Review by Jacob Licklider

Water Worlds and Purity Undreamed comprised the start of a brand new story arc for the Sixth Doctor and Mel, ushering in the new era of box sets for the characters under the helm of producer Jacqueline Rayner and script editor Robert Valentine.  Purity Undreamed ended with the “reveal” of the story arc’s villain through slightly messy means, more importantly new companion Hebe Harrison being written out of time as if she has never existed and the implication of a rewritten future timeline where a eugenics regime has deleted any sense of disability.  This implication is dark and executed at least a little messily, simplifying disability quite a bit to physical disabilities.  The third set, Purity Unleashed, creates an interesting setup, it’s the Doctor and Mel searching for the infraction in history that led to Hebe’s disappearance and the further development of Patricia McBride, played by Imogen Stubbs, as Purity.  While the three episodes in this set only work in the confines of this being the third set in this story arc, the timing of this set actually helps lessen some of the issues I had in particular with the previous set.  Purity Undreamed was a set that as the title states is the character of Purity becoming real and not just the biases, conscious and subconscious, of Patricia McBride, yet it ends without much of a sense of the character’s villainy.  Purity Unleashed is quick to rectify that in the two appearances of the character in the back to stories included, making it quite the shame that this wasn’t released soon after Purity Undreamed, the nine month wait not so much keeping tension as just questioning what exactly was going on.

The opening story is from Matthew Sweet, a contributor to Big Finish who has several stories, but only pops up every so often.  Broadway Belongs to Me! is a story emblematic of the rest of Sweet’s work, it’s history told through a distorted lens much like Year of the Pig or The Magic Mousetrap.  It is also a musical with some of the most intentionally insipid music inspired by early Broadway musicals, the premise being Mel and the Doctor finding themselves accidentally dragged into the production of a Broadway musical bankrolled by fascists.  Sweet’s script is very up front about the type of musical on display and takes the time to examine the idea of art being inherently left wing, the fascist musical is all a ploy to advance the goals of the story’s villains and act as a piece of propaganda.  Sweet’s thesis is essentially that fascist art can make for very good propaganda that can twist everyday people into believing in the terrible ideology but it doesn’t serve as good art.  The art is hollow, almost empty, Bonnie Langford portraying Mel as incredibly strained and drained by the situation of having to learn the choreography and the lines of this awful musical.  The incompetencies of fascism are examined here, the fascists bankrolling the play are actually intentionally forgettable aliens who the Doctor has faced before in adventures that just aren’t worth remembering.  The scenes outside of the theatre, however, are more interesting, Mel interacting with Frances Drouet, played by Rosalie Craig, and seeing the popularity of fascism in New York City in the 1930s, the looming nature of the Second World War overhanging the entire story.  This is a story that understands how to execute camp to ridicule fascism but Sweet understands the danger of too much ridicule, understanding that fascism creeps in many guises with many collaborators, often through selfish and petty means.  9/10.

Purification is certainly a title in keeping with the idea of the villainous Patricia McBride becoming Purity.  Chris Chapman’s previous work for Big Finish has often attempted to find the humanity even in the worst of people, and Purification is in a similar vein.  Imogen Stubbs gives her best performance here as Patricia fully alters the timeline of one family, all for the purpose of influencing the emergence of fascism in Great Britain so the Better Party, a perfectly vague name that will fund all sorts to make Britain better.  These are promises that play on the general public’s fears of the other that Chapman grapples with wonderfully.  McBride’s interference is through several generations which the Doctor and Mel have to track and Imogen Stubbs’ performance works because of how subtle and inviting it is in this episode in particular.  Chapman builds to the reveal of McBride taking the name Purity, just one example of the last set including the name being an issue as it pushed this development into not so much foreshadowing but direct posting  Patricia is so incredibly kind to people and very encouraging of those normal people who with the right nudging will become fascists, with the extra clincher that the interference in the timeline is letting people live who were supposed to die.  This leads Colin Baker as the Doctor to really excel in his performance here as this is a Sixth Doctor who after a very long life has had his harsher edges sanded away into kindness.  This Doctor isn’t going to let people die, even if that means it would fix the timeline, and Baker’s performance gives this real sense of being powerless, until of course his intelligence can be used to find an imperfect solution.  Leah Brotherhead, Jonny Weldon, and Greig Johnson make up the rest of the supporting cast, all characters who are supposed to meet a terrible fate but are saved and all three performers support the real moral dilemma at the centre of the episode that makes this the highlight of the set and the arc.  10/10.

Time-Burst sadly, pales in comparison to the two preceding stories.  Ian Potter’s pseudo-historical is clearly written with love for the setting, Potter requested the ability to write this pitch specifically because the setting was Sheffield around an 1864 flood.  Potter attempts to write a story all about capitalism and the rise of unions surrounding several factories and foundries of the time which is of course perfectly fine for a story, Industrial Evolution did something similar over a decade ago from Big Finish but there’s still potential there.  Ian Potter’s script whenever it is focusing on that is great, but that’s sadly this story is muddied by a large stretch of the story having the Doctor catapulted to the present in a story loop that feels like Ian Potter needed a cliffhanger for the first episode.  Because of this, Time-Burst is a story that feels lacking in identity, much of the present day research and initial scenes in the past clearly establishing Patricia McBride, now Purity and under the pseudonym Mrs. Virtue, are there to reveal that this is what wrote Hebe out of history.  The problem with this is that the character development we get in this episode is lacking especially, Purity has a plan and she is foiled by the Doctor and Mel after some struggle.  The entire story honestly feels like it’s meant to fill time until we get to the genuinely great cliffhanger which does reveal Hebe, played once again by Ruth Madeley, is back in existence.  The hour preceding the cliffhanger and twist about Hebe and the state of the world, however, is just perfectly fine and could honestly be swapped out with any other Doctor Who premise where Purity is the villain and that’s kind of a shame.  5/10.

Overall, Purity Unleashed as a set contains two of the highest points of this arc, while all three stories thematically fit with the commentary on bigotry and what it and bias can do to apparently normal people, done all without including new companion Hebe Harrison.  While the arc has no end in sight there is a clear advancement with material highlighting Baker, Langford, and Stubbs’ strengths as actors and even the first story being essentially “filler” still thematically explores the rise of fascism and the role bigotry has to play in that.  7.5/10.

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Review: The Sixth Doctor Adventures – Purity Undreamed
Review: The Sixth Doctor Adventures – Water Worlds

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