Scavenger (2014)

The final story of the Sixth Doctor and Flip series takes on a distinctive spacey feel to it. The Doctor and Flip find themselves on the Mandela. The idea that there is a programme that is launched which is an attempt to clear up some of the debris and space junk that is orbiting the earth. What I liked about this is that its something that is a problem today. If you have seen the fantastic film ‘Gravity’ then you will know the problem. The programme is being run by the Indian Space Agency and this was another thing that I liked because it would have been so easy to just have the English space agency.

The familiar name as far as I am concerned was that of Anjli Mohindra who plays Jyoti Cutler in this story and played Rani in ‘The Sarah Jane Adventures’. I thought that Jyoti was instantly a good character and I thought that Mohindra played the character exactly as the character should have been played. Another fine performance came from Kate McEwen who plays Jessica Alloway brilliantly. Tariq Bhatti is also worth of a mention as Salim the Mission Controller who was quite interesting with his little secret.

The main performances were very good but I thought that Lisa Greenwood gave the greater performance and this seemed to have come out of nowhere. During the course of the three releases I think that Greenwood has not put a foot wrong and she gives her best performance of the series in this story. The final episode is where Greenwood stole the show as far as I was concerned because it was such a heartfelt performance that its probably fair to say that Flip is one of the strongest companions that Big Finish currently have. Colin Baker’s performance was good and he bounces around the story in his usual manner.

I was a big fan of Gallagher’s previous Sixth Doctor adventure ‘Wirrn Isle’ but I think that this wasn’t as good as that story. I started off really involved in the story but found that the middle part wasn’t as engaging. My attention was then bought back in the fact episode where things really did seem to be reaching for a satisfying conclusion. The end of the story was a complete shock and I think it’s the perfect cliffhanger for the next sixth Doctor series. The main business with Alloway was dealt with but Flip’s future is in doubt. It’s a bit like the cliffhanger with Hex’s future but I think that Flip’s isn’t quite as intense. As good as the cliffhanger was, the problem is that it will clearly be sometime for this to be resolved (October at the earliest which is unlikely even though Big Finish haven’t put any details on the website). Scavenger is a good way to end the series.