Review by Jacob Licklider
New Frontiers began the twelfth series of the Fourth Doctor Adventures wonderfully with two four-part adventures that introduced the character of Margaret Hopwood, played by Nerys Hughes, to the Doctor’s world as second companion with Louise Jameson’s Leela. Angels and Demons is the second half of the series, once again with a fifth bonus story CD, concluding the series and Margaret Hopwood’s travels, making another Big Finish Companion to have a limited run of only six stories. Angels and Demons is also the return of two-part stories to the Fourth Doctor Adventures in a significant way with three of the four stories in that format, something we hadn’t seen since 2019 with The Syndicate Master Plan, and something Series 13 will be continuing in 2024. Bringing the travels of Margaret Hopwood to a close so soon is a bit of a double-edged sword, since it’s a shorter run the stories have to be exceptionally good if the character is to be remembered unlike other Big Finish original companions with short runs (Hannah Bartholomew comes to mind as one that has fallen into obscurity while Raine Creevey is quite well remembered among Seventh Doctor fans). It does give the character the opportunity for a definitive beginning, middle, and an end which means Margaret won’t become a character like Flip or Constance who have had their travels extended indefinitely due to actor availability and illness.
This does have an interesting knock-on effect for Angels and Demons, however, as this set seems deliberately planned around the exit of Margaret Hopwood and Big Finish’s decision to add an extra disc creates the feeling that the first story, The Wizard of Time, is outside the general arc and the instance of filler. While it was always announced as a part of the set, the extra disc being The Ghost of Margaret, it is the only story from this set that doesn’t build any of the characterisation of Margaret and her increasing discomfort with the dangers of time travel, something that the other three stories do importantly. Roy Gill’s story is a tribute to the rise in children’s literature of the 1970s, a rise that also included novelisations of children’s television including Doctor Who. Gill sets up the story through the framing of an older Jacob Harner played by the late Ronald Pickup, reminiscing about his experiences meeting the Doctor, Leela, and Margaret. The younger Harner is played by Joe Jameson and the story itself is an interesting look at how artists find themselves compromising their vision or having their art taken from them due to the ravenous wolves of higher ups, a bit on the nose with shapeshifting wolf-like aliens being the villains of the piece. It feels especially relevant in the age of AI generated art producing works without real input from a human artist and the generative process of that “art” stealing unwittingly from artists. As a two-part story, Gill really focuses in on the guest cast and not really leaving the focus on the TARDIS team which is fine for the story, especially since it’s opening the set, but in retrospect it feels quite odd as the rest of the stories in the set have direct connections into how Margaret leaves the team. This is to be expected due to the frame story which is kind of a shame that it’s stuck in this set as it’s a good story that’s just the odd one out in a series of great ideas giving us a tight story arc. 7/10.
The Friendly Invasion is the beginning of the end for Margaret Hopwood, taking her into the history of the Earth for the first time. Chris Chapman returns to exploring World War II, this time about a year before the D-Day invasion where the village of Westbourne is being invaded by American soldiers, well over a year after the United States of American entered the war after the bombings of Pearl Harbor, colloquially known as the friendly invasion. There is an unsettling calm surrounding the beginning of The Friendly Invasion, due to being two episodes long means that Chapman’s script opens with Margaret Hopwood as the proprietor of a bar with the Doctor and Leela posing as her friends. The American troops are particularly calm and several scenes in the first half of the story are devoted to really exploring how relaxed everything is, despite the Second World War raging on the continent. Our major soldier character for this story is Sergeant Ray Hunter played by Chase Brown who has a very strong connection to Margaret, which perhaps is given some of her best material. Margaret Hopwood already lived through World War II once and Nerys Hughes gets the real chance to explore a character having to go through this hell as second time, though this is in a fairly short story. There’s also the big danger of history being changed, the looming D-Day invasion at Normandy being in danger of having early plans leaked and the ripples would cause the unravelling of history. The alien threat is fascinating as the title has a double meaning, the aliens invading are essentially ‘friendly’ though not good and are brought to life by Barnaby Edwards who is a vocal chameleon with four credited characters in this one. In retrospect The Friendly Invasion is all setup for where the set is going, but Chris Chapman’s script is performed wonderfully and Nicholas Briggs in the directors seat shines and the danger for Margaret is looming on the horizon. 8/10.
Tom Baker and Louise Jameson’s performances have not really been mentioned thus far in this review. They’re great as the Doctor and Leela in The Wizard of Time and The Friendly Invasion, the dynamic with Margaret being such a breath of fresh air to contrast Leela with a ‘modern’ woman is fascinating, but the four part horror story of the set, Stone Cold, is perhaps the best for the pair of them performances wise. The Weeping Angels have always been a difficult alien species to write, relying on visuals, means that this story’s sound design from Simon Powell does much of the heavy lifting for building the tension as while there is plenty of dialogue in Roland Moore’s script that builds tension, the sound design is what by necessity is relied on. There also have been additions to the lore of the Weeping Angels since their initial appearance in Blink such as Angels taking people over when their eyes are seen for too long, something that Moore is keen to add into Stone Cold, finding interesting ways to heighten the danger and to rely on temporally displacing characters to make the story work. There are also additions involving the logistics of using mirrors to keep the Angels viewing one another and how that can easily fail. This is implied to be an early time the Doctor is meeting the Weeping Angels, so Tom Baker gets to play the role at the start as a comedy which is slowly stripped away as the danger rises. Louise Jameson plays Leela as a hunter in a situation where she has become the hunted, much of the fear coming from the angels slowly getting closer. Moore also utilises the setting of a volcanic planet to wonderful effect, more stone being built as the volcanoes erupt and the addition of natural dangers gives the Angels an edge. This is also the most violent a story that Margaret has experienced, with several deaths being more gruesome than just being sent back into time. This is a genuinely tense script that builds, but what really catapults it into great territory is that the Doctor doesn’t win. The final scenes of the story with Tom Baker are incredibly somber as while the danger is dealt with, the Angels aren’t actually defeated, they are still hungry and must continue to feed even if the Doctor has just stranded this group of them on this planet. It’s a bittersweet moment especially as it leads to Margaret demanding to be taken home, she was taken on one of the Doctor’s whims after all. 9/10.
Tim Foley pens Margaret Hopwood’s final story in The Ghost of Margaret, a title that suits this incredibly tight, two-part character piece. The Doctor and Leela take a backseat as Margaret is dropped off within walking distance of her village before she is abducted by the Halfway Men, played by Sam Benjamin, and is forced into an alternate running time-stream creating a ghost effect where she is paired with Captain Ray Hunter, now played by Kenneth Jay. Hunter has found himself in control of this time-stream, able to use their minds to conjure any food or other means of survival they may want giving the pair some assurance of what they can do while the Doctor and Leela get to the bottom of the Halfway Men. The Doctor and Leela’s plot is great and the Halfway Men make a great villain, but what really sells The Ghost of Margaret is Hughes and Jay’s developing romance as they spend months in this time-stream together, learning to live together and love one another through sharing every aspect of their lives. The Friendly Invasion setup the potential for a relationship but Foley’s script becomes this beautiful examination of love and what happens when you find your purpose in life. Foley also ends the story by then ripping that away from Margaret and Ray, forcing Margaret to leave the TARDIS alone in the end and go on her own. Margaret Hopwood has to then become active in the way her life will continue, she cannot be doing things halfway and leave herself on the whims of circumstance. It means the set ends on this incredibly hopeful note after a trilogy of stories that have gone to some very dark places, and making Margaret’s arc one of Big Finish’s great successes, especially for a companion that doesn’t fit the very small mould. The Ghost of Margaret is the dark horse, coming in at the end to tie everything up perfectly. 10/10.
Overall, Angels and Demons is an incredibly strong set to end this year’s Fourth Doctor Adventures. It sets itself up with the double-edged sword of writing out a companion only one set after she had been introduced, but it’s a set that executes an incredibly tight character arc for Margaret Hopwood. Writers Gill, Chapman, Moore and Foley come together to make this set excel for the twelfth series of Fourth Doctor Adventures whilst Baker, Jameson, and Hughes provide a unique TARDIS team dynamic that does not hurt itself by only being a team for two sets. Highly recommended. 8.5/10.
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Review: The Fourth Doctor Adventures – The Nine
Review: The Fourth Doctor Adventures – Solo
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