✅(8.13) = VERY GOOD!

Thworping through time and space, one adventure at a time!

This year's first of two Lost Stories is a scrapped six-part Season 6 story with Two, Jamie, and Zoe that would have occurred in Normandy right before D-Day in 1944. This is an ambitious story with a big cast, plenty of action, and an evocative wartime setting. Even though the Hartnell era abolished the practice, the adaptation features six individual episode titles.

The audio captures the WWII atmosphere well through sound design, performances, and writing. The Doctor and his friends are believed to be spies by the Germans occupying France. As the Doctor gets involved with the Germans and their secret projects (matter transmission and brainwashing technology), Jamie and Zoe ally themselves with the French resistance.

This is a historical adventure with no aliens and only minor sci-fi elements. The title may lead you to believe in the existence of actual werewolves in the story, but this is not the case. The name refers to the Nazi plan to use brainwashing technology to turn British and French soldiers into German wolf troops. It’s another crazy project undertaken by the Nazis during the war in a long line of them, as frequently explored in various pieces of media.

Jonathan Morris has adapted the original scripts by Douglas Camfield and Robert Kitts. The spirit of the era is very much present (the constant capture and escape; the mistaken identity plot strand; the Doctor having to help the baddies; the Nazis working with a high-ranking British official who backstabs everyone and turns out to be the main baddie; brainwashed companions), and the wonderful chemistry of my favourite TARDIS team is infectious, even without Patrick Troughton around. Michael Troughton is magically close to his late father in tone and mannerisms, and while Frazer Hines and Wendy Padbury don't exactly sound like their 60-years younger selves, they find that youthful tone nonetheless.

Probably my favourite aspect of the story is the little detail about the British doctor sent to France, named Fergus McCrimmon, who is revealed to be Jamie's descendant. The story dips in and out of their relationship occasionally, but ends on a positive note. This would have been an intriguing piece of characterization for Jamie.

It's a bit difficult to distinguish between the French and German characters, and the accents don't help. However, I generally enjoy Sir Aubrey and Bruckner, as they are quite clever and adept at uncovering details about the Doctor. Fergus also emerges as a remarkable character, particularly upon discovering his familial ties to Jamie.

As expected, the six-parter includes some typical padding and back-and-forth. If you listen to all six episodes at once, it can be challenging to keep track of everything, but if you know the era, you should be fine.

I love how the story ends the moment the D-Day invasion begins, and how the story goes full circle by finishing the same way it began.

RANDOM OBSERVATIONS:

• Funnily enough, the Doctor tried to land in 1066, which he last visited in The Time Meddler; isn’t he worried about running into his earlier self?
• This could have been the very first Doctor Who story set in WWII. In reality, we had to wait until the McCoy years to visit the period, during The Curse of Fenric.
• The Second Doctor and Jamie previously visited WWII with Ben and Polly during the Japanese invasion of Singapore (in the Companion Chronicles release The Forsaken). Funnily enough, it’s another story where one of the companions meets their family member.
• The Nazis' development of matter transmission cabinets bears a striking resemblance to Maxtible and Waterfield's creations in The Evil of the Daleks.