Ignoring the terrible cover art and the stupid sounding name of “James Robert McCrimmon – Jamie” this opening two-part story for this year’s Second Doctor “Season 6B” story sets up the new status quo of The Doctor and Jamie doing missions for the Time Lord known as Raven, and of course there are few duos who work together as well. So let’s look at this latest “older Jamie having issues with his locked memories” story!
The Doctor (Michael Troughton) is sent to Edinburgh by Raven (Emma Noakes), who watches him as he investigates a series of strange deaths with the help of local Doctor James Breck (Alec Newman), and it soon becomes obvious (to the Doctor) that the culprit is an enemy he’s faced before: the Hollow Wraiths. Meanwhile Jamie McCrimmon (Frazer Hines) is being held in Edinburgh Castle where he has terrible dreams vaguely based on his travels with the Doctor while being attended by a young girl named Elen (Daisy Ashford), though she soon runs when a Hollow Wraith appears.
The Doctor soon meets up with Elen and then seemingly Jamie, who has all of his memories intact, but it’s clear that something is very wrong with Mr. McCrimmon…
Sadly I have to stop there because at two parts there isn’t much more to talk about apart from the final act, which I’ll get to in the spoilers. I guess I should’ve paired it with the middle story in this set but honestly none of them are that deep given the runtimes so I thought highlighting the story that sees Jamie rejoin The Doctor made more sense (plus in the next one it’s mentioned that several adventures take place in between this one and the next, so it works out well in that sense as well…)
The Continuity:
Seriously guys, Jamie is only supposed to be in his 50s, like The Two Doctors, why they used a current picture of Frazer Hines I have no idea. Makes the cover look extremely boring, like it’s just about two old men talking or something…
Beyond following on from the end of the previous story, “Wrath of the Ice Warriors”, and obviously lots of mentioning of how the Time Lords took Jamie’s memories in the Second Doctor TV finale “The War Games”, there isn’t much to say here.
That being said the comic story “The World Shapers” offers an alternate story of The Doctor (in his Sixth incarnation) finding an older Jamie who people believe to be mad because his memories of travelling with the Doctor have started to seep back into his consciousness. The story sadly ends with Jamie’s pretty pointless death, so if this “overwrites” that story I won’t complain (but of course this run of stories could just end with Jamie put back where he started and things will still match up…)
Overall Thoughts:
“Jamie” is a perfectly good story to reintroduce, well, Jamie in this “Season 6B” run, but beyond that there isn’t much to talk about. It does its job but the next two stories do more than that, so I can’t see myself relistening to this one down the line.
The Jamie with all his memories turns out to be a Hollow Wraith that then kills Dr. Beck, but as it approaches Elen and The Doctor the real Jamie appears and The Doctor reminds Jamie of his adventures and as he remembers them for real the Wraith loses its powers and fades away. Apparently they were feeding off of the energy of the mental block the Time Lords put in place, so it’s a good thing they’re now gone, though Jamie is soon informed how the dynamic has changed with Raven on board…
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