The Doctor and Jamie are sent by Raven to investigate a clinic…

This latest post-War Games adventure for the Doctor and Jamie comes from Australian writer Paul F. Verhoeven, although it’s clear from what is said in the extras that script editor/director Nicholas Briggs was heavily involved in its germination. It shares its name with another audio about the same monster from Doctor Who’s past, but little else.

We start some time after the set’s opener, Jamie, with the Doctor and his companion complaining to Raven that they need a break – and along the way, explaining exactly where the Third Doctor story The Annihilators fits into this timeline. These flashbacks serve to re-establish the rapport between Time Lord and human, and suggest that any psychological damage Jamie has suffered as a result of events in that story is negligible: he’s dropped back into the same relationship as he had with the Doctor thirty years past. (There’s an odd comment from Frazer Hines in the extras which seems to suggest he’s playing Jamie in his 70s – the character was collected from 1776, three decades, not five or more, after events in The Highlanders/The War Games, so Jamie is 50 or so.)

There’s a large detective element to the story, which pays overt homage to the James Stewart/Alfred Hitchcock classic Rear Window, and it draws some of its format from contemporary shows such as Leverage: Redemption, where the audience sees (or rather in this case, hears) events which are then revisited with a vital piece of the puzzle reinserted. To some this is cheating – your mileage may vary – but I was very relieved that the specific catalyst for this was removed.

As mentioned above, there’s a returning old monster in this, but the blurb doesn’t give away what it is, so, to remain spoiler-free, suffice it to say that there are elements of the set-up for the creature that you expect to hear here that aren’t present, there’s an encounter referenced that – as far as I can ascertain – has yet to be chronicled, and one particular method of escape isn’t one that I’d’ve thought worked in context… to the extent that I did wonder if we needed the link at all.

Nigel Havers is the main guest star, alongside the redoubtable Barnaby Edwards, and he seems to relish the chance to release an inner villainy; Emma Noakes’ Raven seems to be on a similar path, with a clash between her and the Doctor towards the end that doesn’t bode well – for either of them. Briggs notes that Michael Troughton has some clear ideas about he’s going to play the Doctor, and while he continues to emulate his father’s performance, he is making the part his own – while still maintaining the strong link that had been there with Hines.

Verdict: It only takes one witness to spoil the perfect plan for domination… 7/10

Paul Simpson

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