Doctor Who: The Time Splitters and Dimension 13 is a set of two audio novellas released from Big Finish Productions, and both are worthy beginnings to a new range.
Colin Brake starts off with The Time Splitters, which features the First Doctor and his companions, Steven and Dodo. Peter Purves returns to narrate this story with his usual reliably enjoyable delivery.
The Doctor and his companions arrive at Lunar University, which is based on the moon. Steven disappears soon after and finds himself eight years into the future. The university is abandoned by then, but that doesn’t mean that Steven is alone. There is another presence, and the Doctor and Dodo are having their own challenges as they try to rejoin him.
This is a pretty good story, and Peter Purves, who had portrayed Steven many decades ago on television, continues to deliver a riveting narration. Purves can still capture the spirit of the late William Hartnell’s performance as the Doctor even if he cannot really imitate his voice. This story is a little more complicated than what was usually transmitted in the original era, but it still works.
The sound design is also compelling.
I don’t know if this story can really be considered one of the best in the franchise, but it’s a solid enough contribution.
A couple of regenerations later, the Third Doctor finds another temporal catastrophe in David Llewellyn’s Dimension 13, which is narrated by the always compelling Jon Culshaw.
The Doctor, Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, and Liz Shaw travel to Antarctica to investigate strange disappearances and time anomalies at a Shackleton Base. Another dimension has been accessed, and the Doctor finds himself in the position of having to save more than just the planet yet again.
Culshaw has become one of my favorite narrators and guest actors employed by Big Finish Productions and continues to justify my fondness with his delivery here.
Llewellyn is also another solid writer as well. He does a great job of capturing the characters familiar to fans and placing them in a new situation. An isolated base in Antarctica is a somewhat familiar trope of a setting, but it works yet again. Llewellyn knows how to ratchet up the suspense,
Unlike Peter Purves, Jon Culshaw is actually a gifted impressionist and can deliver a pretty convincing Third Doctor and Brigadier. He also does a fine job of straight narration as well.
Anyway, the release is a great addition to the massive catalogue of Doctor Who presented by Big Finish Productions.
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