Young Winston by Paul Morris
London, 1899. After spending time in warzones abroad, Winston Churchill considers a Parliamentary career. But a memento from his visit to Cuba, four years earlier, returns to haunt him. Across the city, the Great Detective has a mysterious caller, all the way from Havana. As ruthless mercenaries wield alien powers, young Winston and Madame Vastra learn they have a mutual friend – an eccentric young man, sporting a bowtie…
Human Conflict by Iain McLaughlin
1941. The Prime Minister has much on his mind as London reels from the Blitz. When a daring mission to discover Nazi secrets bears unexpected results, Churchill heads north to retrieve technology that could win the war. But an old ally is set against his intent. Weary from his own people’s conflict, the Doctor knows that some weapons should never enter the field of human conflict.
I Was Churchill’s Double by Alan Barnes
Alexandra Palace, 1942. Strange television signals show a paranoid Churchill urging on the resistance in German-occupied Britain. A man in a battered leather jacket makes a guest appearance. The broadcasts come from another world, one where the country is now part of the Kaiser’s Empire. Of course, the Doctor is involved, and while Churchill claims to understand the notion of ‘alternative histories’, he never expected to be part of one.
Churchill Victorious by Robert Khan & Tom Salinsky
VE Day, 1945. The war is over. The PM has seen the crowds and made his speech. Now he wishes to soak up the atmosphere, moving incognito among his fellow countrymen. But an alien interloper lurks in a backstreet tavern, and ‘William Churchyard’ must lead a few plucky Londoners into one more fight. The Doctor is in trouble, and at the time of his greatest victory, Churchill also faces his greatest danger…
THE CHURCHILL YEARS: YOUNG WINSTON
The Churchill Years: one of the most obviously desperate scrambles by Big Finish to find something to do with the new series license given the practical impossibilities of getting modern-era Doctors and companions into the studio on a regular basis. The first set was pleasantly inoffensive, and the second set carries on that noble unambitious tradition.
The first story, “Young Winston” by Paul Morris, features Ian McNeice’s Churchill telling us a story in flashback of an adventure he had as a young man during his time in Cuba and during the years afterward. The setup is odd, in that McNeice narrates but young Churchill is played in the flashbacks by Iain Batchelor – and while Batchelor is fine, McNeice is better, and having both present just underscores the differences between the two. The story is also notable for its inclusion of Madame Vastra, who teams up with young Churchill to search for a mysterious alien artifact. And the eleventh Doctor is around as well, popping up occasionally to save the day. The problem, as with most of these Churchill stories, is that nothing particularly interesting happens. We don’t learn anything about the Doctor or Vastra, the plot is Doctor Who boilerplate, and the potential intrigue of a romance for Winston isn’t pursued. This is also one of a few recent Big Finish excursions to Latin American locales, and the Cuban accents here aren’t especially convincing. All that being said, there’s nothing wrong with “Young Winston,” but when your selling point is nothing more than Vastra’s presence in the story, there isn’t much to recommend it.
6/10
THE CHURCHILL YEARS: HUMAN CONFLICT
I always enjoyed Iain McLaughlin’s work in the Doctor Who range, and “Human Conflict,” his script for the Churchill Years, is easily the best of the second set. It deals with a theme that this series keeps returning to: would Churchill be willing to use alien weapons of mass destruction to end the war, costing millions of innocent German civilian lives in the process? There isn’t much drama, since we already know the answer, but McLaughlin and McNeice do a great job of presenting Churchill’s inner conflict. I think the story drifts into more questionable moral territory in the second half, when Churchill and a Nazi officer are compelled to team up to drive off an alien arms dealer. In order to make both characters sympathetic, Churchill excuses his own actions as those of a leader forced to make impossible decisions while the Nazi says he’s a soldier following orders. While this is a common theme in war stories and indeed in real life – subordinates not receiving the same blame as their commanders – it feels uneasy when applied to a Nazi officer. I do like Churchill immediately turning on the enemy as soon as their common opponent is eliminated, which seems more in keeping with what we know of his character. There isn’t much new in “Human Conflict:” it’s a very traditional new series story concluding with the Doctor lecturing both sides of a conflict on the better course of action. Still, it’s written well and it’s occasionally thought-provoking, which sets it apart from most of its fellows.
7/10
THE CHURCHILL YEARS: I WAS CHURCHILL’S DOUBLE
It’s been a while since I’ve been able to complain about an Alan Barnes script, but “I Was Churchill’s Double” is a perfect opportunity. Despite the presence of narration from not one but two Churchills, Barnes still manages to write leaden, unconvincing dialogue and completely over-explain the visuals. There’s a reference in here to a fascinating “counter-counterfactual” essay Churchill wrote in the 1930s, but all the reference does is demonstrate a lack of understanding of the source material and of American Civil War history. That reference is there because this story is ostensibly about parallel universes, but the dramatic revelation is that the so-called parallel universe isn’t a parallel universe at all! Instead, it’s… an artificial universe inside a mirror. Well that’s certainly a meaningful enough difference around which to write a story! The two Churchills are basically identical, insofar as we don’t see enough of the “alternate” one to detect any meaningful differences. The ninth Doctor is there, of course, and already stuck in the mirror, and he’s deliberately obtuse and confusing when it comes to explaining what’s happening. This doesn’t serve any purpose other than to frustrate the listener. Sure, there’s some redeeming material here: McNeice is having fun, the plot is light and never gets bogged down, and the conclusion is relatively neat. But it’s still confusing and poorly written, and easily the weakest story in the set.
4/10
THE CHURCHILL YEARS: CHURCHILL VICTORIOUS
The second Churchill Years box comes to a close with “Churchill Victorious” by Robert Khan and Tom Salinsky. As the title implies, it’s VE Day, and London is alive with revelry over the final defeat of the Nazis. But Churchill isn’t celebrating; instead, he’s contemplating Operation Unthinkable, his secret plan to attack the Soviet forces and push them back out of the West. Finally, he decides to take in the celebration, dons a ridiculous disguise, and heads out into the streets to watch his countrymen rejoice. This is one of the best parts of the story, listening as Churchill attempts to string up some bunting and manages instead to fall over and hurt himself. But of course, he has a secondary motive: investigating recent power cuts. And he finds those power cuts happening in an abandoned tavern occupied by an alien bounty hunter. And so, he must team up with a local couple to defeat this bounty hunter, and the ensuing conflict is quite entertaining, as Churchill tries to inspire his companions while simultaneously maintaining his unconvincing disguise. Unfortunately, when the Doctor enters the story, it immediately starts to retread the same ground as “Human Conflict,” with Winston torn between his duty and the Doctor’s advice. With the outcome predetermined, there’s not much drama, but a reasonably lighthearted story like this doesn’t need to get too heavy. “Churchill Victorious” is a fun way to pass an hour, and it’s worth hearing, but I still can’t escape the feeling that these sets are being commissioned in order to make use of the license and not because anyone has a particularly compelling story idea.
7/10