172. Eldrad Must Die!

[Rob McCow]

"A Doctor, curse his name, threw me down among the dead… but I endure. I am Eldrad… and I must live!

A nuclear icebreaker, foundering in Arctic waters. Seabirds washed up in the fishing resort of Ambermouth, their wings encrusted with crystals. A shining artefact of uncertain provenance, up for sale on an auction site.

All of these things are linked, as the Doctor, Nyssa, Tegan and Turlough are about to discover. Linked to the rebirth of a genocidal tyrant, presumed dead many years ago…

For the sake of the planets Earth and Kastria alike… Eldrad must die!

Written By: Marc Platt
Directed By: Ken Bentley

Well this is a rum premise for a story and no mistake. The title (Eldrad MUST DIEEEE!!!!!!) and cover (Turlough sporting a bizarre crystal gun-arm, mad grin model's own) gives one the suspicion that if this isn't the worst play Big Finish have ever done, it's going into the top ten like a fork being driven into a pile of rotting horse manure. The fact that the words 'Marc Platt' and 'Written by' appear in close proximity only adds to the fear that this will be another Time Reef or Valhalla! and that you'll have to turn off part-way through episode one.

Marc has become the go-to guy for old series villains who we didn't expect or want to come back. Having returned Magnus Greel to the fold, he turns his hand to the shoutiest of Fourth Doctor enemies, the Silicon Sybil himself, Eldrad. Spoilers below!

Fortunately, Marc's customary weirdness is reigned in and we get a reasonably straightforward story of revenge across thousands of years and billions of miles.

Malkis is Eldrad's executioner, who has been traveling around the Galaxy collecting the Other Bits of Fear. She comes to Earth on the trail of a very special part of Eldrad's body, one that she must destroy to stop Eldrad propagating himself - yes, it's his eye.

The idea of crystals that can reproduce and posses people is taken a few step further, with Kastrian growths appearing on people's body as they are taken over either by Malkis (Eldrad must DIE!) or Eldrad (Eldrad must LIVE!)

The story proceeds fairly logically with some fun and memorable moments. Yes, Eldrad does return and is superbly voiced by Stephen 'Caps Lock' Thorne. Rather brilliantly someone mentions 'Rokon' in his presence to elicit a response of 'RAOOKONN???? HAHHAHAHAH!' which is worth the price of entry on it's own.

This crystal is not without flaws, but none of them are awful enough to derail the story in my opinion. For example, Nyssa now has the ability to talk to Beluga Whales but this adds very little to the proceedings, aside from making me think about Futurama. In the least successful story strand, Turlough meets an old school colleague 'Gibbo' Gibbs, who claims to be from Trion. However, Gibbs was possessed when he said that and we never find out if it was true or not. Anyway, Malkis wants Turlough to find the Eye of Eldrad. As Turlough falls under the spell(drad?) of Malkis, he keeps hallucinating that he's back at school, with the Doctor as a schoolmaster. These segments seemed to have no bearing on the main story and wouldn't have been missed if they had been expedited.

What's more, Stephen Thorne was criminally underused. When he does eventually turn up as a fully-fledged Eldrad, he is fantastic though.

However... Eldrad Must Die! was unexpectedly entertaining. I was confused, but I wasn't bored.

[Rob McCow]

Nyssa now has the ability to talk to Beluga Whales

WTF

[Stuart Wallis]

It's absolutely amazing what you can learn from the Open University these days...