The BF Time Warp 020: Loups-Garoux

[SiHart]

The 5th Doctor and Turlough meet werewolves in Brazil in this adventure.

Germany, 1589: the townspeople of Cologne pronounce a sentence of death on a mass-murderer who has stalked the countryside in the guise of a ferocious wolf.

Russia, 1812: retreating from Napoleon's invading forces, a merchant's daughter is rescued from bandits by a handsome partisan with a ravenous appetite.

Brazil, 2080: The Doctor and Turlough arrive for the Rio de Janeiro carnival.

Is wealthy heiress Ileana de Santos all that she seems? What sinister ailment afflicts her invalid son, tended by the mysterious Dr Hayashi? And who exactly is Rosa, engaged on a secret quest to fulfil the destiny of her extinct tribe?

Time is running out for Rosa, Ileana and the Doctor, as the fearsome shadow of an ancient werewolf moves ever closer...

But what do you think of it?

Si xx

[Si Hunt]

I remember this one as being very bollocky. The setting of Brazil just didn't sit right with the characters of the Fifth Doctor and Turlough and I remember some awful American girl and her Grandfather living "inside her head" or something.

The same with all Marc Platt, we're expected to swallow some gubbins on the strength that (i) it's beautifully written and (ii) it's so sophisticated that it's somehow operating at a level beyond our understanding.

Si.

[stuartdg]

As with so much of Marc Platt's work there are great ideas that eventually just become a jumbled mess and this is no exception,my biggest memory of this however is some of the terrible accents!

[Rob McCow]

I thought this was quite well regarded at the time, a nice little story for Turlough and Doctor Five. I remember quite liking the Brazil setting and Elanor Bron being rather good. Though of course she was good!

[Simon R]

I remember finding it very boring and full of silly names like Herr Licktus and ...no, I can't remember any more.

People raved about it at the time though I feel sure.

The cover is nice.

[Paul Monk]

I'm a bit in both camps. I loved lots about it. The setting, Nicky Henson and the Doctor's relationship with Eleanor Bron's character but I also remember not really following it all somewhere round the middle.
But all means write a dense, complicated and sophisticated story but at least make sure thats its accessible.
Should definitely give this another listen though.

[Lissa]

It's really good - he does something great with the warewolf concept rather than relying on cliches and full moons. The Brazil setting, combined with the German past, echoes Nazi war criminals laying low in South America. The baddie is good, the guest cast are good, the regulars are good and basically it's all really good except for the girl with the jungle in her head. That was totally unnecessary and made it feel a bit over-done and bloated. Take that out and you've got three-dimensional monsters, a believable story and a lot of great performances.

[Junkyard]

I gave this one a second listen last month. And it works, except for Rosa, the so-called Amerindian girl. The character only seemed a 'deus ex machina' to get rid of the major villain.

[Andrew Curnow]

Is this the one where the Doctor and Turlough end up talking about girls in one of the episodes? Amongst other weirdness, I just couldn't take to it at all.

[MacNimon]

I found this rather disappointing after the great reviews it got at the time. An improvement on the previous story, but certainly not one of the best. 3/5

[Jon Masters]

3/5 - another story with lots of good ideas, but one which would clearly work much better as a book than an audio - the text is too dense and over flowing with clever puns on wolves and dogs that they sound completely un-natural as dialogue.
The problems for me are

• the werewolves - who while nice to be different as so different and powerful that they might as well not be werewolves but something different
• the ending - a mixture of Frontios and some vague hippy-mystical pap that comes out of almost nowhere (yes, the forests in her head get mentioned a lot, but not Peter's desire to go back to the old world).

In fact every scene when Rosa appears generally had me gritting my teeth.

Final complaint - it's far, far too long. Back in the day, when I had to record BFs onto 120 minute tapes to listen to them in the car, this one was so over-running that the tape runs out before the final confrontation.

However, it is nice that Turlough appears to get a sh@g in this story

[Anthony Williams]

Sigh. This one really suffers the same problem as Minuet in Hell. It's just too damned long. Every part exceeds the 30 minute mark. Part 4 is over 36 minutes long! Ridiculous! More often than not, I found that this play just didn't hold my attention.

There are some really, really interesting ideas. It was nice to get a dramatised piece on werewolves in Doctor Who. Particularly one where something different is done. Here, they are portrayed as an honourable society, with a strict moral code and hierarchy, determined to get away from the old ways. Granted, it's a far cry from traditional werewolf mythology.

Primarily, this was a character piece. Plenty of interesting dialogue all through the entire story. It's nice to see the Doctor and Turlough's relationship develop rather well, and Platt seems to have a good grip on the character of Turlough. It's just a shame that Mark Strickson no longer convinces as the character.

From what I've been led to understand, this story was talked about in the initial phases of Big Finish, but as seems to be the tendency with Marc Platt scripts, took rather a long time to develop. And it shows. Ultimately, this is overblown. There are a lot of good ideas here, but it just feels so weighed down to me. I loved the TARDIS hovering in one position then briefly dematerialising and rematerialising in the same place to board the train. Likewise, the werewolf culture is thoroughly explored and well-rounded - more than one could ever expect from a four-part piece. You get the impression that Platt has really thought this through. And some of the dialogue is just beautiful - particularly the part about the TARDIS being described as a blue ice box, running on imagination and beaming with moonshine. Very nice.

Yet, in addition to being rather weighed down, the character names and their accents are often difficult to take seriously. Oh, and the less said about the character of Rosa, the better. The ending, I found to be particularly disappointing. The whole imaginary forest in Rosa's mind in which Pieter eventually decides to live in is just a little too esoteric and existential for my liking.

There's a lot to like here. If only someone had had the balls to properly edit the writing of Marc Platt (I suspect that there was an element of hero worship for the man who wrote Ghost Light, Lungbarrow etc.) down to 25 minute episodes. Overall, this is a 3/5 for me.

[SiHart]

The time limit thing has never bothered me. I don't know why BF had to be constrained by the 25 minute episode thing anyway. They have whole CDs to fit the episodes on and if the story fits it, then they should use it rather than be hide bound by the old formula for the sake of nostalgia.

[Anthony Williams]

The time limit thing has never bothered me. I don't know why BF had to be constrained by the 25 minute episode thing anyway. They have whole CDs to fit the episodes on and if the story fits it, then they should use it rather than be hide bound by the old formula for the sake of nostalgia.

I sort-of agree with you, Si. But the problem is that sometimes I struggle to pay attention for longer than 25 minutes. Particularly in the case of this and Minuet in Hell - both plays just come across as bloated to me. I mean, this particular story is longer than most feature-length films, clocking in at well over two hours! It just doesn't come across as particularly snappy to me. If they can do something interesting with the format, then fair game. I just don't think that they have, either here or with Minuet in Hell.

[Richard Brinck-Johnsen]

From what I remember there are some great scenes in this but finding out from the earlier posts that the episodes are way longer than normal doesn't come as a suprise. I've been meaning to relisten for years as I've only ever done so the once and I remember it being a hot sunny summer afternoon (yikes it must've been nearly 10 years ago!) and I drifted off during the second CD.

[Nyder]

I listened to this last week. Yep it's an overly-long story, but Davison and yes even young Mark Strickson are very good in this. In fact, he was far better than his Phantasmagoria audio debut. I'm afraid I'm not that turned on by Werewolf stories. But having said that, the vocal effect of the characters turning into wolves was very effective and rather unsettling!!