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Publisher's Details |
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Writer: Douglas Adams | Director: Nicholas Pegg
CD Details (Buy the CD from Big Finish) Published: Dec 2003 | ISBN: 1-84435-039-8 | RRP: £13.99 (UK) |
| The Cast | |||
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The Doctor:
Romana: K9: Professor Chronotis: The Ship: Constable: |
Paul McGann
Lalla Ward John Leeson James Fox Hannah Gordon Stuart Crossman |
Skagra:
Chris Parsons: Claire Knightley: Wilkin: Caldera: Think Tank Voice: |
Andrew Sachs
Sean Biggerstaff Susannah Harker Melvyn Hayes Barnaby Edwards Nicholas Pegg |
| The Story |
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The Doctor has a spot of unfinished business. Reunited with his old friends Romana and K9, he answers a summons from Professor Chronotis,
a retired Time Lord now living the academic life in a Cambridge college.
But the Doctor isn’t the only visitor to Cambridge. Somewhere in the city is the sinister alien Skagra, who is intent on stealing an ancient and mysterious book brought to Earth by the Professor many years before. What is Skagra’s diabolical masterplan? And who or what is the mysterious Shada? To discover the truth, the Doctor and his friends must embark on a perilous journey that will take them from the cloisters of Cambridge to the farthest reaches of deep space, risking deadly encounters with a sentient spaceship, the monstrous Krargs, and an ancient Time Lord criminal called Salyavin. As the Doctor soon discovers, the fate of the universe hangs in the balance... (Sourced from the Big Finish website) |
| Editor's Review |
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Shada was originally a story penned by Douglas Adams for Tom Baker’s era of the show. Sadly it was never completed due to a strike by BBC staff at the time of filming.
The Big Finish version has to therefore replace the fourth Doctor with the eighth – a tricky task you might say. To do this, an opening sequence was introduced to re-unite the Doctor with Romana. An explanation that both lost their memories and being put in stasis in order so that they don’t remember the reason for going there was also added. The latter addition is not as water-tight and, unless you’ve seen the completed bits of the original, it’s not required. The rest of the story varies from good to quite rubbish. The voices of Skagra’s assistants sound awful! However, both Chronotis and Skagra were brilliantly cast with the voice matching the characters perfectly. This version is available on the Official Website as an animated webcast. Overall it’s OK, but not as good as some of the previous stories. (Dan Ludlow) |