The Revenants (2012)

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.