Army of Death

It seems death was just a passing phase.

The Eighth Doctor

Synopsis

The TARDIS brings the Doctor and Mary Shelley to the continent of Zelonia, on the frontier world Draxine – where, many moons ago, the twin city-states of Garrak and Stronghaven bore testament to mankind’s colonial spirit.

That was before the sinister death cult of Garrak’s President Harmon took hold – and Garrak annihilated itself, utterly, in an apocalyptic explosion. Before the bones of Garrak’s dead came back to life, and its skeletal citizens began marching, marching, marching on Stronghaven.

But what do they want, this army of death? And can anything stop them? In search of answers, the Doctor and Mary must journey into the dead heart of a dead city to face a terrifying adversary, whose ambitions transcend the stuff of life itself.

Review

Army of Death concludes the mini-story arc of the Eighth Doctor travelling with the gothic fiction author Mary Shelley. As well as ending that arc, it also ends the Eighth Doctor’s run in Big Finish’s monthly main range of stories. From this point onwards, he would have his own audio series, commencing with Blood of the Daleks, which saw Lucie Miller join the TARDIS.

President Vallen, I’ve heard so much about you. I couldn’t help reflecting as I was flown upside down towards your beautiful city, how politeness and hospitality seem to be in short supply in Stronghaven these days.

The Eighth Doctor

Army of Death is a nice ending to that arc, which sees Mary Shelley come to terms with her travels with the Doctor and make the decision to return to her own time and her husband, Percy Shelley. It’s a story that has political intrigue. The Doctor and his companion are introduced into the story after the devastating destruction of Garrak, seemingly by its own leader, and the assassination of Stronghaven’s leader, Karnex. Like the two stories that precede it, the story has a gothic tone – in fact, one that is much more sinister. This one has armies of skeletons, someone reforming their body through using the bones of those skeletons and crushing Vallan and Meera. We have a city believed to be irradiated by that bomb as well. Jason Arnopp constructs a story that intrigues in the first two parts, and perhaps loses its way towards the end. It almost feels as though it cannot make a decision about whether or not to be a political story or a science fiction one. That mismatch is the biggest weakness, and potentially decides to go down the wrong path. After all, it is perhaps difficult to take the political machinations seriously when they build up to the reveal of a villain calling himself the Bone Lord. The political machinations were much more interesting to me than the Lifespan Project.

The story does have an exemplary performance from David Harewood as the new President of Stronghaven, John Vallan. He shows promise as a leader, however, he is dogged by the spectre of who he believes to be the President of Harmon. Harewood shines in roles of authority. He has recorded this after appearing in The End of Time, where he played Joshua Naismith, who is quite similar. Harewood makes you believe that he is a career politician but feel the vulnerabilities of his character. He knows the course of what he should be doing, but is acting out of fear of the spectral visitations to his quarters. Equally, Eva Pope is good as the supposed assassin Nia Brusk, who ultimately is revealed to have been used by Karnex to stage his own assassination.

Ultimately though, this story is about the Eighth Doctor and Mary Shelley. They again spend a lot of this time separated, but we do get a major development in their relationship. I liked the framing of this story with Mary’s journal entries, which give the listener into an insight about how she feels about her travels with the Doctor. She questions whether the Doctor is in fact her soulmate, or whether she should go back to her life, husband and own time. Ultimately, that begs the question as to whether Big Finish intended these travels to be finite, or expandable. There is a mention of at least one further adventure that we did not get to see at the start of the story, and Paul McGann himself states that he would want more stories with Mary. Clearly, 15 years on from this story’s release, Big Finish clearly meant this to be a full stop rather than a comma. I suppose that this is a limitation of a historical companion. Either they have to be killed like Katarina, or returned to their own time, like Jamie. McGann and Julie Cox have a great dynamic between them, even though they spend a lot of this story apart, and I would not be adverse to another adventure between the two at some point down the line. Arnopp gives McGann’s Doctor all the best lines, and he relishes them with his performance.

Verdict: A gothic story, Army of Death falls down when deciding which way to go with the story. McGann, Cox and Harewood all put in good performances though. 7/10.

Cast: Paul McGann (The Doctor), Julie Cox (Mary Shelley), David Harewood (President Vallan), Carolyn Pickles (Meera Darone), Eva Pope (Nia Brusk), Mitch Benn (Commander Raynar/Karnex/Harmon), Joanna Christie (Sherla/Baden/Tox) & Trevor Cooper (Captain Maddox/Stennan/Hover-Sentries).

Writer: Jason Arnopp

Director: Barnaby Edwards

Music and Sound: Fool Circle Productions

Main Range Release Number: 155

Release Date: 12 December 2011

Parts: 4

Behind the Scenes

• The final appearance of the Eighth Doctor in the Main Range, except for his appearance in the final release, The End of the Beginning.

Cast Notes

• David Harewood played Joshua Naismith in The End of Time.
• Carolyn Pickles regularly appears as Cardinal Ollistra, across both Doctor Who stories and the Gallifrey: War Room series. She has also appeared in The Tyrants of Logic and An Ideal World.
• Mitch Benn would go on to play Mark Carville in 1963: Fanfare for the Common Men.
• Trevor Cooper played Takis in Revelation of the Daleks and would go on to play Friar Tuck in Robot of Sherwood. He has appeared in several Big Finish stories, including The Doomwood Curse, Castle of Fear and Archipelago.

Best Quote

After a traumatic event like Garrak’s destruction, fear settles like a frost. Paranoia bites hard, and who do you trust?

The Eighth Doctor

Previous Eighth Doctor review: The Witch from the Well

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