May 3rd 2023
When the Thirteenth Doctor regenerated at the end of Power of the Doctor and everyone was surprised to see a familiar face, theories spread like wildfire. Mine—and the one that felt like a glimmer of hope in my fan heart—was that, if they were going in that direction, they might as well make the 60th anniversary a celebration of the Doctor’s different incarnations. That did not happen, and that is not such a bad thing. But what I had genuinely hoped for was this: that the Doctor’s regeneration, this time, would be “broken”, that old faces would return at random, beyond his control, and that Ncuti Gatwa’s arrival would mark a rebalancing of the regenerations. Well, thankfully, Big Finish was there!
Because that is broadly the premise of Once and Future, Big Finish’s 60th-anniversary celebration of Doctor Who. The covers alone are gorgeous, especially the limited-edition ones. So we find the Doctor with multiple voices alternating after a battle. He does not know exactly what is happening to him, except that he has been struck by a “degeneration” weapon that is scrambling his various faces. He has a vague sense that the Monk is responsible, or somehow involved, and he stabilises as the Fourth Doctor.
The latter then arrives on Earth in pursuit of the Monk, who has kidnapped Sarah Jane Smith (brilliantly played by Sadie Miller) in order to steal something from UNIT in a modern-day era where Kate Lethbridge-Stewart and Osgood are present. What a joy this first episode is, bringing together so many voices without ever losing sight of the action-driven and delightfully absurd nature of the situation. It is treated seriously from beginning to end, and the meta aspect is never too heavy-handed either. Obviously, you need to know the classics at least a little to appreciate it fully, but since there are characters from the 2005 series, it remains fairly accessible.
Despite being a fairly enjoyable listen, I am still left a little wanting in several areas. The first is Tom Baker. I am not always a fan of his Doctor to begin with, but even so, I usually find he has a wildly distinctive energy that is hard to match. He has an undeniable presence… and that presence is not really here this time around. I find him well below what I know he is capable of. Then Sadie Miller as Sarah Jane and Rufus Hound as the Monk are so fantastic that they feel slightly underused. But in a way, I get the impression that this applies to all the characters, and my conclusion is that the running time may simply be a little too short to really give everyone room to exist. Even the antagonists do not really get the time they need to be grandiose, even though they absolutely could be, given how larger-than-life they are in theory!
Still, it is a lovely start, with a cliffhanger that makes me desperately want to know what happens next. The “self-contained little story” aspect before another “self-contained little story” might disappoint some people, but for me, that is exactly what I want from this kind of anniversary project. Rather than an over-referential mishmash, fun adventures that give space to the different Doctors feel pretty wonderful!
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