‘THE MIDDLE’

Please feel free to comment on my review.

The Middleman with the Sixth Doctor, Constance and Flip

“Happy Birthday and welcome to the End!”

‘The Middle’ is a four-part adventure by Chris Chapman and it features Colin Baker as the Sixth Doctor, Miranda Raison as Constance and Lisa Greenwood as Flip. I greatly enjoyed this adventure as it’s fascinating how the age groups divided for the Beginning, the Middle and the End get handled. 🙂

I’ve come across Chris Chapman’s writing before since he wrote ‘Warzone’, featuring the Fifth Doctor, Nyssa, Tegan and Marc. He’s also instrumental in the DVD/Blu-ray extras of classic ‘Doctor Who’ stories. I found the four episodes of this story really compelling as I listened to them in a week.

In the story, it happens to be Constance Clarke’s birthday. She turns 35 in this adventure. Constance doesn’t want a fuss made of her, but Flip is determined to make it a birthday for her to remember. The Doctor, Constance and Flip soon visit the futuristic colony of Formicia. All is not as it seems here.

Whilst attending a funfair, the pampered populace pass their days in endless leisure. This makes it ideal for ‘Connie’s birthday. But it turns out most of the populace attending the funfair are youngsters aged from 0 to 35. Flip is 19 in the audio, but for the Doctor and Constance, its trouble. 😐

The Doctor and Constance soon get sent away to various zones in Formicia. Whilst Flip is in the Beginning, Constance ends up in the Middle, which happens to be a sky-scraping towering looking down at the Beginning. The Doctor meanwhile ends up in the End, in robot armour, fighting a war. 😮

It’s intriguing how Formicia’s society ended up like this. The youngsters get to enjoy themselves in the Beginning, whilst people in the Middle at around 35 have to work in an office-type scenario before they end up in the End as elderly people fighting against a possible alien incursion in a war. 😦

I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t want to end up like that, being elderly, wearing robot armour and fighting a war. It’s not my idea for a retirement plan. The Doctor is shocked and appalled by this society’s set-up, especially since he anti-war and refuses to have any part of the End’s activities here.

The colony’s ‘perfect society’ comes ‘at a price’ as the overseers try to make out to the population. But as the story unravels, there’s more to the overseers, especially with the Middleman obeying his masters, and that it’s more an experiment for very unjustifiable ends and making a profit somehow.

Like ‘The Behemoth’, I like how the first episode starts in a pleasant manner before it gets perilous towards the end, leading into the second episode. We have the Doctor, Constance and Flip split up in their various zones and trying to work hard in reuniting and ending Formicia’s ‘messed-up’ society.

The Doctor, Constance and Flip interact with friends they make along the way in order to solve the mysteries of how and why Formicia seems to have ended up like this. The Doctor interacts with Janaiya and her husband Roman, Flip interacts with Olivia and Constance interacts with Olivia’s dad.

It’s also intriguing that the Middleman isn’t actually the main villain, yet does some contemptible things, illustrating that he doesn’t care about the people of Formicia and how they live. Even by the end of the story, the actual overseers don’t care about the Middleman, which does surprise him.

I’m not sure where the three zones are in terms of geography on the planet of Formicia. It might be different planes of existence; different dimensions or perhaps the Beginning is within a dome, the Middle building is in the centre and the End’s outside the dome. Something similar to ‘Orphan 55’! 🙂

Colin Baker once again delivers an excellent performance as the Doctor in this audio adventure. It’s intriguing how he ends up being in the End and wearing robotic armour to fight in a war. The Doctor is of course older than anyone else, though he doesn’t show it due to him being quite young-looking.

The Doctor of course has tons of energy inside him despite being an old man in a youngish body. 😀 When learning that he’s made to fight for the colony of Formicia, he’s dead against it, opposing the commands of the Middleman. I’m surprised they didn’t check his biology as he isn’t of their world. 😐

It becomes a shock to the Doctor when the price for disobedience nearly causes his friend Flip to be executed by one of the drones sent by the Middle. 😐 I like how the Doctor gets to reunite with Flip and Constance and how he and his friends tackle the menace of the Middleman and the overseers. 🙂

Miranda Raison is equally good as Constance Clarke in the story. Unlike Flip who’s very full of energy, ‘Connie’s calmer and reserved in life, not wishing to be spoilt for her 35th birthday. I’m sure she didn’t expect to get taken by one of the drones and forced to work by the Middleman in the Middle.

I like the interaction she has with Olivia’s dad and persuades him to help her save Flip and Olivia when they’re about to be executed by one of the drones in-between ‘Parts Two and Three’. Constance is very resourceful, especially when she’s able to send out a message for the Doctor here.

The defiance Constance gave to the Middleman in the story was very well-done as she realises that he’s not interested in saving the lives of many people when he gives out a message to say that he has failed them in ‘the experiment’. I like how she works out how to disable the robot suits in this. 🙂

Lisa Greenwood is equally good as Flip Ramond née Jackson in this adventure. Flip continues to be bubbly and cheeky, especially when she tries to make a fuss of Constance on her birthday when they visit Formicia. Flip is shocked when her friends have been taken away, trying to find where they are.

I enjoyed how resourceful ‘Philippa’ gets in trying to get to the End where the Doctor and how she and Olivia work together to uncover the mysteries as to what’s going on with the Middle and Formicia. It starts getting a bit pear-shaped when their ‘transfer’ into the End becomes rather dodgy.

Thankfully, Flip and Olivia are able to get into the End, wearing robot suits of course, before they meet up with the Doctor. It gets tense when the Doctor and Flip have no control of their suits when forced to kill people at the Middleman’s orders. They do confront the Middleman at the story’s end.

Mark Heap guest stars as the Middleman in the adventure. I’ve seen Mark Heap in ‘Lark Rise to Candleford’ and he was also in ‘We’re Doomed! The Dad’s Army Story’. I enjoyed his performance as the Middleman in this adventure and how he gets unravelled in being pretty heartless and uncaring.

Sheila Reid guest stars as Janaiya, an older woman fighting in the war in the End with her husband Wayne Forester as Roman. Sheila Reid has been in ‘Doctor Who’ before in ‘Vengeance on Varos’ and she later played Clara’s gran in ‘The Time of the Doctor’ and ‘Dark Water’. It was nice to hear her in this!

I enjoyed the journey Janiaya went on in this story in believing that fighting in the war alongside her husband was a good thing before her husband gets killed and she almost killed her daughter, Chloe Rickenbach as…well, Chloe. 😀 Thankfully, Janiaya was able to stop her robotic suit to kill Chloe here.

That was through the use of strong memories, you see. Hollie Sullivan guest stars as Olivia York in the story. I like the journey Olivia went on and how she was unravelled in trying to find a way to reunite with her father working in the Middle with Flip’s help. At first, I thought she was so uncaring.

‘The Middle’ is a very good audio adventure featuring the Sixth Doctor, Constance and Flip. I like the concept behind the story from Chris Chapman, which is well-executed in terms of an audio production. The performances of the cast are very well-done and I found each episode compelling. 🙂

The CD extras are as follows. At the end of Disc 1, there’s a suite of incidental music to enjoy. At the end of Disc 2, there are behind-the-scenes interviews with the cast and crew including Colin Baker, Miranda Raison, Lisa Greenwood, director Jamie Anderson, writer Chris Chapman, etc. There’s also a trailer for the next story with the Sixth Doctor, Constance and Flip called ‘Static’.

If you subscribe to Big Finish for ‘The Middle’ via a 6 or 12 CD/download subscription, you’ll get the following extras. There’s a PDF script and extended extras for ‘The Middle’.

‘The Middle’ rating – 8/10

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The previous story For the Sixth Doctor was ‘The Behemoth’ (Audio) For Constance was ‘The Behemoth’ (Audio) For Flip was ‘The Behemoth’ (Audio)	The next story For the Sixth Doctor is ‘Static’ (Audio) For Constance is ‘Static’ (Audio) For Flip is ‘Static’ (Audio)
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