The Story of Extinction

Somewhere in the far future, Victoria is teaching Jamie how to read as they, with the Doctor, join a group of explorers on the planet Amyrndaa to discover what happened to the civilization that once lived there. There is evidence all around in drawings and stories of monsters which brought about the end of the world but no trace of the monsters themselves. Fellow explorer, a popular girl from Earth named Selsey is only interested as long as it gets her noticed and gains her more fame on social media, but the Doctor realizes that the threat is still very real, and the monsters may still be among them.

So it's part Doctor Who adventure, and part social media commentary is it? It was just a matter of time before these new "first world problems" of craving attention and being liked by masses made it to one of these; the series has gone after pollution already, and in future will tackle drug use and racism, so why not this monster? Jamie and Victoria do not get social media, obviously, and Selsey's frantic attempts to explain it to them and make them understand how mega important it is to her is just pure bliss; someone should let the YouTube celebrity wankers listen to this one.

But social media is not the monster in this one. There's something else out there lurking which wiped out a whole civilization and could if not stopped get to Earth and do it all over again. Even the Doctor is vulnerable to the menace once it is revealed. We're not dealing with something as conventional as an army of Daleks or Cybermen, though; the enemy is not as tangible as that nor is it going to be as easy to defeat.

The previous two Companion Chronicles adventures have been very much Victoria's story to tell, but here there is more of it to be shared with Jamie as he takes a bigger role than in The Emperor of Eternity. The Doctor as well has a lot of dialogue now, provided again by Fraser Hines' fantastic impression of his old friend Patrick Troughton, but it is still a Victoria story in the end with her speaking to a police officer at the beginning of the story following a break-in at her flat in modern times. She is still referred to as "Miss Waterfield" so she has not yet married, or maybe she's a widow now and has reverted to her old surname... but it is definitely more modern times given the narrative around that event and the unusual visitor she describes.

For now, though, Victoria's post TARDIS tales have ended. Big Finish may well have more Early Adventures and Companion Chronicles coming with Deborah Watling back in her role (which still amazes her to this day given that she was only on the show for a year and by and large her televised episodes are mostly missing) and they will be a treat to behold as always, but out there in the future she is going to be back at least three more times. Just gotta wait for me to get there, though.

NEXT EPISODE: THE DOMINATORS