Bad Day in Tinseltown

Silver and Ice #1

Released: 29 June 2022

Listened: 7/2/22

This 2022 production reunites the Seventh Doctor with Mel for the first time in a while. However, this particular story is kind of a folly. It’s a two-parter, for one thing, and it takes place in a former mining town that’s trying to convert itself to a tourist attraction. Whatever it was they mined before, that’s tapped out, and they now specialize in a by-product called “tinsel,” which is shiny and silvery, which of course means it must also be cyber-y. There are multiple different flavors of Cyberman in this one, one of which is a Second-Doctor-era antique. Nick Briggs plays him accurately, which means he’s pretty tough to understand. Dan Starkey is the writer, and while it’s not as sesquipedalian as he’s been in the past, it’s still plenty wordy, and filled with “characters.” Specifically, the bar owner with the Texas accent, Dan Starkey himself playing a mayor with an Outback Aussie accent, and various other Australians scattered around. They’re actually not bad, as Big Finish accents go. Everyone involved says they envisioned this one as the sort of Season 24 story where John Nathan-Turner would have brought in a bunch of minor celebrities to play the supporting roles, but it’s mostly lost on me. It’s pretty much just “fine,” nothing special going on here.