The Ice Warriors

The Earth is gripped in another Ice Age, this one of its own making due to climate change; humans have effectively broken nature and are fighting a desperate battle against it. When the TARDIS brings the Doctor, Jamie and Victoria to the Britannia Ioniser base they find a scene of chaos: one of the scientists vital to the operation of the ioniser has walked away from his post and the glaciers are no longer being held off. Everyone defers to the judgement of the world central computer, treating it as a god, but when aliens with an unknown space ship are discovered within the ice it cannot cope with the dangerous options. Meanwhile, the aliens - Martians frozen for thousands of years - awaken and take Victoria hostage, and intend to take what they want to survive.

I love these aliens. These guys are just the stuff of classic nightmares: huge inhuman armoured reptilian aliens with a menacing hiss when they speak. I think a big part of their appeal comes from them being known as Ice Warriors as opposed to Martians, although they themselves do not use the phrase. In fact, the naming of them is arguably racist in a modern interpretation, but it is never brought up as such in the series, at least in the classic years. Still they don't really deserve to have their feelings

Thug

spared; they pretty much go on a terror and murder spree and Victoria as their prisoner witnesses several murders at their hands. Their leader, Varga, seems to have a slight soft spot for her though and menaces her a lot but doesn't seem like he wants to kill her... not so for his subordinate Zondal, though. They realize early on that they have physical strength and intimidation as an advantage over the humans, but their motive is basically fear that the humans will attempt to capture them and keep them from returning to Mars. There are five Ice Warriors in the story, only two of them - Varga and Zondal - speak, and the other three are more thug-like in design and say nothing, so it's clear there is some kind of caste system on Mars.

Seems there is one on Earth as well, if the base staff are anything to go by. There's no real year given but it looks to be far future when that lovely weather control system from The Moonbase is either defunct or just useless otherwise the Ice Age would have been prevented. Human society has progressed to a state where everyone has handed their free will over to a computer to make their decisions for them, but there are a few like the deserted scientist Penley who break from the system to live as individuals. I wouldn't go so far, though, as to say the people are complete robots nor have they been enslaved as such; they chose to let the computer think for them and live logically (which makes me think this society has its roots in the logicians in Tomb of the Cybermen) and they see the people outside the system as savages. Clent, the leader of the base, is very much a political leader, and he depends on order and structure to get the job done. Penley's defection makes him rely on Miss Garrett more, although she's pretty sycophantic and is really no more a free thinker than he is. The Doctor obviously doesn't go over well with these people at first; he's seen as a subversive although they have to admit that his intelligence makes him an incredible asset.

The Doctor is the only one, though, who is successful in dealing with the Ice Warriors - without him there the whole ioniser operation would have been destroyed and the ice would have moved on. He uses proper science to identify a vulnerability in the Martians based on their home planet's atmosphere and further figures that their bodies have a high fluid content which makes them vulnerable to their own sonic weapons. Penley himself realizes that they would also be susceptible to intense heat and humidity, a vulnerability which will plague the Ice Warriors throughout their appearances in the series regardless of the media.

The first time I ever saw this was at a fan event in the early 90s; at the time episodes 1, 4, 5 and 6 had only just been recovered and some pretty grainy fan copies were circulating and I watched as best I could, and enjoyed them later when I got my own copies. I had already read the novelization so I was ready for the plot elements I missed but there were a lot of visual treats to delight in, like the complexity of some of the sets, and the vastness of the ice passages where Turoc pursues Victoria. And then there's the customized opening titles with high fluting siren song and sounds of wind blowing over a montage of frozen wasteland shots, and the episodes simply titled as ONE, FOUR, FIVE and SIX. Brilliant visuals. It came out on a VHS with the missing TWO and THREE merged together with soundtrack and telesnaps but when it arrived on DVD the missing episodes had been reconstructed in fantastic simple yet effective animation so it could be enjoyed as true to the original as possible.

So with the season starting with a return of the Cybermen and then introducing the Yeti and the Ice Warriors, the season is truly earning its mantle of "the monster year". But just as it gets going, it takes a bit of a turn, but before going there I have a couple books to work into the project.

NEXT EPISODE: DREAMS OF EMPIRE

The Abominable Snowmen

The TARDIS brings the Doctor, Jamie and Victoria to the Det-Sen monastery in Tibet, and the Doctor takes this as an opportunity to return their holy ghanta, which he took with him on a previous visit. The monks, however, are not as welcoming as they once were; the monastery is being harassed by a pack of Yeti - massive furry creatures normally shy and reserved who have turned hostile. Also at the monaster
y in the explorer Travers, who is looking for proof of the Yeti's existence, and his initial suspicion of the Doctor and company gives way to the truth, that they are all under seige. The Doctor's investigations lead him to discover that the Yeti are not creatures of flesh and blood but furry robots under the control of a non-corporeal entity, and it is looking for a way to gain a physical foothold on Earth...

The Abominable Snowmen is another epic second Doctor adventure which is missing five of its six parts, meaning it's another hopscotch between audio and video to enjoy this one. It's true that something is better than nothing, and with at least one episode to see one can see the Yeti and the full cast of characters and imagine the rest. It's another large cast, made up mostly of the monks of Det-Sen in their various castes (some are warriors) which makes for some fun battle scenes with the Yeti when they attack. Or, at least, it sounds like it. The Target novelization gives some pretty good description of what goes on in the story - I remember a long time ago around the same time I got my Tomb of the Cybermen novel I saw this one on the shelf at a Coles in downtown Toronto but didn't kick up enough fuss to get my parents to buy it
for me.

This is, however, the start of the Doctor's tussles with what will be known as The Great Intelligence (it must have named itself). As far as enemies go... well it's got an impressive army in the Yeti even if they're simple robots and not thinking creatures. I've never bought into the disembodied intelligence enemy, though; it doesn't always work and comes as a bit of a cop-out really, at least as far as I feel. But hey an enemy with no physical form is really budget friendly
for design departments so why not... it will be back again in the same season and then again in the series' fiftieth anniversary year, as well as in a spin off somewhere in between. The Yeti themselves were supposed to become a monster to rival the popularity of the Daleks and Cybermen and they succeeded enough to be considered for a return a few seasons later, although it didn't happen. The biggest disappointment of modern times where the Yeti are concerned is that they came *this* close to being an action figure in the Character Options line but for some reason the egomaniac in charge of the line decided he knew better and advised against it. Did the Yeti get a proper shake? Possibly not, but since they were tied to the Great Intelligence they wouldn't be able to come back on their own.

The prototype. Not meant to be.

Poor Victoria though... orphaned by the Daleks, menaced by the Cybermen and then effectively possessed by the Great Intelligence... she's not really having an easy time of it with the Doctor and Jamie, is she? Still she is holding up pretty well despite her relatively sheltered life before they came along. Jamie is still all brave and everything he should be - whether he's showing off for Victoria or not. He does try to look all impervious to the cold of the Himalayas, telling her that he's a Highlander and can take it, until he admits he needs a jacket. Not pants though, his kilt is working just fine for him.

But despite the victory, the Great Intelligence is not totally defeated and is still out there somewhere waiting for a second attempt to invade Earth...


NEXT EPISODE; THE ICE WARRIORS

The Tomb of the Cybermen

Now without any family at all, Victoria attempts to come to grips with the prospect of travelling with the Doctor and Jamie on board the TARDIS. Her first landing, however, brings the ship to the planet Telos - the final resting place of the Cybermen. Victoria doesn't know what a Cyberman is but Jamie and the Doctor do, and they are not keen on anyone looking to find the monsters. The TARDIS crew join the expedition and venture into the tombs of the Cybermen where not only do they find the monsters are not extinct, but there's a traitor in the group who wants to resurrect them for his own means.

I have some great memories of this one, and not like the people who saw it on TV back in 1967; all four episodes of Tomb were missing and presumed lost so the Target novel was my first real experience with the tale and I at the time did not know what a Cyberman was (nor did I realize they had the wrong version on the cover). I read it as any young fan would and enjoyed it and didn't think to wonder if I would ever see it, but one day in 1991 I was visiting with a friend and another friend called us up and told us in shaky tones that an insert in his Doctor Who Magazine read that all four episodes had been found in Hong Kong and were back in the BBC's hands. About two months later we got to see it on a UK VHS, making the total number of complete second Doctor adventures now five and shedding some more light on that mysterious era we had mostly only heard or read about.

Tomb has this very epic feel about it with a distinct soundtrack evoking the tension and mystery of The Outer Limits. And everything about the adventure feels big, like the inside of the TARDIS has a funny echo which makes it sound cavernous... the location footage makes the planet Telos look like a vast wasteland, and the sets for the tombs themselves are vast and impressive. Even the cast of characters is much larger than the usual adventure would require; aside from the Doctor, Jamie and Victoria there is the expedition of six people plus the additional hired hands who flew them to the planet, and of course when the Cybermen are involved, you know that number is going to start to go down. But the Cybermen themselves are not responsible for the majority of the deaths, and equal amounts can be blamed on carelessness and the murderous intentions of a megalomaniac and his cronies.

The thing that got me the most about the Cybermen though was the fact that they didn't do a heck of a lot... we don't see them until almost the end of episode two and then they stand around a lot listening to the CyberController menacing the humans who have revived them. The Controller is a new member of the Cyberman ranks, distinguished from his fellows by his lack of chest unit but his taller status accentuated by a more domed head, and he is far more verbal. He does articulate something very important, though; that they have detailed records of the Doctor now, much like the Daleks, so he has once again been noticed and gained another enemy.

There's this other bit about the Doctor as well which isn't ever touched on again in the classic era of the televised series; while having a talk with Victoria he alludes to his family, and the inference is that they are all dead.

Tomb is not without its faults of course but they are limited to visual effects, like the CyberController breaking open a hatch obviously made of cardboard and tin foil, tears in some of the Cyberman costumes, and some poorly executed press slams in physical fights with the Cybermen. Otherwise, though, it's about as perfect as a Doctor Who can get with a wonderfully deluded villain and his misguided notions of siding with the Cybermen for the conquest of Earth, and the Doctor telling him off brilliantly. And a very promising start for young Victoria Waterfield as a new companion.

NEXT EPISODE: THE ABOMINABLE SNOWMEN

The Forbidden Time

A voice has been heard all over Earth stating that there has been a trespass on the current section of time, and there will be dire consequences for doing so. Polly Wright goes before the media to tell of a time when she first heard this same voice, a time when she was travelling with the Doctor, Ben and Jamie, and the TARDIS landed in an eerily deserted place where spindly legged monsters called the Vist roamed and terrorized. Aided with a recording of Jamie McCrimmon, Polly tells the world of this menace and what it means to Earth in the present day.

This is my kind of Companion Chronicle. Personally I just prefer them to be told well after the fact, showing that there is life after the TARDIS for all the Doctor's friends, not just the ones who get spin-off series treatment. I thoroughly enjoyed hearing William Russell as Ian recounting all those unseen past adventures from his current place in time, and now Polly gets her shot at it. The year in unclear; it was released in 2011 so it may have been intended to be a contemporary tale so Polly would be a much older woman now - she is not with Ben (more on that to come) although she does see him, and she looks back fondly on Jamie as a kid brother to both of them. She has not seen the Doctor again although if it were truly 2011 she would have seen evidence of him as described in the new television series being shown at the time. She doesn't say if she is married or what she is doing or did for work after she left the TARDIS, but she looks back on her travels very fondly and still considers the Doctor and Jamie to be two of her best friends, even if she has no idea where they are now.

At times the narrative seems a little too storytelling-ish for what is some big media circus, especially the forced feeling of the cliffhanger of episode 1. And really what was Polly doing at the time where she could so easily command this kind of an audience? I don't think this would cut it with the press of today, especially apeing voices of her friends and playing back select clips of Jamie (played again by Fraser Hines) when it suited her. The extra clips, however, are a clever way to show the evil of the Vist from more than one angle as the crew are split up and hunted across the desolate grey dimension. Odds are in this scenario Polly got the attention of the media just by saying she knew the Doctor.

So, Ben and Polly. I suppose it was just naive thinking that they would end up together after leaving the TARDIS as Ian and Barbara did, although a lot of non-canon additional material provides different accounts of their life after July 20, 1966. The popular one is Ben proposing to Polly and her marrying him, but the marriage failing eventually and them going their separate ways. If that were to be taken as gospel, then The Forbidden Time is told after they have parted ways. That would certainly fit the bill, with Polly's recollections of Ben, "My sailor" as she calls him, sounding quite wistful like she misses him terribly. The other expanded universe material goes on to state that they eventually reconciled, which goes well with their fate as revealed in a more canon way; in an episode of The Sarah Jane Adventures they get a mention as being together running an orphanage in India, which sounds like a bit of a quick turnaround of fates. But SJA is directly linked to canon Who and gets the final say, so we're going to have to accept that the two sixties twentysomethings did eventually make a go of it.

Stranger things have happened.

NEXT EPISODE: THE TOMB OF THE CYBERMEN

Resistance

Polly looks back on her time in the TARDIS to a time when the ship landed in World War II France. Separated from Ben and Jamie and running from the Germans. the Doctor and Polly fall in with a downed British pilot on the run. With their new ally the Doctor and Polly enter a dangerous world of faked identities, checkpoints and betrayal, all the time knowing that there is no way to change anything around them, but their own personal fates hang in the balance.

It's back to the historical dramas again with this one, which was actually the very first Companion Chronicle audio that Anneke Wills actually did. The pure historicals still work well for this crew, even if it's all being told from Polly's perspective and her imitations of her companions. There's not exactly a sense of this being told from sometime after Polly has left the TARDIS, but it is certainly being told in hindsight which would lend itself to that idea. Otherwise this could be slipped into the continuity right after The Macra Terror and have all the recent Early Years tales come after it. There's a slight hitch with Jamie needing a train explained to him although it was done in The Mouthless Dead but otherwise there's no contradiction of anything Big Finish have laboured to create in their own expanded universe range.

To go back to a "two hander" again after everything else feels like cutting back to bare bones and simplifying things, but given it's just shy of an hour long it feels right to just be told by one person, lest the rest be left by the wayside with little to say. And Polly has some personal stake in this one; it's 1944 and she (and Ben) would be only two years old back in England, unaware of the horrors of the war. But as Ben met his father in The Mouthless Dead, here Polly begins to suspect that the pilot they encounter may be her own uncle who never came back from the war, and maybe, just maybe, she can save him. The Doctor doesn't need to give her the talk as he did with Barbara, though; events move along quickly and Polly realizes that her desire to save this man is fruitless, but there is still the very real danger of the situation itself to contend with as they sneak across France (one can almost hear the theme of 'Allo 'Allo in there despite the lack of lighter moments).

Polly still has one more tale to tell before we leave her and continue with the Doctor...

NEXT EPISODE: THE FORBIDDEN TIME

The Evil of the Daleks

Right from parting ways with Ben and Polly the Doctor and Jamie realize that the TARDIS has been stolen from Gatwick airport. Their search across London for the ship leads them to an antique dealers run by a man named Waterfield, but this is all an elaborate trap which flings them back in time into a sinister plot by the Daleks. Waterfield's daughter, Victoria, is being held captive to ensure his co-operation, but she is also a subject for a Dalek experiment; Jamie is to be coerced into rescuing her and his actions are to be analysed in an attempt to give the Daleks insight into why they fail against human beings, and then give them an edge for future conquests.

The Daleks here show a bit more imagination than we were led to believe they could, although how much of this trap is theirs of that of Waterfield's associate Maxtible remains to be seen. Waterfield doesn't want anything to do with the Dalek plan; his time travel experiments with Maxtible drew the aliens to their house and gave them the foothold they needed on Earth, but how they knew where to find the Doctor had to be more than a lucky guess. They also have images of the Doctor and Jamie, which is interesting given that Jamie has not met them yet. The project is pretty far-reaching by their standards.

The Doctor is smart enough to know he can't just up and defy the Daleks with the odds stacked against him but his apparent co-operation makes Jamie doubt him and leads to their first major blow up. Jamie's own heroic nature born of his upbringing in a civil war compels him to try and rescue Victoria as she is as far as he can see an innocent trapped in this evil plot. And innocent she is; she doesn't understand what is going on at all, being taken from her father and menaced by the Daleks. She has one friend in this whole scary terrible world: the muscular Turkish wrestler Kemel who has a heart of gold. Pity Kemel isn't very bright and is easily convinced he must fight Jamie.

There's a lot more about Dalek heirarchy revealed in this one: the Doctor comes face to face with the Emperor of the Daleks, something he suspected was out there for some time. The Emperor has his own inner retinue of guards with distinct black domes (no sign of the black Dalek Supreme we have seen before) and sits like a spider in a web of data cables somewhere in the main city on Skaro; it's never really put out as such but I like to think he's just awash in the data streams from all the Dalek operations across the universe as they come in. I can't help but wonder, as most others do, what makes one Dalek the Emperor and the others the subjects - exactly what is inside? There was the opportunity to go there and see what was what in the novelization by John Peel, but what a surprise, he took it nowhere and gave once more a passable account of the story to appease Terry Nation's ghost since he didn't like the story, much like he didn't enjoy Power of the Daleks. This was actually intended to be the last time the Daleks were used in Doctor Who and with dollar signs in his eyes Terry Nation was all set to run off to America and make a full series about the Daleks there, but somewhere along the lines that didn't pan out but it would be a while before they were back.

The fiery conclusion, though, leaves Victoria an orphan on an alien world. But the TARDIS has a vacancy, and the Doctor and Jamie find themselves with a few friend to travel with.

But before the adventures resume for the new three-strong crew, a look back to Polly and where she is after leaving the TARDIS. A bit of time has passed and she remembers some adventures we did not see...

NEXT EPISODE: RESISTANCE

The Faceless Ones

The TARDIS materializes on the runway at Gatwick airport, forcing an arriving plane to abort its landing. The Doctor, Jamie, Polly and Ben scatter to avoid being caught by the police and Polly witnesses a man murdered with an alien weapon. There is an alien presence at work at Gatwick, using the upstart discount airline Chameleon Tours as a front, and first Polly then Ben disappear in the course of the Doctor's investigations. The Doctor and Jamie find themselves running out of allies as the aliens abduct and replace more people around them, and it becomes evident that they are facing a stealthy invasion by a cunning new foe.

The new baddies are referred to as Chameleons by the Doctor but they do not refer to themselves as such at all; their ability to shape shift and copy people is not actually a natural ability but something their science has created as a means of survival. They can't actually breathe Earth's atmosphere and are in danger of suffocating when in their raw state. The raw state itself is something only glimpsed on screen for reasons explained below. But they are pretty clever, taking advantage of the youthful desire to travel as a means to ensnare hapless young people. Polly is even taken by them and her duplicate version claims to be named Michelle Lueppi, something which author Gary Russell picked up on in his novel Invasion of the Cat People when Polly is stopped in the street by a stranger who believes her name is Michelle.

Aside from the isolated city of Atlanis in 1970 this is the first time the TARDIS touches down in modern contemporary times with Patrick Troughton as the lead role. Gatwick in 1966 would have been a bustling centre of activity and shooting there would be a whole new look for the series, as its last foray onto the streets for location work before this was in The War Machines. Location work outside of a quarry or field is a bit of a rarity for the series and when it can be done it's refreshing to see it done properly. Mind you I only have visuals for episodes 1 and 3 to go by, the others are still missing.

Yes, we're still in those dark ages where a lot of material is missing and unfortunately that will still be the case for a while to come. This season is hardest hit with only 7 of 35 episodes in the BBC archives, despite the animation treatment given to Power of the Daleks and The Moonbase. With The Faceless Ones it was a bit of a back and forth for me between the audio CD and the existing episodes on the Lost in Time DVD, and there was enough visual material to give an idea of what was missing - except for the Chameleons that is, we only get a glimpse at the end of episode 1. There's also this quick shot of the impostor Captain Blade injecting a Chameleon arm with a syringe and the visual that is offered looks like the arm is made of thick scales like an alligator.

And this is the end for Polly and Ben. When they realize that they have landed up right back on the
same day they left London with the Doctor they are off like a shot. It's not like they took off with him because they hated their lives; in fact Ben is facing some serious AWOL charges if he doesn't get back the same day he departs. The novelization of the episode, mind you, has Polly all excited to be back to the swinging sixties and then she realizes that it might sound hurtful and apologizes. The Doctor, however,  understands and parts ways with them sadly, carrying on his adventures with Jamie at his side. This is often referred to as the busiest day for the Doctor with the defeat of the Chameleons coming mere hours after the defeat of the War Machines, but there's no sign of the failed invasion attempt. In fact there is at least a day passed between the demise of WOTAN and the Doctor departing with Ben and Polly, so order would have been restored. No mention of it in any of the papers we see here and there though (that would have been some good Easter eggin).

There's no time to rest, though, because the Doctor's day just got busier. It seems that someone had stolen the TARDIS...

NEXT EPISODE: THE EVIL OF THE DALEKS

The Mouthless Dead

The TARDIS makes a rough landing and is damaged as a result. While the ship attempts to repair itself the Doctor, Polly, Ben and Jamie emerge onto a train station platform in the winter of 1920. The signalman on station assumes that the travellers are there to get a closer look at the train carrying the Unknown Warrior as it passes through town, but the longer they stay the more they realize that they do not appear to be alone, with silent shadowy figures gathering around the station for some purpose of their own.

This was one of four new Companion Chronicles released in a box
set of second Doctor themed titles, but the formula is slightly different with a full cast as opposed to the usual two - three max - performers. This one is definitely a Jamie perspective though, as he sees things like trains and more modern things with a sense of wonder and in some cases apprehension. Fraser Hines does his usual double duty and really nails the Doctor's voice this time (sometimes you can hear him slip a little bit in other audios) in addition to tweaking his own to sound like a youthful Jamie. Narration duties pass over to Anneke Wills as Polly here and there, but Elliot Chapman is back as Ben to round out the cast. The ensemble cast makes it feel like another Early Adventure but the format of narration and a shorter story (two episodes instead of four) is definitely Companion Chronicles material.

There's a bit more companion bonding here than in other places, most notably with Ben and Jamie this time as they realize that their own life experiences as soldiers gives them more in common than they thought, despite the difference in their temporal backgrounds. Polly is given a female friend to relate to - a girl named Francis who lost her fiancee at the Battle of the Somme and hopes, against hope, that the Unknown Warrior may actually be him. And then there are spots where the three of them get to talk together and it's just... well it's what the TV series rarely achieved given how Jamie was chucked into the mix so suddenly; in fact it seemed that the only way Ben or Jamie could really develop was to have one of them out of the room so no-one had to split up lines for them. The care Big Finish like to take with their scripts doesn't leave anyone standing around corpsing (as far as one can corpse on audio but Janet Fielding would no doubt have an opinion about that).

Chapman, Wills, Hines

This is, though, the last of the Big Finish audios with this newly invigorated team from this 60s era. For now. The fourth series of Early Adventures is due for release in September 2017 by which point, though, I will be getting close to the end of the second Doctor's adventures, so they will have to wait. So far there are no cast listings but as director Lisa Bowerman has said, they intend to employ Elliot "ruthlessly" so odds are this team is going to have more days together ahead of them.


NEXT EPISODE: THE FACELESS ONES

The Forsaken

It's 1942, and the Japanese are invading Singapore. The British are resisting and on an island near the colony the last remnants of a British force are awaiting evacuation. The TARDIS lands in a deserted village and the travelers are taken to await evacuation with the survivors, but it becomes clear eventually that there is some other unearthly presence on the island on a killing spree. The stakes are high as always but for Ben they are slightly more so, as he discovers they are sharing the island with a certain Private James Jackson, and if he doesn't make it out alive, there will never be a Ben Jackson.

A few entries back I bemoaned the lack of Ben Jackson related tales; Big Finish have given us Polly lore up the wazoo, which is not surprising because up until now Anneke Wills has been the main "voice" of this era of the series when it came to narration and perspective. But now that Elliot Chapman has joined the cast in this respect, Ben can be represented just the same. While it is not a deep dive into some hidden tragedy in Ben's life - we already know that his father died of a heart attack, and the novelization of The Highlanders mentioned how his father taught him how to swim so their relationship was not complicated - it's still something of a balancing act for him to have some personal stakes for a change. Ben is all too aware of how time travel works, and it's in his best interests to make sure his father survives, but it doesn't really go anywhere beyond that with a real credible threat to Ben's future, so it just seems a bit... selfish?

How about our alien threat? It looks like Death, possibly unintentionally, but its power comes from the fear it creates in its victims, and it has some pretty fearsome claws it make sure it finishes the job properly. The TARDIS travellers, though, are used to this sort of thing and eventually can resist it; the Doctor merely stares it down and tells it off, prompting a stunned reply of "...what?" from it, Jamie and Ben intend to physically hunt it down and sort it out, and Polly, when cornered by it, goes the other way and gets angry and fights it off herself. I wouldn't call it the most effective alien they have ever come across, even if it does have all the physical traits one would expect, complete with heavy breathing like an obscene phone call. Reminds me a bit of something I saw on a Wonder Woman episode called a Zardour.

So with a so-so monster presence and some lost opportunities for more character fun with Ben, The Forsaken isn't exactly a "meh" audio, just not as punchy and exciting as it could have been. I would however make sure to point out that it was still a fun adventure for the TARDIS regulars, and their relatively short-lived supporting cast, and the incidental music used for transition between scenes was very effective, sounding suspenseful and exotic all at the same time.

This TARDIS crew have one more outing before the end of their days together...

NEXT EPISODE: THE MOUTHLESS DEAD

The Yes Men

In an attempt to return Polly and Ben to 1966 the Doctor manages to send the TARDIS into the far future to New Houston, a planet he has visited before. Taking advantage of this luck, the Doctor sets out to visit an old friend only to find that she had been murdered and the crime has been covered up. The well ordered society mourns its loss of a prominent citizen with a public funeral procession but the robotic servants carry on in their normal pattern of life. If robots could be said to have a life. But these robots, the Yes Men as Ben calls them, not only have a life, but an agenda.

So here we have something I have been waiting for a long time: a full cast audio from the Troughton era with Elliot Chapman cast as able seaman Ben Jackson. It's been fun to enjoy Fraser Hines doubling as Jamie and the Doctor in the Big Finish audios but now to have a dead ringer for Ben on the cast is just a sheer joy to behold; I couldn't help but gasp "Holy crap that's BEN!" when I heard him speak. With Ben successfully brought back to the family, that leaves just a few companions left who have not featured in a Big Finish story (Dodo, Harry Sullivan and Kamelion are all who are left out - Sarah Jane Smith even has her own audio series ahead). I have commented before how the expanded universe of Doctor Who (mainly through Big Finish) has really added a lot to the early second Doctor era, given how many huge gaps there are in the television archives, and having the full crew together for an adventure on audio really is the icing on the cake. (It is also worth noting in this line of thought that the current Doctor, Peter Capaldi, has announced his departure from the TV series at the end of 2017 and the great cry among fans is not "Please don't go!" but "Please Big Finish do right by him on audio!")

The setting of this one is interesting on a few levels. First I spot the name of the planet - New Houston. The new TV series had a couple episodes set on New Earth far far in the future, but the novel Ten Little Aliens was also set in a time period where future Earth colonies were named after old Earth countries and cities. No precise dates are given but it could all be in the same time period. The notion that the Doctor had been there previously in his earlier incarnation with Dodo is a fun one as well, and this gives him the first opportunity to explain his regeneration to a more casual acquaintance outside the TARDIS crew. And to further nail down the actual time period, the events surrounding the Doctor's previous visit are paralleled in a Bernice Summerfield spin off audio, The Tub Full of Cats. (Spin off overlap is going to become a real thing by the time I reach the new series episodes)

And then there are the robots as well. Science fiction loves a society with robots all around, especially when the robots don't seem to have the best of intentions towards the people they serve. These ones are not anything seen before anywhere else in the series, their closest equivalent being the obsequious Voc class robots from The Robots of Death or the ones from The Masters of Luxor. The people of New Houston treat the robots with a certain amount of disdain - the malicious Harriet Quilp is no exception and proves just how she sees them by bashing one with her walking stick to prove their harmlessness to Ben and Jamie. With treatment like that, it's no wonder things don't exactly go well.

As the first of the second Doctor's Early Adventures stories, The Yes Men is a great start to this portion of their range. The next series with the second Doctor and company is set to be released in September of 2017 which unfortunately will be too late to be part of my adventure here, but if it's anything like this... it's going to be worth the wait.

NEXT EPISODE: THE FORSAKEN