The third story in the “what can we do with who we have during the pandemic” set of “Tenth Doctor, Classic Companions” sees The Doctor meet up with Ace during her now-established “A Charitable Earth” days and also features the return of Axos, which as a big Third Doctor fan always brings a smile to my face (even if its ability to escape its own quantum lock is getting a little silly now…) Generally the story works due to delivering the promise of the set and just giving us a simple story of The Tenth Doctor meeting Ace rather than trying to be too clever and ending up not really landing the premise. Let’s take a look!!
We start with Ace (Sophie Aldred) being given an offer to work with a new Axos company that has created an App that’s catching fire with the general populous but she’s weary of them so attends an open day with her own K9 unit (John Leeson) to do some investigating and there she meets The Doctor (David Tennant), who is similarly looking into Axos (also voiced by Leeson this time…) after he found out the effects of the Time War freed it from his previous selves’ prison. They’re using their technology to brainwash the public via the app (with a top-class bit of word play when The Doctor describes the “Clause of Axos” in the terms and agreements) and together the Doctor, Ace and their respective K9s join up to stop them.
It’s really that simple, but it’s good fun and the plot of an “evil” social media app brainwashing people is the sort of on-the-nose commentary that fits in really well with the Russell T. Davies era.
The Continuity:
Hooray! Another look at the brown runny cover!
Axos first appeared in the Third Doctor story “The Claws of Axos” and later returned in the Sixth Doctor audio story “The Feast of Axos” and the Eleventh Doctor comic “The Golden Ones” (also of Axos, I guess?), which is set after this one but luckily Axos keeps getting put back in the same place at the end of each story so it doesn’t really matter!
Ace mentions the last time she saw the Doctor “he was a-” before being cut-off, presumably going to say “a woman”, though whether that relates to her appearance in Thirteenth Doctor TV story “The Power of the Doctor” or Thirteenth Doctor novel “A Childhood’s End” I can’t tell you, haven’t read the book (though I hear “Power” contradicts it anyway…)
Overall Thoughts:
While extremely by-the-numbers (as evidenced from the relative briefness of this review!) this was the standout story of the set by just delivering what the subtitle promised to begin with by giving us the Tenth Doctor and a classic companion, and in this case they bounced off each other really well. Sad to say though that it was a pretty weak boxset overall…
Not really a lot to say here. Ace’s K9 ends up being a creation of Axos as well but after The Doctor and Ace do something vague but “rather clever” and trap it back in a loop once again The Doctor gives her the K9 he found, setting up a Sarah Jane style “further adventures” status quo for the character that will probably never really be followed up on. Oh well!
Hogan Reviews 