Review by Cavan Gilbey
When I reviewed the previous set in this series, I’m fairly sure I called it my favourite release from Big Finish of 2022. It was a fantastic set of really well explored ethical dilemmas in increasingly creative settings, with some of the best character work the company has put out in recent years. Naturally I was very excited to hear this third, and I assume final, set from the series. There’s been a bit of a departure from the episodic formula of the previous two sets, now choosing to tell a serialised story with Rose and new companion Danni (played by Em Thane) trying to find a way to get Rose back home and escape the Anti-life that is ravaging Danni’s universe. Now was this as good as that second set? Yes, and it might even be better in quite a few regards.
The central chemistry between Rose and Danni is what really drives this set and they work so well together, the pair form a strong sibling relationship and both performers capture the bickering and the love beautifully. Em Thane really shines across these three episodes, they bring this great youthful sense of anger and confusion which plays into the way these three writers capture this character who has had to grow up too quickly. Thane and Piper, think in particular of the final episode, have this powerful bond that really shines through and I just wish they could have had more time together because they make for such a superb duo.
Sink or Swim opens the set, and the Lizzie Hopley pens this story which mostly serves to set up this new dimension that Rose has found herself in and the Anti-Life threat that is slowly eating away at everyone and driving the world deeper in to this post-apocalypse. The majority of this story is spent confined to a boat where Rose gets to involve herself with his microcosm of humanity which is using a lone psychic woman as a slave to guide their journey. Hopley gives us some strong writing about human desperation and barbarism and those sentiments and desires always remain, the script focuses in on how power is arranged. I think the action focus of the second half does detract from Hopley’s quiet and mediative look on how history’s horrors repeat themselves. The real highlight is the interactions between Piper and Coduri, who gets to play a version of Jackie who has truly lost everything and is being kept as a slave aboard this boat. Their interplay in this one is really powerful, with Piper capturing the disgust of seeing her own mother chained up and the relationship with Danni that ensues as a result of this is a great encapsulation of what makes the found family trope so enjoyable.
If I have to dock points anywhere its during this story’s second half where there’s a lot running about and fighting which doesn’t quite get realised as well as it could have been on audio as it would have been visually. This leaves us with less time for the interesting character development, which is picked up in the later two stories but it would have been nicer to see more interactions between Rose and this version of Jackie.
As the opening story to kick off the set, Hopley’s script is a bleak one to say the least but it gives a good indicator of how far gone this universe is and that the Anti-Life has left no room for hope. With a compelling set of character dramas playing out in the centre of the story, the clunky audio action set pieces do bring this one down for me since the conclusion ends up feeling quite rushed.
7/10
The Lower Road by Tim Foley follows up and is easily the story which utilises the Rose/Danni relationship best, with the use of this great motif of sibling sacrifice and powerfully bleak script where parents are willing to throw the lives of their family away to keep a peace they begrudgingly want and know can’t last forever. Foley’s script is a strong slow burner, with much of the opening of the episode focusing on the emotional aftermath of Hopley’s script. A simple conversation between Rose and Danni opens up the episode and shows how Rose has inherited much of her mother’s emotional intelligence and how Danni is beginning to close themselves off to the world. When we are initially introduced to the band of survivors the script builds the world carefully, allowing for Lara’s band of survivors to feel like properly fleshed out characters as opposed to stock characters from a Mad Max film. I feel like there’s a great clash created with the rest of the world and the slightly sterile world of this group of survivors desperately trying to accept the Anti-Life, it makes for this powerful sense of foreboding which runs throughout the script. However the issues of it just becoming a bit of an action packed run around at the end still remain, and frankly motorcycle chases aren’t all that exciting when done of audio.
Heather Coombs is the stand-out from the supporting cast, bringing desperation and a masked sadness to the role that further aids in creating a world which is empty thanks to the Anti-Life. Coombs does a brilliant job at really showing the human and emotional fallout of this decaying world. Coombs’ best chemistry comes with Cleo Sylvestre’s Minton. The pair have this parental clash where their ideas and parental ideology play off each other in really interesting ways. Sylvestre playing it all with a sereness that shows just how hardened to this world she has become.
The Lower Road further develops this universe’s decay and slow death with a powerful human drama focused on how far we would go to just keep the peace and how much we’d sacrifice to make sure we can stay alive just that extra bit longer. Foley’s script places its heart exactly in the right place, with the Lara focus and character study forming a powerful emotional core. If this also didn’t have a needless action set piece at the end then I think it would have been a perfect episode.
9/10
We wrap up the boxset with Helen Goldwyn’s The Good Samaritan. This one is another story which explores the last surviving societies which are living out in the world, but here we have a group who operate a strict system of kindness and goodwill to the point that they allow any show of negative emotion to met with extreme force. It’s taking the phrase ‘grin and bear it’ to the next level, although I don’t feel like the concept is inherently anything new to Doctor Who but this is probably my favourite interpretation of the subject the series has offered us. I’m not going to spoil any of the final moments of this story, but it gives you such a powerfully resonant pay-off to Rose and Danni’s arcs with the two performers just making the script their own and really going for it. I think this story does suffer a little bit because it comes directly after The Lower Road and I think there’s just a bit too much conceptual and thematic similarity to really make the two episodes stand full apart from each other. It is a really good story but the placement of it does make it hard for it stand with its own identity.
8/10
Given that this feels like the final set of Rose Tyler stories we might get for a while, which is a shame because I think this range is secretly one of the best things they have in their library. This set, backed by excellent direction from Goldwyn, is an emotional powerhouse first and foremost which ultimate makes you see past a lot of the narrative short comings in some stories due to just how powerful those central two performances are. Do give this one a try, even if you think Rose isn’t your cup of tea as a character. It won me over to her, I reckon that’s got to account for something.
8/10
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Review: Rose Tyler – The Dimension Cannon – Other Worlds
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