Doctor Who: The Lost Stories: The Guardians Of Prophecy
Doctor Who: The Lost Stories: The Guardians Of Prophecy – Starring Colin Baker, Nicola Bryant, Simon Williams, Graham Cole, Stephen Thorne – 2xCD / Download (Big Finish Productions www.bigfinish.com)
It always sort of surprised me that no-one had thought of writing a sequel to ‘The Keeper Of Traken’, given the tumultuous events of that tale, the return of The Master, the introduction of the Melkur, the destruction of an entire system and the debut of a much loved companion (Nyssa), all of which happened at the very tail end of the Fourth (and arguably, most popular) Doctor’s adventures. Those facts in place and given its importance, I always thought that a sequel was, at some point, inevitable, but I never imagined that a sequel had been actually planned and loosely during the original shows run, then submitted and rejected by the BBC, thus exiling it to the realms of the fabled Lost Stories. Call it serendipity; call it fate, universal alignment, or whatever fortuitous system of belief or deliverance you place your faith in, somewhere along the line (a not-so-secret secret that’s explained during the behind the scenes extra’s on the discs), ‘The Guardians Of Prophecy’ made the transition from missing script to fully finished story, and believe me, we should all be eternally grateful that it did. This time, it’s The Sixth Doctor’s (good old dependable Sixy) turn to face the Melkur and their creator, the embodiment of evil as he’s, along with Peri, drawn irrestibly to Serenity, the last surviving planet in the Traken Union, to face a creature of legend, a creature whose deeds and existence were so vile, they even permeated the age old bedtime stories that Timelords told their children. An evil that The Doctor and Peri, caught in the middle of a political revolution, must defeat in order to save The Universe. Yeah, that’s right, the whole Universe. ‘The Guardians Of Prophecy’ is grand space opera at it’s finest, a tale in which the fate of all rests in the decisions and actions of a few, that delivers on all fronts, story, plot, characterisation and performances, ensuring that the sequel is just as good as, if not better than, the original story that provided its genesis. Maybe there is something in the idea that sequels always exceed and better their origins after all… Tim Mass Movement
