The Jigsaw War (2012)

This is the second Jamie story that we have had in just three months but this time he is on his own. This is also the second story to be released that has been written by Eddie Robson. This one seems to be the more interesting on because it has a simple premise. I say simple in that the idea is simple but not necessarily the story itself. Jamie is a prisoner and has to put a sequence of events in order so that he can escape. This CC story isn’t a regular one because it isn’t told as if it were happening in the past. This is as if it were a normal story. The story could quite easily have gone off and become a totally bonkers story and lose my patience. We know (or think we know) that Jamie ends up shooting his captor Si.

Getting someone to put events in order is quite a bold idea but giving that it’s the responsibility of Jamie who isn’t as smart as other companions makes the story a whole lot more interesting. The fact that he manages to pull it off and uses logic to work things out is something that wouldn’t have happened on TV. It’s not until part two until we get to the plot device that writers use from time to time and that is putting the companion in a situation where their faith in the Doctor is rocked. In Jamie it’s done quite effectively as the Doctor/Jamie friendship is one of the strongest in Doctor Who. The idea that Si was trying to change Jamie.

As there should be there is an explanation as to why Jamie is where he is and thus the purpose of the story. Unhelt’s have powers which Si is trying to control but they are scared that they will rise against them, Si and his race are using humans to slow down the Unhelt’s development. The humans would be convinced that the Unhelt’s are dangerous when they clearly aren’t. I’m guessing that I have spelt the name of the race correctly. It seems to be right and even though we never get to encounter them I must say that I found them to be an intriguing race and quite like Robson’s previous story (Jupiter), they are portrayed as one thing but in reality are the exact opposite. At first I thought it would have been nice to hear them but then thought that it would probably have slowed the pace of it and got in the way of the storytelling.

Frazer Hines is as usual brilliant in this story. He has to play Jamie like he did on TV and in the Sixth Doctor series in 2010 and he seems to be enjoying himself. It’s nice that the Jamie we get in these adventures is slightly more rounded than on TV and shows that despite not having the Doctor and/or Zoe beside him, he can still work things out and doesn’t always need a smarter person to fill in the blanks. Dominic Mafham makes his debut to the Doctor Who world (though he will be turning up in a future fourth Doctor adventure). As Si, I found him to be very good because he wasn’t coming across as the evil genius intent on world domination and neither was he someone who I didn’t believe in. He was just someone that seemed to be doing his job on a planet that he didn’t want to be on Mafham does a good job in pitching it just right. Yes you could argue that Robson had a hand in this but the writing only takes it so far and as a result its left to Dominic to flesh it out and in his first performance he does very well indeed.

This is Eddie Robson’s strongest (and smartest) story for quite sometime. Out of this story and ‘The Jupiter Conjunction’, this is the better of the two by a clear mile. I suppose if I had to find fault with this story then it would be that I wish there was more of Frazer doing his Troughton impression cause I still maintain that it’s one of the best impressions in Doctor Who. Apart from that ‘The Jigsaw War’ is a highly enjoyable companion chronicle and the ending whilst abrupt seems to slot in well with the disjointed format of the release.