The Companion Chronicles celebrates it’s 5th Birthday with a extended adventure. Unlike most adventures in this range, we get two companions for the price of one. Peter Purves is reunited with Jean Marsh for the first time (apart from December 2011’s The Five Companions) since 1966’s Dalek Master Plan epic. This is another story to come from the mind of Simon Guerrier who has written Kingdom’s three previous adventures and also the Oliver Harper trilogy of adventures featuring Steven. According to the interviews at the end of the story that this was a replacement story when the original writer intended for this slot moved to write for the Fourth Doctor Lost Stories series and also that Guerrier lost his story on his computer and had to do it again. I have to admit that the story did have a feel that it was a rushed job as it didn’t seem to have the same sort of feel that other Guerrier stories have.
The story starts off in quite an exciting manner with the TARDIS apparently about to crash land and then moments later the TARDIS crew appear in some sort of beach/forest. The first two episodes of this story are really quite interesting and then the story moves again to a different setting, to Berlin in 1939. It was during this part of the story that I felt the weaknesses of it were on show. There was a lot of wondering whether Sara and Steven should tell their captures about the future or not and the moralities of doing such a thing. I quite liked that because one of the things that we know in this series is that you cant change the course of history and its something that the first Doctor was well known for. The story then picks up again towards the end when it resolved about the time travelling pioneer like people that I had totally forgotten about until they turned up again. The Anachronauts seems like two different stories that have been wedged together, thanks to Guerrier he manages to make it work (just about).
The performances in this were as usual very strong. Peter Purves does a enjoyable Hartnell impression contrary to what he believes. Ok so its not similar to how Hartnell sounded but I still think it’s a solid attempt and its been consistent in all the stories that Purves has done. As Steven Taylor he carried the story whilst he was narrating the story. Jean Marsh also delivers a great performance and continues to show what a great actress she is. Together they make the story easy to listen to even when there were moments when the story seemed to be dragging. I think that not having another artist in the story was a wise move because it would have ruined the chemistry between the two actors.
I am a really big fan of Simon Guerrier’s work as Home Truths is my favourite companion chronicle but I cant say that this was his finest. It’s not terrible and there were many things to like but it could have done with either a bit more time or cut the length of the episode because I think that it went off maybe one episode too long.
The story starts off in quite an exciting manner with the TARDIS apparently about to crash land and then moments later the TARDIS crew appear in some sort of beach/forest. The first two episodes of this story are really quite interesting and then the story moves again to a different setting, to Berlin in 1939. It was during this part of the story that I felt the weaknesses of it were on show. There was a lot of wondering whether Sara and Steven should tell their captures about the future or not and the moralities of doing such a thing. I quite liked that because one of the things that we know in this series is that you cant change the course of history and its something that the first Doctor was well known for. The story then picks up again towards the end when it resolved about the time travelling pioneer like people that I had totally forgotten about until they turned up again. The Anachronauts seems like two different stories that have been wedged together, thanks to Guerrier he manages to make it work (just about).
The performances in this were as usual very strong. Peter Purves does a enjoyable Hartnell impression contrary to what he believes. Ok so its not similar to how Hartnell sounded but I still think it’s a solid attempt and its been consistent in all the stories that Purves has done. As Steven Taylor he carried the story whilst he was narrating the story. Jean Marsh also delivers a great performance and continues to show what a great actress she is. Together they make the story easy to listen to even when there were moments when the story seemed to be dragging. I think that not having another artist in the story was a wise move because it would have ruined the chemistry between the two actors.
I am a really big fan of Simon Guerrier’s work as Home Truths is my favourite companion chronicle but I cant say that this was his finest. It’s not terrible and there were many things to like but it could have done with either a bit more time or cut the length of the episode because I think that it went off maybe one episode too long.
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