Original Sin is a Doctor Who audio play which was adapted by John Dorney from a novel which was written by Andy Lane. Sylvester McCoy stars as the Doctor and is joined by Lisa Bowerman as Professor Bernice Summerfield. Yasmin Bannerman and Travis Oliver play Adjudicators Roz Forrester and Chris Cwej who ended up joining the TARDIS crew in the range of Doctor Who novels known as The New Adventures. Andrew French, Philip Voss, Amrita Acharia, Robbie Stevens, and Jot Davies make up the guest cast. Ken Bentley directed this episode.
The Doctor and Bernice are drawn to Earth in about the thirtieth century where the law s being enforced by Adjudicators. Chris Cwej and Roz Forrester are looking into a rather alarming increase in murder and find a dangerous conspiracy. Behind the curtain is someone who has waited a very long time to meet the Doctor again.
This turned out to be quite good. It was fun to hear a different character dynamic in audio. The cast is well chosen. I had read the novel by Andy Lane some time ago and enjoyed that as well. Big Finish is pretty reliable when it comes to this range and being faithful to the source material. McCoy is in fine form in this one as usual. Bowerman continues to impress with the development of the character that was first created for the same range of novels by Paul Cornell. There was quite a bit of time to get to know Forrester and Cwej in this piece. They are conducting their own investigation apart from the Doctor and Professor Summerfield. Bannerman and Oliver seem to have pretty good chemistry. Of course, the music and the sound effects were well realized, but Big Finish almost always gets that right. Quite a few cast members play several parts and do so quite effectively.
I wouldn’t mind if Big Finish revisits Roz Forrester and Chris Cwej in future releases.
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