The second part of the story is simply where the Doctor and
Charley land on a planet of werewolves which is a wonderful idea and the twist
of them turning into humans when sunlight hits them is a nice one.
This story sees Charley Pollard reunite with the Sixth
Doctor although this takes place during the original 2008/2009 series where the
Sixth Doctor is trying to figure Charley out and Charley is trying to keep what
she knows secret but letting bits and bobs out every so often. After enjoying
the new combination of the Doctor and Constance, it was nice to back to a relatively
recent combination of the Doctor and Charley. The frustration with the
2008/2009 series was that it was inevitable that it would at some point come to
an end and that the sixth Doctor wouldn’t remember travelling with Charley. So
this story gives us another opportunity to team these two up and not really
worry about how things are going to get tied up at the end. Whilst listening to
this story it does feel like it could have been pulled out of that period in
the main range because both Colin Baker and India Fisher (winner of Best
Companion at the Tomstardis Awards) act like this was recorded in 2009 not
2015.
This story does have a different feel to it compared to End
of the Line because this one isn’t anywhere near as atmospheric but that’s ok
because the story itself is good enough that I could live without it. Alan
Barnes created Charley Pollard back in 2001 so its nice that he was given the
chance to write her story for this adventure. The thing about Alan Barnes
stories is that sometimes they are easy to follow and sometimes they are very
difficult to follow and in the case of Brotherhood of the Daleks, they are
neigh-on-impossible to follow. Thankfully I can report that this story falls in
the first category.
Charley is the subject of an experiment which seems in
keeping with what happened to Peri in Vengeance on Varos and yet she is saved
by the Porter who says that her death would have drastic effects on the
timeline. It’s weird but wonderful that the Valeyard is taking this much
interest in the Doctor’s wellbeing. It’s clear that he is up to something but
that will become clear in one of the two final stories but here and now it just
adds to the story and I think that was a nice aspect of the story.
The Porter is of course Michael Jayston as the Valeyard and
thankfully the charade of this mystery isn’t kept going for very long and it’s
great that the Jayston is in this story much more than he was in the previous
story. He tells Charley quite a lot about what is going on and how the Doctor is
about to make a huge mistake. Quite frankly Jayston could have been talking
about the weather and he would make it sound exciting and so the explanation
for what was going on was always going to be good because Jayston would make it
sound good. #
I don’t think that this story is quite as good as End of the
Line. There are things to enjoy and I was far from bored during the course of
this release although my frustrations about how the audiobook download for this
boxset has been releaed. That said the story itself was another wonderful addition
to this boxset and the next story sees
the reunion of the Sixth Doctor with Professor Litefoot and Henry Gordon Jago.
Corks!
No comments:
Post a Comment