Hogan Reviews

The next three stories in the Destiny of the Doctor run closes the “classic” era and brings us into the “NuWho” era (though it’s really all just one show, but you know…) as well as dropping us in on the Eighth Doctor and Charley, allowing Big Finish continuity a go round. This time I felt all three stories were enjoyable and invoked the spirit of their respective eras and Doctors, though the Ninth Doctor story suffers from being the only one not to feature a returning companion to narrate the story. Let’s take a look!

“Shockwave” is the Seventh Doctor story and it has The Doctor and Ace (Sophie Aldred) arrive on a space station in the far future which is part of a solar system whose sun has just exploded and sent out the titular shockwave that has already destroyed the planets closer to the star. The station is evacuating via the last remaining ship, the Obscura, and the ship’s Captain OhOne (Ian Booker) is ready to depart, taking on the last of the people and cargo, including the TARDIS accidentally. The Doctor heads on board to help it take off while Ace finds a cult who worship the sun wishing to be bathed in its energy and “evolve”. Ace takes one girl, NineJay, and drags her on board despite her protests and the ire of those on the ship, and soon The Doctor gets the ship running enough to outlast the first wave. Here The Doctor reveals that he was actually on the ship to steal an artefact called the “Voice of Stone” but when he arrives at the vault it had already been stolen. A short while later OhOne announces that the engines have been sabotaged and Ace finds out that NineJay was responsible and that she’d intentionally smuggled on board in order to make sure everyone can evolve alongside her. Ace rightfully berates her for endangering everyone for her own beliefs and then finds out she also stole the Voice of Stone, which reacts when Ace touches it…

“Enemy Aliens” sees the Eighth Doctor and Charley (India Fisher) receive a message from the Eleventh Doctor right off the bat via an old fashioned tape recorder. Half the message is stuck behind static but the phrases “Enemy aliens” and “William Tell” can be heard, so The Doctor follows the coordinates provided and they end up in 1935 London and soon locate a William Tell who is performing a mind reading act. The Doctor tricks him into revealing where they need to go before he’s mysteriously shot dead, The Doctor of course being the main suspect but Charley finds the murder weapon so is also assumed to be the assassin. She escapes thanks to a mysterious man called Hillary Hammond (Michael Maloney) and the two head to Scotland following the clues Tell, um, told them and during the train ride Charley meets The Doctor hiding in a coffin (but he soon has to dramatically leap off the train) while Hammond befriends two older ladies who accompany them to a small village. There Hammond tries to convince Charley to marry him so they can hide their identities but soon The Doctor once again arrives, this time on horseback, claiming to be pursued. There he recognises the two older women as being in the audience at the William Tell show and sure enough they each produce pistols and aim in their direction, but as The Doctor and Charley run they find the titular enemy aliens: a group of invading Germans, who soon lock them up in a castle.

Thinking about it, it’s quite rare to see Season 24/25 McCoy with Ace… Not sure if that’s when this story is actually meant to be set, but whatever…

“Night of the Whisper” is our Ninth Doctor story though it comes at a time where everyone involved was either trying to distance themselves from the show or far too busy so our narrator and voice of The Doctor is Nicholas Briggs, doing his best Lancashire accent. It wasn’t great then and now that Mr. Eccleston has done so many audios himself it sounds even worse. Well, anyway, the story is set on the colony of New Vegas and starts off with the old “companions are working regular jobs” thing as Rose is acting as a waitress in a nightclub called “Full Moon”, owned as it is by a werewolf called Wolfsbane, whereas Captain Jack is working as a reporter for the “Daily Galaxy”. The two companions find themselves arrested after a masked vigilante called “The Whisper” arrives in the club and causes havoc but Jack talks his way out while Rose is taken from custody by The Doctor posing as a police officer from Earth, much to the chagrin of New Vegas police commissioner James McNeil (John Schwab) The story then branches off as Captain Jack follows the sob story of local girl Daisy and her lost friend Lillian while The Doctor and Rose follow The Whisper, and shortly after a hover-bike chase the two see an electronic billboard that suddenly displays an image of the Eleventh Doctor, who informs his past self that McNeil is going to become an important figure in local history and the Mayor of New Vegas so must be kept alive at all costs. While Jack is betrayed by Daisy and taken hostage by Wolfsbane, who as it turns out is a rather nasty individual, The Doctor and Rose track The Whisper to McNeil’s house, where it looks like he’s about to be the vigilante’s next victim…

As mentioned in the opening paragraph these three stories were far more consistent and felt very on-brand for their Doctors, even if Nicholas Briggs’ accent left a lot to be desired…

The Continuity:

I wonder how many people just subscribed to this range on AudioGo (remember them?) and had no idea who Charley Pollard was. I hope they checked out some Big Finish if they did!

Not much to talk about in terms of “Shockwave”, though the “Voice of Stone” is clearly a Time Lord “Hypercube” as seen in the Second Doctor TV Story “The War Games” and the Eleventh Doctor TV Story “The Doctor’s Wife”.

Same goes for “Enemy Aliens”, as beyond your usual mentioning of Charley’s backstory with the R101 airship (from “Storm Warning”), and “Night of the Whisper”, beyond one or two “earlier in the series” references to Ninth Doctor / Rose episodes and of course the series catchphrase of “Bad Wolf”.

Overall Thoughts:

As long as you don’t mind the audiobook format these three stories are all really fun, have some good twists and do really well by their respective Doctors and eras. It took six attempts but Destiny of the Doctor really hit a stride with these ones!

In “Shockwave” OhOne reveals he will stay behind to operate a “counterforce wave” that will protect the ship with a barrier but at the cost of his life just as The Doctor meets back up with Ace and the Voice of Stone reveals the image of the Eleventh Doctor, who after a brief chat tells his past self that he has to keep OhOne alive at all costs. The Doctor runs but it’s too late, OhOne had activated the counterforce wave and he can’t be reached, but NineJay arrives and offers to transmat to OhOne and swap places. The Doctor believes she’ll just swap places and deactivate the barrier again but she claims that Ace has shown her she was wrong to endanger others but still wishes to “evolve”. Convinced The Doctor allows it to happen and sure enough everyone, including OhOne, survives the wave thanks to NineJay, who got her wish… well, she got vaporised instead of evolving, but she wouldn’t have lived long enough to know that!

“Enemy Aliens” continues with The Doctor and Charley escaping the castle only to find out that Hammond was actually a German spy who shot Tell because he thought he was revealing the secret German transmissions hidden behind Rossini’s overture, as well as revealing that he was planning on killing Charley after they were married. He also has a copy of the Eleventh Doctor’s message with the previously scrambled bits still intact and plays it, revealing that the Doctor was actually trying to warn his past self that actual aliens were invading Earth via a similar signal through the same radio waves the Germans were using. The Doctor and Charley escape when the two older ladies, who turned out were British agents following Hammond, start a bombardment and find the broadcast station where the aliens are planning on sending the signal to invade and manage to stop it but the mothership arrives anyway. The Doctor, plus his future self, send interrupting signals promising a major retaliation from a far more advanced race so they leave Earth. Oh and Hammond returns but is knocked off a roof from one of the aliens that befriended Charley (forgot that bit) and is left to fall to his death as he cinematically clings onto the minute hand of the building’s clockface, just seconds away from ticking over…

But, where’s Rose? Where’s Captain Jack? …. This was the definite low point for Ninth Doctor era fans…

“Night of the Whisper” reveals that The Whisper is actually McNeil’s daughter and Daisy’s “missing friend” Lillian, who was married to a man who worked for Wolfsbane and due to the criminal’s ruthlessness she was dumped outside of New Vegas’s protective dome to die when her husband betrayed him. While dying she was approached by a “Star Marshall”, an alien lifeform dedicated to justice that merged with her, creating this Whisper entity. It approached McNeil and asked for instructions so McNeil assumed it could help his investigation into Wolfsbane but in setting it off on a mission of justice it soon developed an extreme sense of justice that judged just about everyone guilty of something, and every guilty party deserved death. That’s quite some odd story twist, that’s for sure! The Whisper runs and McNeil reveals its heading to the atmosphere control centre to kill everyone at once (saves time I guess!) and as it arrives it finds Wolfsbane, Daisy and a tied-up Captain Jack, as the control centre was the werewolf’s hiding place. A battle ensues as The Doctor, Rose and McNeil arrive and The Whisper is eventually killed, dying in its father’s arms. The commissioner then chases down Wolfsbane and the two topple over the edge of a tall walkway but McNeil is saved by The Doctor (who in turn is saved by Rose) while the werewolf falls to his death. With McNeil safe The Doctor, Rose and Captain Jack depart.