The BF Time Warp 019: Minuet in Hell

[SiHart]

The Brig's back to meet the 8th Doctor in Minuet in Hell.

The twenty-first century has just begun, and Malebolgia is enjoying its status as the newest state in America. After his successful involvement with Scotland's devolution, Brigadier Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart has been invited over to Malebolgia to offer some of his experiences and expertise.

There he encounters the charismatic Brigham Elisha Dashwood III, an evangelical statesman running for Governor who may not be quite as clean-cut and wholesome as he makes out. One of Dashwood's other roles in society is as patron of a new medical institute, concentrating on curing the ills of the human mind. One of the patients there interests the Brigadier - someone who claims he travels through space and time in something called a TARDIS.

Charley, however, has more than a few problems of her own. Amnesiac, she is working as a hostess at the local chapter of the Hell Fire Club, populated by local dignitaries who have summoned forth the demon Marchosias. And the leader of the Club? None other than Dashwood, who seems determined to achieve congressional power by the most malevolent means at his disposal...

What are your thoughts on the this story that closed the first BF McGann season?

Si xx

[Rob McCow]

Over-long and over-blown, yet with a few excellent ideas. I really liked having McGann lose his memories and become not-the-Doctor for a while. It's great to have the Brigadier on hand, though I seem to remember that he was a bit redundant to the plot.

It could have been a lot better, but probably needed a bit of a trim.

[Si Hunt]

Laboured and hideously, cripplingly overlong, when I re-listened to all the plays a few years back this was the only one I couldn't get through. Including "...Ish".

Si.

[stuartdg]

It is overlong but i like some of the ideas explored such as the amnesiac Doctor and the notion of the Hellfire Club,although i do think the Brigadier and Doctor pairing was a missed opportunity,they spend far too long apart

[Paul Monk]

Awful. I only listening to this for the first time recently and thought that it couldn't be as bad as its reputation. But I was wrong.
Maybe someone was too scared to edit Gary Russell, seeing as he was the boss and all but if any story needed editing its this one.
It's far too long with loads of scenes that could have been cut to help the flow. I hate the Doctor losing his memory. It sidelines him for far too long and is largely an excuse to have Nick Briggs be the Doctor for most of it. Nick Courtney is excellent and does a brilliant job but the Brig spends far too long wandering around not doing an awful lot. He really should have met the Doctor earlier as well. I'm not sure the hell theme works that well either. The demon monster however is rather good. I quite like his flippant humour and think that works rather well.
But ultimately is quite boring and a waste of a good opportunity.

[Junkyard]

Once the Doctor regains his memory and meets the Brigadier it's ok. But it takes too long to get through all the build-up. Dashwood and the Senator are just caricatures.

[Jon Masters]

2/5 - as a first time listener I thought it wasn't so much awful as just very very dull. It just sorts of rambles along with no clear idea of plot or motivation; I couldn't really tell you what happens as its just sort of dribbled out of my mind (and I only finished it tonight). The 'Buffy' style really deosn't work, the villain doesn't seem to know what he's doing and the monsters aren't really monsters or monstrous enough unless they want to be.....

130 minutes of my life I can't get back - thank goodness I was doing some marking at the same time !!

[SiHart]

Long and tedious. Some good ideas, but they were buried under miles of extraneous stuff that wasn't very interesting. Nice to hear the Brig and the 8th Doctor together (for a little bit) but otherwise, not really worth all the time it takes to listen to.

Si xx

[MacNimon]

Not one of my favourites. It was certainly a missed opportunity regarding having the Brigadier meeting a new Doctor (yet again!) but it was just rather dull, overall. 2/5

[Anthony Williams]

This audio really exemplifies the worst excesses of the Gary Russell era of Big Finish. In fact, it was the first story to exhibit them. Clocking in at over 110 minutes long, featuring some truly terrible American accents and an utterly, utterly bizarre plot, while the production is one of the worst examples of cronyism. Not to mention being extremely continuity-heavy.

There are some good ideas in here, but they're never really realised. The Hellfire Club in itself is extremely interesting, and could have been used so much better in Doctor Who. Likewise, it was a great idea to get the Eighth Doctor and the Brigadier together, especially since Big Finish did that with the Sixth Doctor, making the First Doctor the only Doctor never to have met him (obviously). The Amnesiac Doctor idea was a great idea, just not done terribly well (and should've been kept over for McGann's second season). Likewise, the idea of a man who believes he's the Doctor is so good that it was eventually used in the RTD-era in The Next Doctor. Finally, the whole "designer brains" Eugenics thing could've been so much, but it was eventually used to explore putting demons into human bodies. Er, what...?!?

Then there's the bad ideas. Here we are, at the end of the Eighth Doctor's first "season", and just as we're getting to know him, he spends most of the story as an amnesiac. Or what about the idea that a State that's so clearly meant to be in the Bible Belt naming itself after the 8th Circle of Hell in Dante's Inferno? Yuck, yuck, yuck!

And finally, the downright corny. Becky-Lee being an obvious rip-off (or as I'm sure the chaps at BF would insist, "homage") to Buffy Summers from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Then there's casting Nick Briggs as Gideon Crane - the man who believes himself to be The Doctor, when Briggs was the Doctor in the Audio Visuals range, which was the precursor to Big Finish - of which Gary Russell and Barnaby Edwards were also involved in.

Oh, and Charley suddenly goes from being a rather magnificent companion to being a total upper-class cliche. I mean, really? Using "Rather!" as an exclamation. Did people really do that? I doubt it.

Really, this play should never have been commissioned. Even Paul McGann, who I think has incredible potential (and later puts in some incredible performances as the Doctor), couldn't save this one. A really rather poor 1/5 from me here.