Big Finish - Doctor Who - Short Trips 9.7 : Battle Scars

Nightmarish memories of the Boer War. Crippling debts. An unconscious stranger in the garden. Arthur Daniels is beset with problems. Little does he know that his proposed solution could be the biggest problem of them all: a voyage to America aboard the RMS Titanic.

 

Battle Scars fits into the Who timeline somewhere before Rose, and features a battle scared 9th Doctor, turning up injured in the Daniel’s family’s garden in April 1912, it’s not until he is nursed back to health by them that he discovers they have tickets to the US on the Titanic.

 

There might be a vague backstory about sabotage, and an alien gun found in Cardiff bay, but the main drive of the story is the Doctor struggling with a choice. Does he let the Daniels family go ahead with their trip on the Titanic to America, or does he bend the rules of time, and save them?

 

I’d not read anything at all on the story before I listened, but knew as soon as I heard iin the narration that it was set in April 1912 that this was quite an important month in history, so immediately knew where things were heading. Because of this, Selim Ulug’s writing did seem a bit ‘story by numbers’, but I have to say this tale of time travelling morals was both engaging and very enjoyable.

 

Nicholas Briggs himself is on narration duty, and I must say that his impression of Eccleston is pretty much spot on, and helps lift the story above what it might have been. 

 

Overall Battle Scars is a very welcome addition to the Short Trip series. I just wish it would have included a reference to THAT picture on Clive's website in Rose.

 

Battle Scars is available to download HERE.