The Wanderer

Ian remembers how the TARDIS landed in Siberia in the 19th century, right around the same time as mysterious objects have fallen from the skies and landed in the countryside. The locals are suspicious of any who ask about them, falling back onto superstitious habits, although a man named Grigory wants to assist in determining the origin of the objects. The Doctor and Susan begin to fall mysteriously ill and it falls to Ian to sort things out, but the biggest threat comes from Grigory's reaction to the fallen objects from space.

Another of the successful Companion Chronicles tales, again with William Russell playing Ian as he always has. This one feels a bit less like one of the classic era tales though; most of what Big Finish produces for this range makes great efforts to sound like it was plucked right from the scripts of seasons one and two but this time there's a bit more of a pronounced sci fi edge, much like with the novel The Time Travellers. The difference, to me, was when the Doctor says "chronon particles" - that's a bit more precise for the science of the series than was at the time. And when Grigory has a flash-forward to the future and sees the Doctor entwined in all of history, that's more an influence of the new series than anything. But hey, the series needs a different take on an adventure here and there to keep things fresh.

This adventure went by pretty quickly; I listened to it at work one morning in the background while getting my paperwork all sorted out. As it was not terribly complicated I didn't have to worry about paying 100% attention to it, which is great if you're enjoying while doing something else or taking it on a road trip. Don't get me wrong; it was a good one and didn't bore me or anything, it was just ... simple. There were no major continuity notes to pay attention to aside from Grigory's view into the future, most of which at this point would mean relatively little to someone with no idea of what's to come, pretty much like Ian as he listens to Grigory rhyme it all off.

But in the end, alien plot foiled, everyone goes home happy, on to the next tale.

NEXT EPISODE: THE REVENANTS

The Rocket Men

From the safety of home, back on Earth, Ian remembers an adventure on the planet Jobis where he, the Doctor, Vicki and Barbara came to spend some time on the floating city Platform Five. There they chance to marvel at the achievement of a floating city in the clouds and the creatures which dwell there, until they are set upon by a brute named Ashman and his fanatical followers, the Rocket Men. Separated from the Doctor and outnumbered by jet packed thugs, Ian, Barbara and Vicki must endure the wrath of Ashman as he plans to subjugate the planet to his will, and try to survive.

The Rocket Men may have a bit of a cheesy title but this was actually a really cool story. Author John Dorney said he had deliberately written something which although felt like it could have been included in those first two seasons of the show would never have been attempted for the sheer impossible demands it would have had on visual effects work. Hovering space platforms, men flying with jetpacks, and massive manta ray creatures in flight... no, that would have just sent the BBC Effects department off the deep end, taking the budget for the next few stories with it. But what's really great about The Rocket Men is the visuals it creates through narrative and dialogue; everything can be imagined quite easily without it being described in excessive detail. It may help, though, to draw inspiration for Platform Five from either the floating city of the Hawk Men in the de Laurentis version of Flash Gordon or Bespin's Cloud City in The Empire Strikes Back. The Rocket Men themselves are inspired, at least design-wise, by the Disney film The Rocketeer with their helmets and flight jackets.

The narrative of the tale is told by Ian again, and when the story opens he and Barbara and Vicki are already in danger, but his recanting of their adventure goes back and forth between past and present tenses until it catches up with itself halfway through episode two. And as far as dialogue pieces go this one is by far the most  in depth Big Finish have gotten on the Barbara / Ian romance story, with Ian realizing when he "knew", and the insane lengths he would go to keep Barbara safe. Set sometime after the events of The Romans (and thereby after The Web Planet) Ian's realization would have come at about the same time as Barbara's did in The Eleventh Tiger, with both of them seeing the other in peril (here it is Barbara being tossed out an air lock, for her it was Ian beaten to a senseless pulp) and knowing that their life would not be the same without the other.

Ashman and his lot seem a bit familiar aside from the Rocketeer imagery and I am more apt to liken them to a group of Madalorians called Death Watch in the Star Wars: Clone Wars animated series. The jet pack is a given but the sheer ruthlessness and brutality is comparable, and given that the series was in full swing at this time one has to wonder if this was some of the inspiration for this group of pirates and thieves.

The future with Barbara is still ahead of Ian, but he still has tales from the past to share...

NEXT EPISODE: THE WANDERER

Transit of Venus

Ian remembers how the TARDIS made a landing on the deck of a sailing ship in the south Pacific in 1770; fresh from their adventure on the Sense Sphere the Doctor was furious with Barbara and Ian and ordered them out of the time machine, but the TARDIS was tossed overboard with Susan and Barbara still inside. Ian and the Doctor realized they were on board the Endeavour in the company of Captain James Cook and became unwilling passengers, taken to be celestial visitors from Venus, but Ian grew suspicious of chief scientist Robert Banks who seemed to know more than he should about future events.

William Russell returns as Ian in this Companion Chronicle adventure, told from the perspective of Ian after leaving the TARDIS with Barbara. Many years have passed since his time travel days ended, and he reflects on this adventure very much like the specially recorded introduction made for the VHS release of The Crusades. The Companion Chronicles following this one are all told in the same vein as the ones with Susan were, with Ian telling his tale from his perspective and the lines of the other characters told in the narration, except for Robert Banks who is played by Ian Hallard.

As stories go it's very simple and to the point, with no major sci fi angles to it aside from the presence of the TARDIS. Had it been submitted in the early years of the show it would have made for a potential script, although the full cast would no doubt have been included and the scope of the adventure widened beyond the confines of the decks of the Endeavour. But it's all there as far as formula for a historical goes; adventures in the past, separation from the TARDIS (although the resolution to that one was a bit of a "yeah, right," moment), and a lack of aliens to complicate things (aside from the Doctor).

I remember thinking when the Companion Chronicles started that they would not be very entertaining at all, really no better than books on tape, but again they prove to be full of fun and everything that makes a Doctor Who tale great. This was the first one William Russell did, released back in 2009, and he sounds a bit younger than in the more recent releases, but he's still playing Ian well; in the interviews at the end of the adventure he states that the character comes back to him easily because Ian Chesterton is part of him, which is the same sentiment expressed by another great companion: Elisabeth Sladen on her time as Sarah Jane Smith and her return to the series years later. While William Russell may not have been given chance to bring Ian back to the screen, this is just as good.

And Ian still has a lot of stories to tell...

NEXT EPISODE: THE ROCKET MEN

The Chase

Having suffered defeat in their invasion of Earth, the Daleks have built a time machine of their own and are about to take the fight to the Doctor and company. The mission is clear: exterminate. Stopping on the planet Aridius, the Doctor and Barbara are separated from Ian and Vicki, and then see on the Doctor's new time space visualizer that the Daleks are on the way to find them. And when the Daleks do arrive, it starts an epic chase through time and space as the Doctor tries to escape the wrath of the Daleks.

It all sounds promising enough, but the reality is this: the six episode epic The Chase is the slowest and most tedious of all the Dalek serials. As the story unfolds the action goes from Aridius to the top of the Empire State Building in New York, then to the decks of the Marie Celeste at sea, to a haunted house and then finally to the jungle planet Mechanus. It's a lot to ask an audience to stay around for this as some of the stops are very short and others.. well, the fourth episode, called Journey into Terror, is just plain sloppy and painful to watch unless you are completely on your own with no chance of anyone knowing. Otherwise you might have to start explaining and asking them to ignore the fact that from time to time you can see over the tops of studio walls, or that someone has missed their cue but there's no edits to save it, or that you can see a TV camera or a boom mic here and there.

How about those Daleks, eh? The design has changed a bit this time and they have a mesh now wrapped around their "shoulder" portion of the machine, and not only do we get to meet the Supreme Dalek again but we see some of the Dalek machines from the colour movie versions of The Daleks and The Dalek Invasion of Earth pressed into duty to swell the ranks of the pursuing force, even if some of them do not move and they are noticeably taller than the rest. Dalek technology has come a long way if they are able to build a time machine capable of chasing down a TARDIS (and like the TARDIS it is also bigger on the inside) but it must have gone to their heads because they have become a hysterical bunch, screaming exterminate and destroy and obliterate and annihilate all the time. And there's even some "junior" Dalek on the set who when asked anything by his fellows has a moment of uncertainty and makes some embarassing "uhh... ummm.." noises while he checks his facts. Ian makes a point of saying that the Daleks have trouble with stairs but on board the Marie Celeste they do not seem to stop them from showing up on the upper levels of the ship. They can't swim, though. But they meet their match against the Mechanoids; machines built to terraform planets for colonists from Earth, and there's an... epic.... battle? Well, they shoot at each other a lot. As far as conversation goes the Mechanoids are even less chatty than the Daleks, but they are bigger and actually have flame thrower guns (easy when you move to a film studio to shoot the scene).

Despite being a bit tedious to watch, though, The Chase has a real moment to remember, which is at the very end when Ian and Barbara realize that they have a means to go home. By now as far as the televised episodes go they don't really seem to want to leave the Doctor; their last big yearn for home was around the same time Susan left in The Dalek Invasion of Earth. But the additional material since from Big Finish and Virgin Publishing and all has slipped that in here and there to keep it alive, as well as adding sequences of Ian and Barbara back on Earth, married, and with a son. The Doctor's fury at their request to leave him is obviously more about his hurt feelings than it is about them wanting to go home and feel human once again, and therein lies the biggest moment that even overshadows their departure: the Doctor has grown into someone new, and all because of them. Would he have cared if he got them home within the first series? He was almost ready to put them off the ship and leave them behind as it suited him but now, it's different. He admits he will miss them. Vicki stays with him, not wanting to be stuck in the 1960s, and waiting in the wings to join the TARDIS crew is Steven Taylor, space astronaut who was being held by the Mechanoids, and now that they're busy fighting the Daleks he can make his escape.

With the last of the original companions gone the show is truly starting to feel a little different, and the Doctor has some new perspective about his adventures as he travels on. But it's always tough for those who we leave behind, either by their choice or ours. A normal life after the TARDIS would be a struggle, and as we have seen in Companion Chronicles with Susan it is not easy to forget those times. Ian and Barbara may be home, but their time in the TARDIS will stay with them always; this point was illustrated by the specially recorded scenes of an aged Ian talking about their adventure in Jaffa at the start of The Crusades on VHS (and included as a DVD extra in the Lost in Time compilation) and is carried on now in a series of Big Finish tales...

NEXT EPISODE: TRANSIT OF VENUS

The Doctor's Tale

The TARDIS lands in England in 1400, mere months after King Henry IV has seized the throne for himself from King Richard II. In the guise of pilgrims, the Doctor, Barbara, Ian and Vicki attend the feast of Epiphany and fall under the suspicion of Archbishop Thomas Arundel, his ire stirred even more by Barbara's recitation of a tale by Chaucer, who was a favourite of the deposed King. While the fate of Richard II is unknown and his wife Isabella grieves, the travellers become further and further entwined in a history they know they cannot change even as events progress to their own deaths.

Yup, England and kings again. I suppose with a country so rich in the history of a monarchy there are bound to be heaps of opportunities for this kind of an adventure. Having them so close together, though, is a bit of a stretch. But there are always new adventures being crafted, maybe some can go between this and The Plotters to build a buffer.

The story goes the usual routes, with the travelling companions separated to divide up the story, but as with other adventures with the full(ish) cast the parts of the Doctor and Barbara are downplayed somewhat even if they are handled well by William Russell and Maureen O'Brien doing double duty with their own roles of Ian and Vicki. The Doctor and Barbara depart for Canterbury and leave Ian and Vicki to continue their own adventure at Sonning Palace; Vicki becomes a companion to the furious Queen Isabella and Ian greases the royal wheels by invoking the title bestowed on him by Richard the Lionheart: Sir Ian Chesterton of Jaffa. No-one makes too much of a fuss about the fact that the Crusades were almost 200 years in the past, though.

So lots of enemies all around, most prominent is Arundel himself who demands the TARDIS crew to recant their blasphemous ways or be send to be judged by God (ie: killed). Arundel is also on a mission to have Chaucer killed and all his works burned, including The Canturbury Tales which Barbara knows so well and has taken to read to the people. There's also the matter of the sneaky Sir Robert de Wensley who shifts his allegiances back and forth but has a real desire for Barbara, and taunts Ian with his proclamation that she will never be his. Ian, of course, doesn't care for that.

I think I personally would have enjoyed this one a lot better if it was not in among so many other historicals of the same ilk. It's not a bad story on its own - how could it be with Marc Platt writing it - and it is much more authentic in feel than The Plotters, but it's just a thematic rerun insofar as how it lands within the continuity I am putting together. That's just me, though; when Big Finish releases one of these I doubt all of fandom stops what they are doing and goes back to An Unearthly Child to start again. But there is a second volume of Companion Chronicles to come from Big Finish, as well as another series of Early Adventures with this crew, so my answer may lie there. The fact that at the end of the story the Doctor asks Vicki to find him the manual for the space-time visualizer he too from the planet Xeros in The Space Museum  allows for this tale to link directly to the next one, so whatever Big Finish do, I suspect, will place their next audios before this one somewhere.

But next, back to televised episodes.

NEXT EPISODE: THE CHASE

The Plotters

The TARDIS lands in London in November of 1605. Upon realizing where they are Barbara and Ian want to go to the Globe Theatre, but once they have gone the Doctor takes Vicki with him to the court of King James where scholars are toiling to translate the Bible. But that's not all that's going on; despite being on separate adventures both pairs find themselves being inexorably drawn along with the events of history towards the fifth of November and the infamous Gunpowder Plot.

The Plotters was published in 1996 as one of the last few of Virgin Publishing's Missing Adventures and although it reflects the historical angle of the series well, placing it here so close after a meeting with King Richard in The Crusade (and this is not me placing it here, the back cover of the book indicates where it falls in continuity) feels a bit like royal historical overload. That's not really anyone's fault, they were just looking for it to go somewhere and could have chosen better. Given which TARDIS crew Gareth Roberts chose to work with there were not a lot of options as the televised episodes of the time did not leave a lot of space to work with.

Story wise though this is a bit of a so-so tale, following the usual formula of the crew being split off and all of them coming to the same point eventually. The Doctor does what the Doctor does best in historicals and works his was without effort into the royal court, chumming up with a King James painted as indolent and lazy as Nero in The Romans but as James was rumoured to have had a taste for the company of young boys he is of course played up to be slightly effeminate (this author, as one will see in his further works, can't really resist injecting references to homosexuality in his work whether it's appropriate to the story or not). Vicki has to disguise herself as a boy once again but inadvertently draws James' attention and an attempt at a comic situation with James flirting with her is made and dragged on right to the end of the story. Further attempts at comic relief between character duos is attempted with the two bickering scholars who are tasked with translating the Bible, and a pair of shoemakers who are caught up through Ian's adventures. Script writer Robert Holmes would make this sort of double act characters one of his main plot devices in the television scripts of the 70s and 80s, so this might be something of a homage. Barbara and Ian, on the other hand, wander a London familiar to them but not familiar (shades of Dalek Invasion of Earth) and are roughed up, knocked out, separated, kidnapped, knocked out some more and dragged, literally, through the muck of London before they are reunited with the Doctor and Vicki. There's really no development of any of our regulars here beyond what has been established in previous works, and Ian and Barbara's growing relationship is not expanded upon as it has been in other episodes and novels (although there was not much of a push for that in the days of the Virgin Publishing range; they were only in three of them as it was, and this is the last one for them - and Ian never made it to the cover once!).

Aside from King James there is also the inclusion of historical figure Guy Fawkes, made famous for his plan to blow up Parliament with a heap of gunpowder. His motivation is not really made clear, just something to do with religious nonsense but that's all it usually takes, right? In the preface Roberts makes it quite clear that he's not writing a historical drama so his take on events would not be wholly accurate and advises not to use The Plotters as any reference for making ones own study on the events of November 5 1605. I have to ask, then, why bother? There's some great opportunity here to get some real historical grit and substance, but it's pretty much abandoned for two dimensional cast and some sneaking around in London of the past. Shame, really. Shame that Guy Fawkes looks like a leprechaun on the cover, too, even if the Doctor and Vicki are done well.

The same events were picked for some reason as the basis for a Doctor Who video game called The Gunpowder Plot in which the Eleventh Doctor and Amy are caught up in the same situations, at least to some extent, and even though I was not exactly thrilled with The Plotters I would take it as canon over anything of the Eleventh Doctor any day.

NEXT EPISODE: THE DOCTOR'S TALE