Customer Reviews

Cradle of the Snake (Dr Who Big Finish)

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2 star:		(1)
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Audio drama sequel to Whispering Forest (Dr Who Big Finish), set between the TV episodes Enlightenment (Doctor Who: The Black Guardian Trilogy (Mawdryn Undead / Terminus / Enlightenment) (Stories 126-28)) and The King's Demons (Doctor Who: The King's Demons (Story 129)).

Tegan is possessed by the Mara. Again. The Doctor attempts to help her by getting inside her head and it seems to work - but then why has the TARDIS gone off course, landing on Manussa long before the Mara ever manifested itself and created the Sumaran Empire? You can guess what's happened, can't you? So do you really think you'll be surprised how this ends?

The first CD begins the story well, as the TARDIS party seeks help for Tegan and Safety Officer Yoanna Rayluss investigates Rick ausGarten and his TV show - though I was taken aback by human stereotypes on an alien world (efficient German doctor, officious American, old tribesman who makes mystic pronouncements in a thick accent). Rick ausGarten has access to crystal technology that can literally make your dreams come true, something of great interest to the Mara and a link to the crystals that were so important in Snakedance. Things begin to heat up once Tegan and Nyssa cross paths with Yoanna and Dadda Desaka, the aforementioned old tribesman. But with CD 2 it all goes wrong.
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Be warned, major spoilers follow, as I can't explain without them. I'm also going to assume you've watched the TV series. Really, Cradle of the Snake wouldn't make much sense if you hadn't.
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If you're offering a story that promises the apocalypse, it needs to feel epic. Cradle of the Snake doesn't. Too much of the action is set in the enclosed atmosphere of a TV station and the action is only perceived through a very small cast of characters, so the whole thing ends up feeling cheap and small. When we're not given a sense of Manussan society there's no reason why we should care what happens to its citizens, and we can't understand why they turn up to see the Mara for its first public appearance or accept its influence. As an example of how trite this story is, when it's all over the Manussans are offered a government helpline to help them get over it. Whereas those listening to this tale are offered coy obfuscation as to whether or not history has been altered and no sign that this has had the slightest lasting effect on anyone involved.

And that, of course, is what's truly wrong with Cradle of the Snake. As Miles and Wood point out in their "prosecution" of the TV episode Kinda in About Time 5: The Unauthorized Guide to Doctor Who (About Time; The Unauthorized Guide to Dr. Who (Mad Norwegian Press)), the Mara isn't just an alien mind-parasite, its manifestation is specific to the individual and it's a flaw in Kinda that Tegan isn't changed at all by what her possession by the Mara has shown her about herself. Yet here, the Mara is treated as an alien mind-parasite that can be forced on others, rather than something the individual must choose to accept; there's nothing personal about its manifestation, as everyone simply switches their alignment to chaotic evil and becomes bent on world domination; and no-one's shocked or traumatised by what they've experienced or learned about themselves under the Mara's influence, but just shrugs and moves on. So what was the point?

Think about it. Was Rick ausGarten willingly possessed or not? If yes, was he ambitious, frustrated or just stupid? We never got to know him, so we can't tell. We just see that he seems unaffected afterwards. How does Yoanna switch from flat despair and willingly submitting to the Mara to chirpy positivity once it's all over? Shouldn't Dadda Desaka, who faced and was defeated by the evil he was the first to perceive, be thoroughly traumatised? We don't know, because he vanishes from the story. Have we ever seen Nyssa display any repressed vices or ambitions that the Mara could bring out? If anyone was to resist, or be completely immune to its influence, it should have been her. And as for the Doctor, who really takes the cake for stupidity this time, I would have expected something more esoteric and individual than evil laughter, petty spite and doing everything the Mara wants him to. An internal fight between him and the Mara to pursue his own repressed desires at the expense of its plans - that actually might have made an interesting story.

Apart from the problems with the plot concept, it doesn't help that the guest characters aren't interesting or sympathetic and that it's hard to visualise what's happening at a number of points. The plot sags in places, is too quick and facile in others, and as for how the Mara is banished - what the $@&%!# happened there? No explanation is given as to why the Mara needs one of the crystals to exist physically, when all other living beings created through them don't. Turlough's first name shouldn't be known to anyone, and what happened to the need to do something about Richter's Syndrome? The cast is at least competent, the main cast considerably more than competent, though Peter Davison really does chew the scenery. Subtlety isn't this production's strong point.

Two stars, but only because I've heard worse.