RETURN OF THE ROCKET MEN

The fifth adventure in series seven of Big Finish‘s Companion Chronicles range does what it says on the tin and it sees the Return of the Rocket Men.  This time they’re encountered by Steven (Peter Purves) with the first Doctor and Dodo.  The villain of the Rocket Men is this time played by Tim Treloar, who would later go on to voice the third Doctor in future Big Finish stories.

Return of the Rocket Men begins on Steven Taylor’s 21st birthday, long before the events that saw him stranded on Mechanus prior to joining the Doctor on his adventures.  He’s a cargo pilot who is shot down by the pirates.  After crash-landing on a moon, he’s set upon by the Rocket Men who ransack his cargo.  In trying to fight back, he’s crippled and debilitated before being helped by an oddly kind Rocket Man who saves his life before being shot in front of Steven’s delirious eyes and killed by Van Cleef, the leader of this faction of Rocket Men.

Many years later, towards the end of his journeys with the Doctor, Steven, with Dodo, land at a colony that’s been beset upon by raiders.  They’re on the edge of not being able to survive, because supply ships are being raided.  One ship breaks through but, before the colonists can retrieve their supplies, a massive spaceship arrives and dozens of Rocket Men attack in their usually brutal and cruel ways.

The Doctor, Steven, and Dodo do what they can to help.  A clever plan by Steven sees them overpower the Rocket Men force but they’ve been outwitted.  Whilst they’ve been on the offensive, other Rocket Men have invaded their base and have taken all the women and children hostage.  An youthful Rocket Man is uncertain about their actions, and is shot dead by Van Cleef before they take their hostages away.

When given the chance, Steven steals the dead youth’s rocket-suit and heads after Dodo in the downed cargo ship with the intention of rescuing the hostages.  Meanwhile, the Doctor fathoms out a way to trick the Rocket Men.

It’s not long before Steven infiltrates the Rocket Men, only to find himself on a very familiar moon.

Return of the Rocket Men plays as a two-part adventure, complete with cliff-hanger, and takes much of its influence from the previous The Rocket Men story, complete with the flashback method of story-telling.  The flashbacks work this time, and they’re not anything like as annoying because they’re aren’t so many of them that handshake so confusingly with present day events.

The script is pretty clever in the way the two threads work and, although it’s not unpredictable enough that you won’t figure it out long before the cleverness happens, it’s a reward that’s well worth waiting for.

Peter Purves is superb in “retelling” the past story thread as well as the present one.  In the past, Steven doesn’t know what’s going to happen and is the typical brash pilot out of his depth who will try to do the best despite knowing he could end up dead.  In the present, Steven is more world-weary and knows that he could end up dead but is resigned to doing what he’s doing.

Although this is very much a Steven story (and Dodo plays even less of a part in the story than Vicki did in the previous one), parts of the denouement are still governed by the Doctor and it’s interesting to note that the writer (Matt Fitton) almost duplicates the Doctor’s impact from the previous story (written by John Dorney).

Purves’ version of William Hartnell’s voice is sufficient without being spectacular and he makes no real attempt to voice Dodo (which is the only bit that gets confusing here).  That’s no real negative, however, because the adventure has so much going for it.  After the adventure is the usual interviews segment, complete with contributions from Peter Purves, Tim Treloar, writer Matt Fitton, and director Lisa Bowerman.

This one is definitely recommended and is, I’d venture, much better than the previous story.  That said, I would recommend listening to the previous one if you want to get the most out of this one.