Previously … The Blue Tooth …

The Beautiful People is the fourth in the Big Finish‘s Companion Chronicles range, first released in 2007.  As with previous offerings in this range, this is an enhanced audiobook read by a single voice (in this case, Lalla Ward) with support from a second voice.  The Beautiful People is a 4th Doctor adventure that also includes K9, set around season 17 at a time when comedy was give more prominence and drama/scares reduced to a play on farce.

The adventure tells of the Doctor and Romana visiting a health spa, a fitness centre, that has remarkable success with excising people’s excess corpulence in the minimum of time and with little effort.

As is to be expected, all is not what it seems.  Elements of the story appear to have been borrowed from TV Doctor Who‘s Lady Cassandra, with the primary villain bearing some passing resemblance to her, having had too much “beautification” and with Marcia Ashton playing Karna‘s voice not unlike Zoe Wanamaer’s Cassandra.  Both characters are a warning regarding people striving too much for physical perfection.

The adventure, told in four chapters, begins well with the Doctor, K9, and Romana in the TARDIS and the Doctor having an oddly bizarre craving for doughnuts.  (The craving isn’t part of the story, merely a Douglas Adams-esque light-heartedness to the character that was present around TV’s season 17.)

On arriving at the fitness/health centre, the Doctor and K9 promptly vanish from the story in order to leave Romana, complete with a fitness-seeker sidekick to get stuck into the dangers of the adventure.  Romana gets into a number of scrapes, most coinciding with a cliffhanger and all fairly rapidly resolved, prior to the final chapter.  Although the Doctor and K9 do turn up at the eleventh hour, Romana has already scuppered the villain’s plan (despite Romana expressing how terrified she is of Karna “flipping the switch”), so they don’t really have much to do.

The adventure then ends with the Doctor, complete with a bag of doughnuts, escorting Romana and K9 back to the TARDIS to continue their adventures.

Thoughts

Having listened to the first four Companion Chronicles now, it seems that they each have similar pros and cons.  Each adventure’s reliance on the character played by the person telling the story diminishes the other characters that are present.  The worst victim to this is Jamie in Fear of the Daleks, but I did find myself asking where the Doctor was for the biggest part of The Beautiful People.

In a way, the Companion Chronicles does what it says on the tin.  It gives voice to a particular companion in their own adventure.  That isn’t the problem, though.  The problem is that the writers are having to find ways to remove the other regular characters (including the Doctor) from the story.  This never fails to feel, well, odd.

If I was to list each of the first four stories in the Companion Chronicles range in order of recommendation, the top of the list would have to be The Blue Tooth – primarily because you never get the sense that the Doctor isn’t involved in the adventure, even when he’s not mentioned.  Second position would go to Frostfire, largely due to the imaginative environment of the adventure even if the inclusion of Jane Austen does come across as odd when there are a couple of regular characters (the Doctor and Steven) who don’t get to do much.

Third place would probably be The Beautiful People.  Despite the noticeable absence of the Doctor for the majority of the story, it is a lot of fun and, if you liked season 17, you’ll probably enjoy this.  And, finally, there’s Fear of the Daleks, which has all of the right elements but it feels the most awkward what with the shameful treatment of Jamie, the strange “avatar” plot device, and the Daleks not being very consistent.

In conclusion, however, if you enjoy one of these stories then you’ll doubtless enjoy the others.

Next time … Mother Russia …