This review contains plot spoilers and is based on the UK edition of the ebook.

Marcus Sedgwick’s ebook entry in this series of short stories from Puffin Books is a fluidly written and gripping page-turner (or should that be page-advancer?). It captures the third Doctor’s era pretty well in many ways, almost finding time to fit in a spot of ‘capture, escape and capture’, as well as pitting the Doctor and Jo Grant against one of their textbook enemies. There’s even a cameo from Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, though otherwise UNIT has relatively little to do. Sedgwick has fun creating story possibilities out of the Doctor’s Time Lord constitution, and The Spear of Destiny develops an interesting take on what having two hearts might mean for body temperature and its regulation.

The titular Spear (which pierced the body of Christ at his crucifixion, had links back to the Viking God Odin, and was supposedly possessed by Adolf Hitler) makes for a great MacGuffin, the story being set in motion by its appearance in 1970s London. Sedgwick cleverly integrates bits of real-world myth, rumour and mysticism into his tale, though it never feels too overloaded by research. The Doctor sets off on a mission to capture the Spear, suspecting it to be a “PTN” (or Physical Temporal Nexus), an acronymic entity that the Time Lords want contained so as to prevent its infallible power interfering with the time-lines.

Sedgwick’s plotting creates a few difficulties, however, because he has the Doctor deciding to pop back in time and fix the Spear problem before he and Jo first encounter it in London. This creates a potential paradox at the heart of proceedings: if the Doctor and Jo succeed in their mission to neutralise the dangerous Spear, then surely the spearhead they initially tangle with shouldn’t pose any problems in the first place, having already been dealt with. To be fair, Sedgwick is alert to this issue, inserting a get-out line. But one implication of this story structure is that the third Doctor seems more than a little slapdash in his approach to a supposedly lethal artefact. Another victim of the compressed word count is that we get no backstory for the PTNs, and these remain wholly without context or explanation. Perhaps another of these anniversary stories will revisit the matter, but I wouldn’t bet on it.

The Doctor’s fondness for Josephine Grant is testified to on a number of occasions, and their relationship is nicely represented here. There’s no doubting the special degree of care and concern that this Doctor feels for his companion, nor Jo’s pride in accompanying him on his travels.

The Spear of Destiny is eventually resolved thanks to a Doctor Who continuity detail. We don’t quite veer off into fanwank territory, but Sedgwick’s closing gambit still feels a little bit pat as a way of tying up loose ends, and the adventure arrives at a rather comfortable, predictable end point; its cast of characters pretty much left in their default positions.

For me, these Puffin short stories are getting better with every installment. The sharpest thing about The Spear of Destiny is the way that it begins with the everyday, or at least with the ordinary – the Doctor and Jo visiting a museum exhibit – before whirling away into time-travel to explore the historical roots of the museum piece they’ve been investigating. As an educational detour this may well tutor younger readers. But more than that, Sedgwick playfully gestures at the wonders and mysteries of cultural treasures surrounding us in the here and now, piquing readers’ interest in history through its present-day traces. Some might say that Doctor Who’s raison d’etre is to make the ordinary fantastical and terrifying (mannequins or dolls or maggots), but this short story makes the ordinary fascinating, deploying its spearhead from time as a way into the value of museums, history, and knowledge. Unlike today’s televised Who there are no strikingly memorable monsters on show (presumed to be “what children want”). Instead, travelling into history – from glass cases to real places – is attraction enough, and Sedgwick’s writing energetically brings that appeal to life.

This review is based on the CD release from AudioGo and may contain minor spoilers.

"This is the serious bit - listen. Trust me on this . . . "

We're three months into AudioGo's Destiny Of The Doctor, and what with the monthly (or "Doctorly") schedule that brings us to the era of Jon Pertwee with Vengeance Of The Stones. What's perhaps most compelling about this third instalment is that it takes place in between Seasons Seven (1970) and Eight (1971) of the classic era, with the Doctor yet to meet Jo Grant, and Mike Yates yet to join UNIT as a captain. The latter plot strand of Yates's enlistment is an element of the character's arc never dealt with on-screen, so naturally fans will get a kick out of discovering how the tale of this beloved UNIT character began.

What's more, Vengeance does perhaps the best job yet of channelling its respective era of Doctor Who. Richard Franklin's Third Doctor impression is smashing, replicating Pertwee's aristocratic swagger and alien authority with the same alarming realism as Frazer Hines possessed in his portrayal of Patrick Troughton's incarnation last month. Franklin is joined by Trevor Littledale, who brings to life the mysterious aliens unearthed at a site of ancient stone circles in the north of Scotland. The premise of the story echoes recent adventures such as The Pandorica Opens and The Sarah Jane Adventures' Enemy Of The Bane, although strangely enough for a range seemingly intending to bridge the 50 years and various eras of Who references to those stone-themed tales are curiously absent here.

Typically enough, the audio's narrative is pretty representative of what fans would have come to expect from Pertwee's early years in the role as the Time Lord. At this point in his timeline, the Doctor is still trapped on Earth, so his adventures have a grounded feel to them in that he's using the technology of the human planet and his own wits, rather than creating a wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey solution as his eighth successor might currently do in these kinds of situations. Whether listeners will find that grounded sense of Earth-bound adventure works to the detriment of a purely science-fiction franchise in audio format will be a matter of personal preference, yet this reviewer has no doubt that Third Doctor fans will feel right at home.

Where there are perhaps more universal shortcomings with Vengeance, though, starts with the lack of ambition in its narrative. Whereas Hunters Of Earth and Shadow Of Death both did decent-to-great jobs of innovating on their respective eras of the show, Vengeance almost feels too much like a Pertwee tale, limited to much the same basic plot structure and chance-driven climax as we would see in many of the classic DVDs. Perhaps for some listeners who were there between 1970 and 1974, this will suit the bill perfectly, but even as someone who's tried to accustom themselves to the styles of each era of the show since joining the fanbase in 2005, this reviewer couldn't help but feel a lingering sense of boredom settling in during the latter half of this piece.

It doesn't help, either, that the Destiny story arc elements are at their absolute most basic and rudimentary here. Again, both of Vengeance's two predecessors at least featured references to the days that might come for the Eleventh Doctor in multiple scenes, yet here we have a third era-representative crossover with a future incarnation of the Time Lord that feels rather shoe-horned into proceedings. You'd have to hope that the various cameo appearances are going to lead to a substantial finale in November's The Time Machine, but particularly here it felt as if devoid of the extra scene at the beginning of the third act, Vengeance could have been just another rather average Big Finish classic Doctor release.

Ultimately, it's unlikely that those more significant detriments in this instalment are going to be of real hindrance to Pertwee fans here. Vengeance Of The Stones is still a fine addition to the Destiny Of The Doctor range, with Franklin's superb vocal work and the prominence of the era-representative storyline both doing wonders for the overall quality of the release. A word of caution and reassurance, then: those followers of the Destiny arc looking for concrete core developments will be left wanting, yet anyone who's been waiting for Vengeance to land and seal the 1970-1974 era of Who fully through Mike Yates's enlistment will at least find closure and excitement to be had throughout this fairly strong production.

Doctor Who – The Gunfighters is one of the more successful products of an experimental period for the Doctor Who novelization range. The mid-1980s saw W H Allen/Target make increasing recourse to the adventures of the first and second Doctors to fill out their publishing schedule, and where possible sought the authors of the original serials to write the books. This had mixed results, with some titles demonstrating their authors’ unfamiliarity with prose writing and with Doctor Who. Donald Cotton was an exception. Despite the eighteen years between his last televised serial and his first novelization, Donald Cotton demonstrated a clear understanding of who the Doctor was and the conventions of his adventures. In both his books he reinvented for prose his preoccupation with competing interpretations of historical events, the varying motivations of narrators and the needs of audiences. The crises in The Gunfighters derive as much from the problems of storytelling as they do to the perils in which the Doctor, Steven and Dodo find themselves. The self-consciously convoluted narrative framework offers many opportunities for an imaginative reading. Instead, AudioGo’s edition of the story becomes its second performance to fall through not being sufficiently quick on the draw for Donald Cotton’s sharpshooting.

There's a rationale behind the casting of Shane Rimmer; an authentic North American voice, albeit Canadian and long resident in the United Kingdom as well as one of the few survivors from the cast. His reading at first makes a good impression, grinding out the tones of Cotton's narrator persona, the author's interpretation of the historical journalist and myth-maker of the Old West, Ned Buntline. The listener might wonder whether Rimmer's voice is going to change for the Buntline-as-Holliday main narration, but it doesn’t, despite the theatricality of the conceit. In much of the narration Rimmer sounds unintentionally perplexed and his tone at chapter breaks imply surprise at how long the book is. His handling of the book's raconteurish language is often indistinct, while at the same time too straight for Cotton's archly self-aware style. Buntline-as-Holliday is an unreliable authorial voice, whose pronouncements are full of implausible knowledge which draw attention to how contrived the situations are. Rimmer isn't light enough to present this effectively or consistently. His performance does gain pace and expression on the final disc, in the run-up to the gunfight at the O.K. Corral itself, but it takes a long time to get there.

Given Rimmer's unengaging narration, Simon Power's sound design has little to work with. The decision to punctuate the text with music cues in the spirit of Ennio Morricone are a hint of the playfulness which might have been. Instead, they jar with the prose and pull in a direction which does not run well over Rimmer's boulder-strewn delivery. Though the targets of Cotton's parody for the television version of The Gunfighters were of traditions older and more familiar to young audiences than the Sergio Leone westerns in vogue in cinemas in the mid-60s and which Power references, Leone's films and Morricone's music were at least of the same cultural generation as The Gunfighters and drew if not from the same well but from the same course of western legend.

There is still much to enjoy in the book if one can get past the flaws of the realisation. Johnny Ringo has a knack for apposite brutality but an addiction for Latin tags which lead him to claim the Doctor as his soulmate and to look down on the practical skills of the medically-qualified Holliday. At the mercy of events, Steven and Dodo move from elation at being in the 1960s playground realm of the Wild West, to revulsion at the realities of a society where kidnap and murder are commonplace. Donald Cotton is true to the Doctor as a character rather than a principle of intervention, a fallible traveller whose wisdom is balanced by innocence of the more mercenary details of human relationships. This is, after all, the Doctor Who book which included the term 'cat-house' and noted that Kate Elder knew 'which side her bed was bartered'. Appropriately, the assemblage of 'fancy dress desperados' is a 'finale' to a grand show, the last of its kind. Johnny Ringo is preoccupied by the death of the west, and just as this tale is supposedly related to and by Ned Buntline, the vaudevillean Eddie Foy is keeping the violence at a safe distance while his historical counterpart would later relate his acquaintance with Earp, Holliday and Bat Masterson. Even as bullets fly, some of the participants are already engaged in the process of distancing the Wild West into safe entertainment. The universe breeds the most terrible things, but we deal with them by turning them into monsters larger than life, whether they wield laser guns or Buntline specials. It's worth remembering that some of the historical originals of the characters in The Gunfighters were still alive within Donald Cotton's lifetime, removed from the figures of legend not just by age but by transformed context: Kate Elder died in Arizona in 1940, while Wyatt Earp died in California in 1929, spending his final years advising Hollywood filmmakers on western pictures. Challenging to realise it may be, but in its sideways reflections on how we deal with real-life horror and the passage of time, The Gunfighters shows a deep understanding of the potential and the effectiveness of Doctor Who.

 

 

Across England important people are dying in seemingly unconnected accidents. Yet prior to their demise each of them received a mysterious letter, predicting the exact time of their deaths. With the Doctor and UNIT occupied by marauding shop window dummies and reptile men, Liz Shaw turns to the one person who might be able to help. Her mother.

Listening to The Last Post is a somewhat bittersweet experience. The play was recorded shortly before Caroline John’s death last year, and is her final performance as Liz Shaw. Consequently there is a weight of expectation upon it which there which couldn’t have been anticipated at the time of production. Perhaps unfairly listeners will desire not only a strong story, but an appropriate tribute to John and the character she played on-and-off for the last 40 years. Thankfully, The Last Post succeeds on both counts and is one of the strongest Companion Chronicles that Big Finish has produced.

The success of the play is mainly down to the relationship between Liz and her mother, Emily Shaw, who is a brilliant counterpart to Liz. In stark contrast to her daughter, Emily is a scholar of mediaeval literature and is outspoken in her disappointment at Liz’s decision to study science, rather than pursuing something more ‘worthwhile’ in the arts. Their spiky, yet affectionate relationship is a joy to listen to and wonderfully played by John and Rowena Cooper, and by structuring the majority of the play as a series of letters between them, writer James Goss gives both characters a chance to shine. The addition of Emily gives us an insight into Liz’s past which is both refreshingly new and completely in line with what we already know about her.

The story hinges on Liz’s expertise and ingenuity, and her relationship with her mother, with the Doctor very much a secondary character, appearing at appropriate moments, but never usurping Liz’s place as protagonist. Stylistically it draws inspiration from the 60s adventure shows which were a huge influence on Season 7, and the slightly bonkers plot wouldn’t seem out of place in an episode of The Avengers. It is also a continuity heavy-story, with numerous references to Season 7 and beyond. However this never seems self indulgent or unnecessary, this is continuity done with a wry smile and a wink to the audience. As James Goss explains in the extras, the inspiration for this story came when he noticed how many bizarre deaths there are in Season 7 (death by dummy, reptile plague, isotope on a platter and exploding suitcase being prime examples), and thought ‘wouldn’t it be fun if they were all connected’? He cleverly joins the pieces and brings things to an enjoyable conclusion. The identity of the story’s villain will be satisfying to many listeners, especially if they manage to guess who it is from the hints that are dropped before the reveal.

With the previous Liz Companion Chronicles being something of a mixed bag, it’s a relief that in this release the character has been matched up with a writer who can do her justice. While stories featuring companions such as Sara, Zoe and Leela have found the right style, tone and co-performer to suit the actors and the characters, up until now John and Liz have been less well served. It’s gratifying, and poignant that in this final release things have fallen into place.

This review is based on the CD release from AudioGo, and contains minor spoilers.

“You do know that you’re breaking all of the laws of time, yes?”

Hot on the heels of January’s 50th Anniversary Destiny Of The Doctor debut adventure Hunters Of Earth, Simon Guerrier has provided us with a base-under-siege style Second Doctor tale in Shadow Of Death which once again is sure to trigger the nostalgic tendencies in any fans of the classic era. If this growing franchise of audio adventures can maintain its splendid tonal and narrative variety in the nine releases still to come, then it’s a done deal that Destiny will be one of the greatest highlights of Doctor Who’s big year by far.

In terms of relating the reasoning for Shadow being such a successful endeavour for AudioGo and Big Finish, it all comes down to one man at the heart of the production: Frazer Hines. For obvious reasons, it would be unlikely that the star who once played Jamie McCrimmon could then double as Patrick Troughton’s Time Lord in any 50th Anniversary productions due to continuity restrictions. Yet here we have perhaps the perfect rendition of Troughton’s impulsive and cheeky incarnation of the character, the closest we’ll get to ever seeing that Doctor in action again after the tragic passing of his portrayer. Hines’ Second Doctor is everything the character was in 1966-1969, and it’s testament to the actor’s abilities that he can balance this alongside his crisp-clear reprisal of his role as McCrimmon and a realistic interpretation of Wendy Padbury’s Zoe in tandem.

As with Hunters, Hines is supported by an actress from outside the show’s continuity, in this case Evie Dawnay. Evie effortlessly inhabits her role as a suspicious researcher on the space base which the TARDIS crew find themselves exploring, echoing many of the Troughton era tales in refusing to believe the Doctor’s innocence until he had proved his intelligence in a dangerous situation. It would be easy for some to argue that Guerrier has simply played to the tropes of Troughton’s time on the show, yet given the adverse reaction that Eoin Colfer received for his 50th eBook A Big Hand For The Doctor when it gleefully deviated from the tones of the First Doctor era, it’s safe to say that this was probably a wise move on the writer’s part.

Besides, in terms of the history of the Whoniverse, who doesn’t love a good space base under threat from an alien menace? There’s a shadow plaguing the lost city of the Quiet Ones, a race whose planet orbits an exploding star, shifting timelines to the point where different areas move through time faster than others. You have to wonder if Guerrier took any cues from the likes of Silence In The Library/Forest Of The Dead and/or The Girl Who Waited in these regards, and yet either way it’s thus a true credit that the writer can integrate these seemingly New Series-riffing elements into a Troughton tale with such ease and seamless effect.

One question that will undoubtedly be a major deciding factor for the Destiny range’s success is just how well individual releases would have fared without its overarching plot elements that will tie into later instalments. Indeed, much of the second half of this base-under-siege romp relies upon the influence of a Doctor who will soon be returning for another season of adventures on BBC1, and this will perhaps be seen as a detrimental point for some. Essentially, it’s a ‘get-out’ clause that saves the day without any of the help of the Second Doctor’s own intelligence, seemingly allowing the Eleventh Doctor to acquire information that’s vital for a future battle to come. The second incarnation of the character seems none too pleased about his future self’s meddling in days gone by, and the hints of the danger this meddling could enable are clear through dialogue such as the line I’ve opened this review with. One thing is certain- the final adventure, The Time Machine, will have a lot to deal with when it places Matt Smith’s Doctor at the forefront of proceedings come November.

All the same, once you ignore the rather convenient climax and look at this second Destiny release as a whole, the picture (or ‘painting’, an image which Matt has said will become crucial in the 50th Special) becomes a lot clearer and more positive. Frazer Hines in particular is a shining beacon of auditory excellence here, and the backing by some superbly rendered audio cues and atmospheric effects really does a good job of strengthening that Troughton era atmosphere. This reviewer cannot fault the attention to detail and immersion that’s been afforded to both entries in the Destiny range so far, and it’ll certainly be exciting to see how other writers and production teams deal with the remaining nine Doctor releases to come in terms of this reverence. Shadow Of Death may stumble at times in its narrative, yet its cast and atmosphere remain finely handled to the point of pure excellence, combining to form a gripping listen that should more than sate fans’ appetites until the next entry.

This review is based on the CD release from AudioGo, and contains minor spoilers.

"I have a terrible premonition- something’s coming in your future, a destiny that you can’t escape..."

You can’t help but admire the ambition of AudioGo and Big Finish - whereas in any other year these two audiobook publishers would have resigned themselves to their regular self-contained classic Doctor story arcs, for the 50th they’ve devised quite the gambit in order to sate the appetites of fans. Joining forces, the two teams will provide us with Destiny Of The Doctor over the course of 2013, linking eleven monthly tales featuring each incarnation of everyone’s favourite Time Lord with an overarching tale of epic adventure.

Aptly enough for a year that’s as much focused on reliving the glory days of classic Who as it is looking to the future, the first instalment of this multi-Doctor arc takes us back to the very beginning. Hunters Of Earth is a compelling and layered jaunt back to 1960s London, Coal Hill School, abandoned junkyards and all. More than that, though, writer Nigel Robinson has paid delicate attention to evoking an atmosphere that’s wholly reminiscent of that Swinging era of British history. From the Beatles to transistor radios, from teen cultures to ‘alien’ xenophobia references, there’s plenty for the elder fans among us to sink their teeth into throughout.

Of course, creating a meaningful rendition of the decade that saw the show’s inception is all well and good, yet it results to little if there’s an insubstantial narrative at an audiobook’s core. Thankfully, for the most part that’s not the case with Hunters, which boasts a compelling (if simplistic) opening chapter for the Destiny arc. We follow Hartnell’s First Doctor and his granddaughter Susan in the midst of a startling disruption to their safe abode from the residents of Earth. Soon enough, both Time Lords are thrown into a disturbingly human conspiracy, the implications of which stretch further than the Doctor can possibly imagine.

Were this release’s storyline to focus solely on this tale of upheaval and suspicion, then to a degree it would be a rather disappointing standalone romp. What makes the narrative a more successful endeavour on Robinson’s part is undoubtedly its implied connections to a wider plot arc set to develop over the course of the ten future adventures still to come in the Destiny range. Without delving too far into spoiler territory, this reviewer will at least hint that a figure from the Doctor’s future seems to have a role to play down the line, donning a Fez of wisdom to offer subtle guidance to his past self which will presumably help to solve an impending crisis for his later incarnations. On top of that, Susan’s abilities to read the minds of others and gaze into the voids of time could have unearthed an ominous prophecy which her grandfather would do well to heed in days to come...

On the topic of the Doctor’s first on-screen companion, it’s lovely to have Carole Ann Ford on board for Destiny’s premiere outing. Carole’s work here is similar to that of the Companion Chronicles range, blending third-person narration of the situation at hand in 1963 with in-character dialogue from her original character that should have classic fans swooning and reminiscing in an instant. It appears that perhaps it was something of a stretch to ask Carole to mimic both Hartnell’s crotchety tones and broad teenage accents at regular intervals alongside her reprisal of the role of Susan, yet at least with Tam Williams on board there’s sufficient help at hand to ensure that there’s balance in the character portrayals.

There are one or two notable missteps by Robinson, however. Although replicating the inherently human threats of the Hartnell era was undoubtedly a bold and successful move, I couldn’t help but register the rushed science-fiction fuelled explanation of the antagonists’ nature that was shoehorned into the climax of the adventure- there was a sense of simple necessity about the resolution which felt rather jarring in contrast to the human adversaries of the first half. In addition, while the Destiny elements heighten the success of the plot considerably, in that sense it’s difficult not to recall that without these subsidiary arcs starting to develop, the core narrative is lacking in direction or real depth.

Nevertheless, those shortcomings don’t really detract to any major degree. Hunters Of Earth remains a thoroughly engaging initial chapter in the Destiny Of The Doctor range, strongly replicating the feel of the First Doctor era in both its sounds (the special FX and eerie musical cues add considerable atmosphere too) and its narrative. It acts as both a suitable dose of nostalgia for long-term fans and a stunning entryway point for anyone who’s yet to get hooked on either of Who’s expanded universe audio ranges.

Better yet, there’s a real sense of foreboding tension already beginning to build towards future instalments, hinting at a dark battle for Gallifrey’s most infamous resident in his eleventh incarnation. Even with the extensive TV celebratory offerings alone, Doctor Who’s 50th Anniversary was always looking like a perfect prospect for fans, yet with this breathtaking new audio saga, Big Finish and AudioGo have confirmed that with Destiny Of The Doctor as a foundation, there’s going to be plenty more to sate fans’ appetites in what should be the show’s greatest year yet.