From Newsgroup: rec.arts.drwho.moderated
From Address: jphalt{at}aol.com
Subject: The Company of Friends: Izzy's Story (BF main range #123-c): my review

THE COMPANY OF FRIENDS: IZZY'S STORY

Big Finish, Main Range #123, Story 3. 1 episode, approx. 30 minutes.
Written by: Alan Barnes. Directed by: Nicholas Briggs.


THE PLOT

The Doctor's companion, Izzy (Jemima Rooper), has asked him to take
the TARDIS to her home town, the village of Stockbridge, at a time
when she would have been a child. She wants to solve a mystery that's
been bothering her since childhood. No, not a murder. No, not lights
in the sky. No, not even a crop circle.

The mystery? The identity of Courtmaster Cruel, the hero of a long-
running and rather brutal sci-fi comic strip. His identity was
revealed in the final installment of the strip... in a publication
that only hit the streets once that Izzy knows of, with all copies
having vanished without a trace. But Izzy knows that the magazine was
in stock the morning of its release, and is determined that it will
belong to her!

The Doctor is a bit exasperated, but indulges Izzy. Until androids
come to the comics store and "pulp" the "proscribed
manuscript" while
it is in Izzy's hands, then rearrange the memory of the store's owner.
That is when the Doctor finally gets interested, sensing a hidden hand
meddling with the laws of time. But reality will be rearranged a few
times more before he is able to get to the bottom of this!


CHARACTERS

The Doctor: Paul McGann does very well again in this story. Izzy, his
companion for this outing, is a frenetic ball of energy. McGann
counters this by increasing his Doctor's cool, collected calm. The
results are highly amusing, with McGann's Doctor taking on almost a
"long-suffering" quality opposite his overly energetic young friend.

Izzy: Jemima Rooper is Izzy, the 8th Doctor's DWM comic strip
companion. I'm not 100% sold on the character, who comes across as a
bit too... enthusiastic to be entirely winning. Rooper, however, is
terrific, bringing boundless energy to the part. She makes Izzy
likable almost in spite of herself. Alan Barnes' script helps by
crafting a terrific pre-credits "intro monologue" for the character
which captures Izzy's whirlwind of (too) fast-paced energy in a way
that makes her at the same time somebody we can identify with. If the
actress hadn't been as good, I'd have been quite happy to leave Izzy
as a one-shot. Rooper is so purely wonderful, though, that I find
myself very much wanting a full-length 8th Doc/Izzy story. Better
still, a season of them, to allow the character more variation.


THOUGHTS

That was fun!

This 30-minute short story isn't any more substantial than the other
30-minute short stories I've reviewed in this sequence. It's a
featherweight story, played entirely for comedy, and played out
basically in two sets (well, if this had been a visual story). Like
the other single-episode McGann stories I've reviewed, this is a
pleasant diversion that is hardly likely to sear itself into anyone's
memory. But it's a particularly enjoyable piece, which ends up scoring
just a little bit above the other Company of Friends stories, and well
above Earth & Beyond: Bounty.

One element that makes this so much fun is just how well it evokes the
medium it's celebrating. This isn't just a story using a comic strip
character, about comic strips... It feels like a comic strip come to
life! The reality-warping, the overexaggerated characters (including
Izzy), the story resting on a single high concept. Usually, when I
listen to these stories, I envision the characters in live action. In
this story, it is almost impossible not to visualize it all as a
cartoon - and I mean that as a compliment.

Writer Alan Barnes keeps the story moving quickly, but also is very
successful in filtering the story through Izzy. In this, Izzy's Story
is more successful in feeling like a story about Izzy than Benny's
Story was for Benny, and far moreso than Fitz's Story was for Fitz.
The Doctor is pulled into this story because of Izzy, and Izzy's
knowledge of the culture of these comics influences the Doctor's
actions and the story's outcome. And while the Doctor's judgment of
the various characters is a purely moral one, Izzy's very different
reaction is clearly meant to be the one with which listeners will
identify.

Anyway, there's nothing very deep to analyze here. Suffice it say:
Fun. Along with the usual final note of how much I'd like to see a
full story with this teaming, only moreso in this case because of how
adorably infectious Jemima Rooper ended up being.


Rating: 7/10.

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