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The Companion Chronicles #13
Doctor Who: The Companion Chronicles: The First Doctor, Volume 3
Four new stories from the First Doctor era.
13.1 E is For... by Julian Richards
All is not right on the planet Malkus. Every day more and more monstrosities are born; people with powers and abilities far beyond those of normal men and women. They call these people "the Gifted". And Susan has become one of them. Separated from her friends in a Police State dedicated to hunting people like her, Susan finds herself in a prison which has destroyed countless lives. And at its centre, at its heart, waiting, is the most dangerous monster of all...
13.2 Daybreak by John Pritchard
Everyone knows their story. They were heroes, who struck a blow for freedom at the cost of their own lives. Vicki grew up reading of their exploits. She's always hoped to be as brave as them. Now the TARDIS has brought her to their dark and desperate era. The war is still unfinished, and the story's end has not been written yet.
Can Vicki play her part in the struggle for a better future? Or is the past more complicated than she's bargained for?
13.3 The Vardan Invasion of Mirth by Paul Morris and Ian Atkins
The Doctor and Steven think they've arrived in London 1956, but the TARDIS disagrees. When both the Doctor and his craft are lost, it's down to Steven to solve a mystery that holds his fate in its grasp. With the help of comic Teddy Baxter, Steven's going to have to find a way into Television...
13.4 The Crumbling Magician by Guy Adams
The TARDIS has crashed, its passengers in a bad way. The Doctor - not in the best of health anyway, his old body wearing somewhat thin - is in a coma, Ben unconscious. As for Polly, she’s been affected worst of all. Time is running in the wrong order for her and she’s seen the future, a future in which she’s mortally wounded. But will Continuity allow her to die?
13.1 E is For... by Julian Richards
All is not right on the planet Malkus. Every day more and more monstrosities are born; people with powers and abilities far beyond those of normal men and women. They call these people "the Gifted". And Susan has become one of them. Separated from her friends in a Police State dedicated to hunting people like her, Susan finds herself in a prison which has destroyed countless lives. And at its centre, at its heart, waiting, is the most dangerous monster of all...
13.2 Daybreak by John Pritchard
Everyone knows their story. They were heroes, who struck a blow for freedom at the cost of their own lives. Vicki grew up reading of their exploits. She's always hoped to be as brave as them. Now the TARDIS has brought her to their dark and desperate era. The war is still unfinished, and the story's end has not been written yet.
Can Vicki play her part in the struggle for a better future? Or is the past more complicated than she's bargained for?
13.3 The Vardan Invasion of Mirth by Paul Morris and Ian Atkins
The Doctor and Steven think they've arrived in London 1956, but the TARDIS disagrees. When both the Doctor and his craft are lost, it's down to Steven to solve a mystery that holds his fate in its grasp. With the help of comic Teddy Baxter, Steven's going to have to find a way into Television...
13.4 The Crumbling Magician by Guy Adams
The TARDIS has crashed, its passengers in a bad way. The Doctor - not in the best of health anyway, his old body wearing somewhat thin - is in a coma, Ben unconscious. As for Polly, she’s been affected worst of all. Time is running in the wrong order for her and she’s seen the future, a future in which she’s mortally wounded. But will Continuity allow her to die?
Audio CD
First published September 18, 2019
About the author
Julian Richards
38 books4 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads database.
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
January 13, 2021
I rarely write reviews because I either believe I'm too busy or I'm just plain lazy. However, I felt I just had to praise this set of stories straight away.
This must be the most entertainment I have ever got out of a set of Companion Chronicles since I began listening to them. This is no fanwanky "wouldn't it be cool if...?", "look, its the Daleks/Cyberman/Ice Warriors etc." or "here's a famous historical figure" type stories. The Doctor is mostly absent in each story and the actors and their characters get a chance to shine and moreover develop. These are more character pieces than they are plot-driven, and all the better for it.
I found Susan's story the weakest of the four, but only in retrospect as I was already entertained after listening to it and perhaps afraid the others wouldn't live up to it. One of the virtues of the Companion Chronicles, at their best, is that the companions get to have more agency than they did in televised Doctor Who, especially the female characters from the 1960s. The whole story stems from Susan's search for the others, which turned out to be unnecessary but leads her to stop a monstrous human and her twisted weapons programme. The general idea has obvious similarities to the X-Men vs 'norm' prejudice theme in Marvel Comics as well as the Weapon X programme which created Wolverine, but its own twist on this is its use of Susan's enhanced telepathic ability and her gradual ability to piece together the history of her co-protagonist.
Vicki's story is framed around her interrogaton by the oppressive leader of an Earth society which is in our future but her past. Her awareness of his downfall at the hands of rebels not only means that she is worried about changing history if she reveals anything she knows of the rebels' ultimately tragic victory, but also that her perceptions of the events in which she is caught up have been coloured by the bias of her school history lessons. For her, this not only humanises the people she has believed to be gallant heroes, by showing her their fallibility, fears and uncertainty of victory, but also teaches her that the dictator she had always viewed as a two-dimensional villain is more complex than she believed. His cruel actions stem from a belief in the good of societal order compared with the genuine anarchy that preceded his regime, rather than mere lust for power, and Vicki's foreknowledge that his family will share his fate at the hands of the rebels comes to upset her greatly. Furthermore, she begins to understand that some of the greatest atrocities of his regime were committed by his agents without his explicit instructions or knowledge.
Steven's story sees him paired with Teddy Baxter, a 1950s comedian on the verge of his transition from the safety of live theatre to the uncertainty of a television career, and without his former partner who has mysteriously vanished. Teddy spouts patter frequently, but is genuinely funnier and written with more depth than Max Miller was in the Main Range story Pier Pressure, which was full of unnecessary filler and weak characterisation. This comedian genuinely comes across as joking out of nervousness faced with unusual circumstances and even admits doing so. But part of his depth also comes from the entirely believable, as well as plot-driven, fact that he is also an amateur astronomer, so that while her finds his adventure fantastical and somewhat frightening (at first) he can grasp the concept of what is happening and why. His relationship with Steven, who, in the course of investigating the Doctor's disappearance and subsequent cryptic messages, becomes employed as his straight man, is also well-performed. We see (I found this story easy to visualise even if it is audio) Steven develop a genuine caring friendship with him and Peter Purves even manages to show Steven improve the quality of his comedic performance from inexperienced beginner to a genuine and generous feed to the funny half of the partnership. I could even see in my mind's eye how Steven's face responded to Teddy's wonderment at seeing another planet in the solar system close up for the first time.
I accidentally listened to the last story before the 3rd and it was here that I realised that the unifying theme of all of them was perceptions of reality. It's a rare example, on TV and in Big Finish, of a story using time travel as a concept rather than a device to take our heroes to and from the time and location of the adventure. A timey-wimey story, in other words. A time event has caused the TARDIS to crash and injured the crew, physically and temporally. Polly wakes on a medical station where the the staff are all dead and the AI, which assumes her voice and calls itself Continuity, cryptically delivers and witholds information from her as she experiences unpredictable time jumps forward and backward. In the absence of William Hartnell and Patrick Troughton, all Companion Chronicles have relied on the leads impersonating him, but here the impersonation is given a justification and Anneke Wills delivers a performance equal to William Russell and Peter Purves' efforts to date.
This story also features Elliott Chapman's final appearance as Ben Jackson, apparently because he didn't want to play the role in more stories than the late Michael Craze, who played Ben in the television series. This is sad as his performance here is, in the absence of missing television episodes, the best I have ever heard of Ben. For the first and only time, Ben interacts with a child and gradually becomes paternal and protective, imparting reassurance and wisdom and finally fighting for the responsibility of looking after him. This is all the more extroardinary as, due to the catastrophic time event, the 8-year-old boy has unknowingly and irreversibly become an old man, played brilliantly by David Warner. This great actor has been a mainstay of Big Finish for some time and in Doctor Who audios in particular he has played the northern industrialist villain Cuthbert and a grumpy Doctor from an alternate universe who has become part of the Bernice Summerfield stories. His performance as a child in an old man's body has to be heard to be believed, and I believed it, or at least suspended my disbelief, thanks to his extraordinary acting skill.
One more thing that I appreciate was the minimal narration, usually at the beginning of the stories. I usually find Doctor Who audiobooks harder going than full cast dramas and these stories, which all featured no more than five characters each in total, were, paradoxically, more 'visual' as a result of the absence of expository narration and more like the Early Adventures series of Big Finish audios. The minimal role of the Doctor in each story is believable rather than an obvious plot device to prevent the imitations of the companion actors, particularly female ones, from jarring the suspension of disbelief, but it also gives greater rein to the companions and each of these stories is a little gem that I am certain I will revisit with delight in the future.
This must be the most entertainment I have ever got out of a set of Companion Chronicles since I began listening to them. This is no fanwanky "wouldn't it be cool if...?", "look, its the Daleks/Cyberman/Ice Warriors etc." or "here's a famous historical figure" type stories. The Doctor is mostly absent in each story and the actors and their characters get a chance to shine and moreover develop. These are more character pieces than they are plot-driven, and all the better for it.
I found Susan's story the weakest of the four, but only in retrospect as I was already entertained after listening to it and perhaps afraid the others wouldn't live up to it. One of the virtues of the Companion Chronicles, at their best, is that the companions get to have more agency than they did in televised Doctor Who, especially the female characters from the 1960s. The whole story stems from Susan's search for the others, which turned out to be unnecessary but leads her to stop a monstrous human and her twisted weapons programme. The general idea has obvious similarities to the X-Men vs 'norm' prejudice theme in Marvel Comics as well as the Weapon X programme which created Wolverine, but its own twist on this is its use of Susan's enhanced telepathic ability and her gradual ability to piece together the history of her co-protagonist.
Vicki's story is framed around her interrogaton by the oppressive leader of an Earth society which is in our future but her past. Her awareness of his downfall at the hands of rebels not only means that she is worried about changing history if she reveals anything she knows of the rebels' ultimately tragic victory, but also that her perceptions of the events in which she is caught up have been coloured by the bias of her school history lessons. For her, this not only humanises the people she has believed to be gallant heroes, by showing her their fallibility, fears and uncertainty of victory, but also teaches her that the dictator she had always viewed as a two-dimensional villain is more complex than she believed. His cruel actions stem from a belief in the good of societal order compared with the genuine anarchy that preceded his regime, rather than mere lust for power, and Vicki's foreknowledge that his family will share his fate at the hands of the rebels comes to upset her greatly. Furthermore, she begins to understand that some of the greatest atrocities of his regime were committed by his agents without his explicit instructions or knowledge.
Steven's story sees him paired with Teddy Baxter, a 1950s comedian on the verge of his transition from the safety of live theatre to the uncertainty of a television career, and without his former partner who has mysteriously vanished. Teddy spouts patter frequently, but is genuinely funnier and written with more depth than Max Miller was in the Main Range story Pier Pressure, which was full of unnecessary filler and weak characterisation. This comedian genuinely comes across as joking out of nervousness faced with unusual circumstances and even admits doing so. But part of his depth also comes from the entirely believable, as well as plot-driven, fact that he is also an amateur astronomer, so that while her finds his adventure fantastical and somewhat frightening (at first) he can grasp the concept of what is happening and why. His relationship with Steven, who, in the course of investigating the Doctor's disappearance and subsequent cryptic messages, becomes employed as his straight man, is also well-performed. We see (I found this story easy to visualise even if it is audio) Steven develop a genuine caring friendship with him and Peter Purves even manages to show Steven improve the quality of his comedic performance from inexperienced beginner to a genuine and generous feed to the funny half of the partnership. I could even see in my mind's eye how Steven's face responded to Teddy's wonderment at seeing another planet in the solar system close up for the first time.
I accidentally listened to the last story before the 3rd and it was here that I realised that the unifying theme of all of them was perceptions of reality. It's a rare example, on TV and in Big Finish, of a story using time travel as a concept rather than a device to take our heroes to and from the time and location of the adventure. A timey-wimey story, in other words. A time event has caused the TARDIS to crash and injured the crew, physically and temporally. Polly wakes on a medical station where the the staff are all dead and the AI, which assumes her voice and calls itself Continuity, cryptically delivers and witholds information from her as she experiences unpredictable time jumps forward and backward. In the absence of William Hartnell and Patrick Troughton, all Companion Chronicles have relied on the leads impersonating him, but here the impersonation is given a justification and Anneke Wills delivers a performance equal to William Russell and Peter Purves' efforts to date.
This story also features Elliott Chapman's final appearance as Ben Jackson, apparently because he didn't want to play the role in more stories than the late Michael Craze, who played Ben in the television series. This is sad as his performance here is, in the absence of missing television episodes, the best I have ever heard of Ben. For the first and only time, Ben interacts with a child and gradually becomes paternal and protective, imparting reassurance and wisdom and finally fighting for the responsibility of looking after him. This is all the more extroardinary as, due to the catastrophic time event, the 8-year-old boy has unknowingly and irreversibly become an old man, played brilliantly by David Warner. This great actor has been a mainstay of Big Finish for some time and in Doctor Who audios in particular he has played the northern industrialist villain Cuthbert and a grumpy Doctor from an alternate universe who has become part of the Bernice Summerfield stories. His performance as a child in an old man's body has to be heard to be believed, and I believed it, or at least suspended my disbelief, thanks to his extraordinary acting skill.
One more thing that I appreciate was the minimal narration, usually at the beginning of the stories. I usually find Doctor Who audiobooks harder going than full cast dramas and these stories, which all featured no more than five characters each in total, were, paradoxically, more 'visual' as a result of the absence of expository narration and more like the Early Adventures series of Big Finish audios. The minimal role of the Doctor in each story is believable rather than an obvious plot device to prevent the imitations of the companion actors, particularly female ones, from jarring the suspension of disbelief, but it also gives greater rein to the companions and each of these stories is a little gem that I am certain I will revisit with delight in the future.
July 25, 2025
It has taken a while, but the Companion Chronicles series has generally gotten much better after Big Finish removed many of the restraints for the series. This box set has four stories, each with a different set of companions for the First Doctor. The first is "E is for...", which is the closest to earlier Companion Chronicles stories in format, one companion narrator telling a story and interacting with one participant in that story (though in this case there are an additional character and some dramatized scenes rather than narrated scenes). This is the weakest of the four. Susan gets separated from her friends and somehow manages to get undetected into a prison where she meets a young prisoner with extraordinary abilities. She releases him and then the chase is on to find her friends. In this society, people with special abilities, such as Susan's mental powers, are forced to become living weapons. There is much moralizing in the dialogue. I found the story had too many unbelievable elements and coincidences. The second is "Daybreak," which might be my favorite of the collection. This one is also mainly a two-hander with some additional characters and dramatizations. In this story, The TARDIS crew has landed on Earth in Barbara and Ian's future, but Vickie's past, at a crucial historical point. Rebels are going to attempt an assassination that Vickie knows will lead to the overthrow of a tyrannical government. However, Vickie is arrested and interrogated by the man she knows will be assassinated. The situation leads to an interesting dialogue in which the two characters get to express their worldviews and to compare the relative moral value of each. With a little modification, it could make an excellent stage drama. "The Vardan Invasion of Mirth" features Steven out of place in 1950s Earth where he hooks up with a comedian struggling to make a go of it in television. The story has a good mixture of the funny and the sad and seems just right in highlighting the qualities of Steven's character - forthright, a bit literal-minded, honest, but not at all stupid. Peter Purves is an excellent actor who brings out the best in the character. Last is "The Crumbling Magician," which is most like a full audio drama and not much like a Companion Chronicle story. The Doctor, Polly, and Ben are captured in a hospital now totally run by a mad computer that thinks it knows what is best for humanity. There are some timey-wimey shenanigans that has characters jumping around to different points of the narrative. It is a real work-out for Aneke Wills, who has to voice Polly, the computer using Polly's voice, and The Doctor temporarily occupying Polly's body. Elliot Chapman is really good as Ben. Another treat is David Warner playing an eleven year old boy who has the body of a seventy year old man. Once again, the writers have done very well in not pitching characters as stupid. My only true quibble with this story is that the solution does not hinge on Polly. Since it is a Companion Chronicle, I would have preferred that Polly found the surprise solution. This set was very good listening and I am glad I got ahold of it.
May 28, 2024
This volume is all about heroes and asking questions about what makes a hero and whether they remain a hero from different perspectives.
13.1 E is For... - Mutants! This is basically a mash-up between Doctor Who and Marvel. Susan is separated from the others and ends up in a prison where she meets someone capable of converting energy into force (similarly to Havok from the X-Men) but the prison is filled with mutants, all with unique and individual powers. This feels more like fan-fiction than anything else (3/5).
13.2 Daybreak - This one looks at revolutionaries as heroes. But it also deals a lot with the notions of time travel and whether time travelers are actually able to change historical events or if their very presence automatically changes historical events. Told from Vicki’s perspective, the other travelers, Barbara and Ian, are not as invested as it’s in their future, but Vicki’s knowledge of these events is directly affected (4/5).
13.3 The Vardan Invasion of Mirth - The Doctor and Steven get stuck in London in the 1950s during the Vardan Invasion of earth. An interesting episode, but I didn’t really get pulled into the narrative (3/5).
13.4 The Crumbling Magician - During that brief period when Ben & Polly were traveling with the Doctor before his regeneration, there’s an accident and the Doctor is seriously injuries. And the medical AI treating them has a solution that is entirely unacceptable. Oh, and David Warner puts in an appearance. What a treat (4/5).
13.1 E is For... - Mutants! This is basically a mash-up between Doctor Who and Marvel. Susan is separated from the others and ends up in a prison where she meets someone capable of converting energy into force (similarly to Havok from the X-Men) but the prison is filled with mutants, all with unique and individual powers. This feels more like fan-fiction than anything else (3/5).
13.2 Daybreak - This one looks at revolutionaries as heroes. But it also deals a lot with the notions of time travel and whether time travelers are actually able to change historical events or if their very presence automatically changes historical events. Told from Vicki’s perspective, the other travelers, Barbara and Ian, are not as invested as it’s in their future, but Vicki’s knowledge of these events is directly affected (4/5).
13.3 The Vardan Invasion of Mirth - The Doctor and Steven get stuck in London in the 1950s during the Vardan Invasion of earth. An interesting episode, but I didn’t really get pulled into the narrative (3/5).
13.4 The Crumbling Magician - During that brief period when Ben & Polly were traveling with the Doctor before his regeneration, there’s an accident and the Doctor is seriously injuries. And the medical AI treating them has a solution that is entirely unacceptable. Oh, and David Warner puts in an appearance. What a treat (4/5).
June 4, 2023
E is for: Hooooooooboy this is some silly shit. Not terrible. Still entertaining. But wow… 2/5
Daybreak: Fuck this centrist bullshit. 1/5
The Vardan Invasion of Mirth: Great acting, good characters, lame lame lame plot. 2/5
The Crumbling Magician: The Doctor and his companions land in “I have no mouth and I must scream.” Incredible. 5/5
Daybreak: Fuck this centrist bullshit. 1/5
The Vardan Invasion of Mirth: Great acting, good characters, lame lame lame plot. 2/5
The Crumbling Magician: The Doctor and his companions land in “I have no mouth and I must scream.” Incredible. 5/5
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 7, 2021
Another excellent pair of adventures with he original TARDIS crew. David Bradley shines as the first Doctor.
April 30, 2023
Probably my least favorite volume of The Companion Chronicles: The First Doctor.
September 28, 2019
Overall, a great set with good performances by the original companions.
These three stories range from the more traditional companion chronicles with narration and a few other actors strewn in to basically full cast dramas. All are well done and worth it in their own right.
"E is for", the first story, gives Susan a nice chance to stand on her own in what is basically an X-Men comic story.
"Daybreak" was an interesting tale with a great performance by both heroine and the villain. I like these stories that look behind the propaganda (of both sides of a conflict) and which show that the world, not even dictatorships and heroic rebels, are just black and white.
"Vardan Invasion of Mirth" does something different compared to the usual Doctor Who story and goes off into a completely unexpected direction. The idea of the story was pretty original and it was fun to listen, just for wanting to know where it was going and how it would resolve.
"The Crumbling Magician":
This is one of the types of story I am really looking for in Doctor Who. Non-linear timey-whimey storytelling. I already loved it in The Day of the Doctor.
The villain was played well, too, although I caught on pretty early who it was... however, very nice take on a common sci-fi trope.
The stand-out however must be the character of Allie. This, again, was an interesting take on a known trope, played by David Warner who is bringing him to life wonderfully. It would be worth to explore this character a bit more, since such an experience is quite the stuff of nightmares...
These three stories range from the more traditional companion chronicles with narration and a few other actors strewn in to basically full cast dramas. All are well done and worth it in their own right.
"E is for", the first story, gives Susan a nice chance to stand on her own in what is basically an X-Men comic story.
"Daybreak" was an interesting tale with a great performance by both heroine and the villain. I like these stories that look behind the propaganda (of both sides of a conflict) and which show that the world, not even dictatorships and heroic rebels, are just black and white.
"Vardan Invasion of Mirth" does something different compared to the usual Doctor Who story and goes off into a completely unexpected direction. The idea of the story was pretty original and it was fun to listen, just for wanting to know where it was going and how it would resolve.
"The Crumbling Magician":
This is one of the types of story I am really looking for in Doctor Who. Non-linear timey-whimey storytelling. I already loved it in The Day of the Doctor.
The villain was played well, too, although I caught on pretty early who it was... however, very nice take on a common sci-fi trope.
The stand-out however must be the character of Allie. This, again, was an interesting take on a known trope, played by David Warner who is bringing him to life wonderfully. It would be worth to explore this character a bit more, since such an experience is quite the stuff of nightmares...
October 20, 2019
I mean, . . . it's okay. But there's nothing here that really grips me. All of the stories are a bit experimental -- and perhaps the Companion Chronicles are going to be just that going forward -- and by the end I was really hoping for a good, straightforward adventure.
September 21, 2019
So much fun. I'm so glad they made this!
October 6, 2019
This one was really great! As always, could use more Peter as The Doctor but
October 23, 2019
Four companions of the first doctor have a story to tell.
October 28, 2019
E is for... - 3/5
Daybreak - 3/5
The Vardan Invasion of Mirth - 4/5
The Crumbling Magician - 5/5
Daybreak - 3/5
The Vardan Invasion of Mirth - 4/5
The Crumbling Magician - 5/5
November 10, 2025
E IS FOR... - 06/10
DAYBREAK - 04/10
THE VARDAN INVASION OF MIRTH - 05/10
THE CRUMBLING MAGICIAN - 06/10
DAYBREAK - 04/10
THE VARDAN INVASION OF MIRTH - 05/10
THE CRUMBLING MAGICIAN - 06/10
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews