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Bernice Summerfield first met Irving Braxiatel some thousand
years in the future - or about 15 years ago, her time. Since
then, she’s been married to Jason Kane, divorced from
Jason Kane, reunited with Jason Kane, and had a half-Killoran
son, Peter, with an all-Killoran dad, Adrian. She’s settled
down on Braxiatel’s planetoid-museum, where she’s
Professor of Archaeology. There have been adventures, invasions
and monsters along the way, but things are generally looking
up after years of weirdness of mayhem. And then Peter kills
Jason... “If I’d spent less time knocking about
with the monsters and magic artefacts, and more time here
with him... This is where you’re meant to tell me that
I mustn’t blame myself...”
I
have to admit, I had been expecting something a little more...
well, confrontational and conclusive, perhaps even a little
vengeful, in this, the final episode in Season 8 of Bernice’s
Big Finish adventures.
At
least we - and Benny - finally discover the true extent of
Irving Braxiatel’s (Miles Richardson) meddling in the
political landscape of local time and space, including the
people he has turned towards his agenda, how he managed to
turn them, and his motives for doing so (which are, in part,
tied up with a certain Time Lord with whom Bernice used to
travel). Gradually and subtly, Brax has regained control of
his Collection, without ever officially resuming his role
as its curator. Writer Simon Guerrier even likens him to Stalin,
when Doggles (Sam Stevens) notices that at least one person
has gone missing from a group portrait Irving hangs on a wall.
This
is certainly strong, grown-up stuff. Sexual tension is present
between the grieving Benny (Lisa Bowerman) and the once-smitten
Adrian Wall (Harry Myers), and there’s a shocking encounter
between Benny and Doggles.
During
the course of this instalment, Guerrier inserts flashbacks
to and reminiscences of previous stories, all the way back
to Bernice’s first meeting with Braxiatel in the Doctor
Who novel Theatre of War. More recent Big Finish
events are also tied in, as the following line of dialogue
from Benny demonstrates: “I
saw a future Peter once,
and he’d become a killer. Ms Jones told me I was doing
a lousy job as a mother, and when I didn’t listen she
stole him from me. Then there was how he was on
Montavadros.
Even the
Oracle of flipping Delphi
warned me to be on the lookout.” The overall effect is
that there has been a grand plan in progress since Theatre
of War, though of course neither Big Finish nor Range
Editor Guerrier were running things back then.
The
end of the story sets up a major change of direction for Season
9. The CD itself ends with some of Matthew Cochrane and David
Darlington’s exciting and evocative incidental music,
plus a trailer for next season, which looks set to offer more
of an emphasis on off-world adventure and less of an emphasis
on domestic conspiracies and navel-gazing.
Richard
McGinlay
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