Mother Russia

While he was still travelling with the Doctor and Dodo, Steven went to Russia in 1812 while Napoleon's army was marching it's way to Moscow. The TARDIS put them down near a small village where they met the people and stayed with them a while - months, even - and became part of their lives, part of their families. But with the impending invasion by Napoleon's forces there was a growing sense of fear, and that WAS only heightened when something fell from the sky - a visitor from somewhere else...

Hang on a sec...

Russia. Invading army. The TARDIS crew staying a while. Shape shifting alien.

Is this Bunker Soldiers again...?

Well it's not, although a lot of the elements have been reused here, whether intentionally or not. The differences are notable as well, though; the Doctor and company are staying here by their own choice instead of being held and the TARDIS kept from them. This time they are staying with the people, not with the ruling class. And the alien menace they face is not motivated the same this time, nor has it been hanging around for a long time waiting to be awakened.

Oh wait there's another similarity though; Dodo is not really that active in this one either. I would say she has a bit more of a role in Mother Russia though, and her outlook on staying with the Russians is different with her actually enjoying the visit more. She plays the piano as well, which I find a weird thing to have laying around in a Russian peasant home, but it's not "The Ballad of the Last Chance Saloon" (direct reference to The Gunfighters is made by Steven).

The action in Mother Russia is, I find, better presented even if one might say it's because it's in an audio format. Whereas Bunker Soldiers while great in actual detail was struggling to be either a historical take or an alien sci fi tale, Mother Russia feels like it succeeds better. Maybe it's the consistency of having it all narrated in first person by Steven rather than jumping viewpoints from chapter to chapter. And this is managed even when Peter Purves is playing the Hartnell role as the Doctor for the first time - this was actually the fifth of the Companion Chronicles line and Steven had not yet been featured so his first attempt at doing his William Hartnell impression was good but yet to be refined to what it is today.

So the question is in a continuity context, can both these stories exist in the same universe or do we have to discard one (I hate the whole "Oh it's just a parallel universe" excuse)? My thought? Yes, they can. I'd place this one first having a more direct link to The Gunfighters and then allow a few more stories to fill up between this and Bunker Soldiers and assume that any references made to being in Russia again would be made in the months between the TARDIS landing in Kiev and the start of the novel. Mother Russia, in fact, doesn't need to be placed here as a retrospective by Steven at all as it does not reference him having left the TARDIS yet and could be told just a few minutes after they depart, not years later around a campfire.

Steven has more tales to tell, and next up he'll be telling three...

NEXT EPISODES: THE OLIVER HARPER TRILOGY