 |  |  |
 | Reviews for Antidote to Oblivion |
|
| | |
There are 2 reviews so far. To add a review of your own for this item, visit the voting page.
| By: | Matthew David Rabjohns, Bridgend, United Kingdom |
|
| Date: | Monday 17 February 2014 |
|
| Rating: |  10 |
Philip Martin created one of the most memorable monsters from Doctor Who in the 80s, and this story here proves what steam the slug still has in him. Nabil Shaban is fantastic as the slimy mentor, and its always a delight to hear him beside Colin Baker. To me their scenes are rather like the Jon Pertwee and Roger Delgado scenes off the early seventies, they just seem to fit together like pieces in a puzzle.
And its a truly excellent bonus with one of Big Finish Productions best new companions for the Doctor, here immortalised by the wonderful Lisa Greenwood. Flip has a great sense of humour and I got a few real laughs out of the material in Phil's script. And there is as always his brilliant drawings of sadistic maniacs or obsessives, and Cordelia is a wonderful new misguided enemy, with some really toxic venom. Also, there are a few really creepy chilling moments too laced through this one, particularly the episode three cliffhanger, which only gave me a few goosebumps....
And the characters are likeable and you feel for them, which you always do with a script from Phil. There is even more of an emotional overtone to this story that was also present in Mindwarp. But I feel of the three, this may even be the strongest outing for Sil and the good Doctor. This is a brilliant start to 2014 for the BFP audio adventures. And did I mention that I think Lisa is just phenomenal as Flip? Great stuff! Keep it and Sil coming.....
| By: | David Layton, Los Angeles, United States |
|
| Date: | Tuesday 31 December 2024 |
|
| Rating: |  6 |
A true sequel, "Antidote to Oblivion" is an attempt to rearrange the themes and ideas from "Vengeance on Varos," "Mindwarp," and "Mission to Magnus." This time, Sil is on Earth. During a vulnerable stage in Earth history, when civilizations have broken down, presumably after a war, Sil has come in to recreate Britain as ConCorp. The President is really just a CEO, and is beholden to Sil for loans to get society up and running. Society, however, is failing, and the only solution so far has been to put additives into the water that drug the populace into bland complicity. Sil, however, has a more drastic solution, which is to maximize profit by eliminating 90% of the "surplus" population through introducing alien diseases. To this end, Sil has employed the daughter of Crozier from "Mindwarp," to gather the diseases and create antidotes that will be given only to the executive elite. The plan: capture a Time Lord and use Gallifreyan immunity to boost human immunity. Thus, Sil tricks the Doctor into arriving at ConCorp. He and Cordelia will use the Doctor as the experiment and Flip as the control.
The first parts of the story are alright, though there is a disturbing lack of originality. The main problems for me are that Philip Martin knows almost nothing about how diseases work, how cures work, and how medical research is done. Another problem spot is that he introduces a needless complication by having one of the alien viruses be an intelligent species. It is a side show, and adds no increased danger or urgency to the issue of what might happen if an alien virus enters an unprotected population.
There's some clever dialogue, and Nabil Shaban is once again brilliant as Sil. Those are the high points.
