of Colin Baker at Big Finish at the time of writing, he knows what he is doing and how to play the Doctor by now to be able to put in a solid if not exceptional performance. It’s also interesting to see Mel given more to do here, especially as Mel has now come back for three stories in Russell T Davies’ second spell as showrunner. The rest of the performances do what the story requires of them for good or ill. For instance, Annette Badland puts in a great performance as Mrs Chinn, suitably mysterious and villainous, which adds to the intrigue in her character and T’Nia Miller brings the pain of Mrs Maitland to life, however, Laurie Kynaston as the tituluar villain is rather hamstrung by cliched villain dialogue, which he does deliver well, but he cannot make the Hodiac stand out. Part of the problem might be that there are simply too many characters in this story for it to be effectively brought to life in this format.

Verdict: Whilst there are interesting elements of Mind of the Hodiac, they are not unique to this story and reoccur in Davies’ writing, both on and off Doctor Who, which make the story feel rather inessential. Not helped by a long run time and a slow first part, Mind of the Hodiac is more interesting for what it tells us about its writer than the story. 4/10

Cast: Colin Baker (The Doctor), Bonnie Langford (Melanie Bush), Annette Badland (Mrs Chinn), Richard Clifford (Jessop), Lu Corfield (Matra Fennel), Sutara Gayle (Nan), Raj Ghatak (Jenfold/Tungsten Leader), Loreece Harrison (Lisa Maitland), Laurie Kynaston (The Hodiac), Victoria Lambert (Matra Fennel), Luyanda Unati Lewis-Nyawo (The Woman), T’Nia Miller (Eileen Maitland), Laura Riseborough (Miss Fairfax), Wilf Scolding (Jassic/Guard), Alexander Vlahos (Jerring) & Darcey-Ella Whittington (Katy Maitland).

Writer: Russell T Davies & Scott Handcock

Director: Scott Handcock

Composer: Robert Harvey

Parts: 2

Release Date: 30 March 2022

Behind the Scenes

• This was the first Doctor Who story written by Russell T Davies. He submitted it to the Doctor Who production office and received a letter in 1989 from Andrew Cartmel stating that he had liked the idea but production had shut down.
• The script was found by Davies during preparation for a tweetalong of The Runaway Bride during the Covid-19 lockdown.

Cast Notes

• Annette Badland played Margaret Blaine in Aliens of London, World War Three and Boom Town. She has also played the Toymaker opposite Tom Baker in the Big Finish audio play Matryoshka, and appeared in numerous other Big Finish productions, including The Miniaturist, The Hunting Season and Equilibrium.
• Raj Ghatak has played numerous characters in Big Finish productions, including Olaf Richter in Monsters in Metropolis and Professor Sanjay Billimoria and Captain Sharma in Storm of the Sea Devils.
• Luyanda Unati Lewis-Nyawo has also played Mrs Polly in Thin Time and Nalah Massi in The Silent Priest and The Silent City.
• T’Nia Miller played the General in Hell Bent.
• Laura Riseborough played Terentia in Tartarus, Jess and Young Woman in The Tribulations of Thaddeus Nook and Sharma in The Reviled.
• Wilf Scolding also played Charles Crookshap in Thin Time and Groth in Mutually Assured Destruction.
• Alexander Vlahos has also appeared in A Theatre of Cruelty, playing Antonin Artaud.

Best Quote

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