Even though Tom Baker was in the lead role when I became a teenage Doctor Who fan in 1980, Peter Davison as the Fifth Doctor was MY Doctor. There was something about his portrayal that I identified with: his youth made him a more accessible ‘hero’ figure than Baker did; his preppy cricketing look influenced my own fashion sense; and his vulnerability was something I could relate to.

Davison visited Melbourne, Australia in 1983 to attend the Logies, Australia’s TV awards. As a giddy 16-year-old, I took the day off school and went into the city where he was doing a promotional book signing appearance in the department store Myer. In front of quite a crowd of excited fans, he tried hard to look enthusiastic as the matronly Myer book department manager, while chatting with him, gushed about the special effects in ‘Time-flight’, which was having a repeat screening on the ABC at the time, and everyone knew she was talking through her hat – even then, ‘Time-flight’ was considered naff. I did feel a little embarrassed that the book he signed for me was the ‘Time-flight’ paperback, just released, but I was too excited. I was there, on the platform, with THE DOCTOR!

Fast-forward 31 years, and I receive a media release email from the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra publicity department announcing interview opportunities with Davison to promote his role as host of the Doctor Who Symphonic Spectacular's Australian and New Zealand tour. Over the years as a freelance writer, I have interviewed many other Doctor Who stars, including Katy Manning, Elisabeth Sladen, Russell T Davies, David Tennant, Matt Smith and Steven Moffat, but this was different. You can imagine my excitement at the prospect of a one-on-one interview with my teenage hero. So I emailed the publicist, explained my position, and was kindly granted an interview with Peter Davison. And here it is.

After the interview, Davison agreed to sign a DVD sleeve (‘Castrovalva’ this time, and he marvelled at the ‘Mild Violence’ classification) and have a photo taken with me. I showed him a photo on my phone of my signed copy of ‘Time-flight’ (he remembered the book signing and the crusty matron), we chatted briefly about Melbourne’s crazy hot summer (he’d arrived on a 40 degree day), how Katy Manning was as mad as a cut snake, and how gracious Elisabeth Sladen had been, and then it was over. Even though it was only 20 minutes, Peter was warm, attentive, articulate and candid – just as I expected him to be. I’m just glad I didn’t gush too much, or melt into a fan-geek mess. So thank you, Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, not only for the Doctor Who Symphonic Spectacular, but for allowing me to meet MY Doctor.

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The Doctor Who Symphonic Spectacular runs in Melbourne from 31st January to 1st February before moving to Brisbane on 8th February and Wellington from 21st February to 22nd February.

Considering the feral response to The Time of the Doctor on social media in the last week, Doctor Who fans seem more divided than ever. All the goodwill and euphoria that followed the 50th anniversary special The Day of the Doctor evaporated within 24 hours, with The Time of the Doctor either lauded or despised. The doomsday brigade of fans are already calling for a new showrunner, arguing that Steven Moffat has “gone too far” (whatever that means!) and warning that if the program is allowed to continue “on a downward spiral” (whatever that also means!), Doctor Who will be cancelled (never mind that the ratings are solid!).

Well, I’m here to assure the rest of us the rumours of Doctor Who’s demise have been greatly exaggerated. If the TV program fades away in the next few years, it won’t be because of The Time of the Doctor specifically or Steven Moffat’s apparent “megalomania”. Going into the ninth year since its revival, Doctor Who has already exceeded the average life span of other TV programs. The Time of the Doctor gives the Time Lord – and the program – a kick-start. What more could fans have asked for?

Granted, the episode isn’t perfect – but even the best episodes of Doctor Who across the ages have their flaws. The premise is sound – a horde of alien races besiege the planet Trenzalore to ensure that an age-old prophecy does not eventuate and the Doctor is forced to defend the planet’s hapless inhabitants in the crossfire and accept his own mortality. It is in the execution that the episode has its ups and downs. So what works and what doesn’t?

Much as part two of The End of Time was a valedictory tour for David Tennant’s Doctor, so this episode is a valediction for Matt Smith’s Time Lord. The Silents, Weeping Angels, Sontarans, Cybermen and Daleks are present to give Smith’s Doctor a spectacular send-off – but with the exception of the Daleks and the Church of the Papal Mainframe (including the Silents), most of this menagerie of aliens and monsters are superfluous to the story. They did not all need to be explicitly shown, need only have been inferred in dialogue and some of the sequences that feature them could have been left on the cutting room floor in favour of more expository material and more interaction between the Doctor and Clara.

For example, the arrival of the Silents while Clara is waiting outside Tasha Lem’s chapel is effective in generating menace but it is ultimately unnecessary when we later learn they are the good guys! The random appearance of the Weeping Angels in the snow is also pointless (if ever there was a story in which the Angels should not have appeared, this was it!). The incursions by the Sontaran duo – basically an excuse for Dan Starkey to reprise Strax twice over! – and the wooden Cyberman are also played up for comedy but otherwise add little to the story. The wooden Cyberman would have been ingenious in The Next Doctor a few years ago but here it is about as useful as the puppet Monoid that we glimpse in the puppet show about the Doctor’s adventures!

What also doesn’t work (and which I believe is at the heart of many of the complaints about this episode) is the comedy in the first 20 minutes of the story. While the pre-titles sequence is amusing, I suspect the comedy would not be so predominant if this were a regular episode. It’s as if Moffat feels obligated to inject a lot of humour into the opening minutes of the story because it is a de facto Christmas special rather than just letting events unfold and adding lighter moments along the way. The Doctor appearing naked before Clara and her relatives is symptomatic of his madcap nature and you cannot help but laugh (even on repeated viewings) but otherwise this whole sequence could have been sacrificed (no religious pun intended!) for more mystery and drama. Nevertheless, kudos to artistes James Buller, Elizabeth Rider and Sheila Reid who really look as if they are seeing a naked man when Matt Smith is fully dressed!

However, once the comedy settles down and we learn what the source of the mysterious distress signal reverberating throughout the cosmos is, The Time of the Doctor is as exciting, dramatic and ambitious as expected. It is ironic that while the Time Lords and Gallifrey are not physically in the episode, the threat and opportunity their return signifies is more omnipresent than the menagerie of aliens and monsters that physically threaten the Doctor and Clara. Some things are better heard and felt but not seen – a brilliant tactic which Doctor Who down the years has perfected. It is why the opening visuals to the episode are magnificent – the swarm of Dalek, Judoon, Sontaran, Cyberman, Silurian and Sontaran ships (amongst others) ranged against the Saturn-like planet of Trenzalore are undeniably impressive and say a lot more than showing a handful of monsters. It is why the visual of Tasha Lem’s proclamation of the siege of Trenzalore and vow that “silence will fall” (witnessed by Church devotees on floating platforms) is also virtually identical to the cliffhanger to part one of The End of Time (when the Time Lords were revealed for the first time in the modern series) – it emphasises how much the stakes have been raised in the quest for universal peace. It is why Tasha Lem’s description of how the distress signal generates “something overpowering ... pure, unadulterated fear” also hints at a threat possibly greater than the races besieging Trenzalore itself (despite the Doctor’s insistence, can we be sure the Time Lords’ intended return is benevolent and not vengeful?).

While some fans may also not buy into the story of an ages old conflict and the Doctor’s protection of a pre-industrialised society that does not seem to develop (or want to expand and grow), the story through Tasha Lem’s narration is convincing enough. Orla Brady is impressive as the Mother Superious Tasha Lem, proving ambiguous enough (is she hero or villain – or a bit of both?) to keep you guessing about her motives right to the end of the episode. I suspect we haven’t seen the last of her.

As Steven Moffat said at the 50th anniversary celebrations in November, Matt Smith really acts his heart out, portraying an ageing Doctor in a stalemate with his greatest enemies. What still stands out about Smith’s Doctor even as he ages is his affinity with children. This has been constant since the Eleventh Doctor’s initial meeting with young Amelia Pond – and his interaction with Barnable in the episode is touching. It reinforces that deep down Smith’s Doctor is at heart(s) a big kid with an unending childlike thirst for life and adventure.

Smith’s transformation in the climactic minutes of the episode into an almost Hartnell-esque figure (at least in look) is extraordinary. It’s a performance tinged with regret and sadness but also full of humour and warmth. The transformation is symbolic of the program coming full circle. We’re back to the cranky, cantankerous yet sharply intelligent and brilliant old man that we first met 50 years ago in a junkyard. Who could argue that is not poetic?

For the second time in as many episodes it is the companion who is again the game breaker. Clara’s monologue to the Time Lords is beautifully written by Moffat and delivered with great feeling and passion by Jenna Coleman: “You’ve been asking the question but you lot have been getting it wrong! His name is the Doctor – all the name he needs, everything you know about him! And if you love him – and you should – help him! Help him!” It’s a fantastic performance from Coleman who again rises above the limitations of her character to deliver a solid performance. It shows what a great asset she is to Doctor Who even when she doesn’t have much to do. Just imagine how good Coleman may be in the next season if Clara is given more to do!

This could have been a great episode for Clara. It’s a pity that one of the scenes deleted from the final broadcast features Clara telling the Doctor how much she misses him. It shows how affectionate their relationship is – well beyond the Doctor’s description of her as an “associate”. What is mentioned and goes unexplored are Clara’s feelings for the Doctor as well, particularly when the truth field indicates that she fancies him. “Oh no, not again!” you may be thinking. Nevertheless, this attempt at romance offers an interesting angle for the next series when Peter Capaldi takes on the reins – how Clara copes with loving a much older incarnation of a man who will be less potential boyfriend material and more father figure.

Some fans have been livid about the divine intervention of the Time Lords in the climax – but what we get is a “MacGuffin” no different than the divine intervention of “Bad Wolf” Rose in The Parting of the Ways (when the Doctor is also in a stand-off with the Dalek Emperor). The intervention is a truly magical moment (perhaps more magical because you know what’s coming!) and magic and wonder are things that are all too often missing from so-called SF and fantasy television nowadays. How can you not cheer at Smith’s performance when the Doctor, true to form, defies the rules once again?

Yet apparently the resolution goes too far for the fans condemning this episode. In 1977, when The Deadly Assassin was broadcast, some fans whinged that Robert Holmes’ portrayal of the Time Lords negated the earlier impressions of them as a seemingly benevolent, omnipotent, enigmatic and divine race of beings (as hinted in The War Games and The Three Doctors). Flash forward 36 years and now we’re complaining that the Time Lords are apparently benevolent, omnipotent, enigmatic and divine all over again and not the corrupt, incompetent bureaucrats Holmes made them out to be! It just shows there is no pleasing some and the program can never win!

I also don’t believe fans can complain too much about the way the Time Lords gifted the Doctor a whole new regeneration cycle. In my mind, just as I always thought it was inevitable the Time Lords would be revived in the series so it was destined that the Doctor one day would be granted a whole new lease of life. I was never sure how this would be achieved and I certainly did not expect it to be resolved so quickly (after all, for most of 2013 we thought the Doctor still had two regenerations in reserve!) but having now seen it happen in The Time of the Doctor I could not envisage it happening any other way. OK, maybe the science of it doesn’t make sense but Doctor Who has never made sense scientifically. What has mattered is the sentiment behind it – and we see that in Smith’s brilliant final moments.

Smith delivers a confident, philosophical, fitting and touching monologue for his Doctor and the character of the Time Lord overall: “We all change when you think about it. We’re all different people – all through our lives. And that’s OK, that’s good, you’ve got to keep moving, so long as you remember all the people that you used to be. I will not forget one line of this, not one day, I swear. I will always remember when the Doctor was me.”

Smith’s discarding of the bow tie is a poignant touch. There is none of the petulant, self-indulgent and indecorous ranting of the Tenth Doctor’s departure in Smith’s final moments (as powerful as David Tennant’s performance was in The End of Time, the Tenth Doctor’s departure seems disingenuous in hindsight now we know he was too vain to fully regenerate in Journey’s End!). Smith’s departure is dignified, accommodating and affectionate – coming from a Time Lord whose incarnation has survived for over a millennium and has accepted his time is up.

My only major disappointment with the episode is the entrance of Peter Capaldi’s Doctor which is underwhelming, visually and in the dialogue. Even allowing for the fact that the regeneration began 10 minutes earlier, the transformation from Smith to Capaldi isn’t as visually exciting as the Eccleston/Tennant and Tennant/Smith transitions. It is almost a “blink and you’ll miss it” moment. As for Capaldi’s first line as the Doctor: “Kidneys!” Seriously? It’s on a par with Colin Baker’s parting words of “Carrot juice! Carrot juice!” Maybe Moffat thought it would be funny but it falls flat after such a magnificent farewell for Smith. Fortunately this will not impact on Capaldi’s Doctor – I expect he will be brilliant in the role and an actor of his calibre will rise above the quality of the material that he is given - good or bad!

The Time of the Doctor is not perfect but is a dramatic and in parts stirring conclusion to Matt Smith’s era. Moffat in a passage of exposition between the Doctor and Tasha Lem manages to tie up many of the loose ends from Smith’s first few seasons in his fashionably “wibbly wobbly, timey wimey” way: the Pandorica/crack in time, the Order of the Silence, Trenzalore and Gallifrey Falls No More. It is difficult to know whether Moffat had a masterplan from the beginning or if he has made it all up as he goes along! Nevertheless, most of the jigsaw pieces fall into place, even if the execution in parts of this episode seem clumsy and there are still some “timey wimey” questions and potential paradoxes in play (eg is Clara still the “Impossible Girl”?).

Significantly, The Time of the Doctor is a watershed episode. Just as the return of Gallifrey established exciting possibilities at the end of The Day of the Doctor, the Doctor’s new lease of life in The Time of the Doctor gives not just the title character but the show itself a fantastic opportunity to renew and rejuvenate itself. The Capaldi Doctor is not just the 12th Doctor – he is now the first Doctor in a whole new regeneration cycle.

What better gift could fans have asked for in the program’s 50th anniversary year? Yet judging by the feral reaction of some to this episode in blogs and social media, you’d be forgiven for thinking they want to see the demise of the show! Oh well, winners (the Doctor) are grinners and losers (disaffected fans) can please themselves. There’s always Moffat’s The Curse of Fatal Death as an alternative of how the Doctor cheats death - etheric beam locators and all!

The Time of the Doctor made an already difficult task more complicated than it needed to have been. Doctor Who has been shifting formats recently, with two years of short runs which stood unsteadily between major series and boutique television, culminating in red button short and an anniversary special which was at home in the cinema as it was on the small screen. It would have seemed to make sense to deliver another blockbuster, to follow The Day of the Doctor with something reminiscent of Voyage of the Damned in terms of spectacle, sending Matt Smith out in a towering inferno of action-adventure television. Instead we received something altogether quieter and more reflective, though still ambitious and until the very end rarely taking quite the time it needed to cover all the ground required. Switching athletic metaphors, the episode eschewed the high jump for the long jump, but only broke its record by leaving out some of the inconvenient units of measurement.

Doctor Who tells its stories through image and sound as much as actors playing scripts. Incidental music reminded long-term viewers of the cause of the tenth Doctor’s regeneration, of Clara's history as 'impossible girl', of the Doctor's responsibility towards Amy Pond. The underpinning of The Time of the Doctor seemed to be repeated images deliberately referencing the past, particularly of children’s drawings, and the musical cues connecting to specific moments in previous stories. More than any of his predecessors, the eleventh Doctor has been explicitly coded as a children’s hero within the narrative. It’s a role he has had ever since bonding with Amelia in The Eleventh Hour and then a series of Amelia-substitutes, from Mandy in The Beast Below onwards through young Kazran in A Christmas Carol to the children in The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe and beyond. Here, while the Doctor protects successive generations of Trenzaloreans, he cherishes the pictures of him they have drawn as children, spreading across the walls and pillars of his tower home, much as Amy Pond grew up recounting and embellishing the legend of the man who one night had eaten fish fingers and custard at her kitchen table and then disappeared. On Trenzalore, the Doctor becomes both story and storyteller, building a culture around himself complete with Punch and Judy version of The Ark.

This wasn’t the only recycling of old visual cues. The placing of the Oswald family in a tower block acted not only as a mirror of the Doctor’s home on Trenzalore, but of Rose’s flat back in the 2005 and 2006 series. The location – Lydstep Flats, Cardiff – was the same used for the ‘back’ of the Powell Estate in Rose, encouraging a sense that Doctor Who is going back to one of its beginnings, though there’s an awkwardness about the Oswald family which is distinct from the awkwardness I felt from the Rose, Mickey and Jackie background. There, the discomfort came from the broad playing of acute if subjective social observation, alleviated a little when one realised how far the series was written and interpreted through Rose’s eyes. Here, the cumbersome nakedness-hologram gag is used as a blanket to cover the sense that we really don’t know much about Clara’s background; it’s difficult to place the flat setting alongside her work for the Maitlands and the glimpses of her parental home(s) we saw in The Rings of Akhaten. Perhaps this just means that the Doctor Who of 2013 views society as more fluid and less rigidly stratified than that of 2005; but if so, Lydstep Flats are a curious borrowing in an episode which expected and demanded that viewers remember much more detail from past episodes than has been usual.

In its revival of the crack in the universe which propelled the 2010 series, the episode’s explanation seems muffled and misdirected. The Doctor’s reminiscence of rebooting the universe following its destruction on 26 June 2010 tended to assume knowledge rather than provide it. The conversation in Tasha Lem’s chapel explaining about the Kovarian faction’s breakaway from the main body of the Church of the Silence was almost apologetically undramatic. The return of the device of a victim of Dalek re-engineering forgetting that they had died before sprouting eyestalk and gun-stick was thrifty in terms of the reuse of an effect, but the manner of the reintroduction had something hollow about it. This was redeemed somewhat by the Doctor’s successful resurrection of Tasha’s identity and his reminder of what the Daleks represent: they embody the potential for dissociated self-obsession and the destructive force isolation and lack of empathy can unleash. If Tasha has already battled this within herself for centuries, she can and does defeat the Dalek within. A pity the Doctor’s line about the inner psychopath seemed somewhat thrown away.

The rapid introduction and disposal of good ideas was almost a signature of the episode. The Doctor ate up brilliantly-sketched but underdeveloped personas, especially his James Stewart-like sheriff. (I remembered the supposed influence of James Stewart’s Destry [which I have seen] on Patrick Troughton’s Doctor, but it took Christopher Stevens in the Daily Mail to point out the links with another Stewart western, The Man Who Shot Liberty Vallance [which I have not].) Not out of step with the episode’s obsession with clergy is the parallel presentation of the Doctor as an old priest, teleporting out from the confessional, and making better use of confidences than the memory-erasing Silence or the faith-switching Tasha Lem. All are manipulators, but the Doctor at least is conscious of the burden of guilt. A pity, again, that the audience was not presented more directly the comparison between the Doctor and Tasha, and for Tasha to be more noticeably self-aware. Driving the TARDIS is easier than driving the Doctor, but one wasn’t sure that the script had a good idea of what that meant, a pity for an episode where tone and some of the content suggested that it was to be taken as a contemplation of Doctor Who’s values and who the Doctor was.

There was little sense, too, of the Doctor’s enemies as being more than archetypal threats. The effectiveness of the Cybermen has been in decline since The Tenth Planet and variations on their physical form are perhaps the best entertainment they provide. Perhaps a chocolate Cyberman, based on the wooden model could be licensed in time for Easter... The Sontarans now seem to be following the comedic model into which Strax has fallen (nevertheless entertainingly). These three, like the Angels, were there to do their turns, the Angels seemingly being trapped in much the same way they were in Blink (though this wasn’t well articulated).

The Daleks, naturally, had the best spot on the bill and the most to do, successfully overcoming the Church of the Silence half-way through the Doctor’s sojourn on Trenzalore, though seemingly for continuity reasons as this enabled them to recover (some of) the knowledge of the Doctor removed from their data banks in Asylum of the Daleks. They were the spokesbeings too for the besiegers at the climax and had the privilege of being the first to be annihilated (presumably) by regenerative energy. The shot was spectacular, but one wonders if turning these latterday bursts of golden transmogrifative flame into destructive weapons is necessarily a good thing in story terms. Given, though, that the town of Christmas and the world of Trenzalore are largely symbols of what the Doctor chooses or is forced by circumstance to stand for, then his monstrous foes are here his inner demons and the support of friends – the Time Lords and Clara – give him the strength to overcome them. The journey into the mountain to find the new man is made again.

If town and planet are to be largely understood as figurative, then seasoned television-watchers were deliberately misled by their introduction. Tessa Peake-Jones and Rob Jarvis are both actors whom one might expect to remain in a programme for more than one scene. Their briefing about the truth field seemed to have sinister possibilities, but as it turned out they were unwitting observers of the darkening clouds around the Doctor, not the manipulators we were encouraged to believe. Once the Doctor was trapped on Trenzalore then viewers were reversed out of a narrative too drawn out to be entertaining, and shown only the more dramatic moments. It’s not surprising, though, that this could feel like a betrayal to part of the audience. To some extent this was acknowledged by Clara’s dismissal by the Doctor, a bravely undisguised borrowing from The Parting of the Ways. In clinging to the TARDIS she is battling to remain part of the story; her survival where Captain Jack expired is another mark of her uniqueness. The presentation of Clara reminded audiences of her particular status as the impossible girl while drawing more widely from the generic heritage of the post-2005 companion. It remains to be seen whether this compromises any further development of her background in the long term.

Clara wasn’t the only companion to appear in this story. Handles the Cyber-head was a metallic realisation of Tom Baker’s talking cabbage, and a reminder of the Doctor’s need for someone to talk to. The withdrawal of the Doctor from continuous human contact has been a feature of the latter part of the eleventh Doctor’s period; the Ponds became people he visited and took on trips rather than travelled with, and emphasis has been placed on Clara’s home life and latterly career to which she returns. Given that Clara provides the resolution to the problem by telling the Time Lords that the Doctor is the only name he will ever need, the Moffatian paradox at the heart of this story is one based around the Doctor’s judgement – had he not sought to protect and had trusted his human best friend more, he might not have needed to put himself and Trenzalore through this standoff and not have needed to regenerate – though may not have gained the new regeneration cycle too. At the end, of course, it’s Amelia Pond whom the Doctor hallucinates, whose face lends definition to the Doctor’s own; we are asked to wonder whether consuming fish fingers and custard delayed the Doctor’s full physical transformation long enough for him to say goodbye to Clara.

The Time of the Doctor deserves plaudits for its ambition; the Doctor choosing to let himself be trapped in one place for centuries to protect a people and a cosmos from destruction, and gradually ageing at and as the heart of the place, is a powerful idea. The execution was perhaps compromised by expectations and by wilfully leading those expectations on. The protracted nudity joke didn’t help many, including me, but perhaps other parts of the audience, particularly the younger ones, were more committed to it. The plight of Christmas Town and the Doctor’s relationship to it – how far could the townsfolk have blamed him for their situation? – could have been expanded upon. Patrick Mulkern at Radio Times online has rightly pointed out the debt the set owes to the Christmas Radio Times of 1977, but more than this visual allusion to an item from parental childhoods was needed to give some sense of the people of Christmas Town and their community. Again, perhaps, the children’s love for the Doctor and its resonance with the crucial younger section of the audience was crucial.

Arguably, though, the bulk of the episode was mood-setting for the final few minutes, which was the most tightly conceived and performed. The false dawn of the eleventh Doctor’s restored youth and Jenna Coleman’s portrayal of an apprehensive, relieved and then frightened and bereaved Clara were surprisingly moving after an episode which largely failed to emotionally involve. In promising never to forget ‘one line’ of his existence in Matt Smith’s form, the Doctor recognises that he is at least the subject of a history or chronicle, if not an outright fiction. Clara’s desperation to hold on to the Doctor was met with silent, shuffled retreat, denying Clara the consolation of touch as if the eleventh Doctor was already a Shakespearean ghost or even Christ between resurrection and ascension. A pity, then, that the sudden manifestation of the twelfth Doctor took the form of a ritual which understood the formula, but not the heart, of something which should never have been treated as liturgical – the remark about a transformed body part, the TARDIS crashing – with the only variation being the new Doctor’s specific amnesia over TARDIS steering.

The Time of the Doctor didn’t answer every question remaining from the eleventh Doctor’s era. We don’t know who the woman was who gave Clara the Doctor’s telephone number, for example; but that belongs to Clara’s storyline more than it did the eleventh Doctor’s. The revelation that the eleventh Doctor was really the thirteenth physical form of this Time Lord was clearly a late decision, sitting unhappily if not entirely contradicting some earlier episodes (not that this is new in Doctor Who). The grant of a new regeneration cycle by the Time Lords was a surprisingly easy solution to an anticipated problem. I’d been imagining something complex involving cracks in the fabric of the universe, the Eye of Harmony and covetous alien species.

This has been a fragmentary review of an episode which I enjoyed more than many but which nevertheless didn’t quite satisfy in the way that I had hoped. It didn’t feel as considered as The Day of the Doctor or even the first part of this trilogy, The Name of the Doctor. One wonders if there will be any consequences for the Doctor’s erasure of his tomb on Trenzalore; the discontinuity reconciler in me speculates that perhaps at some point someone – River? – established a false graveyard and a false TARDIS-tomb. It was, however, bold in conception even if the demands of the execution didn’t quite work, like a Christmas comedy show by almost anyone other than Morecambe and Wise. There was so much which could have been helped by a few additional lines of dialogue, or different intensity of performance. The central theme was just enough to carry the episode through to the regeneration itself, and all the performers made the very most of what they were given, but one hopes for a more assured set of Doctor Who episodes in the autumn.

The 50th Anniversary year has been an unexpectedly fruitful period for fans eager to have Doctor Who’s lingering continuity voids addressed. The Day of the Doctor presented Russell T. Davies’ mysterious Time War in all of its glory, and in tandem with The Night of the Doctor, the feature-length Special even depicted Paul McGann’s Doctor in his final moments, his regeneration into the War Doctor and the latter’s subsequent transformation into Christopher Eccleston’s incarnation. Before all of those startling, immensely satisfying revelations, though, Steven Moffat took the grand step in his The Name of the Doctor of recreating the First Doctor and Susan’s initial boarding of the TARDIS on Gallifrey.

That Marc Platt, scribe of one of the final Companion Chronicles releases, The Beginning, finds time to integrate even Clara Oswald’s presence in his own representation of William Hartnell’s Time Lord and his granddaughter upon their first voyage says plenty of the success with which he crafts a reinterpretation of one of the series’ most ambiguous (untold on-screen) events. Platt’s narrative premise allows for a more direct interaction between the “original” Doctor and the beloved mythology which he was largely detached from due to the show’s executive producers only commencing their weaving in hints of the character’s past in the Jon Pertwee and Tom Baker years.

As one might expect of such a revelatory drama, Platt’s openness in chronicling the protagonist’s escape from his home planet for the most part disintegrates the enigmatic figure that first emerged from the shadows of an abandoned junkyard in An Unearthly Child. Our knowledge of the events which instigated his travels will doubtless transform our perspective on Doctor Who’s televised premiere, yet such is the great flexibility of the programme’s lore and its continuity that we could argue any interpretation of its ongoing or past storylines as valid. That’s an empowering concept if ever there was one, particularly for fans disappointed with the supposedly transparent light in which Platt has attempted to cast a previously elusive episode in the Doctor’s life.

With Carole Ann Ford returning to the Companion Chronicles series, of course, there was scarce chance that Platt’s script wouldn’t be done justice in the recording studio. While few would deny that being able to have the late Bill Hartnell with us to aid in the description of his Doctor’s learning the ways of the universe firsthand, Carole’s narration more than compensates, the script allowing her to create an immediately engaging first-person representation of the characters, locales and events which Susan encounters as she ventures out of a Type 40 time capsule. Much as time has scarcely affected the strength of Who, so too does Carole’s portrayal of Susan and several of The Beginning’s other characters appear unfazed by the decades that have passed since The Dalek Invasion of Earth.

Carole’s co-star Terry Molloy naturally needs no introduction, his return to the role of Davros alongside Sylvester McCoy in Daleks Among Us remaining one of this year’s most memorable guest performances. Quadrigger Stoyn is certainly an inspired deviation from the status quo for Molloy, an unhinged Time Lord engineer who inadvertently becomes a co-conspirator in Theta Sigma’s theft and escape from Gallifrey. However, in this first instalment of a Companion Chronicles trilogy based around Stoyn, the accomplished star’s portrayal is limited by his inevitably gradual character arc, and when he ventures into the roles of other male characters such as the Archeon leader, there’s déjà vu lying in wait, as Molloy’s portrayal of extraterrestrials rapidly becomes reminiscent of a certain Dalek creator of old. Perhaps the transpiration of such an event was impossible to avoid, for Davros’ voice must now be incredibly familiar to the man behind the mask, but if that’s the case, then Big Finish’s neglecting to find another voice for Stoyn is uncharacteristically unambitious on the studio’s part.

Of further minor detriment is the difficult narrative/tonal scenario which must have posed itself to Platt in the early stages of penning his latest Who instalment. In fact, it’s the same difficulty which seemingly arose for George Lucas in drafting his divisive Star Wars prequel outings, and for Peter Jackson with his three-tier Hobbit project. The prospect of discovering the secrets of the past must always appear enticing on the surface, yet with a vast science-fiction mythology already established in the past half-century of time travelling escapades, upon further inspection a great challenge lies in attempting to write a Doctor Who episode which almost breaks the fundamental weekly rules of the series. Just as Lucas couldn’t resist encounters with Wookies, Tatooine and Stormtroopers, nor Jackson trips to the Misty Mountains, the Shire and other fan favourite locales, so too does Platt’s narrative explore human colonies, the ethics of time travel and other familiar Who elements with only a limited level of innovation upon the endless array of intergalactic exploits which have come before.

Like An Adventure in Space and Time before it, The Beginning is a blatant, oft-remarkable homage to Doctor Who’s roots, albeit more engrained in the series’ complex mythology than the former BBC Two docudrama. Platt’s narrative and Carole Ann Ford’s portrayal of Susan are both extremely commendable in terms of their clear endeavouring to distinguish the release from everything which has preceded it. Nevertheless, this reviewer can’t help but notice that a compromise has been struck so as to balance Doctor Who’s past with its present and future. One can appreciate such a compromise in light of the three iconic spirits sent to haunt Scrooge at this time of year, yet had Platt elected to accept the inevitability of this tale’s nostalgic tone, and as such indulge in the past a little more so as to provide a few more gifts for fans in the festive time of goodwill, then The Beginning could be recalled as amongst Big Finish’s all-time greats. There’s potential aplenty, though, for Stoyn’s future encounters with the Doctor, especially if Molloy can capitalize on the unique nature of his role when we next visit his bemused Quadrigger in December’s The Dying Light.

“Whoever they are, they’ve messed with the wrong planet. Ladies, gentlemen- let’s go save the world!”

It had to happen some time. After two underwhelming opening instalments in their 1963 trilogy, Big Finish have finally produced nothing short of an outright gem with the ‘series finale’, The Assassination Games. The Seventh Doctor’s journey back to where it all began commences a fundamentally human narrative which- aptly enough for the 50th Anniversary of an iconic British franchise- explores the ramifications of the history of our nation in a pseudo-present day context, establishing a grand action blockbuster tone from the outset.

That Remembrance of the Daleks’ famed Intrusion Countermeasures Group return to the fray will be a key element of the audio drama’s appeal for fans of the McCoy era, particularly those lucky enough to have experienced the Countermeasures spin-off series. The final 1963 storyline is a precursor to the aforementioned spin-off, meaning that Group Captain Gilmore and the rest of the team are still in the process of working out the kinks at this point. Nevertheless, the charming dynamic between Simon Williams (Gilmore), Pamela Salem (Rachel Jensen) and Karen Gledhill (Allison Williams) won’t struggle to captivate veteran or newcomer listeners, and John Dorney’s script does an impressive job of venturing beyond sub-standard prequel territory.

This reviewer’s appreciation of the talents of the classic Doctors and their companions has increased substantially thanks to Big Finish’s output this year, and Assassination Games only furthers that trend. Sylvester McCoy and Sophie Aldred are each as animated and engaging as ever as the Time Lord and Ace respectively, with the latter’s performance having developed hugely since the culmination of the pair’s time on-screen in 1989. If the Destiny of the Doctor release Shockwave wasn’t enough to convince listeners of Aldred’s accomplished portrayal, then this instalment and next month’s Afterlife should both disintegrate any lingering doubts without fail.

Ken Bentley returns to the director’s chair over a year on from his last collaboration with Dorney, The Wrath of the Iceni, and contrary to the historic tone of that ancient Roman outing, there’s rightly more of a resemblance to Remembrance and The Bells of Saint John in this case. The piece’s soundtrack and fast-paced structure maintain the storyline’s momentum, such that even in Assassination’s quieter moments, the sense resides that a thrilling setpiece of some kind is only ever just around the corner. The action-driven nature of the plot does leave it lacking in the emotional department, but at the same time, what with the sheer pace of proceedings, it’s difficult to take too much note of this absence.

What does prove of notable detriment, however, is the absence of a fully-fledged extraterrestrial antagonist. A threat simply named ‘the Light’ is established in the latter half of the piece, but anyone who makes the assumption as this reviewer did that the final 1963 drama would act as a prequel (albeit belated) to Big Finish’s 50th Anniversary Special, The Light at the End, will come away sorely dissatisfied. Instead, the villains are complete newcomers to the field, and although that’s a much-needed deviation from Big Finish’s plethora of returning adversaries this year, the simplistic and one-dimensional depiction of this Empire-fuelled race is extremely underwhelming.

Bentley does at least hint at future confrontations between the Doctor and his latest foe in this audio range and in doing so holds promise for a more innovative direction for the studio’s works beyond the year of the 50th. A tangible lack of original antagonists has pervaded the various storylines in the Big Finish Whoniverse for the last few months, and to this reviewer, it’s a gap that sorely needs filling in the studio’s 2014 output. The 1963 trilogy has experimented with unexplored adversaries, yet to no great effect- a foe who creates atmosphere more along the lines of last month’s Ghost in the Machine as a regular billing would be an enticing prospect at this stage, indeed.

The Assassination Games is a fulfilling conclusion to this celebratory trio of 50th Anniversary releases, though, of that there is no question. McCoy and Aldred frequently steal the show with their refined, exemplary portrayals of their once-maligned characters, now grand stalwarts of Who’s history just as much as any of their predecessors. The reintroduction of the Countermeasures gang into the fray is instantly refreshing for the range, and begs the contemplation as to whether further and more regular crossovers of Big Finish’s core and spin-off series would provide the studio with their much-needed revitalisation beyond this year. Perhaps the greatest irony of all with regards to the 1963 range is that had it focused more extensively on the year itself in a semi-nostalgic sense rather than striving in vain to create memorable original antagonists, the end results might have been that much more worthy of their overarching title.