2 episodes. Running Time: Approx. 63 minutes. Written by: Jake Elliott. Directed by: Nigel Fairs. Produced by: Sharon Gosling. Performed by: Frazer Hines, Suzanne Proctor.
THE PLOT:
Helicon Prime is a futuristic luxury resort so exclusive that it boasts a wait list of decades for a spot. It exists in "The Golden Section," an area of space whose properties discourage negative emotions. This avoids conflict among the many different species that vacation here.
The Doctor is very pleased at the prospect of a nice vacation. He is even more pleased to encounter Mindy Voir (Suzanne Proctor), a renowned singer who, thanks to her late father's genius, is the only human who can sing in a ten-octave range.
But all is not well. Ambassador Dromio, who unofficially runs Helicon Prime, is having the Doctor and Jamie watched. One wealthy but disreputable guest is murdered soon after they arrive - which, in the Golden Section, should be impossible. Another guest dies not long after speaking with Jamie.
Everything seems to trace back to a disaster that wiped out an extremely advanced colony world years earlier - and also to a mysterious treasure that someone in the present will kill to possess!
CHARACTERS:
The Doctor: This was the first Companion Chronicle narrated by Frazer Hines, and therefore the first audio to benefit from his excellent Patrick Troughton impersonation. It's not quite as dead-on here as it would be later. There are random line readings in which the "Troughton voice" disappears altogether, only to come back a line or two later. Still, even in this release, Hines's Troughton is often uncanny, and I remember how impressive it was on initial release.
The story does rather well with the 2nd Doctor's characterization. He spends the first episode avoiding direct action. He's cautious about drawing attention, and he doesn't want to jump to conclusions. After the second murder, he creates an opportunity for Jamie to sneak up to search the Ambassador's rooms, but he spends most of his time in public view behaving like a man on vacation with not a care in the world. Then, in his interactions with Mindy, he basically devolves into an overgrown fanboy, which is highly amusing.
Jamie: He's the perpetual fish out of water, his unfamiliarity with everything allowing both the Doctor and Mindy to funnel exposition to us through him. He grows impatient with the Doctor's laid-back attitude, trying to push him to do something, even though he doesn't have anything concrete in mind for them to do. He acknowledges that part of the appeal of his travels is the constant thrill of surviving by his wits - though that's only appealing because of his faith that the Doctor will make sure they keep surviving.
Mindy Voir: The story's "guest voice," who spends much of the story behaving as Jamie's companion, ala Samantha in The Faceless Ones. She's pleasant and indulgent in the face of the Doctor's enthusiasm for her. She also shows resourcefulness, using her vocal skills to extricate herself and Jamie from trouble. It becomes obvious fairly early that she's hiding her own agenda, particularly when she's a little too familiar with the ambassador's private rooms and a little too unruffled by the full force of the Golden Section. Still, Suzanne Proctor does a fine job of keeping Mindy the Pseudo-Companion breezily likable.
THOUGHTS:
Helicon Prime is one of the more lightweight Companion Chronicles. It's a futuristic murder mystery with some Agatha Christie overtones. The second of Big Finish's Second Doctor stories, it at least manages to entertain, which puts it well above Fear of the Daleks. Still, it seems unmistakable that fir the early Companion Chronicles, the Second Doctor drew the short straw.
The story's biggest strength is how right it gets the Doctor/Jamie dynamic. Jamie watches, amused, as the Doctor "inconspicuously" stumbles through a potted plant while Jamie simply steps around the obstruction. He is alternately exasperated and impatient with the Doctor's behavior around Mindy and with the slow pace of the investigation. However, he instantly goes along with any plan the Doctor comes up, even when it potentially puts him in danger, and it's always clear how fond he is of his friend and mentor.
The setting is also well-realized. Not much story happens in the first episode, but that's still the episode that showcases most of the best moments: Jamie marveling at various alien life forms, including sentient fish and a man made of glass. Jamie having a conversation with a short, sharp-toothed alien who is anxiously awaiting a date with a beautiful woman, with him smiling as he watches the unlikely couple walk away. The Doctor enjoying a book while sitting on a fake beach, as Jamie spills dates on the ground and watches the automated systems clean them up.
So the two leads and the sense of setting are well defined. It's too bad the narrative doesn't quite work...
FLAWS:
Helicon Prime is your classic murder mystery. A tragic event happened in the past, and several characters in the present end up dead because of it.
It's a durable format, one that Doctor Who has used many times. Unfortunately, while the building blocks of a decent version of this exist within Helicon Prime, they aren't particularly well implemented. As I mentioned, very little happens in Part One, which focuses mainly on Jamie's reactions to his current setting. Significant pieces of the story aren't even set up during this first half. The doomed colony world? The treasure? The connections between the ambassador and the victims? None of this is established until Episode Two.
We also get no opportunity to meet the victims. The first victim dies before the Doctor and Jamie even learn of his existence. Two other men die in the same scene in which they're introduced. Save for a character who strikes up a conversation with Jamie not long before being killed, there's no effort made to make them feel like real people, which keeps the stakes feeling lower than they need to. Also, the nominal villain, Ambassador Dromio, is talked about a lot, but he only ends up receiving two scenes of interest. We're told that he's watching the Doctor, but the two men don't directly interact until near the end.
This could have been fixed by simply having a tropey early establishing scene (a reception, a party, something) to allow the Doctor and Jamie to meet and get a quick impression of each of these characters early on. Such a moment would have introduced the characters while also feeding into the "Agatha Christie in space" element. Without such a scene, there's little sense of connection among the victims until it gets spelled out. Also, because the story is so back-loaded, exposition continued to be doled out right up to the very last scene.
OVERALL:
Helicon Prime feels like it was one rewrite away from being a good, if lightweight, mystery/adventure yarn. It's a huge improvement over Fear of the Daleks. Writer Jake Elliott gets the regulars right, and the setting is interesting and well-described. But while the pieces of an engaging story are present, I don't think they're put together quite right.
In the end, I'd rate this as a near-miss. It isn't bad... but it wouldn't be until Big Finish's third season of Companion Chronicles that the Second Doctor would start getting some genuinely good audio stories.
Overall Rating: 5/10.
Set After: Tomb of the Cybermen
Set Before: Fury from the Deep
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