VOYAGE TO VENUS

Becoming a little disillusioned as I am with the BBC’s feeble efforts at celebrating Doctor Who‘s 50th Anniversary this year, I’ve been tempted to spend some time browsing the Big Finish catalogue of audios.  My present budget restricts my selection to the most affordable releases only, but there are a number of individual offerings that are at the right price and that also sound intriguing.

Voyage to Venus is a relatively simplistic full-cast audio adventure starring the ever enthusiastic Colin Baker as the 6th Doctor.  With him on board the TARDIS for what seems to be the first time are two Victorian gents – Christopher Benjamin’s Henry Gordon Jago, and Trevor Baxter’s Professor George Litefoot.

Jage & Litefoot originally appeared in Robert Holmes’ televised adventure The Talons of Weng-Chiang with Tom Baker and Louise Jameson.  Jago was the blustering musical hall impresario with a vocabulary of words so long that he could begin saying something today and not reach the end of the sentence before next Tuesday.  He has an enthusiasm for courage let down only by his personal lack of bravery.  In the televised adventure, Jago meets professor of pathology George Litefoot – a man of science who’s open to new ideas.

The popularity of Jago & Litefoot ensured that many Doctor Who fans pondered how they would have fared in their own series of adventures, and it was even suggested by the Doctor Who team of the time but, sadly, nothing came of this.  In 2009, Big Finish brought these two actors together for a one-off “companion chronicles” adventure entitled The Mahogany Murderers.  As is typical of the “companion chronicles” series, The Mahogany Murderers was an adventure involving the Doctor of choice but told through the eyes of the companion or, in the case of Jago & Litefoot, two companions.

The one-hour adventure proved to be a success and the two were keen to continue making further audio adventures.  In 2010, Big Finish released the Jago & Litefoot series one box set, which began a long run of adventures in the Jago & Litefoot series.  The Jago & Litefoot series, from what I’ve been able to discover, pits the two unlikely heroes against all manner of foes in their Victorian setting.  Unfortunately, the adventures that make up each series (of which there are now five, with a further three in production) are not available individually and the current series set price of £30 (download) / £35 (CD) puts it outside many people’s budgets in these austere times.

It was with great joy, therefore, that I recently discovered the Big Finish “special releases” which lists two standalone adventures.  Not only are these adventures more affordable (at £4.99 for the download), but they also team Jago & Litefoot up with the 6th Doctor.

The first of these, Voyage to Venus loosely follows on from series 4 of Jago & Litefoot, but knowledge of the previous series is not essential.  There’s a question over how Jago & Litefoot met the 6th Doctor, how they know that he is the Doctor, and how it is that they accept the new face, but these are things we just need to accept if we’re to enjoy the story.

The story is a little like a Jules Verne/Edgar Rice Burroughs simplistic science fiction story in which the three characters land on Venus in the distant future and uncover a mystery and a secret hidden by the Grand Empress.  The story takes time to introduce a female-dominant society, but one that’s not used to any great effect given the era from which Jago & Litefoot herald.  The eponymous Grand Empress is voiced by Primeval‘s own Helen Cutter, Juliet Aubrey.

The adventure itself is enough for the one hour duration, and the enjoyability factor comes almost solely down to how much you enjoy Jago, Litefoot, and the 6th Doctor.  If the story has a weakness, it’s with the guest cast and is something I’ve noticed in other Big Finish adventures.  There’s often very little vocal differences between the guest cast that makes it difficult to get a handle on their characters.  The regulars are spot on with their portrayals, and you’re often duped into thinking that Jago, Litefoot, and the 6th Doctor haven’t aged since their heyday, but the guest cast often sound very similar.  This problem is compounded when the story incorporates an all-female society because the female leads sound so similar to each other that it’s often difficult to distinguish one from the others.  (I recall this problem during Blood of the Daleks when the two actresses’ accent, diction, and delivery were so similar that it was near impossible to tell which one was speaking when they were talking in the same scene – oddly, this isn’t a problem that apparently afflicts multiple male characters talking together in the same scene).

Nevertheless, Voyage To Venus is an enjoyable adventure that, at £4.99, isn’t unaffordable.  The story ends with a cliff-hanger (that is to say more of a final scene “dovetail”) into the sequel Voyager To The New World (also at £4.99) which I hope to pick up soon.

Finally, there is one other standalone Jago & Litefoot adventure in which they meet back up with “their” Doctor.  Tom Baker returns as the 4th Doctor, together with Mary Tamm’s Romana, in The Justice of Jalxar, another one-hour adventure which proved to be one of Tamm’s final adventures.  This one costs a little more, at £8.99.