Siberia at the end of the 19th Century, and the TARDIS arrives just as a shooting star hurtles to the ground.
With it comes an illness that affects the Doctor and Susan, and knowledge that must not fall into the wrong hands.
With his friends either dying or lost, Ian Chesterton must save the future and win the ultimate prize – a way home to 1963…
THE COMPANION CHRONICLES: THE WANDERER
The tenth installment in the sixth series of Companion Chronicles, Richard Dinnick’s “The Wanderer,” takes us back to another Hartnell-era historical setting, with all the grand scale that implies. Yet again, however, there’s nothing particularly striking about this story: it’s well told, it holds the attention, and the lead actor is great, but it seems like more should be expected from this most experimental of ranges.
Much of the story is built around concealing the identity of its guest star until a grand revelation shortly into the second episode. Let’s see – we’re in Siberia, there’s a traveling mystic with a mighty beard who speaks of visions, people call him a “mad monk,” his name is Grigori – who could this possibly be? I can’t imagine – oh, it’s Rasputin! Bless my stars! Sarcasm aside, it is entirely predictable, but fortunately Tim Chipping’s performance as the Russian mystic is very strong. He’s a sympathetic, troubled character, who seems hungry for knowledge and power but seeks only to use that power to benefit others. Credit to Dinnick for not beating around the bush when it comes to the benefits of future knowledge: Rasputin directly references Hitler and the Holocaust when he names tragedies he could avert. Yes, it’s a bit grim for a series like Doctor Who, but if we’re going to have a serious moral debate about the perils of changing history, we shouldn’t ignore the very real events in that same history. As the story wraps up and the information grows too much for Rasputin, I think Chipping goes too far over the top – but that’s a small blemish on an otherwise excellent performance.
Speaking of excellent performances, William Russell narrates, and his voice is yet again a reason in itself to listen to this story. About the only weak spot is the Hartnell impression, which isn’t as convincing as usual, but otherwise his performance is unimpeachable. Dinnick expertly captures the feeling of these early stories: Ian’s earnest appeals to Rasputin’s sense of justice would probably sound overwrought in later eras, but here they work well, especially with Russell’s voice behind them. What the story doesn’t need is the giant scorpion men, who seem to show up only to keep the plot moving, pointlessly kill off a supporting character, and don’t sound much different from Cybermen.
The production is solid as ever, with Lisa Bowerman in her usual director’s chair and sound designer Andrew Edwards providing a suitably dramatic score. But the biggest problem faced by “The Wanderer,” as with the last couple of Companion Chronicles, is that it doesn’t do anything to set itself out from the crowd. It’s a celebrity pseudo-historical, and it’s a well-written and dramatic piece, but it’s predictable and unsurprising. It’s worth hearing for William Russell, of course, but beyond that it’s just sort of… there.
Solid.
6/10