Sometimes it's good when Doctor Who fans are in charge. After all, it does make sense. They know when something has been popular; they know not to make obvious continuity cock-ups; they know the show. So why do we live by the lesson learned on TV, that fans getting involved means everyone else can't? "Spectre" is proof that it can be done.

Just how it's done is quite simple, really. "Spectre" takes its cue from when Doctor Who was truly great. To Season 22, this meant "Tomb of the Cybermen" because the calculation was done by an idiot. Here, it means when the TARDIS materialised on misty moors, when really frightening creatures attacked lone hikers and when the villainess is mauled to death by her own dogs. Yes, that's right - it copies a time that never really happened in the first place. "Spectre" is the Doctor Who equivalent of a Worthers Original advert, or that Yorkshire Tea commercial where the tea-pot lid never matched and there was always a fresh egg apiece. It's a romanticised, idealised version of the Doctor Who we all remember (or listen in envy as people who were kids in the seventies remember) and it brings it to life. The trouble is, "Spectre" is so derivative of our false memories and expectation of what Doctor Who always SHOULD be like, that it unfortunately surrenders all rights to it as a concept. Just as Peter Cushing (and, if we want to be cruel, Paul McGann) played THE DOCTOR, not a unique version but a sanitised, generic hybrid, "Spectre" is Doctor Who's Greatest Hits. And we all know that Greatest Hits are artistic runts, despite actually being amongst the most enjoyable albums to listen to.

In fact it almost becomes a competition to work out just which story the play is most trying to be. At first, I swore it was a "Terror of the Zygons" hybrid, but upon re-listening I'm convinced it owes more to "The Daemons". There's "psyonic energy" for a start, an ancient creature that's being awakened, and someone killed by a release of energy while interfering with a burial mound. Yet if Sir Archibald flint's historical library seems familiar, it's because it sits in an identical place story wise as the Duke of Forgill's in "Terror". But then, these are all great stories. It's not as if Nicholas Pegg decided to mesh together elements from "Timelash" and "The Space Pirates". These are the elements of Doctor Who which most people LIKE. Crucially though, he veers away from cribbing (aforementioned library research jaunt for Evelyn excepted) as a general rule, and steals only atmospheres. Again, no "real" Doctor Who ever had someone stalked through misty moors by an alien creature, we just like to think it did. We're getting all the bits that our cheating memories told us we had all along, but which never turned up on UK Gold. We should, in a way, be grateful.

Pegg's one lapse is when the Brigadier (Vanessa Bishop said he should have been Seventies Brigadier; she was wrong, he sounds every inch "Mawdryn" here) mentions that the TARDIS "became invisible once before" to the Doctor. It's a confusing, fan nod which doesn't accurately describe the events of that eighties Brig-starring adventure. Is this some bungled reference to "The Invasion" (in which the Brigadier never knew the TARDIS had been rendered invisible)? We shouldn't have to care, but suddenly we're back in the middle of "Attack of the Cybermen", either wondering who the hell Zodin is, or feeling smug we know but a lot of people probably don't.

In the end, it doesn't matter that this is one of the most enjoyable Big Finish adventures. Sadly, like the work of a deceased composer, it's owned by the public domain. We wrote it, all of us, Pegg just interpreted it, the unwitting fool. It's no wonder Tom Baker didn't want anything to do with it - "Spectre" gives us everything we know we want, and is all the better for it.
 

CD Facts

Part 1 - Tracks 1-7

Part 2 - Tracks 8-13

Part 3 - Tracks 1-6

Part 4 - Tracks 7-13