Free releases from Doctor Who Magazine have been quite
frequent in recent years. This year is another companion chronicle story and
its another William Russell story. What’s not to like. The story was written by
Ian Potter who as far as I am aware is making his first foray into the Big
Finish/Doctor Who world. Now its very hard to knock something that is free so I
have to base my review on whether I would be happy to pay for it had it been in
the proper range. Ian and this women have a common interest and that is a woman
called Janet. This then leads us into the story where the TARDIS has landed in
1956 just seven years before their adventures in the TARDIS.
The spends a few moments explaining the early days of Ian’s
journey. This seems to be Big Finish’s attempt to introduce the character to a
modern audience who haven’t seen the First Doctor stories from that
period. The Doctor is trying to get Ian
and Barbara back to 1963 which is what he had been trying to do since the very
first story. The story then moves on with the TARDIS apparently abandoning Ian
and Barbara and it focuses then across their journey across some mud which has
creatures in it. The Doctor is used as the cliffhanger and when the story
resumes it turns out that somehow Ian and Barbara had left the TARDIS as it was
landing. The Doctor has been waiting for them at a house for a number of years.
He chose to wait for Ian and Barbara as opposed to just going on and leaving
them in 1956, this little detail isn’t remembered until the very end but I
think it’s a nice way to remind us older fans of just how a short time before
this story was set, the Doctor tried to poison his companions.
Marsh-way beings were an alien race that had crashed, even
though we only hear them talk briefly I thought that they were another
interesting creation. Big Finish have done well with creating alien races
recently and this is another good race. They start off quite creepy and
seemingly intent on sucking people through the ground but then their truth is
revealed. I felt that whilst this wasn’t on par with the Jovians from ‘The
Jupiter Conjunction’, they were given a good voice and as such were a credible
creation.
William Russell is brilliant as usual. Like he was in ‘The
Wanderer’ he puts so much enthusiasm into his performance that its very hard to
stay focused on what is actually going on because his voice is so mesmorising.
His co-star in this Sharon Small who does double duty as Jeannie and Janet. I
thought that she did better as Janet because I thought that this character was
the stronger of the two but I still thought that Jeannie served a purpose.
This story is set between ‘The Dalek Invasion of Earth’ and ‘The
Rescue’ and so Susan has only just left the TARDIS. I liked how Ian played with
the idea of he and Barbara staying on Earth and effectively going into hiding
for seven years but Barbara rejects the idea and puts the Doctor’s interests
first as she thinks losing her and Ian so soon after Susan would have a devastating
effect on him. I mentioned at the beginning that I would judge this free Companion
Chronicle, on the basis of whether I would pay to hear it had it been released
in the main series. Overall I would say yes. It’s not the greatest Companion Chronicle
by any means however there was quite a lot to like and I especially liked the
idea of Ian and Barbara not leaving the Doctor and their reason for it. It was
a well written story and an enjoyable hour spent, hopefully Potter will be
allowed to write for the main range because he has potential to be a very good
write for that range.
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