In 1944, the Doctor defeated the plans of Nazi scientist and time traveller, Dr Elizabeth Klein leaving her stranded on our Earth when her parallel version was erased from the timeline. It is now 1952 and the Doctor returns to Earth and finds Klein holed up in a farmhouse in the Kenyan jungle. She is trapped with four other women, all fearing the approach of the Mau Mau people who are rebelling against white colonial rule. A new threat has added to their desperation and an alien has been found in the forest.

A Thousand Tiny Wings is an excellent story serving to reintroduce Klein as the Doctor’s new companion whilst examining how many of her Nazi beliefs, and desire to see her timeline restored, are ideals shared by survivors of the wrong side of the war.

Principal among these is Sylvia O’Donnell, the wife of a German who clearly thinks the world would have been better off if the Germans had won. Hers is a privileged racism directed at anyone she deems inferior be that the Mau Mau natives of Kenya or the alien discovered in the forest. She is cold and pragmatic and, in a ending which echoes the survival of Rickston Slade in Voyage of the Damned, is the only survivor of the alien incursion. She is thoroughly unlikeable and unsettling in her unwavering belief in far right ideals and her casual racism. And although none of the other women at the house are quite as horrid, none of them really challenge her. They are products of the same society that she is, if lower on the rungs of the social ladder. Lucy, the youngest, may choose to care for the wounded alien they find rather than kill it, as Sylvia wishes to do, but this is merely because her compassion to reacting to what is directly in front of her. The other women clearly see the approaching Mau Mau as ungrateful murderous savages just as Sylvia does.

Comparisons with the famed series Tenko are unavoidable, not least because of the casting of Ann Bell as Sylvia – Bell played the central character of Marion in the series – but these are favourable parallels.

Putting Klein with these women is a stroke of genius. She is a kindred spirit, especially alongside Sylvia (there is a chilling scene where they discuss their shared beliefs of how the world should be governed). But the arrival of the Doctor starts a subtle shift in her character. There is a humanity there even if she tends to frame it as pragmatism. She is the perfect foil for the manipulative 7th Doctor probably moreso than any of his other companions. She highlights some of his hypocrisy and the combination really helps draw an excellent performance out of McCoy – sombre yet determined. The Doctor placing the responsibility of protecting all of humanity from an alien plague on Sylvia is coldly fatalistic. It is almost her punishment for being such a horrid person. She will have to stay in Kenya, even after it gains independence and as she watches the world she desires slip further and further away.

The alien menace is the arresting image of a flock of birds. The deaths of characters as a result of their attacks are chilling and naturally evokes memories of Hitchcock’s The Birds. It does seem to take the characters a bit too long to realise birds are the perpetrators considering all the clues but the visuals created by the sound design are suitably scary. The climax is possibly a little underwhelming although it ties into the concepts of individuals and the group which are reflected in Klein’s Nazi ideology.

This is an interesting twist on the classic base under siege story and with an all-female cast, aside from the Doctor and Joshua, a Mau Mau rebel masquerading as someone fleeing from his people’s regime, and Lisa Bowerman directing, this is a story which stands out in the Big Finish canon. An evocative setting, an excellent cast and script, an unusual alien menace and the absorbing pairing of the 7th Doctor and Klein make for something rather special.