The Sleeping Blood by Martin Day
When the Doctor falls ill, Susan is forced to leave the safety of the TARDIS behind. Exploring a disused research centre in search of medical supplies, she becomes embroiled in the deadly plans of a terrorist holding an entire world to ransom – and the soldier sent to stop him.
The Unwinding World by Ian Potter
Office life is tough, the commute is a grind, nothing works quite as well as you’d like. Vicki seems to remember things being better once, before the little flat. It’s time she put some excitement back in her life. It’s just a shame the Doctor can’t help.
The Founding Fathers by Simon Guerrier
The TARDIS lands in Leicester Square in the summer of 1762. When the Doctor, Steven and Vicki find themselves locked out of the TARDIS, only one man can possibly help them. But the American, Benjamin Franklin, has problems of his own…
The Locked Room by Simon Guerrier
Steven Taylor left the Doctor and the TARDIS to become king of an alien world. But it’s now many years since he gave up the throne and went to live in a cell in the mountains, out of sight of his people. He’s not escaping his past – quite the opposite, in fact. As his granddaughter, Sida, is about to discover…
THE COMPANION CHRONICLES: THE SLEEPING BLOOD
With the end of the Companion Chronicles as a monthly series in 2014, the range was revived in box set form. The first of these – the imaginatively titled “The First Doctor Volume One” – features four new Companion Chronicles from across the William Hartnell era. The first story in the set is “The Sleeping Blood” from Martin Day, a story set in the pre-Unearthly Child era.
The Companion Chronicles have gone back to this pre-TV era a few times, and I’ve never been able to figure out why. “The Sleeping Blood” is a solid story with some interesting developments, but it does virtually nothing with its unusual placement. The Doctor spends the vast majority of the story incapacitated, so we don’t see much of him at all, while Susan behaves just like she does after Ian and Barbara show up. I like how Susan casually mentions all the strange worlds she has explored with her grandfather, but here it seems we ignore that sense of exploration and instead tell a fairly straightforward Doctor Who story.
As for the story itself, I like the setting a lot more than I like the plot. Much of the first episode involves Susan caring for the Doctor and then searching a deserted building in search of medicine; these parts are very well done, rich with emotion and frightening atmosphere. I also like the idea of a society dependent upon nanotechnology for medical care, which comes across as a natural solution to antibiotic resistance. Antibiotics on display in museums are a nice touch, too. The story, though, doesn’t inspire. A hacker code-named “the Butcher” has discovered a way to remotely reprogram nanobots, giving him the ability to kill anyone he likes from afar. He uses this ability to threaten the government, and so a hit squad has been sent into the building to kill him before he can hurt anyone else. They invade; he remotely kills one of them as a demonstration of his power; the rest of them continue the invasion and he doesn’t bother to kill anyone else for some reason.
The story tries to introduce some moral ambiguity, but it’s so forthright it doesn’t work. The Butcher is actually crusading to get medical care available to all citizens instead of only the wealthy who can afford it. (Did Martin Day spend time in America before writing this?) But despite his noble cause, he’s a murderer. The soldiers pursuing him are ruthless, but then again they’re pursuing a violent terrorist. The Butcher’s final message is so on-the-nose it hurts, and the rest of the story isn’t much more subtle than that. Susan is along for the ride and doesn’t contribute as much as she should to the resolution. Ultimately, it doesn’t work as well as it should have.
Carole Ann Ford, in her final Companion Chronicle to date, does an expectedly fantastic job as narrator, and Darren Strange is an able supporting voice. There’s no framing device, which is a shame. The production is good, though the clunking robot suit footsteps are a bit much. Overall, “The Sleeping Blood” is a mediocre first entry in the box set. It’s a pleasant way to pass the time but it doesn’t make you think as hard as it wants to.
Solid but unmemorable.
6/10
THE COMPANION CHRONICLES: THE UNWINDING WORLD
The second story in the box set, Ian Potter’s “The Unwinding World,” does some unique things with the Companion Chronicles format and is all the stronger for it. It features an oddly proactive TARDIS crew, but even explains that in a period-appropriate fashion. Simply put, it’s a very good story.
We’ve seen the “police interrogation” frame in other Companion Chronicles, but “The Unwinding World” takes it to new places by setting the entire story in “real time” and making frequent use of unreliable narrative. Vicki tells the story of how the TARDIS landed and how the crew got themselves involved in the local society, but as the story progresses she retells parts of the story multiple times, each time drawing closer to the actual truth. And then we discover that the narrative has been taking place during the climax to the story: while Vicki distracts and manipulates the security service, the Doctor, Ian, and Barbara put their plan into action to take down the government. I love this device, even if it leads to an awkward series of scenes where a character describes the Doctor’s actions in real time.
The characterization is a bit bizarre for the era, though. It starts out with the TARDIS crew simply trying to get the Ship back and leave, which is the driving idea behind many stories of the time – but the longer they are forced to stay, the more they learn about the society and the more they resolve to take down the oppressive government. This isn’t that unusual either, but the elaborate plan they employ certainly is. Ian sabotages machinery at his job, Barbara researches planetary history to enlighten the population about what’s happening, Vicki distracts security by reprogramming the computer systems over time, and the Doctor coordinates everything while recovering the TARDIS. This, combined with the gleeful way that Vicki reveals her treachery to security, comes across as something straight out of the McCoy era, not something the earnest, forthright TARDIS crew of 1964 would employ! But that’s not a problem, as Potter presents it very well and very believably – it’s just a bit disconcerting.
In any case, the story is quite good. Potter describes a society driven by guilt: ashamed of an atrocity, they engineer memory-altering chemicals that remove all memory of that incident and all related feelings from the population. It sounds like a typical evil government story until the revelation that the people requested the treatment, which makes the story much stronger. Potter exhibited a good feel for the Companion Chronicles range near the end; it’s great to see his ideas on display once again in this box set.
It’s no surprise that Maureen O’Brien’s narration is excellent, but in this story Vicki controls a great deal of the action and O’Brien makes every unexpected moment believable. Alix Dunmore is the featured player, and she is a great foil to Vicki as control shifts inexorably from security to prisoner. Overall, “The Unwinding World” is a strong Companion Chronicle, with an interesting story, intriguing narration, and unusual but believable characterization. It’s great to know that the Companion Chronicles are pushing boundaries even in this new format.
Highly recommended.
8/10
THE COMPANION CHRONICLES: THE FOUNDING FATHERS
“The War to End All Wars” from the final series of Companion Chronicles had an odd cliffhanger ending that seemed clearly intended to set up a new arc – but with the series virtually at an end, when would that arc ever be completed? The answer is “in this box set,” as Simon Guerrier writes the last two stories, the first of which is “The Founding Fathers.”
As with its predecessor, the most interesting thing about “The Founding Fathers” is the framing story. Steven, the former king of the planet from “The Savages,” is told by his granddaughter Sida that the ersatz Doctor-in-a-jar intends to run for election to replace Steven’s incompetent daughters. But Steven knows that this Doctor isn’t the same as the real thing, and that there are crucial moral differences between the two that will lead this Doctor to do terrible things if elected. This leads to a lot of real-time interaction between “the Doctor” and Steven, meaning a lot of Peter Purves taking to himself, but his impression is fantastic so it’s fun to hear. Guerrier’s big revelation about this Doctor is uncharacteristically clunky: after the entire story is completed, intended to show the differences between the jar-Doctor and the real Doctor, Steven casually reveals that the jar-Doctor murdered someone in an attempt to escape. Wouldn’t you start with that information? “And so, as the past hour has demonstrated, the attitudes of this copy are just different enough from the original that he must not be allowed into office. Oh, and also he’s a murderer.” Fortunately this is followed by some moral ambiguity, where we discover that Steven helped him cover up the crime. Guerrier wants us to remember that there are no perfect leaders, and we’re also supposed to question how much better the actual Doctor would be than his copy.
The story here is a fairly straightforward historical. In 1762, the TARDIS lands in London, and the Doctor accidentally locks his key in the Ship! (Has this device ever been used before? It’s surprisingly brilliant.) To get the doors open again, the Doctor, Steven, and Vicki seek the aid of Benjamin Franklin and his pioneering experiments with lightning. But is Franklin’s mistress a time traveler trying to alter the course of history? No, she’s just a spy for a wealthy family opposed to Franklin. Furthermore, in a humorous and fitting twist, the Doctor doesn’t even need Franklin’s help to get the doors open – he just wants to meet him and pick his brain. The scene in which Franklin is inside the TARDIS is wonderful, and Guerrier expertly captures how the Doctor would react in that situation.
I’ve already mentioned that Purves is great as always, and Alice Haig continues her strong work as Steven’s granddaughter. Ultimately, “The Founding Fathers” is about two men: Steven Taylor and Benjamin Franklin, both “founding fathers” of their governments. The execution is a bit clumsy, but overall it’s an intriguing story with rich characterization and marks yet another great Companion Chronicle from Simon Guerrier.
Highly recommended.
8/10
THE COMPANION CHRONICLES: THE LOCKED ROOM
And so, with the final story in the First Doctor Volume 1 box of Companion Chronicles, “The Locked Room,” Simon Guerrier closes another trilogy starring Peter Purves and does so in a way that measures up to some of his best efforts in the range. Given the “Volume 1” prominently featured on the cover, it’s safe to assume we’ll eventually get more Hartnell-era Companion Chronicles, but if this turns out to be the end, it’s a great way to go out.
There’s no framing device in “The Locked Room” – indeed, there’s barely any narrative at all. It’s a few years after the events of “The Founding Fathers,” and Steven’s granddaughter Sida has been president of their world for some time. She’s trained in both politics and survival, and her days are consumed with meetings and public appearances. Steven lives in the mountains, obsessed with building a radio telescope and a lead-lined room within which he can receive the telescope’s transmissions. In order to prevent signal loss and ensure privacy, when the door is locked in the evening it cannot be opened again until morning. Steven tricks Sida into the locked room, and it is within its walls that most of the story takes place.
I like “bottle” episodes like this, because they enable the listener to explore deep into the characters’ heads. The Doctor is in most of the story – Guerrier contrives a means to extract his consciousness from “The Tenth Planet” and have it appear with Steven and Sida. (This explains the Doctor’s sudden incapacity in episode 3, if you’re concerned about that sort of thing.) This enables Guerrier to contrast the Doctor’s morality against Steven’s, something that resonates especially well after similar themes were explored in the previous story. Interestingly, Sida is the narrator of this story, so it’s her thinking we see the most – and it’s good to see how Steven has influenced her as well as the ways in which she’s forged her own path. The story even touches on the effects of traveling with the Doctor: Steven is willing to kill to save the lives of his people, but the Doctor talks him down, something he may not have done in earlier days.
Back in “The First Wave,” we saw the “ghost” of Oliver Harper appear to the Doctor in his final moments before collapsing in the TARDIS to regenerate. As the Doctor in this story is lifted from a moment reasonably close to that, perhaps it shouldn’t be surprising that one of the Vardans from that story reappears here, but nonetheless it’s unexpected. Guerrier rehabilitated the Vardans as a threat in “The First Wave,” and here he continues that work, showing how one Vardan can annihilate an entire society by invading their data and causing problems. The way that Sida eventually saves the day is another callback to “The Founding Fathers,” and it’s elegant and intelligent.
I hope this isn’t the final Companion Chronicle for Peter Purves, but if it is, he’s definitely ending on a high. Most of the story feels like a full-cast drama, with Purves playing both Steven and the Doctor, and yet I frequently found myself forgetting that the same actor was playing both parts. The Doctor’s knowledge of his own impending death is surprising, as we so rarely saw real vulnerability from this incarnation. Lisa Bowerman directs all four stories in the box set and Toby Hrycek-Robinson handles the sound design and music in all cases. The sound design in “The Locked Room” is notably good, though all four stories are well produced. Overall, “The Locked Room” is an excellent example both of Doctor Who generally and the Companion Chronicles specifically. It’s disheartening to know that this series was limited due to poor sales while a rampaging wave of innovation-free nostalgia continues to drown Big Finish’s output, but here we are.
Highly recommended.
9/10