The Founding Fathers

With Sida at his side, Steven Taylor returns to the city after years in his self imposed exile. He doesn't want to be here, he doesn't feel he belongs here anymore, but he has to come back. When the Doctor was here before the Elders drained his mind and made a copy, and the copy is still there. The copy of the Doctor wants to stand for election and rule the planet, but Steven knows this can't happen. Steven tells of a time when the Doctor, Vicki and himself were locked out of the TARDIS in 1762 and had to enlist the help of Benjamin Franklin himself. But this tale is not just a bedtime story; it is a warning about the perils of trying to get involved where one doesn't belong in history.

Steven is once again speaking in parables as he did previously, although the tale gets split a bit between his recollections and those of the copy of the Doctor's mind in it's jar. It's an interesting bit to return to; I had almost forgotten about the copy myself and I only listened to the audio of The Savages recently, so for an author to pluck that out of memory and make it a plot point is quite something. The copy is aware that it is not the Doctor, but still speaks to Steven as if it were, and having all the Doctor's memories it can recall everything that the Doctor has ever done, including accidentally lock the TARDIS doors with the key still inside.

Clever that; it's the old formula of being separated from the ship again which was the driving device of so many of season one's plots. Benjamin Franklin is an interesting choice of an ally for this one; I'm no history buff so his presence in London in 1762 was an interesting factoid, and the cover along with his big claim to fame is a bit of a no-brainer as to how he can help the Doctor. But Franklin isn't alone, he's being shadowed by a mystery female benefactor who the Doctor and Steven can only surmise is another time traveler with an agenda of her own.

Vicki is in this one, although she's not given much in the way of anything. Sure she's someone for Steven to talk to while separated from the Doctor in London but otherwise she's not used very much. It's been established already with Big Finish that there is a gap where the Doctor and Steven traveled with Oliver, so why not another adventure with just the Doctor and Steven to fill that part out a bit more? It's not like Vicki is being overlooked at all by the series; she's been played by Maureen O'Brien so many times now in other audios that her number of stories is double that of her televised episodes alone (more if you count the novels). If she's not going to be used properly, why do it at all?

The Founding Fathers is one of the more recent Companion Chronicles released; the line took a bit of a rest and returned not as a monthly series but a box set of four adventures in the first volume of the first Doctor along with The Sleeping Blood, The Unwinding World and the next adventure. I don't know if it has been spotted elsewhere but the new Companion Chronicles feel a lot more clever this way, the writing a bit edgier almost as if there are some tips being taken from some of the better episodes of the new television series. But despite that iffy kind of inspiration (if that is indeed what's going on) the Companion Chronicles range still delivers the goods.

NEXT EPISODE: THE LOCKED ROOM