The Oliver Harper Trilogy

The Perpetual Bond

It's London in the 1960s, and as the world emerges from under the still recent clouds cast by the War, commerce carries on. There's money to be made out there, people are getting rich on the dividends. In among the bowler-hatted gentlemen is one Oliver Harper, a man with a secret who has stumbled upon another: there are aliens running the stock exchange! Nobody is going to believe him if he tries to tell them, he's got to run, he's got to get away before the police come for him. What he needs is a fast escape. And someone who'll believe him. And then along come the Doctor and Steven.

The start of an interesting trilogy with a new companion, Perpetual Bond picks up in the time after the finale of The Dalek Master Plan. Sara Kingdom is dead. Katarina is dead. Bret Vyon is dead. The loss of so many friends is weighing heavily on Steven, and he is realizing that everyone who meets the Doctor is really only living on borrowed time. Foiling an alien invasion and helping Oliver is just what he needs - until he realizes that the Doctor isn't exactly eager to take on this fight. The letter of the law is on the aliens' side and what they are doing is not illegal, so it's up to Steven and Oliver to figure this one out.

I have but one minor complaint about the continuity here; Steven refers to having been in London recently but is referring to the events of The Suffering. Since Perpetual Bond was written the Early Adventures range was started which saw Steven in London again in An Ordinary Life not to mention a very brief stint in episode 7 of The Daleks Master Plan which came after. Small quibble, I know; maybe he was just relating the closest visit to Oliver as not to confuse him too much.

It's a bit of a change from the usual dynamic in the TARDIS; with the exception of The Massacre of St Bartholomew's Eve there has always been a female presence in the companion ranks, so to add another male to the roster is a departure indeed. Big Finish are not afraid to wade into the waters of creating their own companions, though; Oliver is just one of many they will introduce into the series but as this continuity blog runs he would appear to be the first. He fits the bill alright: action oriented, young, and has a bit of a backstory but unlike certain angles of the new TV series it's not going to be all about him. He's also a bit of a period character given that he's from the same London as Barbara and Ian, but given the era of the series this is set in he's very much a modern man even if Steven sees him as something of a primitive from his point of view. Tom Allen provides the voice for Oliver and he is very much of his time with a lot of "jolly" this and "old boy" that - sounds quite natural coming from him. He keeps his cool in some strange circumstances and is not at all skeptical about what he sees - good companion material for sure.

Does it make sense to add a new companion right now? Yes, I think it does. Oliver's presence should be seamless as there is a discernible gap between Dalek Master Plan and Massacre, so realistically the space could get filled up with a lot of adventures with the Doctor, Steven and Oliver... just the guys. And although Peter Purves is telling this story from a past perspective, with additional dialogue in his Hartnell impression, there's no sense of this being from his post-TARDIS life so it can be enjoyed right where it is meant to be. As introductory stories go, Oliver Harper is off to a pretty good start...

The Cold Equations

It's his first trip in the TARDIS and Oliver is close to death. The time machine has landed on a space station in the future where aliens are salvaging the ruins of an abandoned planet below. But in space accidents happen and when one does, it proves to be almost the end for Oliver's days on board the TARDIS before they even get started. And to make matters worse, he, along with the Doctor and Steven, is going to die a criminal, their names in a database listing crimes they have yet to commit, and among them, Oliver fears, is the secret he ran from in London.

The story of Oliver's time in the TARDIS continues in a kind of jigsaw puzzle sort of way with the segments of the story being told out of order. The effect is a good one and it's been used before, with the story segments coming closer and closer together until finally events do run in a linear fashion at the climax. There are mysteries to be resolved - the name of the planet over which the space station is oribiting is a big one, and Oliver's secret finally comes to light as Steven presses him to see what he did to get on a criminal roster in the future.

But while Oliver gets a bit more development in his role as companion, Steven really gets a chance to remind us all that he is a space pilot and uses his knowledge of physics to survive the ensuing chaos that comes. This makes Cold Equations a bit of a heavy technical piece for Peter Purves to recite, but he performs marvellously, and there's never for one second a sense that he doesn't actually know what he is talking about.

The First Wave

Knowing that they have a criminal past still very much in their personal futures, the Doctor takes Steven and Oliver into the past to confront their destiny on a planetoid called Grace Alone. Oliver is frightened, feeling the inevitability of his situation crushing in on him. Steven is angry that the Doctor brought them there; he still thinks the Doctor can avoid this and change the past. The Doctor knows this can't be the case though and presses on to make sense of all of this - and discovers an alien presence.

The trilogy ends here with the appearance of the Vardans, a race of being made of energy who can travel along any wavelength. They have detected the radio transmissions beaming from Earth and have come to investigate, and accidentally killed everyone on the planetoid. This is their first appearance in series chronology this way but this race was first introduced in 1977 in The Invasion of Time. Plugging them into the series so much earlier than their first broadcast appearance might seem like a risk, but the events on Grace Alone do not impact those in the future of the series at all; the Doctor would have knowledge of the Vardans next time he meets them but would not make reference to the events here. Simple, I guess.

Oliver's adventures in the TARDIS end here, tragically, adding one more body to the trail behind Steven and the Doctor. Steven does not lose his tempter just yet - the death of Anne Chaplet is still ahead of them as the catalyst for the rift which will open between them. Oliver's end, though, is his own choice and not at any prodding from the Doctor; Oliver knows that he can't go back where he came from and his fate seems sealed so he makes what he feels is the noble choice and saves his new friends.

How does this addition of a new companion impact continuity overall? It doesn't, not in any real sense; these stories do not contradict anything that was done on the TV series, nor do they create any events which would impact the other episodes around them. No need for any of the handy alternative universe cop-outs then. Another one scored for Big Finish, then.

NEXT EPISODE: THE RETURN OF THE ROCKET MEN