“Buried Threats” ends with the story that it was most heavily promoted with: “Ancient History”, featuring Bernice Summerfield herself. Does this mix of eras work and does it significantly break the samey mould that so many of these Ninth Doctor stories have fallen into? Well…
The story starts off with Bernice Summerfield (Lisa Bowerman) and young trainee archaeologist Finnda Twisk (Eliza Shea) trying to excavate the ruins of the Korravin Empire, a powerful force that was set to rule over countless worlds before suddenly vanishing without a trace. Also on the site is a woman called Cantiple (Rosalyn Landor) and her android assistant George (Gary Jordan) who are exploring the ruins via a special deep penetrating radar and other technology, which is upsetting Benny as its just not in the spirit of things, though they’re both in agreement that the mysterious professor “Arthur van Dango” is even more annoying. We the listener know full well that van Dango is actually The Doctor (Christopher Eccleston) as soon as he speaks but its not until Cantiple finds the TARDIS among the ruins deep underground that everything clicks in Benny’s head. She becomes angry when she correctly deduces that The Doctor is responsible for all the setbacks the dig has been having, which he admits to as the Korravin are too dangerous to be poked and proded, something he knows as he visited them during their heyday to recover an old Time Lord artefact they had began to worship but he ended up having to evacuate to the present day via a Time Ring, leaving his TARDIS to get buried.
*Gasp*! A new promo picture of Lisa Bowerman as Benny!
While Benny softens when she correctly surmises the fates of the other Time Lords and the rumours of the Time War she’s been hearing about and the two start to get along, but when Cantiple accidentally creates a “Time Window” by using her scanning tech on the TARDIS and surrounding artefacts the Korravin arrive in force and the “High Korravin” (Nabil Elouahabi) soon takes command of the area, wishing to use The Doctor, whom he recognises as a Time Lord, to bring his whole people to the present to continue their conquest, threating Benny, Finnda (who for the record is pregnant) and Cantiple if he doesn’t comply…
Honestly the story is a lot of fun, the returning cast members are on great form and the one-off characters are really well realised given the sub-hour runtime, making for a fun listen.
The Continuity:
*GASP!* Another new promo picture of Lisa Bowerman as Benny, complete with weird cyber… jumper?
Once again, not much to talk about in terms of linking narratives, beyond sharing similar plot elements to the other two stories in the set, obviously!. Bernice does mention that The Doctor is great “in any universe”, putting this after her travels with the “Unbound Doctor” and therefore this is the latest in her timeline we’ve seen her, which matches her new photoshoot picture on the covers!
Overall Thoughts:
“Ancient History” ends the “Buried Threats” boxset on a higher note, with a strong cast of characters and a fun plot, highlighted by how well Benny and the Ninth Doctor get on. I still don’t think anything here will blow you away with originality, but it did at least nail what it set out to do…
The Doctor, Benny and Finnda manage to escape only to find the rest of the Korravin horde at the mountain-side shuttle bay, and things get even worse when they explode a shuttle to expose the TARDIS buried below only to find out it’s gone, already excavated and back at the High Korravin’s place. As they make their way back Cantiple has done the stupid thing and tried to side with the Korravin for the sake of TV ratings and is killed for it, while George is taken over with the Time Lord “Splicer” tech the Korravin worship. The Doctor “gives up” and lets the High Korravin into his TARDIS but while the rest of the Korravin are confused by Finnda’s declaration that she too is a Time Lord “due to her double heartbeat” (again, pregnant) The Doctor manages to give word to Benny to use his sonic screwdriver he slipped into her pocket to return George’s old personality, allowing the android to destroy himself along with the Splicer, causing all the Korravin to age to death. Well, apart from the High Korravin, at least until Benny throws the Splicer into the TARDIS to cap it off.
The mystery of how the Korravin vanished now discovered (that being they jumped two million years into the future and then aged to death… no wonder nobody could figure it out!) Benny contemplates leaving archaeology altogether but The Doctor and Finnda convince her not to. We then get a nice scene where Benny tries to get The Doctor to tell her what happened with the whole Time War thing and tell him he needs to have a companion again, but it all still falls of deaf ears…
Hogan Reviews 