FRONTIER IN SPACE SPACE THE final frontier, human condition. What is good says: “It’s about two different kinds as someone once said. about us? What is bad about us? of humanity coming into contact But… is it… really? Executive producer Nicholas with each other: a culture-clash of Humanity may well travel away Briggs, who devised this series, is no people from hundreds of years apart from Earth in the future, but surely stranger to developing adventures coming face to face. It’s also a love that’s just the beginning rather without a certain Time Lord, story, a story of a struggle for power than the end? having previously created the and a bit of a murder mystery too. This concept is at the heart of unique and critically-acclaimed It’s a futuristic adventure with all The Human Frontier, the latest Dalek Empire series, which the science fiction trappings, but it’s Big Finish Original, an epic science featured the mutants from Skaro. a very human drama at its heart. fiction series about exploration Vortex asked Nick to sum up what “I’ve always been fascinated by – not just of space but of the The Human Frontier is about. He how our society, our assumptions VORTEX | PAGE 10 BIG FINISH ORIGINALS THE HUMAN FRONTIER discovering a ‘colony’ of people from 300 years ago. Imagine how we’d differ from them in so many ways.” Vortex suggests that there is an element of ‘risk’, for want of a word, in creating a series from scratch, unlike writing for the Doctor, Dalek Empire, or even reimagining The Prisoner or Space: 1999. Nick grins: “Well, I suppose it is a risk. You’re really putting yourself out there creating everything from (Daisy Bailey) (Anna Swift) scratch. You’re saying, ‘This is what I think a good story is’. But in a way, it’s no more of a risk than saying, ‘You know that favourite thing of yours that you hold so dearly? This is Genevieve Gaunt Pepter Lunkuse my version of it!’. So you could argue that it’s easier to write your own thing, as you’re not trying to capture and how ultimately people change. WHAT WOULD I’m fascinated by old films and old TV series, particularly the ones HAPPEN IF THE that don’t stand the test of time. The reason they now seem horribly SOCIETY OF TODAY out of date or offensive is that the everyday assumptions of the people WERE TRULY who made them have changed in ABLE TO MEET some crucial way. Different ideas and approaches fall out of fashion, THE SOCIETY OF mostly for good reasons! But I find it fascinating to see outmoded ideas YESTERDAY? NICHOLAS BRIGGS being presented as ‘normality’ when, as you watch them, you’re screaming, ‘No! Ugh, that’s horrible’. the essence of something that other “And that got me thinking people created and the audience about what would happen if the already feels they own in some way.” society of today were truly able to meet the society of yesterday? THE KEY of this new series And since I love science fiction is in the title, ‘Human’. Nick and the way it can deal with ideas reveals the main people at in a purer sense, without people the heart of it: “There are four falling into a contemporary, leading characters, I suppose. issue-based argument, I decided Exographer Anna Swift, who is our to transpose this idea of the past way into the story, although it meeting the future, and vice versa, becomes about many other people into a science fiction context. as it goes along. She’s in a junior “So we have two sets of colonists, role, gentle and emotionally fragile, both setting out for a particular but incredibly determined and planet. One lot take the long route strong too. in secret, sleeping for 1,000 years “Then there’s Commander on the way. The other lot set off Daisy Bailey, who’s in charge of hundreds of years later, at hyper- the ship The Human Frontier, Robert Harrigan) speed. So, when the sleepers wake ( setting off into space with 1,000 up as they approach the planet, the potential colonists in cryogenic hyper-speed bunch have been living suspension. She’s an idealist with there for 300 years already – and a lot of strength. We also have they weren’t expecting the sleepers Mark Elstob the ship’s augmented reality to turn up because they didn’t artificial intelligence called Nilly, know about them! Imagine us now, which is implanted in every crew VORTEX | PAGE 11 BIG FINISH ORIGINALS THE HUMAN FRONTIER COMING UP WITH A DESIGN THAT DOESN’T REALLY SOUND LIKE ANYTHING THAT’S GONE BEFORE, BECAUSE THE HUMAN FRONTIER IS VERY MUCH ITS OWN THING, HAS HAD ITS STUMBLING BLOCKS. IAIN MEADOWS Lucy Briggs-Owen [Nilly] Nicholas Briggs [Dendrick] Clive Wood [Brett Triton] member’s head. Nilly’s been “Actor Pepter Lunkuse plays vocal range, and she just designed to be more human than Anna. She was a recommendation delights in her work. human, but there are ultimately from fellow Big Finish director “I’d worked with Clive Wood questions of how that affects Scott Handcock – and what once before, and of course have the people she’s implanted in. a recommendation! Breath- admired his large body of work from “And the fourth is Brett Triton, taking performance. Genevieve afar for years. He has a tangible the president of the planet Triton, Gaunt plays Daisy – I’ve worked strength in what he does, and gives who seems to be a villain but he’s with Genevieve before. She’s total commitment to every part a man trapped by the system he’s an incredible actor with an he plays – totally my kind of actor. inherited: the past rules him. enormous emotional and He’s brilliant as Brett Triton. VORTEX | PAGE 12 “Lucy Briggs-Owen plays Nilly… bloke who I have great chats with. can see it and hear it all. The trick Well, I told her ages ago that she I’m doing the music because it’s is to then try and create the sounds has to be in everything I direct. Of one of my greatest loves. I actually to match and then tweak with Nick course, that isn’t actually practical, composed and recorded the theme to get the world absolutely right.” but the way she transforms before we even went into studio. How difficult is it to create an herself into characters and totally I think, actually, even before I off-world environment, but at believes what she’s doing is so finished the script! I was stuck on the same time create something utterly delightful to witness that the writing one day so I composed we can recognise? Iain replies: “It I get her into anything I can.” the theme to dislodge the logjam is a bit of a challenge. I suppose in my mind. Luckily, it worked.” you have to assume that an alien HELPING TO bring The Iain enjoys working with a blank world might follow the same sort Human Frontier to life with canvas, compared to a previously of physics and chemistry as our music and sound design is established soundscape. He says: “I own, and so far with things like Iain Meadows. Nick explains: “I think any sound designer loves a the discovery of water on Mars insisted on Iain Meadows because of blank canvas because it allows you and the general make up of planets the great working relationship we’ve such freedom to play. It’s a world that could be colonised one day, struck up over The Prisoner and that you’re creating (following those rules do seem to apply. Space: 1999. He has the amazing what’s on the page of course) but in “So then it’s thinking about subtle ability to create weird sci-fi terms of that creation, the sound differences. I didn’t want to go too soundscapes convincingly, but also of it, the rules are yours and there far because we’re still dealing with excels in the very detailed, personal are no limits – you can let your humanity who has to be able to live foley sound work too. He has a great imagination run free. In this case, in the environment. But with some sense of drama and timing. Nick has written some very vivid of the environments, if you listen “Iain is also a writer so he and absorbing scripts with concepts carefully, there are little differences understands all the nuances of a and places that I could see so clearly that make it ‘alien’. I think if you scene and will bring so much to in my mind, and I hope I’ve done examine most sci-fi, the assumption it that isn’t in the script. And he’s them justice! But that’s the beauty is that the worlds we would be just a nice, lovely, sensitive, caring of Nick’s writing – as you read, you able to live on or would want to VORTEX | PAGE 13 live on, would be pretty similar to creatures before – they sprang from me it’s beyond exciting. I felt such Earth, so it’s a good thing to bear in Nick’s imagination and I hope that joy and fear simultaneously. I’m mind – things need to be familiar people will enjoy them! Nilly, with not one for white-knuckle rides enough for humanity to cope with. all her quirks was also something but I’ve done a couple, and this felt A bit like when you get into a hire that I wanted to sound unique and I rather like that.