7-4. The Last Post.

2 episodes. Approx. 65 minutes. Written by: James Goss. Directed by: Lisa Bowerman. Produced by: David Richardson. Performed by: Caroline John, Rowena Cooper.


THE PLOT

When Liz Shaw's mother, Dame Emily Shaw (Rowena Cooper), reveals that a man killed during the attempted Auton invasion and another killed by the Silurian plague are members of her committee, Liz initially thinks it a coincidence. But when Dr. Taltalian and Sir James Quinlan, both killed during another alien incursion, turn out also to be members of that committee, Liz becomes convinced that something sinister is happening.

Her mother is also convinced, and confronts her committee. "We are dropping like flies," Dame Emily informs them angrily, insisting that the deaths must stop. Her committee is working with a device known as "The Apocalypse Clock," which is counting down to the projected end of the world - an end which has been delayed by weeks every time a committee member dies. Each of the victims has received a letter in the post informing him of his death just before it occurs. 

Now another letter has arrived... Addressed to Emily Shaw!


CHARACTERS

The Doctor: Seen only sparsely in this story. It takes most of Episode One for Liz to get him interested, then he is waylaid for the bulk of Episode Two. Still, writer James Goss knows better than to write a Third Doctor story that entirely sidelines this most flamboyant of incarnations, giving him a suitably showy scene early in the second part. We get some nice character bits sprinkled throughout the story. Liz compares his behavior to that of a child, hiding from her when he believes she's wasting his time with nonsense. She also observes his method of shopping: Wantonly pilfering items and leaving it to the UNIT Quartermaster - and, by extension, Liz - to sort out the mess.

Liz: Caroline John's final performance, which makes both the story and its title all the more poignant. John is terrific as ever, stepping back into Liz's shoes as if it were still 1970. She hits the right notes of intelligence, strength, and compassion. The story's second half puts her in the Doctor's usual role, confronting the villain and using her wits to try to stop the situation. John's reading shows Liz's very human fear even as she takes this action, and James Goss' script does an excellent job of keeping the focus on Liz's emotions even at the height of the action.

Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart: Despite his often gruff, military manner, Liz observes to her mother that he often has a twinkle in his eye even when barking orders, something that humanizes him. When the threat in this story is finally revealed, he doesn't hesitate to act - even bending UNIT's rules a bit to make his action as fast and efficient as possible.


THOUGHTS

The Last Post is a wonderful surprise, a story that far exceeds my expectations of it. Goss' deft script makes inventive use of the Companion Chronicles' format. The story is structured in epistolary form, switching back and forth between Liz and her mother and playing out through a series of phone calls and letters. 

Such a structure could have fallen badly flat, but sharp writing and wonderful performances from John and Cooper make it work like a treat. Goss has a firm grasp of each character's voice, with Liz's passages marked with an intellectualism tinged with dry humor, contrasted with the more emotional tone of her mother's scenes. The movement back and forth between them provides a structure even before the story fully emerges, and the format makes it feel natural as events unfold over a weeks-long period of time.

This structure also allows Goss indulges his fanboy instincts in a good way. With it taking weeks for the Doctor and the Brigadier to take the situation seriously, the first episode in particular takes the chance to draw Season Seven together into one unit. Stahlmann's project from Inferno is linked with the nuclear reactor in Dr. Who & the Silurians, with it planted that the Brigadier's airstrike at the end of the earlier story worsened the energy crisis that drove the project in the later story. Nods are also made to other stories: Much of the Brigadier's time in this story is occupied preparing for the peace conference that would take place in Season Eight's The Mind of Evil; and the story's resolution is linked to events from Season Three's The War Machines.

None of this comes across as an overload of continuity. Goss simply stitches the events of the television series together, in a way that connects this story to them without making this story reliant on them. If you've never seen the stories in question, you can still follow The Last Post and enjoy it as a story. The continuity references just add an extra layer of enjoyment for the rest of us.

The plot unfolds at a natural pace. The first episode slips out the exposition, allowing the story to reveal itself naturally. It goes from very leisurely to quite tense, with a very suspenseful and effective build to the cliffhanger. The second episode increases the pace dramatically, and has several fine scenes. Dame Emily's encounter with the Doctor is a quintessentially Doctorish moment that allows the Third Doctor to show his style and presence in a story that otherwise uses him sparingly. 

As fun as that scene is, though, the high point of the story comes in Liz's confrontation with the sinister Professor Prestain. Liz confronts him with confidence - but when Prestain reveals just how precarious her situation is, she becomes deeply frightened. She is able to complete the conversation with her accustomed cool manner, but she goes from walking to running by the time she reaches the safety of the exit. A great scene, beautifully performed by Caroline John.

In summation: An excellent story overall, one I think destined to sit among my very favorite Companion Chronicles.


Overall Rating: 10/10.

Previous Television Story: Inferno
Next Television Story: Terror of the Autons

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6-9. Binary.

2 episodes. Approx. 50 minutes. Written by: Eddie Robson. Directed by: Lisa Bowerman. Produced by: David Richardson. Performed by: Caroline John, Joe Coen, Kyle Redmond-Jones.


THE PLOT

When UNIT comes into possession of a damaged computer from a crashed alien ship, Liz Shaw is ordered to try to repair it. She is prohibited from telling the Doctor anything about it, lest he unilaterally destroy the machine. This leaves Liz in the care of UNIT Corporal James Foster (Kyle Redmond-Jones), who has been left on guard after the last two scientists who tried to study the computer were zapped into apparent nonexistence by a security device.

Liz disables the security device, but not before Foster also falls victim to it. Fortunately, help arrives in the form of Sergeant Andrew Childs (Joe Coen), a UNIT computer expert who guides Liz through making repairs. It isn't long before the two accidentally trigger something, however, transporting them to a series of bizarre corridors that look strikingly familiar.

Which is when Liz realizes where they are. They have been miniaturized and taken directly into the machine!


CHARACTERS

The Doctor: Since this is a full-cast audio drama set during the Pertwee era, it's unsurprising that the Doctor has a limited role. He's not completely absent - Liz reads messages from him from terminals inside the computer - but this story sees him discussed rather than observed. This story shows Liz having a more negative view of him than we've otherwise seen, with her describing him as patronizing and unwilling to listen - qualities which don't actually reflect the characters' interactions on television or in other Companion Chronicles.

Liz Shaw: Some of this uncharacteristic attitude might be because Liz is strongly considering leaving as this story unfolds. Yes, this is another "Liz leaving UNIT" story, which has been dealt with in no less than three of her five Companion Chronicles.  Surely this particular dead horse has now been punished enough?  In any case, Liz no longer feels useful at UNIT, constantly overshadowed by the Doctor and too rushed by crises to ever have a chance to do "proper research." While this is plausible enough for the character, I prefer the explanation given in The Sentinels of the New Dawn, that Liz simply got worn out by the constant series of crises that is life with the Doctor. 


THOUGHTS

It's fair to say I was looking forward to Binary. It's an audio that pairs Eddie Robson, one of Big Finish's most reliable regular writers, with Liz Shaw, one of my favorite companions. With a promisingly bizarre premise involving characters transported inside an alien computer, all the pieces are in place for a terrific story.

Which makes it all the more disappointing that this story falls so utterly flat.

Binary is an unusual Companion Chronicle, in that it's not an enhanced audio book like most of the range. Save for a brief Liz-narrated epilogue, this is a straight audio drama. This isn't quite unique among the range, with Solitaire and The Jigsaw War having also been full-cast audio plays. Those stories succeeded in creating more immediacy by presenting us with situations that were directly unfolding. This story fails, however, with the often overly-expository dialogue actually creating more distance between listener and story than would have been the case with narration.

It's not the format that's to blame, though. It's the story itself. From the usually clever Eddie Robson, this is depressingly predictable. Sure, there's a reveal in Episode Two. But it's one that most listeners will see coming from at least half an episode away. It was so predictable a twist, in fact, that I felt secure that something more must be coming. But instead of an even bigger reveal, what we get is... the same exact twist used a second time, to even weaker effect.

At 50 minutes, this is one of the shortest Companion Chronicles. Despite this, the story feels padded out. The situation comes down to a decision by Liz. The final scenes, in which she reaches that decision, are actually quite good, the story's best by a considerable margin. But a lot of what connects Liz figuring out she's inside the computer and her making that decision feels... Well, like a narrative that's running in place. 

That leaves me thinking that this would have made a better Short Trip or 30-minute Doctor Who Magazine freebie. There's really only enough story here to carry about half the running time, leaving a lot of dead space in which the listener is left to wait for the characters to catch up with the story and do something to move things along.

Even the production is far weaker than the norm. There's nothing actually faulty about it, but there's no sense of spark, life, or atmosphere. I'm not picturing Liz, Childs, and Foster inside a giant alien computer; I'm picturing actors delivering dialogue into their microphones. A rare "off day" for director Lisa Bowerman.

A few good scenes, mostly near the end, keep this from ranking with the worst Big Finish titles. But with a thin story and a weak production, I can't think of much reason to recommend Binary. A significant disappointment.


Overall Rating: 3/10.

Previous Television Story: Inferno
Next Television Story: Terror of the Autons

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5-10. The Sentinels of the New Dawn.

2 episodes. Approx. 66 minutes. Written by: Paul Finch. Directed by: Lisa Bowerman. Produced by: David Richardson. Performed by: Caroline John.


THE PLOT

About a year has past since Dr. Elizabeth Shaw left UNIT. She has been trying to settle back into her life of academia at Cambridge. When a friend's time travel experiments seem to be a little too successful, she calls the Doctor to see if there might be genuine danger in her colleague's "time window." Unable to resist tinkering, the Doctor insists on powering it on. But when a similar device in the future focuses on them, he and Liz find themselves transported to 2014!

Their new hosts are members of an organization calling itself "The New Dawn," a group of political, military, and scientific elite with a dream of a new ruling system, one modelled on medieval feudalism. Their ambitions seem preposterous. But with the time window, the Doctor realizes that they have the ability to expand their influence and shape events to suit their purposes. If the Doctor and Liz cannot return to their own time and stop the time experiments before they begin, then "The New Dawn's" dreams of empire may become all too real...


CHARACTERS

The Doctor: The extent to which he is obviously pleased to see Liz leaves her feeling slightly guilty, as she has no intention of returning to UNIT. Still, it doesn't take long for him to get sucked into tinkering with her friend's "time window." He pretends to be intrigued by New Dawn's philosophy, and in this way fishes for a lot of information about them. He calls Richard Beauregard, the organization's leader, "incorrigible."  The way the word is delivered it is clear that this is a moral denunciation - and, as it turns out, a judgment.

Liz: It's been some time since she left UNIT, and she has wondered whether she made the right decision. She enjoys seeing the Doctor again and sharing one final adventure with him. But, as she expresses when recalling these events, the Doctor's fast-paced, endlessly dangerous existence becomes too much for any human after a while. A return to that existence after a break in peaceful academia brings that home to her and leaves her more contented with her departure than had been the case.


THOUGHTS

The Sentinels of the New Dawn is a good, solid Doctor Who story. It's not exceptional, but it's fast-paced and entertaining. Paul Finch's script does a good job of evoking the characters of the 3rd Doctor and Elizabeth Shaw and melding them and the general "feel" of their era with the modern world. I enjoyed a scene in which Liz is confronted with a camera phone, for instance - a common piece of technology, but one which would have seemed like pure science fiction in 1970.

Despite being set in the modern world, the storytelling is pure Pertwee. It feels appropriate for this most action-oriented of Doctors to spend half the story lurking the corridors of what feels for all the world like a James Bond villain's lair. There's a bit of Venusian Akido involved and a chase scene which largely brings the Doctor and Liz back where they already were, keeping the 3rd Doctor era feel very much intact.

The story does act as a prequel to the 6th Doctor "Lost Story," Leviathan.  That shouldn't deter those who haven't heard Leviathan, as this story is very much its own piece. Those who have heard the other story will catch some added significance to certain plot elements, but the main action is nicely self-contained.

Largely what I'd term bread-and-butter Who, with a formulaic story structure. But formula isn't a problem when it's well-executed. I'll never rank this among the best of the Companion Chronicles, but it is well-paced, well-scripted, and well-produced. For all those reasons, I'd say it's well worth a listen.


Rating: 7/10.

Previous Television Story: Terror of the Autons
Next Television Story: The Mind of Evil

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4-9. Shadow of the Past.

2 episodes. Approx. 64 minutes. Written by: Simon Guerrier. Directed by: Lisa Bowerman. Produced by: David Richardson. Performed by: Caroline John.


THE PLOT

Radar warning barely gives UNIT enough time to quarantine an alien ship that has crash-landed in an unpopulated area outside London. Arriving at the wreckage, Liz is worried about the possibility of contamination, the spectacle of the Silurian plague still fresh in her mind. But the Doctor sees that the ship was landed intact in a populated area - indicating a skilled pilot, one who might be able to help him to free the TARDIS from the Time Lords' restrictions.

When they investigate the ship, it appears that the pilot was killed on entry into the Earth's atmsophere, reduced literally to jelly by the heat and gravity. "Spam in a can," as the soldiers ghoulishly joke. Then UNIT detects more ships, coming toward Earth in a spearhead formation. It can mean only one thing: Invasion.

That's when the Doctor jumps into action. He identifies the ships as Mim warships, and coordinates Earth's nuclear defenses. Then he communicates with the invaders... and what he says sends a chill down the spines of both Liz and the Brigadier:

"Earth's defenses have been disabled... You can start the invasion!"


CHARACTERS

The Doctor: Though it's now been a few weeks since the incident with the Silurians (and, presumably, one adventure with the Brigadier later), the Doctor is still nursing a grudge against the Brigadier's decision in that story. He even announces at the crash site that he will not allow UNIT to turn this into a repeat of that situation. His eagerness to escape his exile leads him to rush in recklessly. Liz spells it out for us: Seeing the skill of the Mim pilot in crashing the ship in an unpopulated area, the Doctor has hopes that the Mim will help him to break his exile if he helps them. When the Mim proves hostile, however, the Doctor refuses to leave the Earth to it. That price is simply too high for him - though his moment of temptation, in which Liz sees something wholly alien in his eyes, shows how strong the lure of freedom is for him.

Liz: This audio offers some outstanding character moments for Liz. Writer Simon Guerrier effectively mines Liz's background as a scientist with multiple degrees, and has Liz use her scientific knowledge as a shield against strong emotion. At several points while telling the story, Liz begins to get too close to moments she finds personally affecting. At these moments, she will suddenly go off on tangents, describing details about sponges (the sea animal, not the cleaning tool) or other scientific information. At one point in the second episode, she even has to pull herself back on track, admonishing herself to press on with the difficult details. It's well done, and fits perfectly with the character we saw on television, remaining so icy cool by using her own knowledge as a buffer between herself and harsh realities.

Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart: As Liz observes, the Brigadier and the Doctor are still sounding each other out at this point in their working relationship. The Brigadier doesn't miss any opportunity to reinforce his own authority over the Doctor, something that inevitably makes the Time Lord bristle. However, as a key moment in the story shows, the Brigadier isn't always wrong. He stops the Doctor from barging into the alien ship in an uncontrolled environment not simply by giving an order, or even backing it up with armed soldiers. He puts it to the Doctor with one simple challenge: "Tell me that it's safe." When the Doctor can't meet that challenge, he gives in - and even later admits to Liz that the Brigadier was probably right (as later events seem to bear out). For all of that, the Brigadier does trust the Doctor's judgment, and sees the Doctor as the best chance to stop the Mim.


THOUGHTS

Shadow of the Past is a Season Seven story. Of course it is - Liz is the Doctor's assistant, after all, and that was only true of one television season. But more than just in setting, this audio really recreates the feel of that particularly fine Doctor Who season. The characterizations fit seamlessly into the surrounding television stories. The Doctor is compassionate with Liz, but he desperately wants away from his exile and has no hesitance in showing harshness to either the Brigadier or his troops. His relationship with the Brigadier is marked by frequent clashes, and only occasional moments of softness. The Brigadier himself is no sidekick, but a man of genuine intelligence, authority, and even ruthlessness - the Season Seven Brigadier, in other words, not the dumbed-down one of later years. In tone, character, and general detail, this is completely identifiable as Season Seven Doctor Who.

That proves to be the case with the story's overall quality, as well. The 2-part structure allows Simon Guerrier to neatly divide his story, with Part One emphasizing investigation of the crash site and building the mystery, while Part Two lets rip with the action. The division works startlingly well, with the slow build of Part One allowing Part Two to move at a run without ever feeling rushed. Good character moments are given to all the principles, while nods at the incoming character of Mike Yates and the advancement of Benton unobtrusively tie the story to the television series' continuity to good effect.

Caroline John is simply outstanding, both in recreating Liz Shaw and in narrating the story. She did a good job of reading The Blue Tooth, one of the very first Companion Chronicles. Returning four years later to record this story, she is even better. The vividness of John's performance takes a well-written script and gives it an added dimension, making Shadow of the Past a strong entry in a very strong range.


Rating: 8/10.

1-3. The Blue Tooth.

4 episodes.  Written by: Nigel Fairs.  Directed by: Mark J. Thompson.  Produced by: Mark J. Thompson, Sharon Gosling.


THE PLOT

Liz decides to spend a day off visiting Jean, an old university friend. When Jean fails to show up at their scheduled meeting, though, Liz goes to her house and finds that her friend has vanished. When the Doctor arrives at the scene, he tells Liz that there have been several disappearances in the Cambridge area.

As Liz investigates a link between Jean and another missing person - Jean's dentist - the Doctor and the Brigadier follow up another lead: a particularly bizarre suicide-by-train. A look at the dead man's body confirms the Doctor's worst fears. The body has been infested, and partially converted, by Cybermats. The Doctor is about to pit his wits against the Cybermen once more...


CHARACTERS

The Doctor: Writer Nigel Fairs does a fair job of capturing the Pertwee Doctor's gentler side. The Doctor is compassionate with Liz in every scene. He is also unfazed and unruffled by the dilemma. Even when Liz is herself infected, he refuses to give up, identifying the means of this new Cyber conversion process and using his considerable skills to find an antidote.

Fairs does a good job of keeping the viewpoint Liz's while at the same time keeping the 3rd Doctor in the foreground of the story. The only thing that's missing from the Pertwee Doctor is the spikiness. Look at the televised stories from Season Seven, and Pertwee's Doctor is very short-tempered, even downright antagonistic, to characters in each of those stories. Here, we only get the 3rd Doctor's softer side. That makes for a more likable characterization, perhaps, but a slightly less interesting one. Still, Nigel Fairs captures the Doctor here somewhat better than James Swallow did in Old Soldiers, and Caroline John manages to suggest something of Pertwee's style of line delivery, making it quite easy to picture Pertwee throughout.

Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart: The Brigadier is very much on the periphery of this story, and he ends up being the one regular Caroline John can't capture in her line deliveries. She basically just lowers her voice and grits out the Brig's lines in gruff tones, making for a rather one-note Lethbridge-Stewart. Still, the story does convey both his efficiency and his chivalry, in trying to protect Liz from harm. He is definitely the worst-captured of the regulars in this audio, though.

Liz Shaw: The Blue Tooth is Liz's story, so it comes as small surprise that the character is recreated quite effectively. The best characterization comes in the early episodes, which Nigel Fairs uses to fill in a lot of backstory for Liz (including why a seemingly over-serious, studious Cambridge scientist has such a penchant for such extremely short mini-skirts). It adds an extra emotional dimension to the character to have her personally affected by the Invasion of the Week this time; and while the audio never does quite answer its own question ("When did I decide to leave the Doctor?"), it at least points to some potential reasons for the character to have decided to move on.


THOUGHTS

The Blue Tooth succeeds in many respects. It recaptures its era quite well. This feels very much like an extra Season Seven story, with the Doctor and the Brigadier working together but not 100% harmoniously, and with UNIT even setting up temporary offices on-site (in this case, at the college), rather than at UNIT headquarters (a set which did not exist until Season 8). There is a sense of seriousness to the proceedings, a sense that this story takes place in something very like "the real world." Even the Cybermen are treated in a way that brings them closer to the real world, using a real world outlet that often is a source of anxiety (in this case, a dentist's office) to make the threat feel credible. Honestly, if you were to take a time machine back to 1970 and commission the production team to bolt a 4-episode Cyberman story onto the end of Season Seven, I could easily picture the result playing out much like this story does.

One thing I do enjoy about the first set of Companion Chronicles is that Big Finish had not yet decided on a "set" number of episodes for each story. All stories were single-disc, but there were both 2-parters and 4-parters. That's something I wish they would return to, the idea that different stories might benefit from being structured in different episodic formats. The Blue Tooth is very much structured as a 4-parter, and it benefits from that. The Companion Chronicles range has remained strong (it's my favorite BF range at the moment), but I do regret the rigid, "one disc = 2 episodes, every time" format.

My only major gripe with the audio, and one which does cost it a point, is the resolution. The climax - with the Doctor and Liz in the midst of a nest of Cybermen - had me. I was quite gripped, and the images were vivid in my mind. And then... Liz passes out, and the Doctor fills her in on the denouement retrospectively, and not in a great deal of detail. It's the equivalent of a TV episode cutting from the moment of greatest crisis to the tag scene, and having the Doctor tell the companion, "Oh, I sorted it out." The summary of this off-screen resolution also feels a bit too easy, almost as if Fairs had written himself into a corner and couldn't quite write his way out again. It still works better than "Pertwee wrapping a green tentacle around his neck and thrashing a lot." But it's weak, and lets down an otherwise first-rate story.


Rating: 7/10.

Preceded by: Inferno
Followed by: Terror of the Autons


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