dwna011_coldfusion_1417Written by Lance Parkin

Directed by Jamie Anderson

The Fifth Doctor has just regenerated and, along with Tegan, Nyssa and Adric has gone straight back to work and immediately got locked out of the TARDIS. The planet this happens on is an ice world. One occupied by the Earth Empire and where dangerous experiments are being conducted. Experiments connected to a very old relic and to something the Seventh Doctor, Roz and Chris are very interested in…

Lance Parkin is one of the all-time greats when it comes to Doctor Who and this story shows why. He manages to juggle two full Doctor Who stories that connect in a variety of different ways and then turn them into something entirely different for the third act. It has an expansive feel too and Parkin and director Jamie Anderson have a lot of fun with the action beats. You’ve never wanted snowmobile trains quite as much as you will after listening to this story believe.

The breezy (and chilly) action is only part of the story though. In addition we get a classic Fifth Doctor story, in which he wanders around until he finds trouble as well as a classic Seventh Doctor story where he’s clearly eighteen steps ahead of everyone else and causing some of the trouble. Both Davison and McCoy are on typically great form but, honestly, this is a story that puts its extensive companion roster in the spotlight. Adric’s well-meaning literalism is charming here, and his interactions with Yasmin Bannerman’s always fun Roz are great. Through them we see just how different the two eras of Who are: Adric represents the Fifth Doctor’s intellectual optimism and naivete while Roz represents the Seventh’s compassion, pragmatism and willingness to blow things up for the greater good.

Elsewhere, Nyssa, Tegan and Chris have even more fun. To say how they interact would be to spoil one of the best parts of the story but suffice to say it’s colossal fun and gives all three of them some very new, and very successful, things to do.

But that’s not the biggest surprise the story has. That comes from the introduction of one of the New Adventures’ most haunting plot points and the interaction between the two incarnations. When everything comes together, as it does in the final episode, you see just what a great job Parkin has done here. Every companion, every element of the central plot and the two wildly different Doctors combine to tell a story which as much about what we become as who we are. It’s an unusual multi-Doctor story, cosy but with clenched fists, and the interaction between the two and their two philosophies is gripping, bleak stuff.

Verdict: Cold Fusion is such a great adaptation you’ll get mild whiplash coming out the other side. It’s a snapshot of one of the most compelling eras in the character’s history, a great Fifth Doctor story, a great Seventh Doctor story and maybe the best Tegan story ever told. Clever, witty, character-driven, very funny and another great entry in Big Finish’s adaptation series. 9/10

Alasdair Stuart