The Third Doctor Adventures is a boxset which on the face of
it has one main selling feature. Tim Treloar would be playing the Doctor. Not
just pretending to be him but actually be him. We all know that Frazer Hines
can do a great Patrick Troughton impression but we all know that its just an
impression and Treloar’s task isn’t just to be the lead in this boxset but also
make the listener believe that this is the third Doctor. The idea of recasting
the Doctors is something that is somewhat of a controversial finish but if you
want the likes of Katy Manning or Frazer Hines or William Russell having full
cast adventures then Big Finish need to take the bull by the horns and look for
someone that people can accept as being a version of that Doctor. No one is
ever going to replace William Hartnell, Patrick Troughton or Jon Pertwee but if
you can get the right person then I think that goes someway to please everyone.
Before I get to the meat of this review which is the story
itself, let’s talk about Treloar in particular and I have to applaud him for
his performance. When I first heard him talk as the narrator I thought that
this wasn’t a good impression but then I realised he was just narrating and
when he starts as the Doctor then I realised how good he was. It wasn’t that he
sounds like Jon Pertwee but the way that he spoke and the delivery of the lines
made it seem like it was the Third Doctor. From that point on I was totally
sold on this release and could stop worrying about Treloar and just enjoy the
story. Katy Manning was really good as Jo and when Jo and the Doctor were
talking I could believe that it was as good as on TV and that is also another
reason why Treloar was good. Richard Franklin was also good as Yates but he was
sort of pushed to the side as the story and Treloar took centre stage.
The thing about this story which was written by Justin
Richards is that it felt very familiar. At several points I thought that this
story owed a debt to Doctor Who and the Silurians because this story involves
the Doctor encountering a new race and the possibility of it being blown up
which would annoy the Doctor. There is a bit where the Doctor is going
underwater in a diving bell which is similar to The Sea Devils and then then
there is a stone spaceship which is similar to The Daemons. It’s like Justin
Richards is writing a greatest hits of the Pertwee era which isn’t a bad thing
and whilst I listened to this story and thought of which stories were being referenced
I just found myself completely immersed in the story. I like how it has a base
under siege
It was well told and Justin Richards is one of my favourite
writers largely because of his work on the Jago and Litefoot series and he doesn’t
disappoint with this story that had an awful lot riding on it. You couldn’t do
a story that really tested the audience in terms of intelligence so I think
that they chose wisely with this story because it allows the listener to get
use to Treloar as the lead. Nicholas Briggs also deserves some credit because
he is a reliable director and knows how to keep things moving along at just the
right pace and he works his magic in this story.
This story is pretty much a nuts and bolts story because it
does everything that you would expect from a traditional Doctor Who story and
allows the listener to enjoy listening to what is going on. Anyone who is a fan
of the Pertwee era should give this a listen because its really a good story
with a good plot, great performances and more importantly, it feels like a
story from that period of time and that is something that the Companion Chronicles
or The Lost Stories could never achieve no matter who the writer was. I go into
the second story with a lot more optimism than I had when I started this story
and that’s because I didn’t know what to expect from this series and now I do.
Well done to everyone involve.
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