3.1 The Phoenicians by Marc Platt
In ancient Tyre, the Phoenician civilisation commands the oceans. But times are turbulent – the young King’s quarrel with his sister threatens to divide the nation.
On perilous seas, Ian becomes Princess Elissa’s favourite, while Susan and Barbara face losing their freedom. In the city, the Doctor falls foul of King Pygmalion.
As they reach dangerous shores, the travellers fight to survive as legend becomes history…
3.2 Tick-Tock World by Guy Adams
When disaster befalls the TARDIS, its occupants find themselves in a bizarre location, somewhere between space and time.
Desperate survivors hide among ruins, greedy scavenging creatures hunt new prey, and ghosts scream out warnings across time.
All the while, a mysterious woman watches the TARDIS crew, knowing, as sure as tock follows tick, that a terrible fate awaits them…
THE FIRST DOCTOR ADVENTURES: THE PHOENICIANS
The pattern is now well-established for these recast First Doctor Adventures: each set contains two four-episode stories, one of which is a historical and one of which is a sci-fi tale. This is in keeping with the series format in its first season, but is also indicative of how this range has absolutely no ambition in 2019 beyond telling stories made to sound exactly 56 years old. And that’s where we find “The Phoenicians,” by Marc Platt, a carbon copy of other historical stories without an original thought in its head.
Most historical stories involve a well-known historical period or well-known historical figure. Almost all of them involve the TARDIS crew getting wrapped up in events beyond their control, unable to change things and simply wanting to escape. Here, the TARDIS lands in ancient Tyre, where they meet Pygmalion – not the mythological figure known from various plays and operas, but the king of Tyre whose sister Dido eventually founded Carthage. This isn’t particularly well known, but there’s nothing wrong with learning about a new era of history – except Platt doesn’t distinguish Phoenicia in any particular way and decides to portray Pygmalion and Elissa (later Dido) as petulant, irritating teenagers.
The first episode goes as these things usually do, with the TARDIS crew getting in over their heads and a cliffhanger ending with at least one of their lives in danger. But from there, nothing really happens in the story – the pace is glacial, there’s very little peril, and it’s not clear why the characters are even sticking around. They have the ability to leave from the middle of episode three, and for some reason they choose not to – there’s nothing keeping them there, they’re not enjoying themselves, and they sound bored, but they stick around for another 45 minutes for… reasons? Of course, historicals with low levels of plot incident can still be great – look at Big Finish’s own “Farewell, Great Macedon” for a perfect example – but those stories require excellent character work. Here, we learn nothing about our regular characters, except for an extended “are Ian and Barbara together???” subplot that sounds like a 12-year-old wrote it. And our only two guest characters of note, Pygmalion (Jo Ben Ayed) and Elissa (Ajjaz Awad), are incredibly childish, and the actors pitch their performances to be as irritating as possible.
In short, we have a dreadfully boring story with irritating characters and little incident. This is every bit as bad as “The Great White Hurricane” and significantly worse than “The Barbarians and the Samurai” – but I guess if Big Finish really want to ape the 1960s, they might as well strangle the historical genre to death just like Doctor Who itself did.
Woeful.
3/10
THE FIRST DOCTOR ADVENTURES: TICK-TOCK WORLD
While I haven’t particularly enjoyed any of the historicals in the First Doctor Adventures, the sci-fi stories have been significantly better. Perhaps that’s due to the content being a much better match for the format: the slow 1963 style of drama lends itself better to a careful explanation of a sci-fi concept than it does to a historical epic. This brings us to “Tick-Tock World” by Guy Adams, which is probably the weakest of the three sci-fi First Doctor Adventures but still much better than its historical counterpart.
There isn’t much plot here – “Tick-Tock World” is a story almost entirely about its concept, a world on which time runs differently and ghosts of potential futures appear to warn people of their fates. Adams, following the house style, takes a long time to reveal what’s going on, so much so that the first two episodes are basically ghost stories. No explanation is given beyond this being the peculiar nature of the place the TARDIS crashed, but fortunately the story doesn’t need more than that. This is, instead, a character piece, something I’ve seen described as this cast’s version of “The Edge of Destruction,” and something that holds up quite well. The Doctor is separated from his companions for most of the story, and they are trapped on a dying world, pursued by creatures eager to devour them. And it’s genuinely great: we get to see Ian, Barbara, and Susan all pushed beyond their limits, gaining a window into the deepest elements of their personalities. We see just how deeply devoted Ian and Barbara are to one another, and we see how desperate Susan is for family and connection beyond her grandfather. The supporting characters are unfortunately not given anywhere near the same development – that’s the weakest part of the story, but Adams’ work with the regulars helps make up for it.
We also get to see the Doctor surrounded by alternate versions of himself, something which naturally irritates the hell out of him but also gives us a look into his relationship with his companions and with his granddaughter. He’s naturally protective of Susan, unwilling to let her spread her wings, wanting to keep her safe from the horrors of the universe – he’s just like any other (grand)parent in that respect, but it’s still fascinating to see how much love and fear hides below his gruff exterior. And then there’s the big selling point: one of the alternate, older versions of Susan is played by Carole Ann Ford herself. It’s a real credit to Claudia Grant that they sound like the same character at different ages – her performance isn’t much like Ford’s at all but she’s still recognizable. And while it’ll never be the same as William Hartnell, hearing Ford and David Bradley interact should warm the heartstrings of any fan.
This isn’t a perfect story – the plot is threadbare and the supporting characters are thinly sketched at best. But it’s a great look into this TARDIS crew and their relationships – and while the characters aren’t going to remember the details of this story, I hope future authors keep these scenes in mind as we flesh out this new cast.
7/10