The BF Time Warp 033: Neverland

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The Web of Time is stretched to breaking. History is leaking like a sieve. In the Citadel of Gallifrey, the Time Lords fear the end of everything that is, everything that was... everything that will be.

The Doctor holds the Time Lords' only hope - but exactly what what lengths will the Celestial Intervention Agency go to in their efforts to retrieve something important from within his TARDIS? What has caused Imperiatrix Romanadvoratrelundar to declare war on the rest of creation? And can an old nursey rhyme about a monster called Zagreus really be coming true?

The answers can only be found outside the bounds of the universe itself, in a place that history forgot. In the wastegrounds of eternity. In the Neverland.

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What do you think of this BF adventure?

This was extraordinarily exciting. Great imagery, great character developments for the Doctor and Charley and some superb concepts including a TARDIS graveyard and a rebellion of people erased from history.

It really felt like it was going somewhere bold, new and exciting!

It was certainly epic, and India Fisher played the part of the Never-person Charlie brilliantly. It was a brave new kind of Doctor Who, leading up to the huge emotional climax of Charley and the Doctor admitting they loved one another.

Whatever else it was, it certainly wasn't unambitious.

Si.

I think this might mark the start of the high point for Big Finish. After this story they had confidence in spades, they tried new things that actually worked and every release was exciting.

I'll point out where things started to decline, but I'll give you a clue - it starts with a 'Z'.

It certainly seemed epic and wonderful at the time, with an amazing cliffhanger at the end... that they took far, far too long to resolve.

I liked the chemistry between McGann and Lalla, which worked really nicely (there's that great scene where they worked on the machine thingy together near the end that was lovely) and there was a fabulous atmosphere throughout as they investgated the inside out TARDIS grave yard (that was this one, wasn't it?).

I can't remember anything about it apart from the end where McGann goes bad.

Big season finales seem so, well... standard these days. We've had the threat of universal destruction done to death since Doctor Who returned to our screens in 2005. Yet back in 2002, this seemed very fresh, with only one season finale (Logopolis) having threatened that before.

Few seasons of classic Doctor Who have built up to their finale in an arc in the way that the second Big Finish Eighth Doctor story did, culminating in the rather fantastic Neverland. There's only one word to describe this: epic. And that's not in the modern meaning of the word, but the traditional meaning ("heroic; majestic; impressively great")

It's quite difficult to know where to start when reviewing this story. There's so much that's going on here, and it's one of the rare stories that I truly enjoy on every single level - it's fun, it's intellectual and it's an emotional roller coaster. The web of time is fracturing, and it's the fault of the Doctor and Charley. Is this goodbye? Can it be fixed? We're finally getting some resolution to the fact of her survival.

The fundamental problem with reviewing this story is that there's just so much here that's outstanding. Every little idea adds to the story - even the little irrelevances (such as the 1000 year party thrown in the Jovaian Fold). It's lovely to hear the interactions between Romana and the Eighth Doctor, as the chemistry between these two is just fantastic - probably the best between Romana and a Doctor since she left the Fourth Doctor in Warriors' Gate. It's always a pleasure to have Lalla back in Doctor Who, and this story is, in my opinion, her crowning glory. Even her turn as the Imperiatrix Romana is played superbly. She's one of the most versatile actresses that we've had in Doctor Who.

Of course, the idea of a character being used as a bridge for people to crossover from one reality into another was so good that it was used again when Who returned to our screens in 2005, in The Unquiet Dead. Charley is unique because of her paradoxical status, and it is through her that time and anti-time can be bridged, allowing the anti-time creatures through.

The amazing thing about this story is that the sub-plots don't seem like sub-plots. Everything seems relevant. So, while the story was fundamentally about the Doctor resolving the paradox of Charley, and the anti-time creatures, setting things up for Zagreus and the divergent universe, there's also the plot revolving around Vansell and Rassilon, or even that the anti-time creatures are those who have been made non-entities by the Time Lords. A horrifying and shocking twist to the whole notion of Time Lord society.

Then, there's that cliffhanger. Oh God, that cliffhanger. I remember at the time, eagerly awaiting the resolution. Every single trailer for forthcoming stories were analysed to death by the fans, as we looked for evidence of what might be to come. I remember the bit in the trailer for The Rapture, where Sylv says "Hello! I'm the Sandman... I'm going to eat your soul!", which led to fans theorising that the anti-time infection was spiralling backwards through the Doctor's history, causing his previous incarnations to go strange. Of course, that was total bunkum, but it just goes to show how well executed that cliffhanger was, and how eager we all were to see how it was resolved. It was really very cruel for Big Finish to make us wait 17 months for the resolution!

In all, Neverland is an extremely satisfactory end to a two-season arc, answering just about all the questions, being extremely engrossing along the way, and ending with an absolutely killer cliffhanger, that just leaves me wanting more (exactly the same feeling that I had back in 2002). To me, this is the beginning of Big Finish's golden era, and it gets 5/5 from me! I absolutely love it.

Well this was a long story! The good bits - the last half hour got really exciting and the end was of course thrilling! I think my problem is that on the whole, I find Time Lord mythology quite dull. Most Time Lords really are boring and pompous. So I'm afraid Gallifrey-centred stories leave me a bit cold. But it was nice to have Romana back, even though she was in Miss Frosty Knickers mode [emoji2]


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