Four narrated stories set in the Tenth Doctor era
The Taste of Death by Helen Goldwyn
The Doctor and Rose sample the high-life on resort planet MXQ1, run by the famous Bluestone brothers. It has everything: exotic beaches, luxury accommodation and extravagant dining. Something’s cooking in the kitchen, and it’s to die for…
Backtrack by Matthew J Elliott
When the TARDIS crashes in the vortex, Martha and the Doctor find themselves on board the time-ship The Outcome, where the host offers temporal cruises at reasonable prices.
But time travellers must never cut corners. Dangerous forces have been unleashed, and Martha finds her medical skills put to the test as she deals with some lethal fall-out.
Time is running out, and the clock is ticking towards disaster!
Wild Pastures by James Goss
Strange things are happening at the Wild Pastures Rest Home. When the Doctor calls on the Nobles to investigate, he doesn’t expect Sylvia to be the one to step up. Soon, they’re in too deep, and the Doctor and Sylvia will need all their faculties to get out alive.
Last Chance by Guy Adams
Trying to spare a few creatures from extinction, the Doctor bumps into an old acquaintance on the African plains – Lady Christina de Souza. They are about to find themselves on the endangered list…
THE TENTH DOCTOR CHRONICLES: THE TASTE OF DEATH
The Ninth Doctor Chronicles accounted for the unavailability of Christopher Eccleston by telling four narrated tales and having the narrator deliver an Eccleston impression. It’s exactly the same case for the Tenth Doctor Chronicles, except of course that David Tennant has been available and they’re doing these anyway. The narrator this time around is Jacob Dudman, whose Tennant impression is generally excellent, only faltering a bit when trying to capture Tennant’s anger. And the first story is “The Taste of Death,” by Helen Goldwyn, a tale that embraces the Russell T. Davies era with both arms.
I must say that I’m impressed in spite of myself with Big Finish’s ability to realistically ape every single televised era of Doctor Who. While I routinely criticize the Fourth Doctor Adventures for aiming no higher than recapturing the feel of “tea time 1978,” it’s surprising just how well they also capture the feel of 2006 with stories like this. I like the resort planet setting, I like the focus on food, and I like the presence of the Slitheen, among the most underrated creations of the TV series since its return to television. Even though they’re all over the cover of the box set, Goldwyn does a fine job of concealing their presence despite clues that should be screamingly obvious. And I like how we continue to recognize them as an aberrant crime family instead of representatives of a uniformly hostile race. Unfortunately for me, this story suffered from its proximity to the first Ravenous set – here, as there, we have someone trying to leverage power by selling dangerously addictive food, so it feels as though it’s covering old ground. Of course, nobody says you have to listen to one before the other! “The Taste of Death” is light as a feather – despite some dark subject matter, it’s not interested in pushing any boundaries, but I don’t think that’s the intended purpose of these Chronicles sets. If it’s nostalgia you want, this story has it in spades.
7/10
THE TENTH DOCTOR CHRONICLES: BACKTRACK
“Backtrack,” by Matthew J. Elliott, is an odd story in that it often feels as though it wants to be more important than it actually is. The pre-credits scene wants to be ominous, but whether because of the writing or Dudman’s performance, falls oddly flat heading into the credits. The premise: a conman is taking people on tours of the great battles of history in a time-traveling flying saucer. But the ship is damaged, it gets stuck in the past, and energy leaking from its engine is threatening to irreversibly and devastatingly change history. With that sort of premise, you can go practically anywhere and do practically anything – and as the story heads back to 1066 you think that’s what’s happening, but then the entire story is actually confined aboard the ship. This would make a lot of sense on TV with a limited effects budget; on audio, it’s inexplicable. Either way, it plays like an old Hollywood disaster film, and the plot twist near the end is genuinely surprising. The best part of “Backtrack” is that it doesn’t have a conventional villain; the most dangerous thing in the story is sentient fungus. It’s refreshing to hear a story like this that doesn’t feature a cackling megalomaniac ranting about destroying the universe – in fact, the “villain’s” zeal to sacrifice himself and save the universe is the threat! I don’t think the story does enough with its premise, I don’t think the tone gels properly, and I don’t think the characters are developed enough, but in spite of all of that this is still Elliott’s best Doctor Who script yet. More of this and fewer comedy Australians and we might be on to something.
7/10
THE TENTH DOCTOR ADVENTURES: WILD PASTURES
“Wild Pastures,” by James Goss, is the best story in the set, one that takes Doctor Who storytelling to a new venue: a nursing home. The Doctor wants to investigate strange occurrences at the Wild Pastures nursing home, so he devises a plan to check Wilf into the home and pose as a caregiver. Unfortunately, when he arrives at the Noble home, he encounters not Wilf but Sylvia instead – and after a dose of her force of personality she’s suddenly the Doctor’s partner. What follows is a surprisingly somber look at life in one of these facilities, the residents’ lives and memories slowly being drained away, leaving empty shells behind. Anyone who has had family in homes like this will recognize the process, and while Goss uses an alien memory-draining plant as the culprit, it’s really just a metaphor for the combined effects of isolation and aging. There’s a scene where Sylvia tries to leave the home and realizes she can’t – and that feeling of imprisonment is sadly, achingly familiar. Goss also writes the Doctor as a victim of the plant’s influence, and Dudman’s portrayal of the Doctor as essentially a dementia patient is surprisingly effective. This is also a great story for Sylvia Noble, as it’s the first time we’ve spent such an extended period with the character. While Dudman is the narrator, Jacqueline King is the star of the show, as most of the story is conveyed through Sylvia’s observations and opinions – and we get to see the human being under her hard exterior. Overall, “Wild Pastures” is a very good, often excellent story, and it’s the sort of thing we should see more of. It’s a shame we couldn’t hear David Tennant perform this story, but it’s still completely worthwhile.
8/10
THE TENTH DOCTOR CHRONICLES: LAST CHANCE
There’s a lot to like about “Last Chance” by Guy Adams, the final story in the Tenth Doctor Chronicles box set. The subject matter, for one thing, is excellent: an alien, the last of his kind, is traveling all of space and time, engineering the final moments of other species and sharing in their experience. The Doctor, naturally, can’t allow this to happen, and so he’s also traveling space and time to save these creatures before they can be killed – and if that sounds like changing history, it is, but we’re in very late-period Tennant where the Doctor doesn’t care anymore. The Doctor being the last of his own species is obviously relevant, and the script doesn’t shy away from the implications. Indeed, this is the best story for the Doctor out of the four, one that actually digs into his character a bit at this most vulnerable time of his life. Unfortunately, other elements don’t work as well. This story sees Michelle Ryan return as Lady Christina from “Planet of the Dead,” a character that wasn’t particularly popular from a story widely regarded as the worst of the entire Russell T. Davies era. And while Christina is more tolerable in this story, and Ryan’s performance is much more measured, the character is barely recognizable. When we last saw her, the Doctor rejected her as a companion, knowing that she was far too greedy and self-interested to travel at his side – and yet this story opens with the Doctor seeking her help with an altruistic mission to save endangered animals? Indeed, that side of her character barely comes out in this story, which makes me wonder about her upcoming box set even more than I already am. Lastly, there’s the narration, which to Adams’ credit actually has ambition. The other stories feature bland, workmanlike prose punctuated with countless “said the Doctor” instances, whereas “Last Chance” actually gives the narrator a personality. It’s overwritten in places, and a few of the lines are genuinely cringeworthy, but I always give credit for trying something outside the standard boundaries. And that’s my attitude toward “Last Chance” as a whole – it has definite flaws but there’s still a great deal that’s worthy of attention.
7/10
As a whole, this is a worthwhile box set. Every story is worthy in some way, the writing is pleasantly varied, the production is strong, and the performances – especially Dudman – are fantastic. It won’t change your life, but it’s much better than the usual assortment of generic runarounds. Recommended.