PERI AND THE PISCON PARADOX

Recently, Big Finish did a Companion Chronicles sale.  The reduction in price to £5 wasn’t a big enough reduction to entice me to buy too many of them, but I had heard many good things about one such adventure and so I stumped up the money for…

Peri and The Piscon Paradox begins in an almost comedy style.  Peri is travelling with the 5th Doctor (just prior to The Caves of Androzani), and they arrive in Los Angeles, 2009, to find a fish creature, called Zarl, that has a list of unspeakable things he intends to do to Earth.  However, things are not all what they seem when it turns out Zarl would rather fail in his deviousness than succeed.

Help comes from an unexpected source – Perpugilliam Brown, her future secret agent self – who knows more about Zarl than anyone.

The story ends with Zarl’s defeat at the hands of … well, I won’t spoil it … except that the story doesn’t end.

CD#2 sees Peri Brown, chat show host and self-proclaimed “Queen of Worriers”, encounter the sixth Doctor, only she has no memory of him.  She remembers the business with the Master and the silver robot, but nothing else.  The Doctor’s memory is also fuzzy, but he vaguely remembers an incident with a fish alien called Zarl shortly prior to his regeneration.  He remembers where Zarl was defeated, and goes there with Peri to find him prior to the previous incident.  Unfortunately, due to a slight mishap and an accident, Zarl plunges to his death … before the Doctor’s previous incarnation met him.

The sixth Doctor and Peri have to rush to preserve the Web of Time!

Nicola Bryant performs Peri and The Piscon Paradox as Peri.  First as Peri from the mid-80s with the 5th Doctor, and then as Peri from 2009 with the 6th.  Her attempts at the other voices are less than successful, but she’s helped in the second half by the presence of Colin Baker being the sixth Doctor.  Her rendition of “young Peri” is suitably annoying with a very high-pitched and grating voice, contrasting well with the weather-worn tones of “older Peri”.

Nev Fountain’s story is cleverly written, but you don’t realise the cleverness until the second CD.  For the most part, however, we learn a lot about Peri.  From the younger Peri, we learn about her life before the TARDIS and, from the older Peri, about her regrets and the way her youthful optimism wasn’t rewarded.

There’s much humour in Fountain’s story, including some classic dialogue between Peri and Peri (“my god, they were never that high up!” and “how the mighty have fallen”), but this humour masks more of a tragedy – one that we don’t discover much about until the very end.

What of the Paradox?  Hanging off the story almost like an eleventh hour addition, we learn why the older Peri isn’t languishing as King Yrcanos’ wife.

It’s difficult to sum up Peri and The Piscon Paradox.  While you’re listening to it, you think you’re listening to a piece of tongue-in-cheek fluff that’s of no consequence to anyone and certainly isn’t any kind of classic.  However, once you’ve finished and you think back on what you’ve been listening to, you realise how much more was really there.  That’s kind of the opposite to today’s televised adventures which fall down to nothing when you think about them later.  Despite the awful squeaky voice of the younger Peri and some awful puns, this is the first Companion Chronicles story that I want to listen to again sometime soon.

If you want to learn more about Peri, and you’re okay with the Sixth Doctor’s era, this is one adventure you should pick up.  Probably still best to wait for it to be on sale.  It is worth the £5 I paid, but probably not the £12.99 (CD) or £9.99 (download) regular price.