The Condemned (2008)

2008 TOMS TARDIS AWARD WINNER

• Best Writer (Eddie Robson)
• Best Music & Sound Design (David Darlington)

Back in December 2008 we said goodbye to Charley. After 7 years it seemed that Charlotte Louise Pollard had taken her last adventure with the Doctor. Despite wanting to leave at the end of Absolution there seemed to be a hope of staying with the Doctor. What we got was the biggest twist in Doctor Who Big Finish history. This story was written by Eddie Robson who wrote Memory Lane back in 2006 and also 4 of the 8 episodes of the Doctor Who & Lucie series. This story is a first for Doctor Who, not just in audio but in TV as well. A companion who has spent time with one Doctor is now travelling with another. I know that it has happened with Romana appearing with the sixth Doctor in The Apocalypse Element but this is the first time that a companion has appeared with a previous Doctor. The main question I had for this story was ‘How could the Eighth Doctor not recognise Charley if she met the Sixth Doctor?’, anything else seemed irrelevant. One thing that I never comment on is the cliffhangers. The first was a big let down and just felt like they were going to end it in a place where they didn’t intend to. The second and third ones were better. The idea that Sam was actually Ackley House was quite a good idea as you thought it was strange that he didn’t interact with anything in this story.

Colin Baker put in another good performance and his Doctor seems to work well with Charley. Mr Baker is the best Doctor in this audio range as every story seems to play to his strengths. In this story the Doctor starts guessing straight away that there is something wrong with this visitor to his home and no sooner has he got one mystery to deal with he has a dead body to deal with. Then he as DI Menzies who I will come to later. But no matter who he works with be it Maggie Stables, Nicola Bryant or Bonnie Langford, he shows he can work with anyone. India Fisher is also very good in this story and shows that there is still more to see from this character. The Charley that appears in this story seems so different from the Charley that travelled with the 8th Doctor from 2001-2007. I liked the bit where she is trying to pretend to the Doctor that she’s never seen the TARDIS before was quite entertaining. She is a hopeless liar but I have a hunch that she wants to be caught out. The supporting cast was also on good form in this story helping support the Doctor and Charley. The star was Anna Hope, who has appeared in two Doctor Who stories (New Earth in 2006 and Gridlock in 2007). Her character was well written and Anna got the most out of the character that help the interaction between DI Patricia Menzies and the Doctor all that more entertaining. The character of Menzies was written as your typical stereotypical Northerner. She clearly doesn’t take any rubbish from her colleagues or from the public but she is forced to deal with the people and events that occur. William Ash who appeared in the 2007 story 42 was very good in this story and was a good casting decision. His contribution to this story was well very important. It takes a while to really work out what his role in the story is but pretty soon it’s a shocking revelation that I would never have guessed. Sara De Freitas was also another good actor in this story as Maxine, she was the sort of character who had fallen into trouble and the evil elements were manipulating that fact and forcing her to keep Charley hostage for quite sometime. She started off a little bit weak but picked up brilliantly by episode 4.

Stephen Aintree & Steve Hansell provided 8 voices between them and so as a result they deserve some credit. Lennox Greaves has performed in several stories for Big Finish and can always be relied upon to perform well. The main plot of the story which was not the mystery of Charley but in fact what was going on in Ackley House. It took a long time to get going but once it did get going it was non stop and I though it worked really well. The moment when Charley discovered Sam was the flats was one of the eeriest scenes I have known. I was hoping in this story that there would an answer to why the 8th Doctor doesn’t remember Charley when she met the 6th Doctor but that might get explained in future stories but the only point that was raised was the fact that the Doctor kept calling Charley Charlotte all but once. The line that the Doctor doesn’t recall doing that means he is either lying or has a brief bout of memory loss. The potential for this story is the strongest one for quite some time and the one with the most potential and we will have to wait and see whether the mystery is answered. The combination of the 6th Doctor and Charley worked very well and bodes well for future stories featuring this combination and hopefully it wont be long before there is a sixth Doctor/Charley/Evelyn story because I think that would be as good in quality as this story. The thing about stories like these is that people’s desire to know what is going on and hopefully Big Finish will manipulate this for as long as they can.

Eddie Robson has written another superb play. The revelation that Sam was in fact the flats was truly shocking and totally out of the blue. All the characters were really strong and no one was weak. This dark story is a superb start to the Sixth Doctor/Charley mystery. Nicholas Briggs does another great job as Director. He always manages to direct a great story and give it that much more energy that it normally needs but it just adds to this story.

Overall a fantastic story.