2 episodes. Approx. 54 minutes. Written by: Steve Lyons. Directed by: Lisa Bowerman. Produced by: David Richardson. Performed by: Frazer Hines, Anneke Wills.
THE PLOT
The Doctor and his companions at a bank in the distant future for the most innocent of reasons. It's just a simple misunderstanding involving a parking fine... Just enough cause for the Doctor to actually need a bit of money for once. But it's enough to place the Doctor, Jamie, Ben, and Polly in their usual position: The wrong place, at the wrong time.
The Selachians are a race of aggressive, spacefaring sharks. Literal sharks, with fins and suits that preserve their acquatic environment as they move among the air-breathing plankton known as humanity. They are in the bank for the least innocent of reasons: To rob it.
First they must breach the impregnable vault door, whose combination is changed multiple times daily. The vault is interdimensional, the combination setting the destination. Enter the right combination and you can access the most valuable treasures of galactic civilization. Otherwise, even if you breach the door, all that you will find behind it is cold, empty space.
The Selachians are prepared to kill to get what they want, threatening to execute one hostage per minute. But the Doctor knows a thing or two about interdimensional locks, and he makes a deal with the aliens. If they agree to spare the hostages, he will use his considerable skills to break into the vault.
But there are secrets behind that door that even the Doctor isn't aware of - Secrets which make the lives of a mere twenty hostages insignificant in comparison!
CHARACTERS
The Doctor: One of the joys of Big Finish's Second Doctor stories has been Frazer Hines' Second Doctor. Hines is able to make himself truly sound like Patrick Troughton, to such a degree that more often than not you would swear Troughton was in the recording booth delivering his character's own lines. It was breathtaking even in Hines' earliest Big Finish stories, and his Troughton has gotten better and better as he's done more of them.
This story is perfectly suited to the Second Doctor's persona. He is thrust into a situation in which he appears completely helpless. Then he uses his apparent weakness and his knowledge of interdimensional systems to barter with the Selachians. By Part Two, the bank heist is being run more by the Doctor than by the aliens, and listening as he defuses one potentially violent situation after another until the story's climax feels perfect for both character and era.
Jamie: Retains his tendency to sometimes act before he thinks, as when he makes an ill-advised (and poorly-aimed) attack on one of the Selachians early in the bank heist. His fierce loyalty to his friends is shown when, having made a clean escape for himself, he runs back into a building facing imminent destruction to save the Doctor and the other hostages. In an amusing nod to Big Finish's own continuity, Jamie and Ben consciously repeat a method of escaping their guards previously used in the Polly Companion Chronicle Resistance.
Ben: Frazer Hines' Ben voice is almost as good as his Second Doctor voice, allowing Ben to come to life in this story in a way that just wasn't true of the previous Companion Chronicles. As is usual, Ben is the least-used of the companions... but he still gets a decent slice of the action, working with Jamie to overcome Selachian guards near the end. Even his crawling through the bank's ductwork, which largely shunts him out of the way in Part One, pays off, with Ben making an important discovery.
Polly: When she hears the Doctor soothing Selachians and hostages alike by talking about a calming cup of tea, she knows what will come next. Sure enough, the next scene sees her sent to the kitchen to put the kettle on. As in The Moonbase, she also actively looks around for things that might be used to turn the tables on the Selachians. With a helpful prod from Ben, she finds something. In Part Two, she is removed from the bank and mainly interacts with the police negotiating with the Selachians, which handily allows us to see both sides of the action. Anneke Wills continues to do a spirited job both in recreating her character and in narrating her portion of the story, and the switch back-and-forth between Hines' voice and hers helps to keep this serial alive and moving.
THOUGHTS
I've always enjoyed a good caper, which makes The Selachian Gambit a perfect fit for me. Writer Steve Lyons has concocted a textbook caper with the classic elements: A heist gone wrong, an impregnable security system, and a late-in-the-game twist that turns the story on its head. It's fast-paced and clever, making good use of its confined setting.
The story also makes particularly good use of the regulars. The Season Four line-up of the Doctor, Jamie, Ben, and Polly can be daunting to cover in an audio story that runs less than 60 minutes. Resistance and The Forbidden Time both sidestepped the large line-up by separating the Doctor and Polly from the others for most of the action, effectively removing half the cast.
The Selachian Gambit properly uses all four regulars, and writer Steve Lyons manages to make this achievement look easy. One way in which this is done is by putting the companions into "teams" that are constantly switching. Polly and the Doctor are together initially, while Jamie and Ben observe some of the guest characters elsewhere in the bank. Then the Doctor and Jamie carry the main action for a while, while Polly and Ben interact elsewhere. Then Ben and Jamie are paired, while Polly interacts with the police outside the bank. It's a simple thing - but the shifting of the character pairs goes a long way toward keeping all the characters alive in the story throughout, while at the same time contributing to the fast pace.
The story benefits from Big Finish's usual polished production, but its success is brought home by Frazer Hines. His performance is nothing short of remarkable, as he enacts full scenes in which he voices every character. There's a tense scene in Part Two in which the Doctor, Jamie, the Selachians, Ben, and the bank manager all interact, discussing and threatening and arguing... and it was only after I had finished listening to the story that I reflected that this scene, and others like it, were created with a single actor. Between Hines' dead-on imitations of Patrick Troughton and Michael Craze, his ability to recreate his own 1960's performance, and his distinct voices for the guest characters, the story often feels less like an enhanced audio book than like a narrated full-cast play.
An outstanding central performance, bolstering an already well-constructed and clever story. It's often easiest to lavish praise on serious dramas than on lighter pieces like this one. But when a light story is pulled off as brilliantly as The Selachian Gambit is, then it deserves just as much praise.
This is an excellent little story, one I will certainly revisit in the future.
Overall Rating: 9/10.
Previous Television Story: The Macra Terror
Next Television Story: The Faceless Ones
Preceded By: The Forbidden Time
Followed By: House of Cards
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