The Holy Terror (2000) Review

This was supposed to be a review of The Nightmare Fair, but since my first copy had holes in the audio and my second one was an audio book with fake voices, I had to ditch that story. From what I heard though, it was a very 1980s story. I liked the new, older and madder Celestial Toymaker and his playing a video game against the Doctor. I thought Colin Baker(of the Awesome Coat) and Bryant still sound too old. And I was bored by the rest. It was more about the visuals than story, that one. It'd be cool to see with Capaldi, however.

With that out of the way, The Holy Terror is quite the shocker. It starts off quite farcical, shamelessly parodying medieval culture, but becomes increasingly serious as its characters grow, which make it all the worse when everyone dies at the end, not to mention the twists. I would pay good money to see any visual adaptation of this story.

PLOT

The Sixth Doctor and his American penguin spy agent companion(I think this is why people love Big Finish) called Frobisher arrive in a medieval castle filled with absurd traditions and hateful rulers. As the people declare Frobisher a God, the Doctor uncovers a horrible secret surrounding a particularly murderous child and an old, worthless scribe...

CHARACTERS

Where do I start? Paired with Frobisher, Colin Baker's age seems to disappear and I can almost imagine him going around in his Coat Of Awesome. 

Frobisher himself sounds pretty stereotypical, but I really grew to love the idea of a talking penguin. His voice just seems to give the character charm. 

Then there's Peppin, who finds himself to have a lack of confidence and tries to give responsibility over to Frobisher, his brother Childrik who plots against him out of sheer insanity and tries to create a God,the coward who can't stop being one, the good old scribe who turns out to be a murderer...

The depth given to all these people is just awesome. You really feel like you're in a new society, although the self-deprecating aspect makes them intentionally slightly fake.
Kudos to the writers and actors on this.

NOTES

*This seems to be the second time the TARDIS is called a temple. The first ones were the Trojans in The Myth Makers.

*Why is Frobisher a penguin? 

*The whole twist of Eugene killing his son is what the BBC should and did have the guts for.

*Although I've given the story much credit for its emotional side, I did feel its comedy was merely passable.

*It's kind of sickly hilarious how the reason behind Eugene's son's murder was: "I was insane."

*No references to previous Who adventures! It's a miracle!!

*If the TARDIS can create anything out of thin air, why doesn't the Doctor make more use of it? 

*Who built the prison?

BEST LINE

"Who is my father? Who is the man who created GOD?!?!"

CONCLUSION

It was a very complex story, but it's a bit too much for me. If you want Shakespearean Doctor Who, you might enjoy this.
P.S. I accidentally deleted this whole review. Thank Frobisher for auto-save.