vivdunstan

Finally resuming my listening and reviewing of Benny audios from Big Finish's series!

Just as a reminder, Benny/Bernice was introduced as a companion of the Seventh Doctor in the early 1990s Doctor Who novels. She then spun off to have her own adventures, and Big Finish made a long-running series of audio adventures starring Benny, played by actress Lisa Bowerman. Benny, like the more recent River Song, is a professor of archaeology. The stories are set in a scifi universe full of Doctor Who lore and monsters. Benny is often sent to investigate an archaeological site or matter on other planets. But in the series she is largely based at the Braxiatel Collection, an archive of strange artefacts, run by the mysterious Irving Braxiatel.

My latest listen is another in the 6th season of Benny audios. In this one, Benny and her former husband / on-off lover Jason Kane go to investigate the status of a museum on a war torn planet.

This is another sometimes brutal audio to listen to, following The Kingdom of the Blind. Like that one this includes accounts of torture, though less directly, rather recounted later. But it's still a tough listen, and does capture the sense of a society in anarchy, with a complicated picture of right and wrong, and certainly not a clear-cut black and white image.

More worryingly the soundscape is chaotic and it can be difficult to follow what's going on. I don't think it was as coherent as it could have been. However there are extremely powerful musings on the role of museums in preserving and sharing culture, and also their potential misuse for propaganda and power reasons. Benny also faces some rather direct questions about the supposedly open nature of the institution she works for.

So it was ok, but not one I'll rush to listen to again. Though the repartee between Benny and Jason was strong. Old friends rather than lovers now, but with a comfortable relationship that sees them survive a dangerous mission.

I thought I'd write up some brief thoughts on these, ranging over the TV series, Big Finish audios (which are now newly rereleased), the annual book and Look-In comic strips. Note there will be slight spoilers below, so beware. As a reminder Sapphire & Steel was a British spooky/scifi TV series, airing on ITV between 1979 and 1982. Lots more information is available on its Wikipedia page

From the original TV series, which had six stories, two of them are strongest for me. The second story, set in an abandoned railway station, and the fourth story, the one with the man without a face. Both unnerved me far more than anything else in the TV series, and leave thoughts of lingering horror long after! This is a good thing though. The series achieved its aims. But it is also terrifying. The railway station is one of the stories with some of the darkest plot elements in it. And the images in the other story, especially for a young child as I was when first watching, are almost primal in their horror.

From the Big Finish audio series there are a number of stories that stand out for me. The first is the opening one, The Passenger, where we newly meet the recast Sapphire & Steel on a train journey. In many ways it's a best of, with lots of familiar elements from the TV series reused well. But it also acts effectively as a great introduction to the new series. And nicely introduces an ongoing fellow element, Gold, played by Mark Gatiss.

Another highlight story early on in the audio series for me was All Fall Down. This was set in a historical archive, where objects are potential triggers for the past. Obviously this appealed to a historian like me. But it's also a really good storytelling idea for Sapphire & Steel, giving a tight location combined with atmospheric triggers leading to the past. Nicely we also encounter Silver, another element from the TV series, again played by David Collings.

My two favourite stories from the second Big Finish audio series are The Surest Poison and Water Like A Stone. The first revolves around the history of a valuable old watch, and again includes shifts through time. The other story is set in an abandoned theatre, and introduces yet another element, Ruby, played by Big Finish stalwart Lisa Bowerman. Who recurs in stories after this one.

The third season of the audio series was more of a mixed batch, though I did like the experimentation of opening story Second Sight. But for me the strongest stories were definitely in the earlier years. And I would highly recommend any of the audio series to TV series S&S fans.

I reviewed the 1981 Sapphire & Steel annual for a fan publication, so have detailed notes on that too. It is - like Doctor Who annuals from the same era - plagued with some seriously dodgy artwork and non likenesses. Like them it was a World publications book! However there were some nice text stories. And I'd like to especially mention the fourth story set in an astronomical observatory, but again with historic elements. This was the strongest story for me in the book, and very atmospheric.

There was also an ongoing series of Sapphire & Steel comic strips in Look-In children's TV magazine. I loved these, but haven't seen them for many years. There used to a (dodgy) digitised version online, but I think that vanished long ago. Fingers crossed for a reprint, perhaps from Chinbeard Books who have reprinted the Robin of Sherwood Look-In comic strips. I have an especially vivid memory of one of the Sapphire & Steel comic strips involving a ship in a bottle, and Sapphire and Steel somehow getting trapped on the ship. But I'm not sure how reliable that memory is. It was a great series of strips though.

Slept for nearly 12 hours, albeit with a fever like dream - that even kept going after brief awake bursts. A cross of doing historical research in an archive - a totally fictional archive that I made up, seemingly in Kelso though, which had loads of records re some of my ancestors there. And then morphed into a mix - still in the archive mainly! - of Robin of Sherwood and Doctor Who. The archive had a display of upcoming Doctor Who DVD and Blu-ray releases 😜 And then I was flying through Leela’s brain, trying to fix something, involving lily pads and miniature aliens. Bonkers!

I haven’t watched this yet. Checking the transcript it’s still not safe for Martin who’s trying extremely hard to stay clueless about upcoming stuff. But I’ve saved it to watch when we get to an appropriate point. Hopefully mid December!

Reading a fellow historian’s experiences at the National Records of Scotland, and reminded a little of the problems I had there 30+ years ago (then Scottish Record Office). I ended up making a formal complaint in writing about one of the staff, who was constantly treating teenage me in extremely derogatory terms, including joking about me to others in the search room. He was demoted to non customer facing duties. Made my future visits so much better.