Doctor Who: Cold Vengeance

As an ardent Doctor Who aficionado since childhood, I invariably greet new adventures starring the eccentric Time Lord with enthusiasm. However, the latest audio drama entry “Cold Vengeance” from producers Big Finish failed to either challenge or delight this seasoned fan. While competent in its execution, the by-the-numbers story lacks the ingenuity that marks the most compelling exploits of The Doctor.

Scripted by Matt Fitton, this outing places The Tenth Doctor (played with customary verve by David Tennant) and beloved companion Rose Tyler (an ever-charming Billie Piper) on a frozen food satellite called Coldstar. After an attempted heist unravels, they soon face the awakened wrath of the iconic Ice Warriors, impassive armored reptilians hellbent on crashing Coldstar into a nearby planet.

It's a perfectly suitable premise, if rather pedestrian by this era's standards, calling to mind “base under siege” conceits common during the Second Doctor period. The key issue is that the story unfolds almost exactly according to formula without offering surprise or advanced character development. The rapacious Ice Warriors burst from frozen slumber seeking violent retribution? Expected. Supporting characters like pirates and maintenance workers who exist solely to react to events with brief shock or awe? Tiresomely predictable.

Both the Doctor and Rose Tyler shine whenever bouncing witticisms off each other with Tennant and Piper exhibiting effortless chemistry. Their effervescent presence provides moments of fizz amid the dramatic flatness. However, the dull plotting fails to present a mystery worthy of their cosmic talents or an adversary to push their limits. Neither the alien threat nor ticking clock generate true suspense, a shocking misuse of two treasured figures.

In the hands of less qualified stewards, “Cold Vengeance” may have frozen over completely into absurdity. As produced, the workmanlike competence keeps affairs inoffensively flowing from start to enervating finish. While Matt Fitton's script checks necessary boxes, it lacks the vital seals of creative passion and wonder that characterize the most compelling Doctor Who stories across mediums. One expects and deserves better for a character as iconic as The Doctor, especially with talent as prodigious as Tennant and Piper in starring roles. This tepid tale sneaks by on their appeal without truly testing their strengths or the audience's imagination.

This is, in many ways, a fairly standard Doctor Who story but, for me, it does what it does very well, raising it above the merely average. It's set on an automated space station orbiting a colony world, where a group of Ice Warriors awake to encounter, not just the Doctor and Rose, but a couple of space pirates, the robot management... and the woman who's come to empty the bins.

It's a well-constructed story, just right for the length, and managing to feel like a part of the modern series while still having stylistic connections to the past (and nods to the Peladon stories). The ruthlessness of the Ice Lord is played up and there's some good interplay between the various characters. Rose gets to be heroic, and the bin lady attracts our sympathy as the ordinary person entirely out of their depth as their home planet is placed in peril by alien invaders. Even the robot is good, played differently than robots often are on the show.

What really makes it strong, though, is the ending. Aside from a cheeky reference to Star Trek, this manages to be dramatic while also delivering the sort of message that's more common in the modern show than the classic one, and doing so effectively. (And, for that matter, putting the Ice Lord's actions into context from his perspective). One rather gets the feeling of a grander setting here, with stories of its own to be told that don't fit within the one-hour format, which makes it all feel rather more real.