Doctor Who: Infamy of the Zaross Review (The Tenth Doctor Adventures Volume 2)

INTRODUCTION

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If you know me, you’ll know I’m a big Doctor Who fan and have been since 2006.  If you don’t know me, surprise! Whilst anyone who does know me will tell you I don’t hide my distaste for some stories/episodes in more recent years.  Namely episodes written by Steven Moffat, but that’s a post for another day.

In July(?) 2008 series 4 of the new run of Doctor Who had just ended and I intended to binge the entire series in one day on BBC iPlayer, as was a tradition of mine (Until series 6 made that impossible).  Whilst searching through iPlayer I caught a glimpse of an image of Paul McGann’s Doctor and thought that the TV Movie was on for some reason.

I quickly discovered it wasn’t the TV Movie.  It was a full cast audio drama called “Max Warp” featuring Paul McGann’s Doctor and a companion I hadn’t heard of before… Lucie Miller made by a company that I, yet again, had never heard of.  Naturally, I was curious and gave it a listen. I’ve been addicted to Big Finish ever since.  When TV Doctor Who has let me down, Big Finish has always been there to give me a satisfying counterpart to the drab, Moffat-ised crap on the telly. So, since then my Big Finish collection has simply grown and grown to the point where I’ve had to acquire additional storage space to hold them all and need to start giving serious consideration to going fully digital with it.

 

So, with that in mind, I recently downloaded my free digital copy that comes with every physical purchase from the official Big Finish (Who aren’t sponsoring this, in case you were wondering) website of the Tenth(?) Doctor Adventures Volume 2 featuring David Tennant & Billie Piper as… Her.

 

Yes, David Tennant’s arguably canonical 10th Doctor is back with Rose Tyler at the helm of the TARDIS for three exciting new audio dramas by Big Finish Productions and I decided to share my love for this little company by sharing my honest thoughts on these three stories:

1. Infamy of the Zaross – by John Dorney
2. The Sword of the Chevalier – by Guy Adams
3. Cold Vengeance – Matt Fitton

So today I’m going to review the first story of this box set – Infamy of the Zaross and then I’ll see when my reviews for the other two stories manage to surface in the future.  Christmas time in retail, not a lot of time for things.

 

Also, should mention, spoilers ahead. Read on at your own risk!

PLOT SYNOPSIS

So we begin with Jackie Tyler who’s having a bit of a holiday to Norwich to stay with an old friend but when a race of warthog-like aliens calling themselves the Zaross invade she calls in the A-Team.  The Doctor & Rose then work together with Jackie & her friend’s daughter to save the… City of Norwich.  Turns out the aliens are only invading Norwich.

The gang do their usual sleuthing around getting clues and figuring out the mystery and discover the Zaross are, were, a peaceful race who got fed up of being ignored in the universe.  The Zaross reveal they are under the employ of an intergalactic scripted reality programme, currently on its third series, called Take Me To Your Leader where they are getting their just recognition to invade lower-levelled worlds and make it look like they have conquered the planet using clever editing tricks and kitting the natives out with war-gear to make it look like a battlefield.  The only difference being that the Zaross are kitted out with actual weaponry whilst the humans are unknowingly using fake guns.

Now, with their eyes set on the puppet masters, the Doctor, Rose, Jackie & Jess head to their ship as the “Invasion” continues.  They try to reason with the director and the other crew members but none of them will listen to their pleas for mercy.  They manage to discover that the programme is on its tenth series, contrary to the Zaross’s earlier statement, and as a result figure out that the Zaross replaced their previous conquering race three series’ ago, who replaced the conquerors three series’ before that.  Meaning that the Zaross would be replaced sooner rather than later. The Doctor gets the Zaross on his side when he tells them the truth about the programme & their fate.  The Zaross then drive the crew off and then leave the world in peace.

 

GOOD POINTS

1. We’ll start from the start here, Jackie Tyler has had a breath of fresh air with Big Finish. Back in the day, 2005-8, Jackie was just… Kind of there to be a pest. She was developed, sure, but nowhere near as much as she is with Big Finish.  In her appearances so far in the audio medium she’s grown on me so much as a char
2. acter it’s insane, and she’s on top form once more in this story.  It was also quite nice to hear Jackie & Rose talking with each other again. Jackie Tyler – MVP.
3. At one point Rose mentions the Cybermen, meaning this episodes takes place more than likely after Age of Steel, which was a good area of series two, it fits in well with that time slot too and it doesn’t drench you in forced, unwanted Doctor/Rose shipping… Ah, the good old days…
4. The Zaross themselves are a pretty cool race and they lead to a few funny moments throughout the story. Their story is a bit exaggerated but it’s not beyond the realm of possibility. Ignored race only wanting recognition by other races and are at the point of doing anything they can to get said attention.
5. David Tennant & Billie Piper are on point in this story and it’s like they were never apart. David & Billie really work well together and it’s nice to have a story from an era where their will-they/won’t-they was just a twinkle in the collective eyes of squealing fangirls everywhere.
6. Alien invasion programme called Take Me To Your Leader. Yes. More of that.
7. Tennant’s last line. Love stuff like that. Not spoiling that one.

 

BAD POINTS

1. Ever read the 9th(?) Doctor novel Winner Takes All by Jacqueline Rayner? This episode strongly reminded me of that book. It was an alright book, but I didn’t want an audio dramatisation of it… With the wrong incarnation of the Doctor.
2. This may just be because I was reminded of Winner Takes All but I found this story very predictable. I picked up on the Zaross saying series three and then the director saying series ten and knew instantly how the entire rest of the episode would go down. Until that point though it had me pretty interested in the unfolding of events.
3. A pretty interesting plot hole I discovered whilst writing the plot synopsis is if they only invade a small part of a planet and make it look like a planetary conquest… How did they manage to wipe out the last army which the Zaross replaced? And the army that was replaced by the army before the Zaross? May just be me overlooking a detail or over-thinking it, but what can you do?

CONCLUSION

All things said I enjoyed this audio, my only major complaint is that I predicted it to the finest detail rather early into it, but there are more good points than bad.  I’m looking forward to listening to the other two stories in this Volume, especially the last one, Cold Vengeance. Oooooh, Cold Vengeance has me excited even more now.

So, overall good story, well acted and a treat for any 10(?) & Rose fan, I’d easily give this story a 7/10 and strongly recommend it to anyone who is a fan of either David Tennant’s Doctor or a fan of Billie Piper’s eventual train wreck of a companion, Rose Tyler.

 

Spectacled Observer. 🙂