Doctor Who Audio Review: A Police Box Full Of Hope

Christopher Eccleston continues his deservedly popular journey as the Ninth Doctor in the audio boxset entitled Travel in Hope from Bog Finish Productions. Helen Goldwyn returns to direct the three episodes that make up this set.

Below There is written by Lauren Mooney and Stuart Pringle and has the Doctor lend a hand to a lonely monitor named Vyx who is assigned to a teleport relay in space. She is having visions, and the teleport system she helps maintain may not be as safe and reliable as billions of galactic citizens would expect.

Kelly Adams, Daniel Cerqueira, and Homer Todiwala make up the guest cast to an effectively spooky episode. The small cast and rather claustrophobic setting are well realized through the sound effects and performances. The writers draw inspiration partly from a short story written by Charles Dickens called The Signal-Man, which has been mentioned before in the television series by this particular Doctor.

This was a pretty good start top the set. The banter between the Doctor and Vyx is quite profound at times. The episode begins with a rather lengthy section where they are communicating through transmitters, which makes the Doctor’s arrival on the station itself seem like a bit of a payoff for the listener.

Anyway, the episode gives this a set a promising start.

The Butler Did It is written by James Moran and is an homage to the classic mysteries written by the likes of Agatha Christie and Dorothy L. Sayers. Emma Swan, Andrew French, Paul Thornley, and Louise Fletcher make up the guest cast.

The TARDIS is in need of a tune-up as usual and arrives at a spaceport where he encounters a couple of old friends who also happen to the last of their species. One of his friends is poisoned, and the Doctor has the chance to brush up on some old-fashioned investigative skills. He is aided by a medical tech with a bit of s confidence problem and hampered by a collection of some of the surliest suspects gathered in one place.

Moran was going for something pretty light-hearted here and pulls it off quite nicely. The story does intentionally lean heavily on the some of the tropes of the mystery genre without being overdone. Basically, I got the joke. Also, in spite of the cheeky rip-off, the plot still had a sense of originality and was at times even unexpectedly amusing. Eccleston seems to have a rarely tapped knack for comedy in which this episode brought out.

Run completes this set and is written by Robert Valentine. Jane Goddard is back as the Doctor’s old friend, Alpha Centauri, who from its perspective has yet to meet the Doctor’s earlier incarnation. David Langham, Jane Asher, and Philip Pope make up the guest cast which also includes Nicholas Briggs playing the role of Martian senator Zzargol.

A dangerous demagogue is poised to take control of the Galactic Federation by any means necessary, and the Doctor convinces a very young representative named Alpha Centauri to run against her for the presidency. Politics is often a dirty business, but when the Doctor steps into the ring, it gets deadly.

I sometimes get rather cynical with some of these recurring character bits. Alpha Centauri was first introduced many moons ago during the Jon Pertwee era on television. It is a species of hexapod with one of those most shrill, squeaky vocalizations one could imagine. Goddard actually emulates the original performance and manages to tone down the more grating qualities about the character. I actually don’t dislike Alpha Centauri, but a little of bit goes a long way. The interaction between it and this Doctor were quite well written. It’s pretty obvious what political circumstance inspired this story, but Valentine manages to still present it without any real effort to offend any group of voters. It’s a clever, fun story to close out a highly entertaining collection.

I have enjoyed the Ninth Doctor audio series pretty consistently; however, this particular set brought its A game. All three stories were diverse in all the right ways. Eccleston’s performance was captivating in all three episodes. Even though the inspirations for these stories seemed a little too obvious at times, they still displayed some creativity and wit from all of the writers here.

Travel in Hope gives me hope that Big Finish may still have some great ideas left in the tank.