Doctor Who: The Sirens of Time Review

Back in 1999, Big Finish were granted a license from the BBC to produce original audio productions based on Doctor Who. Ever since then, the audio company has made thousands and thousands of hours of content, ranging from huge, lavish full-cast box-sets to small, intimate, one or two-handed stories and narrated short stories. And it all stretches back to "The Sirens of Time" - the first Doctor Who play released by Big Finish. At the time, Doctor Who had been off the air for three years, since the 1996 Movie failed to generate a series, and expectation was riding high. And, while I don't think "The Sirens of Time" is the greatest Doctor Who story ever written, I do think it's a decent story that brings together three Doctors in a epic-scale multi-Doctor adventure. Sure, there are flaws, but, for a first story, the high level of ambition has to be admired, and there are, right from the beginning, signs of the great highs Big Finish will go on to achieve.

Essentially split into four disparate, but connected, episodes, each of the three Doctors has their own adventure in the first three instalments, before coming together in the final episode. As such, each episode offers a wide variety of settings and characters: from a prison planet to a German U-Boat during the First World War, and from a spaceship heading towards a huge spatial anomaly to Gallifrey itself. That does mean, of course, that some of the adventures are stronger than others. The second episode, in particular, is a standout, as the Fifth Doctor becomes trapped on a U-Boat, and has to use his wits and his ingenuity to return to the TARDIS. The third episode has a pretty decent set-up too, with the Sixth Doctor marooned on a spaceship out of control, and heading straight into a huge anomaly in space. Out of the three 'mini-episodes', the first is easily the weakest, with the Seventh Doctor landing on a prison planet for a particularly vicious war criminal. The premise isn't terrible (with echoes of the fate that befell Napoleon after the Battle of Waterloo), but it's played far too archly to be believable. Larger than life characters are Doctor Who's stock trademark, but the first episodes takes that way too far, especially regarding the character of Ruthley. It makes the grounded, more realistic settings of the second and third episodes even more jarring, and I think it sets the story off on the wrong foot. Ruthley is larger than life in all the wrong ways: a cod German accent from the usually excellent Maggie Stables hides a character built up of archetypes and with little to mark her out as interesting. It's a shame, because Colin McIntyre's Sancroff makes for an interesting character, and, thanks to his affable performance, does initially wrongfoot the listener as to his purpose in the story. The other standout character in the individual episodes is, of course, Mark Gatiss' Captain Schwieger: who, despite the threat he poses to the Doctor, manages to remain likeable. Gatiss' performance is standout, and makes the most of the other small roles he has in the story as well.

The final episode, however, is where the story is all brought together, as are the Doctors. And, as befitting such an occasion, the stakes are as high as they will go, and then some. However, because of the half-hour format, it does struggle to tie everything together satisfactorily, I feel. While it can (and does) draw upon the previous three episodes in order to raise the stakes and offer explanations, it still has to tie everything together in a single episode, and does sort of collapse under the weight of such expectations. Where this story does shine, however, is in the interaction between the different Doctors. Taking his cue from the very first multi-Doctor story "The Three Doctors", writer Nicholas Briggs accentuates the differences between the Fifth, Sixth and Seventh Doctors, and brings these different personalities into conflict. It isn't quite the bickering of the Second and Third Doctors in that story, but the arguments are over more meaningful things (although the Sixth and Seventh Doctors do engage in a little old-fashioned bickering), and help the story along. I will say, though, that two Doctors get a better deal than the other: while Peter Davison and Colin Baker get loads of really juicy material to work with, poor Sylvester McCoy is left floundering around in a role that doesn't really suit his Doctor, and, as such, his performance is all over the place. It's not helped by the lack of a visual performance, which his Doctor so relied upon on screen to make his mark. Colin Baker, by contrast, gets the chance to escape from the problems his Doctor suffered on television, and portray the version of the character I think he would have preferred to depict on screen. Yes, his Doctor is arrogant and standoffish, but he can also be charming and analytical and curious, and it makes for a great change from the conceited version of the character seen in the 1980s. As for Peter Davison, there's more of the grounded, sarcastic edge his Doctor displayed in his final season on TV, and his Doctor does work well in the role of the older, wiser sage (although, of course, his Doctor is younger, which is odd...). Throughout this story, we also have Sarah Mowat playing a role in each episode: for the first three, she's a companion, while in the final episode, she's our main villain. We do get an explanation for this, and it allows Mowat the chance to show a huge range as four very different, but similar, characters. Aside from Gatiss, Baker and Davison, she is probably the standout star of this story. Finally, we have Nick Briggs filling in on all the production roles, and, while it may not stand up to Big Finish's present day output, the sound design and music are still incredibly strong and cinematic for the time. Some of the effects during the water sequences in episode 2 are, particularly, excellent, and were a demonstration of the high standard the company would soon reach with their audio productions.

While "The Sirens of Time" is by no means a perfect start, and suffers from a few critical problems, it still stands as a fantastic achievement for the fledgling Big Finish. Very soon, the company would go onto even greater success, and they wouldn't have been able to do it without this release. Sure, by today's standards, "The Sirens of Time" probably doesn't compare to something like "Dalek Universe" or "Ravagers" or even "Dark Eyes" from a few years ago. But that doesn't mean that "The Sirens of Time" doesn't still stand as a decent first release, in a line that has lasted for nearly 25 years, and still produces great stories today.

You can purchase "The Sirens of Time" as a digital download here: https://www.bigfinish.com/releases/v/doctor-who-the-sirens-of-time-619

All pictures copyright to the BBC/Big Finish Productions. Thank you for reading.