Battleground (2014) Review

Battleground has little depth, but it's a reasonably entertaining runaround with an amusingly inept villain.

WRITTEN BY

Andrew Smith, best known for being Doctor Who's first, last and best 18-year old scriptwriter in the 1980s.

PLOT

The Liberator tracks Mikhailov down to the Federation world of Straxis, where Blake and Avon find themselves in the middle of war games led by a delusional battle commander, whilst the ship struggles to survive an ongoing barrage of enemy satellites on orbit...

ANALYSIS

It's nothing particularly memorable, but I had a fun enough time imagining Gareth Thomas and Paul Darrow running around a quarry with explosions going off around them. It's decent action filler, and I quite like the strategic angle, even if it's not focused on too much.

But honestly, I feel like the audio format is far better suited to more theatrical, character-based productions and I'm still waiting for Big Finish to really hit it out of the park in that aspect.

Another thing I noticed about this story is that the scuffles(or rather, the physical fighting sound effects) all went on for a bit too long, and felt dragged out. No simple karate chopping to the back of the neck on audio, I suppose.

CHARACTERS

The standouts this time are Blake and Vila. Blake probably has the most "screentime" and Gareth Thomas puts in another solid showing as Cuddly Grandpa Colin Baker Blake(Colin Blaker?). He gets to enjoy a good hour of freedom fighting with Tim Bentinck's brave and stolid Garmon, and the two have a fairly nice rapport.

Vila has his shining hour when he outwits the satellites, and Michael Keating clearly delights in showing off the character's unsung intelligence and slyness. They're some of his most interesting traits, yet shown so terribly rarely.

Paul Darrow spends about half the story sleepwalking, but at least he wakes up for Avon's interrogation scenes with Alexa. He seemed to enjoy teasing her about how much he knows, and the two were developing an interesting, mutually beneficial chemistry until Alexa was sadly killed off.

Speaking of Alexa, Dan Starkey as Commander Ferrell and Abigail Hollick as Alexa were a hilarious double-act. Ferrell is an comically overblown caricature, but his antics add a considerable amount of levity to what would otherwise be a pretty drab storyline. I was totally invested in seeing where he was going to end up at, and Alexa served as a good foil for his pompous rants.

NOTES

*Zen describes Straxis as a "Class E planet". Apparently, we go by the Star Trek system now.

*It's implied that the Battleground has at least eight different war games going on at the same time, so how insanely lucky is it that Blake and Avon found the one that has Mikhailov in it?

*There were rustling sounds before Blake and Avon teleported down. It could've just been them putting on their teleport bracelets, but I got the impression they were kitting up(either in their good old Series A parkas or those silver surface outfits).

*The teleport sound effect is noticeably different in the audio series than it was in the show.

*The name 'Tarsus' for a planetary system was used in the Doctor Who audio drama "Shockwave" only a year before this came out.

INFORMATION!

*The Liberator travels to Straxis to investigate the Federation Data Interception Program that Orac discovered in the previous audio drama, Fractures.

*Upon realising that there's only one Mikhailov on Orac's list left to investigate, Avon says "and then there was one", quoting himself from the TV episode Horizon.

*Finding Blake, Garmon lists some of his more famous adventures that he received classified files about, namely his attack on Centero in Seek-Locate-Destroy, the failed Avalon project in Project Avalon, his invasion of Earth Control in Pressure Point and his attack on Space Headquarters in Trial.

*Garmon states that the Federation trial he was put on was a farce, which Blake finds familiar, having been put on an injust trial himself in The Way Back.

*Mikhailov reveals that her brother was addicted to the narcotic Shadow until its supply was destroyed by Blake in the episode Shadow. Some of the soldiers she met were also on the planet Zondar when this happened.

*The President deliberately kept Servalan out of the loop in regards to Federac. It was established in the TV episode Trial that he felt threatened by her.

*Mikhailov's work on the Federac project took place in Outer Gaul, a section of space first mentioned in Voice From The Past. It was run by Governor Le Grand in that episode.

BEST QUOTE AVON QUOTE

"Foolish, reckless, yes... this plan's got you written all over it, Blake."

CONCLUSION

Nothing special, nothing terrible. It's just there.