Spoilers

The Third Doctor is reunited with Jo – but while hardly any time has passed for him, decades have for her…

Supernature by Matt Fitton is the sort of ecological doom that makes my 80s heart soar. It’s a neatly handled reintroduction for the Doctor that serves to shine the spotlight deservedly on Jo. Called to the Isle of Wight to investigate a series of bird attacks, Jo encounters the Doctor in the middle of his own investigation. The handoff is positively graceful, and the dramatic impetus as the Doctor learns who Jo is now and what she’s been through is gentle and poignant. Tim Treloar’s Third Doctor is great, balancing the preening action dandy with a sense that this is both what the Doctor is performing as well as what he is. His interactions with Katy Manning are note perfect and the ending here is honest and moving. In interviews we discover that Stewart Bevan was originally intended to come back as Doctor Cliff Jones for a cameo but died before recording. The way the very real grief everyone clearly feels at losing him is woven into Jo’s own struggle to deal with the loss of Cliff is raw and honest and ultimately very kind.

This dramatic core drives the story along and Fitton’s script has that uniquely Whovian feel of epic and personal. Ms Frost, played with Torchwoodian archness by Corrinne Wicks is a neatly handled villain and the villains of the piece are Third Doctor style eco horror balanced with contemporary moral ambiguity. It’s a really strong opening story, with a great cast, a strong heart and a very successful premise.

Felicia Barker’s The Conservitors continues that cheerful sense of subversion. Arriving on Viltris in the 49th Century, the Doctor and Jo find themselves in the middle of a society where your relative safety score is public knowledge and the velvet glove wrapped around a steel fist. Barker cleverly explores a society based entirely around fear and, like Fitton, shows us how the simple  presence of the Doctor and Jo changes things for the better. That change and the difficulties and horrors behind it are explored through the lens of the sort of quiet, mildly industrial oppression that will seem very familiar to a lot of listeners.

This is another great cast. Gary Turner’s Premier Maldon is a worryingly familiar, plausible, disturbingly personable leader who is convinced he’s the hero of his own story. LJ Parkinson is great too as Laire, the other side of the ethical divide and the non-binary kin of Paul Copley’s Wendell. These two are the heart of the show, and Parkinson is great as the sort of heads-down, eyes-closed can’t-lose protagonist that makes stories like this fly.Their relationship with Copley’s wonderful, laconic northern badass is deadpan, compassionate and vastly endearing. The best Doctor Who supporting characters feel like they’ve popped in from their own show and these two definitely feel that way.

Finally, Lizzie Hopley’s The Iron Coast starts with an impossible opening and builds out in a surprising way. The Doctor dies, roll opening credits. We know he isn’t dead, but it throws Jo into the spotlight in a story that takes in nautical space horror, the two-edged sword of intolerance and assumption and the horrors of living in a run down blue collar town, even if that town happens to be in space. The Wet Dock, the terrifying vast body of water at the core of this story, is a real thing, and the sense of something odd that you just don’t look in the eyes is going to be familiar to anyone who grew up  in a small town.

There’s another raft of great guest stars. Samuel Clemens as Solomun is especially good and there’s a neat sense of the alien to him. The way Hopley’s script takes our expectations and confounds them, multiple times, is also welcome and ties into the sense of surprise at the core of the set. This is both very much a return to the Third Doctor and Jo and something new. Jo is, on several occasions in this story especially, the adult in the TARDIS and both Manning and Treloar’s wonderfully arch Third Doctor, play that to the hilt.

Verdict: This is my second classic Doctor boxed set and I’m really impressed. It’s tangibly different to The Demon Song in tone and approach and crucially evolves and honours the central elements of Third Doctor stories. Smart, kind stories focused through one of the Doctor’s smarted, kindest companions. Anchored by Manning’s calm, almost stoical performance and the sheer gravity of Jo’s fundamental kindness, this is a great addition to the range and a great set of stories. 9/10

Alasdair Stuart

Click here to order from Big Finish