BF 156: The Curse of Davros

[brandynigma]

It's been a year since Philippa 'Flip' Jackson found herself transported by Tube train to battle robot mosquitoes on a bizarre alien planet in the company of a Time Lord known only as 'the Doctor'.

Lightning never strikes twice, they say. Only now there's a flying saucer whooshing over the top of the night bus taking her home. Inside: the Doctor, with another extraterrestrial menace on his tail – the Daleks, and their twisted creator Davros!

But while Flip and the fugitive Doctor struggle to beat back the Daleks' incursion into 21st century London, Davros's real plan is taking shape nearly 200 years in the past, on the other side of the English Channel. At the battle of Waterloo...

[brandynigma]

A great story. I did guess one of the twists early, but this is one where it's more fun finding out how the twist happened, rather than the thrill of revealing the twist itself.

I haven't heard The Crimes of Thomas Brewster, but Flip had really grated on me in the trilogy preview. I'm glad to reverse that view now- the character is exceptionally well written and well played. As Colin points out in the extras, Flip is a departure from Peri, Mel or Evelyn, who are all University educated. Flip makes up for this by having a natural, innate wit and cunning, as well as buckets of bravery.

A promising start.

[Lissa]

Utterly awful. The big twist was obvious within the first couple of minutes, Flip is the second most annoying character in the universe (her boyfriend being the most annoying), the historical setting is completely wasted, the play revolves around a pointless technological gimmick and I've no idea what the Doctor's motivation was for doing what he did.

Definitely the worst BF play in years.

[Rob McCow]

I love it when we get two extremes of opinion.

Definitely the worst BF play in years.

That comment has made me more tempted to delve back into the BF Main range than anything else they've done!

[Rob McCow]

This is a warning... to future generations... please, can anybody hear me?

There is a story called 'The Curse of Davros'. We didn't realise it's power until it was too late! We didn't realise the awfulness that would be put forward on this Earth in it's name... the drivel - the UNSPEAKABLE DRIVEL!

Dear lordy that was terrible. The 'twist' (or should I call it the 'Flip'? Ho ho ho) was blindingly obvious from the very first line out of the Doctor's lips. The Doctor emerges from an escape pod and Flip says 'Can you walk?' The Doctor's reply is 'Yes.... I can... Walk!' Things go rapidly downhill from there.

People and Daleks due things purely because the writer thought they would be cool, such as going back in time and causing Napoleon to win the battle of Waterloo, or swapping minds all over the place with soldiers and Daleks. Logic and Motivation are scrumpled up and thrown into the dustbin like discarded food wrappers.

For example. Towards the end, the Doctor sends Flip's boyfriend to aid the English soldiers. He gives him a prismatic field generator so that he is invisible, plus twenty or so Dalek guns so that the English can win their battle. Problem one: The Doctor gives someone weapons to help in a war? Seriously? Problem two: How does Jared carry all this? Problem three: Isn't this what Lynx was doing in The Time Warrior?

What the living Flip is Davros doing mucking about with Napoleon? WHY?!! How did that come about? Was he on a lunch break, reading about French history? What lead this Galactic Conqueror to think that a Leader who fought battles with cannon and muskets would be a good person to ask for advice on how to rule the Universe? WHY?!! They were going to let him win the battle of Waterloo and then steal his brain and program it into their battle computers. WTF?!!

Why why why was a Dalek Mothership disguised as a French Chateau? The Doctor seems on the verge of explaining this at one point but gets interrupted. I'm sorry, I need to re-emphasise that.

Why why why was a Dalek Mothership disguised as a French Chateau?!!!!

I may have missed the explanation for all this because I was so annoyed by Flip. What an appalling, shallow, comedy character. OK, I know Rob McCow from the PS Audios wasn't to everyone's tastes, but I thought he was funny. Sometimes. Flip is like Rob McCow with a lobotomy. OK, OK, the bit where the Doctor tells her that Napoleon will have the 'greatest weapon of all' (implying foreknowledge of the battle outcome) and Flip responds with 'Oh my god, a nuclear bomb?!' was quite funny, but that was the only one.

The other character to compare Flip with is Rose. Like Rose, Flip loses her job, dumps her boyfriend and runs excitedly to join the Doctor at the end of the story. Yet with Flip, I listened with a mixture of dread and annoyance as the prospect of more adventures with this soul-less joke machine and Old Sixie. Why does this companion apart from her ability to make contemporary references to JLS and Boris Bikes?!

Worst of all is the lack of compassion of any of the characters in the story. The Daleks kill loads of people, from the occupants of the 177 bus to hundreds of soldiers kidnapped from the battle of Waterloo. It's all totally unnecessary and uncommented on by the characters. There's one scene early on where the Daleks are going to kill dozens of their human agents (including Flip's boyf, Jared) as they are no longer needed. However, the Doctor and Flip are able to save Jared's life by claiming that he is one of their associates. Why doesn't he say that they are all his associates? (yes, I know that technically he is Davros at the time ) More importantly though, Flip seems to get over all this bloodshed including the death of all her work colleagues in about 10 seconds. Cheap.

During the course of this story, the Doctor gets an insight of the constant, excruciating pain that Davros lives with every second of the day. But that's nothing compared the agonies inflicted on any listeners to The Curse of Davros.

I think we need to define a new level of awfulness to describe this story, as 'Astonishing Sh***-Fest' is not nearly adequate. It's like the kind of fan-fiction a teenager might produce if they'd overcommitted themselves to writing a fourteen story arc in a weekend.

That said, both Colin and Terry Molloy were excellent as usual. Hurrah for good actors.