Yet it was STILL a surprise. A genuine, jaw-dropping, Cheshire cat grinned surprise. To this day I can still remember being tucked up in bed when the penny in this otherwise pretty unremarkable tale dropped suddenly to the floor, and loving it too. In hindsight it must go down as one of Big Finish's big defining moments from a listener perspective, along with realising they'd dropped a classic in "The Holy Terror" and that "Seasons of Fear" cliffhanger. And doesn't it just throw egg in the faces of all those revisionist fan scholar bastards who claimed this sort of thing also never happened back in the eighties when they hoped it would? It did, and it did here too.

It only goes to show how enriching the element of surprise is. But blaming it's loss on the age of the Internet is a red herring - the information has to leak in the first place, and when it does it's usually from Big Finish themselves. How many times has something which was supposed to be a surprise escaped onto the message boards to the genuine wrath of those behind it? I can think of perhaps one occasion, with "Sympathy for the Devil" and coincidentally concerning exactly the same returning villain that spiced up "Dust Breeding" (and even then I recall the producer blaming an actor for the leak). Proof, perhaps, that you can't hurl the same curveball twice. Contrary to our opinions of today's gossipy world, through which secrets seep as quickly as it takes to hit a 'Post' button, it is still possible to keep a secret. It's simple really, you just don't tell anyone.

No, we should blame the Commercial Age. In these pay-for-hear days, you just can't afford to keep under wraps something that might otherwise boost your profits. I dare say it would bolster the thrill of listening a hundred fold if we'd not been told that the Daleks were in "The Genocide Machine" or a big menacing Cyberman hadn't adorned the cover of "Sword of Orion". But an adventure with some people aboard a ship was never going to be an effective enough hook to plug (and more importantly sell) the latter. Quite honestly, you can't blame them for courting the publicity, not when these days it earns.

Which makes it all the more admirable when the occasional big treat is concealed from the fans, inexplicably eager to lap up every fragment of information about each release and ruin it beforehand. They still do it, most notably with last month's "The Harvest", and we know it's better for us this way. How else do you explain the charitable lengths most went to in order to keep the "Dust Breeding" secret from everyone else? People on message boards still feel a little guilty about mentioning who was behind Mr Seta's mask, and it was years ago! I even feel I shouldn't spell it out now - you know, just in case you haven't heard it. It's funny, but we don't bat an eyelid at spilling the beans on something Big Finish don't want us to know about because they haven't seen fit to reveal it yet. But it became bad form to spoiler "Dust Breeding", and all the better for it.

Indeed, the story is probably also better for attempting to cover its tracks. For all the excitement over his return, it's actually a very dull villain that pops up again at the end of Part 2. At least, no incarnation after Delgado seems as remotely popular, which begs the question why there have been so many. Not that Beevers isn't good here, but then we're grateful for this kind of pleasant surprise every now and then too. "Dust" squeezes in The Krills and Bev Tarrant, not to mention a 'decoy baddie' in Damian Pearson and The Scream itself, all to steer us off the track. In the process it winds up like a curiously tasty mix of re-heated goodies.

Bubble and Squeak then, and still actually rather good after all this time.
 

CD Facts

Part 1 - Tracks 1-6

Part 2 - Tracks 7-11

Part 3 - Tracks 1-6

Part 4 - Tracks 7-13