Written by Guy Adams
Directed by Ken Bentley

Cast: Sylvester McCoy (The Doctor), Bonnie Langford (Mel), Sophie Aldred (Ace), Enzo Squillino Jnr (Juan Romero), Christopher Hatherall (George Newman), Owen Aaronovitch (Antonio Ferrando/Control Unit),
Tom Alexander (Luis/Phillipe)

Big Finish Productions
Released August 2016 (order from Amazon UK)

Picking up from Mel having rejoined the TARDIS crew in last month’s caper ALifeofCrime, the Doctor promises his companions “a taste of the real Spain.” Unfortunately, it doesn’t get much more real than 1938 when the Spanish Civil War was nearing its conclusion. The moral of the story is that history is real and being a part of it often hurts.

This rather neat play features a small cast but evokes the dark atmosphere of the impending victory for Fascist rule in Spain which would endure for nearly forty years after the time of this story. The opening scene featuring an attack on a group of Republican freedom fighters is one of more vividly realistic scenes you are ever likely to hear in a Big Finish audio drama, although perhaps not quite on a par with March’s ThePeterlooMassacre. This is not, however a purely historical tale, although the attempted alien conquest could be seen as symbolising the rise of fascism.

At the heart of this story however are the character interactions as there is some more great scenes between newly reunited companions Bonnie Langford and Sophie Aldred, particularly as Mel continues to realise that Ace has grown up a lot since her days of chucking nitro nine around. Both characters also interact well with the other characters in particular Ace’s relationship with English journalist George Newman, whose occasional chauvinism is nicely underplayed by Christopher Hatherall, and Mel’s relationship with Republican Juan Romero, a very sympathetic portrayal from Enzo Squillino Jr, which really forms the spine of the play.

Overall, this is a story about Mel being reminded of the cost of seeing history first hand and getting involved in real situations. It is to be hoped that next month’s offering, Maker of Demons, won’t see a parting of the ways for this newly reformed TARDIS trio as just like last month, this play has shown that there a lot of untapped potential here for future adventures.

1. Who Killed Toby Kinsella? by John Dorney

2. The Dead Don't Rise by Ken Bentley

Directed By: Ken Bentley

 

Cast: Simon Williams (Gilmore), Pamela Salem (Rachel), 
Karen Gledhill (Allison), Hugh Ross (Sir Toby Kinsella), 
Raad Rawi (Prince Hassan Al-Nadyr), 
Justin Avoth (Mikhail), Belinda Stewart-Wilson (Overton), 
Ian Lindsay (Routledge), Jot Davies (Avery), 
Alan Cox (Fanshawe). 

Producer - David Richardson

Script Editor - John Dorney

Story by - Ken Bentley

Sound Design:Robert Harvey

Music:Nicholas Briggs

Cover Art:Simon Holub

Executive Producers - Jason Haigh-Ellery and Nicholas Briggs

Released by  - Big Finish Productions, July 2016

NB -Spoilers For This Release -And Series Four of Counter-Measures - feature:

As halls are decked with boughs of holly in the twilight of 1973, the eminent figure of state Prince Hassan Al-Nadyr faces a grave threat. A relentless assassin, possessing abilities and  powers that exceed anything a normal human should have, is focused on the Prince's demise. Co-incidentally, it is close to a decade since the specialist 'Counter-Measures' group suddenly disappeared off the face of the Earth. Only Sir Toby Kinsella had remained alive since then , but before long he too is pronounced officially dead. By getting too close to the Prince, Toby has paid the ultimate price.

The funeral soon after for the Knight of the Realm sees the seemingly dead Group Captain Gilmore, Professor Rachel Jensen, and Dr Allison Williams, come together to mourn their associate and to try and uncover just what foul play is at hand. And the authorities are far from helpful in aiding their efforts. Perhaps someone from the late Sir Toby's past may have some answers, though.

Dear readers, if you have proceeded past the spoiler warning (and perhaps also the more guarded sections of 'confidentiality' I strove for in my Series Four box set review last October), I must clarify that the front cover is to be believed. Our main heroes of Gilmore, Jensen and Williams are very much alive and well. They, however, have been forced to live different lives for fear of being recognised by those with malicious intent. Instead of their normal vocations, they have assumed somewhat different, somewhat similar lifestyles and professions.

The pace and the characterisation are at an optimum and having a more straightforward plot works to this two-parter's advantage. Wondering if Toby really is dead, and the signs are ominous indeed, makes for a nice inversion of what transpired in the closing moments of Clean Sweep.

By moving proceedings forward to the 1970s, the regulars are somewhat closer in age to their real life counterparts. One of my concerns in the past was the believability of the vocal age, and this has been assuaged somewhat now. Furthermore, the move to the Seventies brings a distinct breath of fresh air and a chance to try and evoke some of the other TV and Radio series of the era. (Of course, I also emphasise that the riveting interlinked Series Four never came near to being stale.)

A nod or two to one of Oscar Wilde's more celebrated fictional feats of imagination could have easily been done ham-fistedly, but here is pulled off with aplomb by the writers. Although the antagonist appears relatively early on and so we recognise, his full background and motivation is sketched in with deliberately staged patience in later sections of the story. His being a malicious, efficient agent of death is a fine counterpoint to the main heroic trio, who only resort to killing as a last resort. It is commendable that Who Killed.. puts enough groundwork into making listeners ponder the motivations of the villain. Some of the best modern TV Who has worked wonders by making the audience emphasise just that little bit with an otherwise deplorable individual.

Having a player in proceedings who is a thorn in the sides of the main cast, but who is on the side of the British public through their position in MI5, brings added dimension and drama to the story. Belinda Stewart-Wilson's Overton reminds me somewhat of Kate Stewart in her effortless command and determination to see things through, but she is perhaps a little more blinkered and not stopping to consider if perhaps there is a common goal to be achieved, after all. The eventual culmination of this dramatic conflict is truly executed well.

The sign of a strong and confident tale is the dénouement and final stages as the protagonists reflect on their escapades. In this regard, The Dead Don't Rise plays its trump card with brilliant timing. In many TV shows, including a few of the Moffat/Capaldi Doctor Who stories, endings sometimes feel just that bit truncated. But here, the focus on characterisation and a crystal clear plot allow for the closing tracks to breath fully and to resonate in listeners' auditory organs to maximum effect.

As one would surely expect at this stage in Big Finish's track record with this particular range, the main voice cast are all on song with their portrayals of well-crafted characters. Simon Williams is a fine leading man, (once Hugh Ross' excellent voice acting has graced the exhilarating opening action stages of the play). His interactions with both Pamela Salem  and Karen Gledhill are always amusing, and sometimes also heart-warming.  Clearly, all four of the cast were most keen to return to the fold, and kudos to Jason Haigh-Ellery and Nicholas Briggs for making sure the wait for that return was a short one. Now that the series has legs again to proceed, the expectation must be that more sound material along these lines will follow in good time.

Written by Ian Marter
Read by Jon Culshaw
Released by BBC Audio on 7 July 2016
First published by W.H. Allen & Co. Ltd in 1978
Running time: 3 hours approx.

The Sontaran Experiment was the first two-part story to be novelized. Ian Marter’s text provided a model for others to follow, selectively expanding scenes or reimagining situations and sections of the plot in such a way that the book didn’t seem to have stretched its source material too thin in order to fill the 128 page count standard for Target in 1978. Not all his examples were followed by others, but Doctor Who and the Sontaran Experiment remains one of the most readable Target books. It’s now one of the most listenable too.

The success of Doctor Who and the Sontaran Experiment as an audiobook owes much, of course, to its reader. Jon Culshaw is a versatile and sensitive performer and shows his familiarity with the television source material. His Styr (as Marter renames Styre, slightly Germanically) has a lot of Kevin Lindsay’s bored colonial officer about it, but with an added note of cruelty to the hoarse voice in keeping with Marter’s reinterpretation of the character. The Galsec crew members turn up with South African accents present and correct, all distinctive and all from Culshaw. Sarah Jane Smith is Culshaw talking slightly more lightly and gently, and Harry Sullivan not too different from Culshaw’s narrator’s voice, respecting the relationship between the authorial voice and Harry’s viewpoint in Marter’s first two novelizations.

A good number of listeners will be curious to know how far Jon Culshaw’s fourth Doctor reflects his Tom Baker impersonation from Dead Ringers. Culshaw’s Doctor is realized more sensitively and subtly here than it was in his comedy persona, though there are still more than flashes of it every time Culshaw has to talk in pseudoscientific jargon or reminisce about constellations visited. He enjoys the dialogue which Marter adds, creating a fourth Doctor a little closer to the Tom Baker whom Ian Marter knew, crossing over fiction and reality. The Doctor’s rugby ball metaphor might have appeared on television, but certainly not his carrying around a flask of Glenlivet. We are assured, though not in precisely these words, that Styr would not have survived a night in the Colony Room with Tom and his Soho friends.

One of the great strengths of Ian Marter’s writing, at least where his first two books were concerned, was that he took the sets and locations of the television stories and created something extraordinary from them while keeping faith with his source. The Dartmoor locations of The Sontaran Experiment on television become the foundation for a gnarled postapocalyptic landscape, full of monstrous ochre reeds and brittle, black ferns atop deep ravines and cavernous labyrinths. As mentioned above Styr is developed into a dedicated sadist by Marter, who writes of how Styr enjoys putting his subjects – particularly Sarah Jane Smith – through tortures far more horrible than anything realized on television. In contrast he Styre written by Bob Baker and Dave Martin is someone who can easily be read, in the words of one of my favourite reviews, as ‘a harassed Biology student trying to complete his practical on time.’ Marter’s Styr, though, is a complex creation, a cyborg entity whose flesh is likened to plastic, seaweed, rubber and steel wool, and viewed by different characters in different ways. To Sarah, he’s a noxious reptile and a bloated, snorting pig; to Harry he’s ‘Humpty Dumpty’ and the Golem of Jewish folklore, as if spontaneously generated from the devastated Earth, though Culshaw’s short vowels will make listeners think of Tolkien’s Gollum.

There’s a lot to intrigue in the writing, particularly the hallucinating Harry’s successive threatening visions of Sarah. Perhaps Marter viewed Harry as jealous of Sarah’s relationship with the Doctor, depicted as intense and trusting with Harry too often a third wheel. However, one of the more spectacular expansions is Harry’s exploration of the Sontaran ship, a more complex vessel in the book than suggested on television, which not only allows Harry to be heroic but is read with a careful urgency by Culshaw.

Simon Power’s sound design is appropriate throughout, especially in the torture scenes which are given suitably visceral cues. At about 180 minutes this audiobook isn’t too long and writer and reader are good companions for a few hours. It’s a small but determined sidestep into a reimagined fourth Doctor era, of interest to old and new audiences and an early indication of the elasticity of Doctor Who.

Written by Phil Mulryne, Simon Barnard, Paul Morris, James Goss, Andrew Smith
Directed by Barnaby Edwards

Starring Peter Davison, Colin Baker, Sylvester McCoy,
Paul McGann

Released by Big Finish July 2016, order from Amazon UK

This reviewer confesses to have been pleasantly surprised as to how well the four stories in the box set all work to complement each other and the respective Doctors they feature. When this set was first announced there was a certain amount of scepticism about whether some of the visual gimmicks of the post 2005 creations would translate well to audio. Also, as the behind-the-scenes disc indicates there are only a finite number of “new” monsters which can be included without breaking continuity, as indicated by the presence in the fourth story of the Sontarans which do not seem much different to how they have already appeared in previous Big Finish outings and by the revelation that next year’s volume 2 will only be featuring three “new” monsters across four plays.

This collection gets off to a strong start with 14772’s Fallen Angels which uses the Weeping Angels ability to send their victims back through time to excellent effect as the Fifth Doctor encounters a twenty first century married couple who have fallen foul of an angel in the crypt of a church in Rome and ended up in the fifteenth century where they soon encounter Matthew Kelly’s wonderfully temperamental Michelangelo. Newlyweds Joel and Gabby are well played by Sacha Dhawan and Diane Morgan (unfortunately this reviewer found the latter’s presence reminded him of annoying alter-ego Philomena Cunk) and are clearly intended to remind listeners of Rory and Amy and there are some clear parallels to The Angels Take Manhattan. Overall, the story is very much an homage to Blink and the silent presence of the angels is well-realised through clever use of music and sound-design. None of these stories attempts to offer a genesis account for any of the monsters featured and this is very much to their benefit especially here where the Fifth Doctor is shown very much in parallel to the similarly youthful Tenth and Eleventh Doctors, a role which Peter Davison responds particularly well to.

Colin Baker’s Sixth Doctor is equally well suited to the second story of this set, particularly in the scenes with a courtroom setting. Simon Barnard and Paul Morris’ Judoon in Chains is a clever tale which owes a debt to a number of well-known sources such as The Elephant Man and Pygmalion with one of the proto-companions even being called Eliza. Nicholas Briggs shows that the Judoon are capable of being much more than just space rhinos with a funny voice and the central character of Captain Kybo being a wonderfully nuanced performance. There is also a scene-stealing performance to enjoy from another Big Finish regular Nicholas Pegg as the wonderfully arch Meretricious Gedge.

The inclusion of one-off monsters the Sycorax for the third story of this set was initially suprising but James Goss’ Harvest of the Sycorax proves that they have plenty of mileage left. Sylvester McCoy is reunited with former Red Kang Nisha Nayar who gives a great performance as Zanzibar, another great one-off in a collection full of similarly strong characters. There is also great support the rest of the cast, with particular mentions due to Giles Watling as the Sycorax Chief and Jonathan Firth as Cadwallader. This script has a great fast pace which definitely feels as if it could sit comfortably in a post-2005 series.

The set concludes in style with Andrew Smith’s The Sontaran Ordeal, which sits very much at the end of the Eighth Doctor’s life with the Time War beginning to make its presence felt. This is a solid final story which teams up Paul McGann with Josette Simon as Sarana Teel, an unlikely companion who just wants to bring peace to her planet. Her horror as she realises that the impact of the Time War means that there can never be lasting peace is wonderfully portrayed and her final confrontation with the Doctor gives a clear nod towards the inevitable events of The Night of the Doctor. Christopher Ryan and Dan Starkey also give excellent performances as variations on their new series Sontarans. Above all, this final story provides a hint of exciting things to come in next year’s much anticipated prequel to Big Finish’s War Doctor series, The Eighth Doctor: The Time War.

Overall, this is a set of four very different but equally enjoyable stories with too many highlights to mention individually. Based on the form of this collection and most of Big Finish’s other new series titles, the second volume also promises to be something special.

Written By: Nicholas Briggs
Directed By: Nicholas Briggs

Cast
Tom Baker (The Doctor), Lalla Ward (Romana), John Leeson (K9),  David Warner (Cuthbert), Toby Hadoke (Mr Dorrick), David Troughton (Mr Edge), John Dorney(David Goddard/Oceanic Airforce Commander), Lisa Bowerman (Conglom-Net Computer/Oceanic Airforce Pilot) Jez Fielder (Neville Sanders/Drudger/Ecidien Cerebus Bird/Albert Chatterton/Salonu Prime), Jane Slavin (The Laan/Salonu). Other parts played by members of the cast.

Released by Big Finish July 2016 - purchase via Amazon UK

 

 

Big Finish's seventh part of the Fourth Doctor's fith series (thats a lot of 'ths'!) opens in 1859 with a steam engine about to be robbed by a character called Cuthbert, and his band of men. In the far future, a space platform is reeling from the escape of a creature called the Laan, which has been powering the platform. Meanwhile, on the TARDIS, Romana and K9 are going on a bird hunt. The idea of Romana and K9 in the bowls of the TARDIS on an 'avian hunt' is a beautiful one, and where they find it might surprise you. The avian was mentioned in the last episode, and I'm nsure will be a plot point that will be picked up again in the future. Back in the console room the Doctor detects something approaching in the vortex. It is the escaped Laan, which appears inside the TARDIS and takes Romana. It is, of course down to the Doctor and K9 to rescue her, and also to find out exactly what Cuthbert is up to.

I must confess that The Pursuit of History left me, at times a little confused. Cuthbert (played by the fantastic David Warner) has appeared in a number of previous stories in Big Finish's Doctor Who universe. Me being a fairly new convert found myself a tad lost. Cuthbert is essentially an intergalactic, time jumping dubiously moraled businessman. The head of The Conglomorate. Not knowing the history, or of his previous relationship with the Doctor was initially a disadvantage for me, but after a quick look at The TARDIS Datacore, and I was up to speed not only with Cuthbert, but also his villinous assistant Mr Dorrick (played with relish by Toby Hadoke - who'd have thought that Hadoke could play scheming so very deliciously?), and the Laan.

There are many fantstic moments - trust Big Finish to successfully overcome K9's mobility issues by giving the Doctor an earpiece with which to communicate with his robotic dog. Why hasn't this been done before? Plus it's hilarious when Cuthbert's communication device picks up their conversation. Oh - and the Doctor calling the TARDIS 'Old girl' put a smile on this fan boy's face.There is also the Cerebus bird name dropping the Brigidier, and Romana's new friend (voiced by John Leeson)on the space platform, who put me in mind me of a subservient Sully from Monster's Inc.There is also a vist to the year 182059, with an out of control TARDIS causing some concern to the Australian authorities of that time. My word, a TARDIS does make a rather loud bang when it crash lands!

The only real downside of the story is that the Doctor and Romana are seperated very early, and don't get back into each other's company for the duration of the story, this left me feeling a tad robbed, as I love the chemistry between the two characters. Tom Baker and Lalla Ward have done so very well at rekindling their on screen relationship for audio, it seems like too much of a waste to not have them together for the majority of this episodes run time.

There is though a lot of peril. The TARDIS is REALLY put through the mill, and there is a great set up for part two that not only leaves Romana in a very tricky situation, and the Doctor about to put the TARDIS through another quantum gateway that will surely destroy the old girl, but also reveals who the real villain of the piece is. It is something that has been hinted at for the run of this series of stories, and finally pays off. The visual images that you get when listening to this audio are absolutely stunning, if this were televised, it would have cost a bomb. Nicolas Briggs has pulled off a marvel - I can't wait for part two.

Written By: Guy Adams
Directed By: Scott Handcock
Cast: Eve Myles (Gwen Cooper), Matthew Gravelle (Darkness), Marilyn Le Conte (Mrs Rhodes),
Ross Ford (James)
Produced By: James Goss
Script Edited By: Steve Tribe

Released By Big Finish Productions – August 2016

Back on October 22nd, 2006, when Torchwood made its momentous televised debut via BBC Two’s airwaves, the show carried one hell of a tagline: “the twenty-first century is when everything changes”; indeed, some members of the fan-base would undoubtedly argue that “everything changed” for them on that precise date with the series’ arrival. For a second, though, it seemed as if February 13th, 2016 would prove just as pivotal a moment, if not infinitely more-so, as Eve Myles posted the following words on Twitter not long after recording her second Torchwood audio, MoreThanThis, for Big Finish:

“Thank you. Massive goodbye GC.”

Considering that the studio’s official licensed continuation of the ever-acclaimed Doctor Who spin-off programme had barely gotten underway, having produced just five one-hour dramas as of this February and with plenty of time still to go until its ownership of the licence terminated in 2025, the revelation that easily one of the show’s most dedicated stalwarts, the woman responsible for bringing the immortal Gwen Cooper to life on screen, seemingly wouldn’t be returning for more recordings predictably sent shockwaves through the fan-base at the time.

Thankfully everything didn’t change in this instance, since the cunning minds at Big Finish evidently convinced Ms. Myles to rethink her future with the range, prompting her to sign on for not only this month’s Season Two finale, Made You Look, but additionally a fully-fledged ensemble box-set, Torchwood: Outbreak, due to unite her with John Barrowman and Gareth David-Lloyd for a pre-Children of Earth mission this November. Unfortunately, however, the former of these two new entries doesn’t exactly justify her decision to reprise the role for more outings, instead offering up a predictable one-off horror storyline which suffers from an overwhelming lack of both compelling secondary performances and, worse still, any real sense of the fear factor writer Guy Adams clearly wanted to evoke.

In fairness, the first few minutes of this flawed standalone chapter do a fine job of convincing regular listeners that all’s well here, with Adams crafting an atmospheric, horror-esque opening as Gwen arrives at the near-deserted seaside town of Talmouth to investigate the mass disappearances of its residents, only to find herself subsequently stalked by a seemingly omnipresent extra-terrestrial creature which can turn our most basic sense of sight against her, slaying her where she stands if she takes but three looks at its visage. It’s a quintessential Torchwood premise to be sure, one which wouldn’t have felt at all out of place had it formed the set-up for an episode of the original TV show either on BBC One or BBC Two.

Yet had Made You Look been transmitted on the small screen, its critics would almost certainly have called it out for coming up severely lacking from a structural perspective, with the whole narrative simply centring on Gwen’s encounters with town’s two survivors and above all the so-called ‘Darkness’ tracking her every step. In theory, there would be nothing wrong with such a basic approach if Adams made this race for Gwen’s life a thrilling, oft-terrifying rollercoaster ride packed with cinematic chills to send shivers up the spine, but herein lies the real problem, since barring a somewhat Hitchcockian seagull attack and one or two haunting hallucinatory sequences, virtually none of the chase set-pieces contained within the hour manage to ramp up the fear factor in the slightest, instead deploying clichéd tropes of the genre such as ghostly mists, mysteriously re-animated fairground rides and the like as if we’ve never seen them before on screen or heard them re-enacted in audio form. If anything, rather than having trouble getting to sleep after hearing the final track, listeners will be in danger of dropping off before the third act even kicks off as a result of the astounding lack of narrative innovation here, with the only truly effective moment coming in the form of a pleasingly ambiguous epilogue that for once leaves our heroine’s fate– and that of the oft-forgotten Committee, absence for the third time running here – wholly up in the air.

This almost complete absence of the injection of any real tension on Adams’ part isn’t helped at all by the similarly lacklustre performances given this time around by Myles’ esteemed co-stars. Ross Ford charms somewhat as the paranoid but innocently endearing homeless youngster James, yet not so much that he can make anywhere near a noteworthy impact in his minimal airtime, while Marilyn Le Conte renders her blind hotel manager Mrs Rhodes as every bit as comedic and quirky as the script aims for her to be, only to fail to tug at the heartstrings in her fleeting moments of peril and thus limit our sympathy towards her character. Most notable of all, though, is Matthew Gravelle’s brave but ultimately flat turn as the Darkness – the Broadchurch thespian attempts to channel the understated, sinister malice of recent TV villains like Toby Jones’ Dream Lord in Amy’s Choice or Lars Mikkelsen’s Charles Augustus Mangnussen in Sherlock Season Three, yet ends up robbing the piece’s antagonist of any genuine sense of threat in the process. Whilst there’s certainly something to be said for trying to avoid a farcical, pantomime-style turn as Gwen’s latest foil - especially when the manner in which the Darkness approaches pursuing its prey feeds into a topical message on Adams’ part regarding how the world’s bullies manipulate their victims despite having no real power of their own - given how wanting Made You Look’s supposedly unsettling narrative is for fully-fledged scares, that Gravelle opts to restrain himself in terms of showcasing the potentially terrifying extents of the sinister omnipresence of his character’s voice across Talmouth represents a sizable missed opportunity more than anything else.

As with virtually all of Big Finish’s output, however, Made You Look isn’t completely devoid of genuine merits by any means. Fans of Eve Myles who cried out in sorrow at her aforementioned short-lived departure from the range can at least use her third solo Torchwood audio as evidence of the actress’ talents – not least as she outclasses everyone else in the play by reprising the character’s confident swagger, effortless leadership capabilities and underlying personal vulnerability within moments of her first appearance – and anyone with an ear for accomplished sound design or any devotees of the overall horror genre should well appreciate Scott Handcock’s effective use of seaside sound effects like fairground melodies and arcade game blips to enable the audience to better visualise Adams’ – admittedly uninspired – setting for themselves.

There’s no denying that the range’s lead performances and technical elements have remained top notch throughout its first two runs, in fact, but twelve releases in, there’s no denying how much of a shame it is to see certain members of the revived Torchwood franchise’s writing team struggling to produce narratives which are anywhere near as philosophically rich, atmospheric or generally engaging as the likes of TheConspiracy, UncannyValley, Zone10 or particularly last month’s phenomenal Jack-Ianto team-up Broken. That those four tales were such instant, undisputable hits with fans that put their protagonists to such great use does Made You Look no favours whatsoever, since rather than following suit, Adams has simply endowed Myles and company with a generically clichéd, philosophically shallow and completely arc-light script that, like February’s More Than This before it, rounds off a season’s worth of fine drama in disappointingly low-key fashion. Season Two’s much-anticipated denouement could otherwise have been the moment that everything changed for the range, with Eve Myles’ return representing a triumphant statement of the franchise’s longevity, yet in reality, Outbreak and the show’s well-earned – albeit still to be announced – third season of Big Finish audios will have to aim far higher in order to guarantee that the brand keeps thriving rather than putting the studio’s acquisition of the show’s licence at risk.