Leela encounters the Brigadier for the first time…

There’s much to enjoy in the first part of Andy Frankham-Allen’s short trip, read by Louise Jameson. Having written or edited so much about Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, Frankham-Allen knows the character very well, so it’s not surprising that he’s able to portray how he’d react to meeting the scantily-clad Leela for the first time; he also has a good understanding of how Leela would be in this situation. Perhaps equally unsurprisingly, this fits into the timeline of the current Lethbridge-Stewart line, with the Brig in Geneva for a final debrief, and the Doctor and Leela being there pretty much by coincidence. What feels a little off is that in the travels between Leela’s planet and the Sandminer thence to Geneva, the Doctor has had time to tell her a lot about the Brigadier – it’s rather too specifically stated that this is their third adventure, a specificity that Big Finish usually sensibly shies away from. (And, come to that, the cover image is a little misleading…)

It may feel as if there’s too high a degree of “handwavium” in the denouement, but what’s here sort of fits with a new series story (even if that involved a rather higher degree of rapid physical contact than would seem probable here), and you may feel a little cheated not to “see” the equivalent for the Doctor of Leela and the Brigadier’s encounters. However these are things you think of after listening – Louise Jameson’s performance, evoking Nicholas Courtney’s clipped tones, pulls you in to the adventure quickly.

Verdict: An interesting, if slightly flawed, encounter. 7/10

Paul Simpson