THE SECOND DOCTOR, VOLUME 01

The second of four adventures in The Second Doctor Volume 01 from the Big Finish range of The Companion Chronicles is The Story of Extinction.  This story, written by Ian Atkins and directed by Lisa Bowerman, sees the TARDIS crew arrive on an apparently long-dead planet.

The 2nd Doctor, together with Jamie and Victoria land at the same time as a vast archaeological expedition, who arrive in multiple ships.  In amongst all of the activity, the trio are quickly accepted as just part of an archaeological team.

Jamie and Victoria are bewildered by future tech such as advanced paper that’s designed to have text that changes and moves depending upon what the reader wants to read.  The Doctor is more concerned about what happened to the previous civilisation, and quickly uncovers stories regarding monsters.

When they lose contact with other teams, only to find them dead around their dig with no apparent physical cause of their demise, the Doctor sense they are all in danger and confines his companions to the safety of the TARDIS, not that they’ll stay there for very long…

The writer’s inspiration behind this story comes across in the behind-the-scenes interviews in which he uses today’s fascination with social media “memes” and the attraction held by “clickbait” as a basis for his “monster” in this adventure.

Although the social commentary aspect adds something to the story, as does the postulation of where “eInk” and “ePaper” might eventually lead us, there isn’t really enough to the story for the one-hour or so duration.  Most of the adventure is left with the Doctor going too and fro, with much todo about nothing.

Interspersed between the scenes are little snippets of Victoria teaching Jamie to read, something that does have significance to the resolution, but that also feels like filler material for the most part.

Frazer Hines continues to voice both Jamie and the 2nd Doctor, with Deborah Watling returning as Victoria.  Although Hines is as good as usual, the years haven’t been kind to Watling’s voice and, sadly, she doesn’t sound much like Victoria here at all.  Doing the narration from a later point in time, complete with nostalgia factor, Watling is fine as an older Victoria but it’s difficult to lose yourself back into the 60s with this one.

It’s difficult to recommend The Story of Extinction in the same way as The Mouthless Dead because there’s not enough to it to recommend.  The next story in this set sees the return of Zoe in The Integral.