The Auntie Matter (2013)

The Auntie Matter is the first story of second series of Fourth Doctor Adventures and feature Mary Tamm who passed away last summer.  The story has the same sort of feeling as the 2008 story ‘The Unicorn and the Wasp’. Written by Jonathan Morris, the story sees the Doctor and Romana ‘enjoying’ themselves and they come across. K9 is taking the TARDIS on a wild goose chase with the Black Guardian when the Doctor and Romana come across some alien technology and in separate directions get involved. It’s quite good how Jonathan Morris has managed to make the story work without either the Doctor or Romana knowing that the other is involved in what they are doing. It doesn’t feel like it’s getting silly because the plots that each character is involved in is enough to keep your mind on the story.

The alien threat is not technically a threat. Ok they were taking the bodies of women and Florence/Auntie was using them but the reason why she is there is perfectly fine. It does mirror what happens to the Sontaran in ‘The Time Warrior’. Landing on earth by accident isn’t an evil thing but taking people’s lives is enough to constitute a threat and it works quite well.

Julia McKenzie is the big name of this story and she is really good as Florence. She manages to give a an elegant performance yet comes across as a very effective baddie. McKenzie previously appeared in the 2007 story ‘No More Lies’ and she is most famous now for being Miss Marple and she is someone who can be relied upon to give a  solid performance. Robert Portal gave a great offering as Reggie who seemed to be an upper class twit and the sort of person who would have slotted in well to a Miss Marple episode. Lucy Griffiths (best known for appearing in Robin Hood as Marian), I liked the character and thought that in a normal adventure she could have come on board in the TARDIS but her exit was very nice.

For the central performances. It feels like Tom Baker has definelty settled in and Jonathan Morris’ writing enables him to get as close to Doctor from that era on TV that we have had. Tom Baker is a great performer and he works well with Mary Tamm and despite not actually spending that much time together they still work well together. Speaking of Mary Tamm, listening to ‘The Auntie Matter’ was very much like when I was listening to ‘The Last Post’. My approach is different to what it would have been. Also like ‘The Last Post’ I found myself not think about that until after I had finished listening to the story. Tamm’s performance is very good and when you listen to it there is a sense that this could easily have slotted in just after the Key to Time trilogy series. She is intelligent yet doesn’t even humour Reggie when he is being romantic towards her is something that helps cement this character in this series and shows that it could have taken place in late 1979.

The interviews at the end are very enjoyable. The first half is the usual interviews with all the cast talking about how the they have enjoyed the time that they have been recording and what they thought of their character. Then the focus shifts to the passing of Mary Tamm. We don’t hear from her at first and then David Richardson talks about her and it intercut with her talking about returning to the role alongside Tom Baker. It was extremely sad to listen to as on one hand its sad that she’s past away but knowing that at least that we get a series of her Romana alongside the Doctor.

The first story of the series is a highly enjoyable one. I felt that everything worked really well and Jonathan Morris has written a very solid story with interesting characters. It’s not quite up there with ‘The Wrath of the Iceni’ which I think it the mark that all Fourth Doctor stories should be aiming for. But I don’t think not being the Iceni story is a bad thing. It’s a pacey story with some amusing characters that aren’t in the slightest irritating and it’s a good start to the series with the promise of some strong stories coming.