Amorality Tale

When Sarah spots a picture of the Doctor shaking hands with a notorious gangster in a 1952 newspaper clipping she is naturally curious, and so is the Doctor as he doesn't remember the event. The pair take the TARDIS back in time and go undercover in the weeks leading up to the Great Smog that choked London and killed thousands in December of 1952; the Doctor as a watchmaker and Sarah as first a barmaid and then as a member of staff for gangster Tommy Ramsey. The Doctor realizes early on that he is not going to be able to stop what is coming; this is history like any other and he cannot intervene to save anyone. But there is more going on, with the alien race known as the Xhinn lurking in the background pushing events along.

Doctor Who often goes to this place where the Doctor knows that history is set in stone and he's not able to help no matter how painful that realization is, but there's always the first time for the companion - this time it's Sarah - who wants to try. The inevitability of  the deaths of all the people in the streets is horrifying enough for Sarah, but the culture shock is something else entirely, mostly the sexism she witnesses through the attitudes of Tommy and his cronies. Consider as well that Sarah is twenty three years old, so she would have been one year old when all this went on although she was born in Liverpool and her family were safe miles away; this wouldn't even really be history to her being so close to her own time.

The subplot of alien involvement behind a disaster is nothing new either, although in this case the Xhinn aren't really causing the bigger problem, but they are creating a zombie army of undead policemen to carry out their work and campaign of terror. The Xhinn aren't especially malevolent, they just want what they want and their moral compass doesn't really cover the rights and wrongs of what they are doing to the people of London to achieve their plans. They even go so far as to recognize the contribution the Doctor could make if he would only side with them.

This notion of going undercover as a watchmaker is something new for the third Doctor; this kind of subterfuge is more akin to his later selves. The Doctor is becoming a bit more introspective this time; the revisionists want to peg it to his approaching regeneration even though it's not ominously foreshadowed as it has been before and will be again. But Sarah observes that the Doctor only just escaped death on Peladon so he had been taking things differently since then. Exactly which escape from death is not explained - either the threat of execution by Azaxyr, escaping the security system traps on the refinery or the almost beating death by Ettis - and it's not as if he hasn't gotten away from death before, but he's being more cautious about things. This lingering in the background and observing is a new tactic for him. This plot would only work with Sarah at his side though; she's more adept to this kind of investigation than Jo was. Spy stuff vs journalist stuff.... there is a difference.

My first kick at this one was in actual print; I remember only too well reading this one on a stationary bike at the gym years and years ago. This time I didn't have the kind of time to invest in sitting and just reading - life's too busy right now - so I chose to take advantage of the audiobook version read by Dan Starkey, who doesn't do a bad version of Pertwee at all when it comes to his dialogue. I hit play and carried on with my minor league household tasks. I wish there were more of the BBC Books done this way though - sitting and reading isn't a luxury I often have, and when I go driving a long way on my own I'd prefer an audiobook over the radio. An adventure within an adventure. The next one up is not on audio though, so back to my reading chair I go.

NEXT EPISODE: ISLAND OF DEATH

The Monster of Peladon

Fifty years since Peladon joined the Galactic Federation there is trouble on the horizon. War has broken out with Galaxy Five and Peladon's mineral resources are needed to sustain the war effort. The miners of Peladon, however, feel cheated of the benefits of Federation membership and refuse to work in fear of the spirit of Aggedor, which they claim has appeared to them and killed. The Doctor and Sarah arrive in the midst of the turmoil and offer to help the embattled Queen Thalira restore order to her world. But as the Doctor begins to investigate the apparitions, a group of Ice Warriors arrive to enforce the Federation's agenda to continue mining, and they will use any means necessary to ensure that they get what they want.

Peladon has changed little since the Doctor and Jo visited, although this time the TARDIS doesn't do a header off a cliff. The tunnels used as secret passages in the previous televised episode are now the gateway to Peladon's vast trisilicate mines where toils the working class miners who all have this curious hairstyle that reminds me of badgers. Alpha Centauri is still there, now working as an ambassador to the Federation, and he saves the Doctor from a gritty death by vouching for his credentials. The Citadel has not changed either, its corridors and chambers still very medieval in feel and lit by guttering torches hanging from the wall sconces. The big difference, though, is that Thalira now rules as Peladon himself passed away when she was a small child, leaving her to be raised by Chancellor Ortron and more or less under his control. Unlike Hepesh before him, Ortron embraces the presence of the Federation and is committed to the planet doing its part as a member nation, but he stops short of complying with Ice Warriors as they threaten to murder the workers who do not comply.

Yes the Ice Warriors are back as baddies this time around and there is a hoard of them; all the old costumes used over the years are back in service to swell their ranks, and they are led by an Ice Lord named Azaxyr.  This force, however, turns out not to be working for the Federation but are a breakaway group allied with Galaxy Five, a detail which is explained but not fleshed out enough on screen - but was done back in The Prisoner of Peladon when refugees from the political upheaval on Mars were coming to Peladon in droves. Okay it's a big retcon fix, but it didn't really rewrite anything, just gave it a bit more clarity and depth. Mind you with six episodes to work with here you'd think they might have devoted a few minutes to the backstory behind the Martian / Ice Warrior split, rather than just write them off as  "splinter group". The retcon fix makes it a far bigger deal, but on the whole the Ice Warriors not on Peladon are still noble creatures in the Federation, despite how easily they gun down a group of miners to show they aren't fooling around this time. And they aren't acting on their own either; Federation turncoat Eckersly is just the ally they need, and he's so cocky and vain as to assume he can boss Azaxyr around - if their plans had worked out it is doubtful that Eckersly would have lived long after.

Women's Lib gets its moment again, though, with Sarah egging on Thalira to be the Queen and take charge of her world rather than let Ortron subvert her. It gets a bit preachy now that I've seen it in the context of current affairs here in 2018, but again, it was 1974 and things were changing fast. If you ask me THAT was the time to consider the role of the Doctor being cast as a female, right when things were being shaken up. But it's been said elsewhere that Sarah shows the whole notion of the strong female character throughout the whole episode in her actions, and then out comes the awkward feminist rant to diminish it. Her impassioned speech, though, is a real contrast to Thalira's vacant (and possibly stoned) presence, and shows that yes the Queen has a long way to go before she can really be in charge.

And speaking of shaken up, I remember as a child watching the climax of episode four with mounting horror as the unthinkable happened: the third Doctor, master of the arts of Venusian akido, gets the shit beaten out of him in a fight with a miner named Ettis. It starts as a pretty even match of swords (where a miner learned that is a puzzle - there may have been more to Ettis than was explained) but then deteriorates into what is referred to in professional wrestling as a squash job. Actor Ralph Watson wears that as a badge of honour in the DVD extras, rightly pointing out that Ettis is the only character ever to dust up the Doctor to such an extent.

So with the retcon fix of Prisoner of Peladon in between this, Pertwee's Doctor gets to complete a Peladon trilogy of sorts. The television series never goes back to Peladon, and the Ice Warriors are not seen on screen again until 2013, but Big Finish and Virgin Publishing make sure to go back to these classics in later days.

The Doctor, meanwhile, would have been making his last stand next, but BBC Books have provided a couple more tales to put that moment off...

NEXT EPISODE: AMORALITY TALE

The Ghosts of N Space

Again with that retro-stylin artwork

The Brigadier has taken some time off to visit his Uncle Mario in Sicily. Mario owns a castle on an island which has become an object of interest for an American thug gangster, Max and when the Brigadier witnesses some supernatural occurrences he can’t help but believe there is a connection. Without hesitation he calls in the Doctor. Sarah is also in Sicily; she’s on vacation with Jeremy and contemplating her future as a journalist. When she spots the Brigadier there she knows there’s something going on, and she is not entirely surprised to eventually encounter the Doctor. The barriers between this universe and the next are breaking down at the castle, allowing N-forms from the other side to cross over. And Max wants to be the ruler of the domain on the other side, of a virtual Hell.

Banking on the success of The Paradise of Death BBC Radio went back into the studio with the third Doctor, the Brigadier, Sarah Jane Smith and…. Ugh, Jeremy Fitzoliver. Well, three out of four isn’t bad I guess. But yes, here’s that team again together for another adventure and this time it’s a six episode epic, one whole instalment longer than before.

I think though that the novelty of the audio itself might have let the production team get a bit lazy on this outing; I found this episode actually felt long and some of it felt a bit forced, like the long and ultimately fruitless journey the Doctor and Sarah take into the past in the TARDIS. The dialogue seems a bit strained when there is an action sequence taking place; there’s a painful blow for blow by the Brigadier as he watches Jeremy fending off a floating monk with a device provided by the Doctor. And speaking of pain – Sandra Dickinson’s voice as the gun moll. Yikes.

But that’s all really small stuff – this is an extra episode of Doctor Who made in a time when we

didn’t think we would get any new material aside from the novels being published by Virgin. This script actually made it to the Missing Adventures novels range so we got that double dose of fun with it, and the fact that it was made for radio kept that little fire of hope going for those of us back there who still believed that one day the Doctor would be back. These days the worst that happens is the new generation of fans wait a whole year for a new series. Poor things. But without this episode as well as the previous, there’d be less of a chance for Big Finish to get itself established in the future and give us so much more. It’s just sad that all three leads in this one have passed away and we’ll not hear from them again together.

The Doctor doesn’t believe in ghosts, but he does believe that the barriers between realities can wear thin here and there and anything can get across, including himself and Sarah at one point. But N-Space? There’s a bit of a collision there in the lore of the series, as N-Space was referred to as the “normal” space time continuum that we live in as opposed to an “E-Space” or an exospace time continuum. This time though, it’s just some hell place where monsters live.

As far as fitting in with the season it’s placed in, Ghosts of N Space makes Sarah’s association with the Doctor seem a bit more loose than it seems when they are roaming around together from planet to planet. In Paradise of Death Sarah was still in awe of what went on with Irongron, even if she couldn’t sell the idea to her editor, Clarinda. Here she is again unable to capture anyone’s attention with “the Dalek piece” which would be her adventures on Exxilon as a feature, although given that the Daleks have been around already when they tried to murder Sir Reginald Styles it’s more likely that there’s some sort of publication ban on any reference to them. Which also makes her acceptance at UNIT a bit more interesting; did the Brigadier decide to allow a journalist free access to a top secret military establishment just to keep an eye on her?

All just speculation of course, but fun nonetheless. Just don’t call it a fan theory please.

NEXT EPISODE: THE MONSTER OF PELADON

Death to the Daleks

The TARDIS experiences a total power failure while en route to the planet Florana, stranding the Doctor and Sarah on a rocky barren world called Exxilon. Also on Exxilon is an expedition from Earth sent to mine for a substance called parrinium which can cure the plague that is ravaging the colonies of the empire, and without power and under constant attack from the natives, their mission does not stand any chance of success. A Dalek taskforce arrives as well, experiencing the same power drain and rendering the monsters defenseless, and an uneasy alliance is formed to determine how to restore power and escape the planet. All evidence points to a gleaming white city which the Exxilons worship as a god. But the Doctor knows that any alliance with the Daleks is doomed, and once they have weapons again they will resume their murderous ways.

This one often gets panned as a bad Dalek story but I don’t really see how anyone can really say that. The Daleks themselves are painted a very shiny silver so they look pretty striking, and they are put right out of their element for a change with their greatest enemy right there in front of them and no power to kill him. Here’s where we see some Dalek ingenuity at work, with them designing a machine gun weapon for themselves so they can fire projectiles and regain their advantage over the others. How, I ask, can this be a bad Dalek story? There’s also this opinion in Doctor Who that a companion isn’t really a companion until they face the Daleks. This criteria makes Sarah legit now - how can THAT be bad?

It’s well moody as well with the foggy greynesss of Exxilon as a backdrop but a distinctly different sound to the score this time; there’s no electronic component to the music, just woodwinds and a little bit of percussion. And then there are moments where there is no music to accentuate the tension of a scene, just as effective in my books. The Exxilons themselves are pretty nightmarish people; big bulging eyes and bald heads, not the smartest things out there but they are a brutish mob able to pummel a Dalek into a dented heap. The second Exxlion species, though, isn’t as primitive and has a better grasp of the situation; they know that the city their ancestors built is the source of the planet’s problems and that it must be destroyed before it destroys everything else.

I found an interesting bit of visual continuity in this one which probably means nothing but is still fun to play with. The members of the Earth expedition, the Marine Space Corps, all have these blue uniforms with a silver sideways arrowhead logo on them, and the TV series Blake’s 7 has a similar motif on its Terran Federation officers and troops. As both were written by Terry Nation it’s fun to think that this might be the some earlier moment in that continuity; Nation used the surname Tarrant a great deal in B7 and here we have another one, this time Jill Tarrant of the Earth force. As far as Dalek continuity goes though its hard to really place this one anywhere as there is no date of reference aside from there having been a Dalek war at some point not too long before this, recently enough for one of the Earth force to have lost his father to that same war.

My personal memories of this one, though, go way way back; I read the Target novel before I saw the

episode. Of all places, the Meadowbrook Public School library had a copy of this one which I gleefully borrowed at a very early age and enjoyed every page of it. I remember not wanting to give it back, so before it was due I recorded myself reading it on cassette, with terrible Dalek voices thrown in. The book will have long since been pulped but I was told that the cassette tape is still in my mother's possession; I only found out because she called the other day asking if I could find her a new player so she could listen to it again. Horrified doesn't even begin to describe my reaction.

If only missing episodes would turn up the same way.

NEXT EPISODE: THE GHOSTS OF N-SPACE

Invasion of the Dinosaurs

The Doctor and Sarah return to London and find the city evacuated. London has been overrun with dinosaurs which mysteriously appear and disappear, causing chaos. UNIT and the regular army are working together to solve the puzzle and the Doctor arrives at just the right time as far as the Brigadier is concerned, although the regular army are not as welcoming. While the Doctor tries to identify a traitor in UNIT's ranks and trace the time disturbances causing the dinosaurs to manifest, Sarah finds herself in a spaceship bound for a new Earth where humankind is going to start all over again and not damage the world with technology and pollution.

Well it ain't Jurassic Park, I'll say that right away. These lumpy plasticine dinosaurs are not even up to the calibre of the original Land of the Lost episodes. The story is ambitious, though, and determinedly uses good old CSO and models and some puppets to bring the dinosaurs to life on the screen as the terrorize London. It's a good thing they're not really what the story is about. Their presence was supposed to be a big secret, so much in fact that the first episode is just called Invasion but fan rumour has it that this is why the first episode was lost for some time and only available as a black and white print: it was mistaken for the first episode of the similarly named Patrick Troughton Cyberman story and junked. Like Planet of the Daleks, though, the DVD gets the colourization treatment and can be enjoyed properly.

The dinosaurs are not invading with any kind of plan; they are not that intelligent. Someone is mucking around with time, which is causing the dinosaurs to manifest. It's far more advanced than anything on Earth but it's not aliens, not this time; the threat is home grown and masterminded by maniacs. There's a massive conspiracy at work stretching from high levels of government and right into the ranks of UNIT itself, and the goal is almost as shocking as the presence of the dinosaurs themselves.

There's a sense of some change in things since Jo Grant left, notably that the Doctor has a new car which he did not have anytime before, so maybe some time has passed since Jo's departure. The car in question is a brand new sleek spacecraft like hovercraft which was actually Jon Pertwee's own personal property and used only twice in the series. I'm sure that someone somewhere is itching to write it an introduction story or even retcon it into canon during Jo's time. Note that as canon has now come into question with The Paradise of Death, this would be Sarah's third outing with the Doctor and she has been elevated in status to the Doctor's assistant, a title he grants her to avoid her being evacuated with the rest of the civilians. The Brigadier accepts her presence more easily than one would expect, but after Paradise its now a bit better explained. And she gets right to work charming and lightly flirting her way through the UNIT men, notably with Sergeant Benton and Captain Yates.

Oh yes Yates. He's not been entirely well since that deal at Global Chemicals when he was taken over by the BOSS computer and ordered to kill the Doctor. He has a better appreciation for life and for the world as a whole having seen what pollution can cause. He'd like to see the world made into a better place, and when he finds someone trying to do that he offers all the help he can, with his place within UNIT being an asset to those people.

As with The Dalek Invasion of Earth, there are lots of visuals of a creepy empty London, and once more if you watch this one and then toss in your DVD of 28 Days Later some of the similarities between the shots in each production are very hard to miss. One turns out to be a lot more effective at telling its story, but it also has the benefit of having been produced in an era where it's easier to shut down London streets instead of sneaking around with a film camera at 6 AM and hoping nothing drives through the shot. In some cases it might have been a better choice to leave the dinosaurs out of the shot, too.

NEXT EPISODE: DEATH TO THE DALEKS

The Paradise of Death

The Parakon Corporation is set to open Space Wold - a new theme park showcasing rides and attractions and monsters all from out of this world. But mysterious deaths attract the attention of UNIT and the Doctor, as well as that of journalist Sarah Jane Smith. The Doctor realizes that the monsters in the exhibits are real although they are not correctly named by Space World, and the Brigadier tries out some all too realistic virtual reality. But Sarah finds her way deep inside the amusement park and is transported to the planet Parakon, where the plans for Earth are far from amusing.

Imagine this for a moment: it was 1993 and Doctor Who had been off the air for four years and despite rumors and misleading information in fan networks there was no way the series was going to be back anytime soon. Virgin Publishing was keeping us all amused with a new novel every month and then the BBC did something surprising: they commissioned a new Doctor Who adventure. Hope that it would be televised was raised and then it became known that it would start the trio of Jon Pertwee, Nicholas Courtney and Elisabeth Sladen, all of whom would be visibly older now than they were in their original run on television twenty years earlier. BBC Radio would broadcast The Paradise of Death and bring these characters back for another episode together, and it was one of the best things to be produced for the series that year.

Paradise was made to drop right in after The Time Warrior and featured the first meeting of Sarah Jane Smith and the Brigadier, which was until then seen to have happened in the following televised story. Normally I would at this point shake my fist angrily and protest these egomaniac writers trying to retcon everything but as the story was written by Barry Letts, who produced the show for all of Pertwee's run as the Doctor I will say nothing. Letts knew what he was doing. Of course he did. More or less. Unlike a Big Finish audio some of the dialogue is there to replace missing narrative and there can be annoying runs of people just saying what is going on around them in unconvincing rants, but it doesn't happen too much. And the Doctor is still rooted to Earth and working with UNIT just as he was in the stories around this one; yes he is free of the exile but Earth has become home base, and it's an interesting question as to how long it would have stayed so if the Doctor hasn't eventually regenerated.

Paradise has the distinction of giving Sarah her own companion as it were in the form of the annoying and dorky Jeremy Fitzoliver. I imagine he was supposed be the comic relief but he's actually pretty cringeworthy and could have been done without. But he and the background of what's going on in Sarah's professional life at Metropolitan are new facets to the popular companion's life, fleshing her story out a bit more. She's not just jumped into the TARDIS right away now in this slightly reimagined setting; she's gone back to work as a journalist but she's also drawn back to the Doctor and comes in contact with UNIT properly. She knows there is a story wherever the Doctor is, but does her editor, Clarinda, buy any of it?

The cover isn't much to look at; they went for the same kind of arts and crafts decoupage look as the

Original cover. Dull.

other BBC Audio releases but it's kinda uninspiring. The original cover used on the cassette release, mind you, left even more to be desired. At least the CD cover used period images. There have been a lot of alternates created on sites like deviantart.com and they gravitate to the new norm of the Big Finish audio covers which are smashing.

Sound design is great although there is a puzzling use of a version of the theme song which would be used from 1980 to 1985; surely the Pertwee era theme would have been a better choice. If we can tinker with the coves til our hearts content, how about the sound? Then we could get some of the sound effects fixed up like the TARDIS doors which are sound effects from The Dominators. No way to make Jon Pertwee sound younger though.

Back to TV now.

NEXT EPISODE: INVASION OF THE DINOSAURS

The Time Warrior

A lone Sontaran warrior, Lynx, crash lands on Earth in the middle ages. Out of necessity Lynx sides with the brutish Irongron and exchanges weapons for shelter, using a limited means of time travel to kidnap scientists from the future to use to repair his ship. UNIT notice the disappearances and place a group of other scientists in similar fields under guard, with the Doctor sitting in to see what he can determine, and he travels back in time to stop Lynx from altering the course of human history.

I had some guests for the viewing of this episode; my friends Leanne and Emily joined me for the start of the third Doctor's final season. The Time Warrior has not only that distinction but it is also the very first time a Sontaran is seen on screen, and it is also the very first appearance of a headstrong young journalist named Sarah Jane Smith. While the Sontarans would return to do battle with the Doctor only three more times in the classic series, they would rank right up there with the Daleks and the Cybermen in classic monster status. Sarah Jane Smith, on the other hand, would be a series legacy, even to current day.

As it was the start of Jon Pertwee's final season there's a perceptible shift in things; the Brigadier is in this one as is UNIT but it's effectively just a cameo in episode one, with the rest of the adventure taking place somewhere else in time. The Doctor's travels on screen alone had been taking him further and further from Earth once more, so to start the season off with the UNIT family left behind would be a sure sign of things to come. The opening titles of the series also got a do-over after four years of a more horror-esque motif, and the diamond logo which was the enduring symbol of the series for decades was introduced. Things just feel different in this one without anything actually being labelled as such and not hinted at either; there are no portents that the third Doctor's days are numbered as there would be in current years on the series.

Sarah Jane Smith is different. Very different. Actress Elisabeth Sladen has said in past that she did not get much of a character brief and had to remind herself of her own notions for Sarah, the biggest one being her sense of righteous indignation. Sarah embodied change in attitudes towards women which were very much on the rise at the time the series was made, and gone now were the days of the heroine being, as script editor Terrance Dicks would say, "tied to the tracks" while the Doctor was left to be heroic. Sarah wasn't interested in taking crap from men, and although it feels a bit preachy to hear her say it, it's far more empowering a character than some social media whiners of the third wave feminist movement of current times. The time Sarah represents actually was one of change, where Women's Lib was the new call to equality as a real concern; too many times it has been invoked recently as a means to just get someone what they themselves wanted, be it a job they were not qualified for, or, worse, attention on a social media platform. Companions after Sarah would no longer be the meeker female stereotypes of the past, and while a character like Barbara Wright was no pushover she was far less likely to take action herself as Sarah would, and would resort to screaming for Ian to help her. If we were to look at Sarah Jane Smith in the context of the series as a whole, she was the turning point for women's roles in Doctor Who; she is to the series what Madonna is to the female pop stars of today. And the same wave of change would lead to the controversial selection of a female lead to play the Doctor here in 2018, even if that choice looks less genuine and more of a stunt casting move. The new series debuts in a few days at time of writing, so soon we shall see if it was a good plan or not.

Political nuances aside the episode is fantastic to watch and enjoy, with the DVD release being one of the few to have had its effects updated to look more like current episode, even if it's still live broadcast quality in studio, with some pretty iffy lighting in a few scenes. But dig this: Hal the archer is played by Jeremy Bulloch, who would in a few years go on to play Boba Fett in two Star Wars films.

So with new companion at his side, the Doctor is ready to take on the universe once more. Sarah would come into her own a bit more through her association with the fourth Doctor and as it were she would only get five outings with the third before he regenerates, but once again there are supplemental materials to give this partnership some more time together, almost doubling their story count, and one of them is next.

NEXT EPISODE: THE PARADISE OF DEATH

The Elixir of Doom

Jo Grant is travelling with Iris Wildthyme and the pair arrive in Los Angeles in the 1930s. Tinsel town is all about monster movies, and the travellers know all about monsters having met enough in their time. But the monsters in the films are a bit too convincing, and upon a closer look are proven to be real aliens working under duress. But the question of how they got here and why they are working for a sadistic studio exec remains. Jo and Iris are not alone in their investigations; it looks as if a future incarnation of the Doctor is here too.

It's double duty for Katy Manning once more as both Jo and Iris. How she's not gone nuts from doing this is a good question. But this is the last of the Companion Chronicles with Jo Grant in them; it was released in 2011 and everything after has been the acclaimed Third Doctor Adventures box sets. And it doesn't get old at all; Jo and Iris actually make a good team but it's strange that Jo doesn't seem too concerned about getting back home to her family. When this adventure started for this pair it was at the end of Find and Replace when Jo was taken away from Earth during her Christmas shopping, but you wouldn't know it as she seems to be fine with wandering space and time again.

Enter the Doctor, albeit a future version of him, his eighth self who doesn't come into being until 1996 on an ill-fated television movie. He's there looking into the same thing that Jo and Iris have discovered: there are real aliens held captive in Hollywood and they are being used in films against their will. Iris has met this Doctor before, and oddly author Paul Magrs has left that bit of continuity alone (a BBC Books novel called The Scarlet Empress) when he just ignored other Iris adventures with Jo and the third Doctor to re-introduce her in Find and Replace. As for meeting up with this future Doctor, Jo will also meet another future Doctor in years to come, but as the chronometer flies it would have been the same year this was released and no mention made here of that incident (that being an episode of a spin-off series). Big Finish usually try to keep in step with the TV series and all its aspects and spin-offs just to keep things clean but Paul Magrs seems to want to march to his own drum sometimes.

But that's it for Jo Grant. For now. Of course we'll see her again in the future - is anyone really truly gone in a time travel series? But to date that's all the material there is in this line of continuity. We leave Jo wandering in time and space with a different Time Lord, and rejoin her previous alien friend as he continues without her.

NEXT EPISODE: THE TIME WARRIOR

The Ghost in the Machine

Jo Grant finds herself alone in the TARDIS, having spent a bit too long rooting through the cavernous wardrobe for something new to wear. Not finding the Doctor, she leaves the ship and wanders through what she takes for a darkened scientific installation, eventually finding the Doctor immobile and unresponsive. But there is horror lurking out there with her; there are skeletons heaped up on the stairs as if they all died trying to get out, to get away from something. And that could well mean that whatever killed those people is still inside. Inside with Jo.

Brilliantly creepy stuff is this: wandering around in the dark with the odd bit of sudden sound at a distance is a great formula for tension, with the unseen being a lot scarier than what is out in the open. I’m reminded of some moments in The Blair Witch Project where unidentifiable sounds crackle in the distant forest, although this time it gets one creepier when it’s a voice reciting “Mary had a little lamb”.

Ghost in the Machine borrows a bit from other episodes where there has been an enemy that is contained in a recorded medium, including the televised episode The Idiot’s Lantern but more obviously Big Finish’s own Whispers of Terror which was made so many years ago maybe they themselves forgot about it. But the real terror is in the idea of the intangible enemy that can still harm you even if it has no physical presence itself. And it’s not like we’ve never gone there before with an enemy either – the Great Intelligence itself is at the top of the non-corporeal enemies list but there are no robots to do anyone’s bidding here, just voices on tape recorders.

Ghost is another one where the story is told in “real time” and not in some kind of past perspective, so this is definitely Jo while she was with the Doctor and not afterwards, putting the continuity back to somewhere before The Green Death. There’s a danger in doing audio where the protagonist serves as the narrator as well; I don’t know anyone who constantly chatters away about what they are doing and what they are seeing even if they’re not recording themselves of tape as they go, so it can feel staged and forced and naff unless handled properly. There’s an advantage to taking this approach here, though, because that’s not too far off how Jo really would operate, especially when nervous and frightened. And we have seen her do it before in Planet of the Daleks.

Jo’s time on the televised series has already ended, and next up comes her final (so far) audio…

NEXT EPISODE: THE ELIXIR OF DOOM

Council of War

Sergeant Benton has gone undercover as a councilor in the small town of Kettering. This is not his normal beat but he’s doing it for the Doctor, who has become concerned about a spate of ghost sightings, and while neither believe in ghosts it still requires investigation While undercover Benton meets a woman named Margery Phipps who discovers that she will play an essential role in the future of another world, but to realize this they will have to survive alien abduction and the dawning of a war.

To finally add Sergeant Benton to the Big Finish audios is really the final piece of the whole UNIT experience, unless they go one further and get Fernana Marlowe to come back and do a turn as Carol Bell. Benton was not seen on screen after his appearance in 1976’s The Android Invasion aside from a fan-produced one-off called War Time. But here he is at last with his own story to tell.

Benton always seemed to be overshadowed by everyone else around him; he did not get and major plot threads of his own and he was routinely shouted at by the Brigadier and almost pitied by Jo and the Doctor. Here in Council of War he is in the right place at the right time: Mike Yates has taken some leave to recover after his experiences in The Green Death and Jo Grant has left, leaving UNIT without two of its major players. Although it may seem like Benton only got sent in because there was nobody else to go, he proves to be competent at his work, getting into the thick of it quickly and identifying the key people who are involved and working to the solution. Until the alien abduction part, which is more the Doctor’s thing than his. To just see him on television he comes across as bit of a bumbler and a more loveable kind of chap, but he is actually a good officer and a good soldier.

Margery is a good foil for Benton; she's a woman of her times with all the modern ideas about vegetarianism but a slightly tiresome line as a 70s feminist. getting outraged at men left and right. She has a soft spot for Benton though as she shares the adventure with him, letting some of her guard down and enjoying his attentions and his charms. She's different from Jo Grant by miles, and a bit of a foreshadow of future series companion Sarah Jane Smith.

Some of the more menacing angles of the story start to fall away in the second half, putting the episode in danger of being written off as farce eventually, but on the whole it’s a good vehicle for Benton to come to the forefront at last, and give us a chance to get to know him all over again.

NEXT EPISODE: GHOST IN THE MACHINE

The Scorchies

Jo is an unwilling guest star on The Scorchies Show, a television puppet revue which is a hit among the younger set. The Doctor disappeared while investigating the program and Jo has followed, but she is required to sing a song, make a thing and tell a story if she wants to stay alive. These are not the children’s entertainers they are made out to be: the Scorchies are from another world and they move from planet to planet burning them down as they go. And now they have come to Earth. And they say they have killed the Doctor.

It’s more or less a case of Doctor Who and the Muppets from Hell here, which is such a creepy concept I don’t really know if I love it or hate it. Just look at that cover. Sheesh. The writers’ directions were actually to make the Scorchies a lot like Muppets, right down to the songs they sing (yeah this one has a soundtrack) but without going too over the mark for obvious reasons. I’ve never really liked the Muppets anyways – some of them are plain creepy, and I thought the episode of Angel called Smile Time was disturbing enough… but now here they are in Doctor Who.

The Scorchies are aware of the Doctor and know the threat that he poses and when they think they have dealt with him they rejoice at having succeeded where other aliens have failed, rhyming them off in song. They’re that confident of their prowess that when UNIT shows up outside the studio they rush outside to fight the soldiers head on. Brazen for puppets for sure, but also alien murdering puppets so that’s bound to boost their confidence. Their song rhyming off the Doctor’s past foes though includes the gel guards of The Three Doctors so we’re looking at a point in Jo’s final season after the Doctor’s exile has been lifted, and as it is not necessarily being told as a hindsight story it really doesn’t have to wait until after Jo’s departure to be enjoyed like some of the others.

Katy Manning does overtime again on the voice front, providing not only for Jo and the Doctor but some of the Scorchies themselves. I think she actually pulls off more characters than her co-star, Melvyn Hayes. Oh the magic of audio.

Katy Manning is no stranger to hard work on the audios and she has really put in her time adding to her era of the show with more from Jo Grant, but there were other members of UNIT around with their own stories to tell, including a certain sergeant Benton…

NEXT EPISODE: COUNCIL OF WAR

The Many Deaths of Jo Grant

Life with the Doctor has been an emotional rollercoaster for Jo Grant to say the very least; she’s travelled further than she ever expected to, met all sorts of people and monsters who she will never forget, and she has experienced the joy of life on the edge. But there is also the experience of death, and Jo is dying. A lot. The Doctor has been injured while away from Earth and as he returns so does an alien spaceship. Purple fungus is growing everywhere and anyone touching it becomes infected. And Jo dies. And dies again. And again.

The Many Deaths of Jo Grant is one of the later Companion Chronicles which lacks the whole retrospect angle; the story is told as if it were plunked right there sometime between Planet of the Daleks and The Green Death with the Doctor off somewhere in the TARDIS. Jo unwaveringly believes that the Doctor will always come back because Earth is his home, but the Brigadier is more realistic and knows that one day he is going to have to cope without his alien friend there to save him. I’ve previously decried the preoccupation some Big Finish / Virgin / BBC Books writers have with trying to be all heavy about foreshadowing things that we know are going to happen, but this feels like a more genuine approach with it being dialogue between two characters rather than some internal musings. It also has some poignant notes of what conversations are eventually going to be like once the Doctor has actually left.

Jo is being tortured. There’s really no other way to put it. There’s a guy named Rowe who is there every time Jo dies – he’s obviously part of whatever is going on but every time Jo gets close to figuring it out she dies again. And again. And every time she dies it’s during a selfless act where she is saving the Doctor from his own death. The series back then didn’t dwell on the relationships between the Doctor and his companions to the same extent it does now – indeed there were never any awkward moments where the companion got all doe-eyed and fell for the Doctor and had to leave because she wasn’t going to get that love returned – but it’s perfectly obvious that there was more to the third Doctor and Jo than just co-workers. I doubt anyone is ever going to try and suggest that they were getting it on when nobody was looking but there’s no denying the genuine affection each had for the other. The Doctor’s sudden cold departure from Jo’s engagement party at the end of The Green Death spoke volumes even if there were no words, and here we have Jo repeatedly dying to keep the Doctor alive (and we’ve seen her willing to do this already in The Daemons). It’s the sort of story that wouldn’t really be made into a TV script back in the day not because it’s not good, but because it might just be a bit too much for the audience to take.

Canadian singer Jann Arden has a song called “I Would Die For You” which could easily be on the soundtrack for this one. But as I told her once, be careful who you say that to, just in case they show up to collect.

NEXT EPISODE: THE SCORCHIES

The Prisoner of Peladon

Five years after joining the Galactic Federation, Peladon has become an active member and is providing support to refugees fleeing the civil war on Mars. King Peladon is eager to help and prove that his people deserve their place in the Federation, but when a killer starts to walk among the refugees he fears that their position could be under threat. The new overlords of Mars threaten to attack all sponsor planets who offer support to the political refugees, adding to the peril. But once again, in Peladon's time of need, the Doctor has arrived to help.

It's a bit of a departure to have a non-companion tell a story in this range, but it works fantastically. King Peladon was tremendously influenced by the Doctor when he was on his planet, and to have him back fills him with hope for the future. Peladon's disappointment at the Doctor's solitary status is palpable: he was hoping to see Jo Grant again. But the Doctor is somewhat reserved about his involvement right now; Jo's departure has left him somewhat withdrawn and in a funk. This is more a ploy that is used in the new series when the tenth and eleventh Doctors are travelling alone - as with many aspects of the new series this one has been tossed in, or retconned if you will - the third Doctor, however, doesn't seem to be the type to sulk and it's not really an effective device.

The old favourites are here for the story: the Ice Warriors and Alpha Centauri; I never expect a miracle when it comes to imitating some voices on audio so the latter comes off less than successful (and really such a high pitch... my nose wants to bleed thinking about it) but the Ice Warriors are realized very well right down to the heavy breathing that would seem at home on any obscene telephone call. David Troughton himself reprises his original role of King Peladon, his distinctive voice still sounding convincing but sometimes wavering on sounding like his father as the second Doctor.

Hearing from King Peladon makes for a new angle in Big Finish storytelling; there will be other characters in future telling their stories of times with the Doctor, although not as frequently as the companions themselves. Jo Grant herself still has more to say...

NEXT EPISODE: THE MANY DEATHS OF JO GRANT

The Mists of Time

Jo finds herself on a far distant planet years and years after she and the Doctor had previously visited. At the time time of their visit, the dead had a habit of not staying dead, and it seems that nothing has changed according to the sole survivor of the previous visit. Jo doesn't know why she is back here - she left the Doctor ages ago. But whatever was going on then, is still going on now.

Mists was a free audio download from Big Finish, which was nothing short of awesome of them to give away a freebie. And it's a high calibre one, getting Katy Manning back into the recording booth once more. The fact that it was free did not mean anything was sacrificed in quality.

The sound design of Mists evokes some truly creepy atmosphere, which is no mean feat on an audio. Dead people emerging from the fog? Oh yes - classic horror devices which are truly at home in Doctor Who in any format. Big Finish event went to an extra length to reference Mrs Killebrew from The Doll of Death, creating their own bit of continuity.

So Jo isn't the only companion to contribute to the series, though; there are other voices from the Pertwee era who can tell some tales...

NEXT EPISODE: THE PRISONER OF PELADON

Find and Replace

Jo Grant is just trying to get some Christmas shopping done when she is pursued by a man who constantly speaks as if he is narrating her life. At first Jo thinks he is just some holiday nutter until he starts to reference her time with UNIT – but the details are wrong. The Doctor is not in any of the narrator’s commentary, but he takes Jo to who he believes to be her true former travelling companion – a woman named Iris Wildthyme. Together Jo and Iris travel back into the past to search out the truth, back to a meeting with the Doctor.

First thing that grabbed me about this was why Jo after so many years married to a notorious hippie scientist was doing Christmas presents. So much for the stereotype, but really Cliff Jones and his people were never about ending capitalism, just being more responsible about how business is done at the expense of the environment.

The other biggie which was a real jarring moment was Jo not knowing who Iris was, despite them having met in the novel Verdigris establishing her as one of the Doctor's fellow Time Lords. Both were written by Paul Magrs so one would have thought he would respect his own continuity. The BBC Books and Big Finish overlaps were never forbidden so why they chose to go this route and wipe out the established first meeting between these two characters is a mystery. It would have saved a lot of time if they hadn’t; Jo could have immediately become suspicious of Iris and thought it was all some scheme of hers to wheedle her way into the Doctor’s life again despite Jo having been gone from it for so long. Iris for her part, though, is at a loss as to why the narrator is trying to set them up together and erase the Doctor from Jo’s life, and the more the narrator talks, the more the two start to fall under his sway. The only answer is to go back and find him, sometime during his exile, although Jo realizes this could mean meeting her younger self.

So if this were to be a rewrite of Iris’s introduction specifically for Big Finish, it’s not a bad one, it’s just at odds with what I already read before. And Iris is played by Katy Manning herself, giving the actress two roles to play and the dubious task of talking to herself a lot. Manning also does her impression of Jon Pertwee as well, giving her a third role to play but not, as the interviews afterwards suggest, at three times the paycheque. Iris does feature a lot in Big Finish in the future, crossing paths with the Doctor and company and even getting her own series, but she is also a feature in a few more BBC Books novels as well, but hopefully with less of a collision in her continuity.

NEXT EPISODE: THE MISTS OF TIME

The Doll of Death

Long after her time with UNIT is over, Jo Grant remembers a time when the Doctor investigated an anomaly where time began to run backwards. The temporal effect is rooted to a strange artifact closely guarded by a Professor Saunders who refuses to let anyone near it, despite the strange haunting by dolls he is experiencing. The enigmatic Mrs Killebrew seems to know more about the item than she wants to admit, and everyone is at risk from a pack of hounds which is hunting for the item backwards across the timelines.

This is the first Companion Chronicles audio to feature Jo Grant and Katy Manning steps almost effortlessly back into her television role after an absence of  thirty five years by that time. Fan author Marc Platt delivers a script that only he can deliver: a creepy nasty setting and a confusing runaround across bisecting rewinding timelines. Platt's very first foray into Doctor Who was 1989's Ghost Light and he has utilized some of his best devices again here in Doll such as the creepy Victoriana (in this case, the dolls), an isolated group of people under threat (people moving in reverse can see the "normal" time flow but can't interact with it and can't call for help) and a convoluted premise (again, time running backwards).

It's been a long time for Jo Grant; she's still married to Cliff and is back in London for a conference and can't help but think back to the old days when alien invasions seemed to happen on Fridays without fail. As far as series continuity goes, this one would have taken place somewhere during the Doctor's exile, possibly between The Daemons and Day of the Daleks. Once the Doctor realizes that Saunders' artifact is possibly a temporal device of sorts it's logical that he wonders if he himself can use it to escape from Earth at last.

Everyone else who should be there is there - the Brig, Mike Yates, Sergeant Benton... it's a proper return to the UNIT days for Jo's first flashback tale to new (to us) adventures. And there are plenty more out there to enjoy...

NEXT EPISODE: FIND AND REPLACE

The Green Death

Global Chemicals sets up shop in a small mining community in Wales promising to bring wealth to the area as they ramp up production on their new synthetic crude oil. The new process they claim creates next to no by-product and will extend the existing supply of natural crude well into the future. Local biologist Cliff Jones doesn't buy into it and stages loud protests in the media, attracting Jo's attention and spurring her on to leave the Doctor and join the fight against big oil. It's not long before the Doctor and UNIT are fully drawn in, though, as miners emerge from the local disused tunnels glowing green and dying, and giant maggots emerge from the ground. The link between the ecological disaster waiting to happen and Global Chemicals is obvious, but while investigating and looking for the proof he needs, the Doctor realizes that the company has bigger plans for the world than simple ruthless profiteering - the entity behind the corporation, the maniacal supercomputer called the BOSS wants to control everything.

The Green Death is typical of the era it was made in, grabbing hold of a bigger issue and making a statement about it. I watched this one with my friend Leanne who has not seen a lot of the earlier episodes and I warned her about the less than subtle message about pollution and big business, and there it was in the dialogue for all to hear. It was interesting to observe in this day and age how the concerns for the future of the environment have been there for that long and have not changed, although in Jones' case they are not taken seriously by enough people for anything to really happen. Maybe it takes something like Facebook to get people to get involved more even if it's just about pushing a "like" button.

Jo gets to be the voice of outrage along with Professor Jones who is seen as something of a radical hippie by most, but as a brilliant pioneer in alternative energy by those around him at the Wholeweal commune he had founded. Jo's attraction to him is a sort of transference of her obvious feelings for the Doctor, and she says that Jones reminds her of him in a lot of ways. Her decision to bail on the Doctor and a trip in the TARDIS and run off to Wales seems to come out of nowhere, and the Doctor doesn't understand at all until she equates what she needs to do with what he does as a matter of routine; Earth is, after all, her home, and she has to do what she must to protect it.

UNIT meanwhile ends up on both sides of the growing conflict; bound by its mandate to protect the world from threats it is still ordered about by politicians who see Global Chemicals as a saviour (and herein the script takes another shot at the politics of its time) and are willing to dismiss the Brigadier's concerns to keep from looking bad. The Brigadier has to keep his cool but once there are giant (and seemingly bulletproof) maggots to shoot at he's in his element at last. The regulars are also along for the ride - Sergeant Benton and Captain Yates - and Jo's announcement that she is leaving them at the end throws the whole UNIT family into a bit of a tailspin. And it does come off as a bit sudden - in the grand scheme of storytelling here The Green Death only takes place over a few days even if it's a 6 part series which played out over as many weeks.

And while I am really just focussing on continuity here and not going into deep plot analysis, it's got to be said that the BOSS is a villain like no other - a sentient computer out to dominate and control the human race through capitalist gains and out and out brainwashing and be damned the costs to humanity. The maggots are not its agents, just a side effect of its ambition. It also doesn't have a backstory, though; the director of Global is firmly under the BOSS' control so someone else must have built it to run things, but we're never really told who. There were moments where the headsets used to program and brainwash Global's employees looked as if the Cybermen were going to show up but alas no.

So an era ends with Jo leaving the Doctor for love. After all they have been through. Same deal as before, and a very poignant shot of the Doctor driving off into the sunset alone to close the season. Big Finish have given us a few more Jo stories, though, so her time is by no means up...

NEXT EPISODE: THE DOLL OF DEATH

The Tyrants of Logic

In the far future on the mining colony of Burnt Salt, a mysterious object has arrived at the spaceport. Burnt Salt has been all but abandoned, its resources failing and its infrastructure crumbling, so to receive an unexpected delivery is something of a novelty. But there are more susprises for the remaining colonists - the Doctor and Jo also arrive in the TARDIS, at the same time as a man who can only be described as a Cyberman hunter. These are the days after the Cyberwars where the Cybermen have been driven back, their numbers decimated, but their drive to survive remains, and whatever is in the crate on Burnt Salt is key to that survival.

It's release number two from the fourth volume of Third Doctor Adventures and in keeping with the usual pattern it's an off-world adventure to balance out the previous one which was set on Earth. It is also something of a first: the first full length encounter between the third Doctor and the Cybermen. They have been back in The Blue Tooth which was arguably more of a Liz Shaw story since it was told through her perspective, and there's a fleeting encounter coming up in a few years in a multi-Doctor story, but here we have it, at last, the third Doctor meeting one of the series' most famous monsters. I don't know why it has taken this long really; not even the many novels published by either Virgin or BBC Books have brought the two together over all the years. It might have something to do with the writers and all; here we have a script delivered by Marc Platt who has written some brilliant stuff for the silver monsters and with Nick Briggs as the director and the Cyberman voices, it's bound to work. The voices are the creepy ones from The Invasion even if the weapons effects are from a different story coming up soon, probably an intentional way to bridge the evolution of the Cybermen as they will be a bit different when they next appear on screen..

The story is set in an era which gets alluded to here and there in Doctor Who - the time just after the Cyberwars where the galaxy took on the Cybermen and won. Their armies demolished the Cybermen are scattered all over the galaxy but there are agents still hunting them down much like the post WWII Nazi hunters. The Cybermen are, after all, determined and driven to survive and convert other species into them, and so long as there are still Cybermen active in the galaxy the threat that they will return is there as well. Enter a new threat: the Cyber Leveller, which can't be good news for anyone.

And not only is this the third Doctor's first proper outing against the Cybermen, it's also Jo's, although
she's a pretty old hand at dealing with alien monsters by now. To have her up against these ones at last is just ticking another box on the long list of Jo's accomplishments as a companion. And Katy Manning too, bless her - does anyone ever give this woman enough credit for her service to the series? The truth is this is the last audio for now with her and Tim Treloar standing in for "her" Doctor, Jon Pertwee; we're headed back to the TV series next and it's going to be the end for Jo on screen. I never really used to rank Jo as one of my favourites, honestly, but as Katy Manning has returned to her time and again to bring her back, I gotta admit she's risen in my estimation right up there.

NEXT EPISODE: THE GREEN DEATH

The Rise of the New Humans

A man died after falling from a car park, and upon investigation the Doctor realizes that he tried to grow wings. Spurred by this discovery, the Doctor and Jo head into the country to investigate a medical clinic where miracles are being worked and discover evidence of advanced technology being used. The staff of the facility are unhelpful, as if they are hiding something, and they are: there is a dreadful experiment going on to augment the human race to a new level. But they have some otherworldly help: the Monk has returned to Earth.

Rufus Hound is brought back to play the re-imagined Meddling Monk once again, having already confounded the second Doctor and company some time ago in The Black Hole. His portrayal stays consistent with his previous work for the range and still makes for an effective adversary for the Doctor, although I found myself wondering why there can't be more of a diverse range of incarnations of the other Time Lords like we see with the Doctor himself.  This Monk is still pretty reminiscent of the original as portrayed by Peter Butterworth in the 1960s - he's a meddler and he doesn't see anything wrong with what he does, still insisting that this is all for the good of the humans. But he's still a bit goofy, a bit too jovial, a bit too much just like the previous version. Note the differences between Hartnell and Troughton and Pertwee to date and they are all good guys sure but not interchangeable like the two versions of the Monk are. A grumpy old man version of the Monk would have been interesting. But chronologically this is the third Monk as Big Finish did/will pit him against the eighth Doctor and this one drops a reference to the future Doctor's companion Lucie Miller, making him the next in line.

As far as the whole continuity thing goes the Doctor is still on Earth assisting UNIT although as Jo mentions he could very well just leave and not come back now that the TARDIS is functioning once again. There is still evil at work on Earth, obviously, and the Doctor can't bring himself to just up and leave his new "home" as it were, but the day is coming when he will at last and Earth will have to fend for itself.

While I was listening to this I spotted a few elements of other Who in there, most notable being parallels between this story and the tenth Doctor episode New Earth where another hospital is performing miracles to cure the sick. although they are far more transparent about what is going on. I wouldn't say this is a real rip off of that but there are other instances of similar elements in there from the same story, so yeah, kinda close, but by the time we reach that story through this blog it's going to fade.

The real cover

The Rise of the New Humans is the first story in the fourth volume of Big Finish's Third Doctor Adventures and about halfway through it I realized that I am now so taken in my Tim Treloar's impression of Jon Pertwee's Doctor that I can kinda see Pertwee when I hear Treloar's lines. This is no doubt because Katy Manning is still there as Jo and they make the relationship work just like in the "old days". I'm actually going to miss this combo on audio, although with Treloar established as the new voice of the third Doctor maybe there's a crossover to be had somewhere with the other Doctors.

NEXT EPISODE: THE TYRANTS OF LOGIC

The Hidden Realm

The unknown is always with Jo Grant these days but it hits close to home when her cousin's husband mysteriously vanishes in a small village in the English countryside. The Doctor agrees to take her and investigate, and he discovers the area is riddled with anomalies on the quantum level. A pair of police officers are making their own, somewhat less sophisticated investigation, but discover that there is something not quite right about the area. There are flocks of magpies gathering every time someone goes missing, and the missing tend to show up again after about five days. But the Doctor is not one to calmly accept this as anything normal and delves deeper into what is going on and discovers an atrocity hidden in plain sight.

This is the second adventure from Volume 2 of The Third Doctor Adventures, and as with The Transcendence of Ephros it's another four part adventure with Katy Manning back as Jo Grant alongside Tim Treloar's fantastically convincing third Doctor impression. It's been mentioned in other reviews that Manning seemed to be having a less than effective stint with the full cast episodes when they started out, but I don't really see (or hear) it myself. Fine she doesn't sound as young as she used to but that's the reality of ageing for everyone, especially in a series with this kind of longevity, but she does her best to bring her voice up a bit to sound a bit more like the Jo we knew from the screen.

Where this falls in continuity was a bit of a puzzle at first; the Doctor and Jo are clearly still working for UNIT and mention the organization here and there, but eventually Jo makes a reference to knowing the voice of the second Doctor, so this can go anywhere after The Three Doctors once the TARDIS is back in action, although they do say that the ship is not up and running at the moment.

Realm fits neatly into a four episode format, which made it easy for me to enjoy on a day trip for work. The structure of the story doesn't really do anything new and experimental, it is content to just be entertaining by splitting the Doctor and Jo up and re-pairing them with other cast members as they investigate what's going on. The protagonist of the piece is something new though; not exactly complicated, a very straight up kind of menace but with enough of a motivational twist to remain interesting. In all I am glad it wasn't a super complicated listen as I was driving at the time and didn't want to miss anything crucial as can happen with some of the more complex Big Finish tales.

NEXT EPISODE: THE RISE OF THE NEW HUMANS

The Transcendence of Ephros

The Doctor promises Jo a trip to the planet Ephros - a lush and beautiful jungle world by his accounts. But when the TARDIS arrives the planet is in darkness and dying; the Doctor doesn't understand what has happened here and hopes that a group of religious pilgrims can help him out - especially once the TARDIS falls into a crack in the ground. The religious group are not alone on Ephros; the Galactux Corporation is here as well, having surrounded the planet with a metal shell which is there to gather the energy from the transcendence which is only days away. But the truth is a shocker: for Ephros to transcend means the planet will explode. The religious group are here to die, believing they will ascend to a higher level of being. And Galactux is all too ready to let them.

So Ephros is not quite Waco, TX, and Mother Finsey is not exactly David Koresh but that's the first thing that leaped into my mind as I realized what was going on here. So it's Doctor Who and the Suicide Cult is it? Fascinating. The Pertwee era of the series was never one to shy away from making a political statement about the goings on of the world, touching on colonialism, environmental issues, native rights... by taking on the notion of a suicide cult here Big Finish have grabbed the hot topic of religious belief and expression by the horns. The Doctor remains as neutral about it as he can; having seen the universe and all its many and varied beliefs he's not going to interfere no matter how the thought of all these people dying upsets him. Jo, on the other hand, gets to be the one who is revolted by the whole thing, probably because she has been holding a baby in her arms and the realization that this child is going to die without any choice in the matter. But that's the companion role right there in a nutshell; to see things different from the Doctor and have the "human" reaction to it.

Watching over all of it on behalf of the Earth Empire is Galactux. They aren't going to interfere in what's going on as far as the religious group is concerned: when Ephros goes boom they are going to harvest the energy released and get rich. But it's not like planets just expire and blow up out of nowhere; the Doctor is suspicious about the circumstances and through his investigations underground while looking for the TARDIS he realizes there is more going on here than either group realizes. He's got to fight against the bureaucracy of Galactux right away: the project leader doesn't like delays and shouts at people a lot to get his way. Great motivator, that one.

As far as series continuity goes, I went to Ehpros a little too soon - Big Finish used to say where their stories were intended to fall within the established series but lately they haven't done so as much and the odd time I get a bit of a surprise. My original intent was to listen to it right after the first volume of third Doctor adventures, but to my surprise in episode two, it's revealed that this actually takes place after Frontier in Space with the Doctor calling upon the Earth President to give him some clout with Galactux. And with Conquest of Far being set immediately after Planet of the Daleks I put Ephros even further back, so what you're reading now has been in draft mode waiting to be published for a couple months.

And this one is not without its surprises, no not by a long shot. But I'm not a spoiler. So they remain a surprise.

NEXT EPISODE: THE HIDDEN REALM

The Time Tunnel and The Other Woman

Two of the Short Trips adventures from Big Finish are next, and although I placed them both within the last range of Jo's adventures with the Doctor, turns out only one belongs here...

UNIT are made aware of an alarming incident which has left everyone on board a passenger train dead. When the Doctor investigates he discovers that although the passengers only left the station minutes earlier they have all aged to death as if their journey has taken months. With no other alternatives, the Doctor takes the next train through on his own to discover the truth of what went on.

It's not a complicated story at all, fitting in quite well in the time after Planet of the Daleks and without any of the heavy handed foreshadowing of Jo's departure that has popped up in the novels set in this space. Nope, it's the Doctor and Jo (as read by Katy Manning) and a mystery to solve involving lots of dead people and a localized time distortion effect in an area of England which was once rumoured to have been the Devil's resting place. And all over in about a half an hour. Mind you, it was over a little too easily; time may be short on these ones but there's no reason to make the ending as rushed as this one was.


The Other Woman on the other hand takes place back before the Doctor's exile was lifted by the Time Lords and sees him still trying to escape from Earth. Enter the mysterious traveller Callandra whose own ship has broken down on Earth and she needs help. The Doctor obliges as he can relate to being stranded, but then all the men of UNIT are suddenly falling all over themselves trying to help as well, which sets Jo's instincts off. Good Samaritans all? Or does Callandra have some kind of hold over men?

A classic science fiction device that is - the persuasive seductive alien woman with the series regulars wrapped around her finger, and its takes the female protagonist to be immune to her charms to set everyone free. Smacks of the end of the fourth series of Angel with everyone under the spell of Jasmine and her beauty, meanwhile she's a rotting festering heap of maggoty evil. Callandra isn't exactly like that, but she's not far off. One would have thought the Doctor would be immune to that kind of thing but his desire to get away from Earth makes him more vulnerable to it than usual.

Now for some full length fare...

NEXT EPISODE: THE TRANSCENDENCE OF EPHROS