We have a story that if it were most other Doctors would be an easy number 1 favourite for them, but thanks to some worthy competition, from the same writer no less, it humbly takes the second place spot. But believe me, if The Chimes of Midnight is my all time favourite Doctor Who story and A Death in the Family is my second favourite, then you can consider this my third favourite Doctor Who story of all time!

The closest comparison I can make between this and the show would be Heaven Sent, Scherzo is very far outside the Doctor Who comfort zone, arguably the farthest I’ve, never experienced anything quite like this. The setup follows on from Big Finish’s 40^th anniversary story for Doctor Who in Zagreus where the Doctor carries a deadly substance called anti-time that makes him a danger to the universe, and so to protect it and Charley, he exiles himself to another universe, one where time doesn’t exist and he has no means of returning, little knowing that Charley has stowed away. This was the beginning of a new story arc for the Eighth Doctor being trapped in a universe where time doesn’t exist, one that was certainly ambitious but got ahead of itself way too quickly to the point where the stories settled into a bit of a traditional format. The story arc was also cut short by a year as 2004 was quite the significant year for Doctor Who what with the announcement of the show’s revival scheduled for the following year. This meant Paul McGann would no longer be the incumbent Doctor and Big Finish would no longer be the banner bearer for Doctor Who, so the story arc was wrapped up by the end of 2004 with the Doctor returning to the normal universe so that listeners wouldn’t feel alienated by the show’s relaunch. This resulted in the Divergent Universe story arc becoming very muddled and disappointing, personally it didn’t matter that much to me as it peaked literally from the first episode.

The Doctor and Charley find themselves in this new universe where nothing behaves as it did in their old universe, the TARDIS is seemingly destroyed and they’re left with no one but each other and having to hold on to their sense of selves as they’re trapped by a malevolent presence in the nothingness.

Scherzo is a prime example of why the idea of putting visuals to Big Finish sounds all well and good on the surface but isn’t entirely practical for stories such as this. There are whole sequences where it’s utterly impossible to take place in a visual format and that it can only ever function as an audio. The real beauty of this story is how it gets you to mentally process this new world the Doctor and Charley find themselves in, it’s honestly the most trying ordeal the Doctor and a companion have ever gone through together. Alone you can make separate arguments such as Midnight, Heaven Sent or 73 Yards, but paired together it really shows just how powerful the bond the Doctor and Charley is. Rob Shearman’s true talent lies in introspection and exploring Doctor Who on a very meta level, here he fashions an environment that asks what it truly means to be the Doctor’s companion under the surface, which leads to my favourite Doctor Who scene of all time! McGann and India Fisher are just phenomenal as the Doctor reaches his breaking point and really opens up about how he feels about Charley, but not in a way that’s conventional for humans. This is how you do a romance between the Doctor and a companion, the Doctor comes from a world where love is unorthodox, the Doctor believes that he does love Charley but he doesn’t quite understand what that means because he doesn’t love the same way that humans do.

I can’t really go into further detail as Shearman’s stories are best left going in blind but I promise you, no years of experience being a fan of Doctor Who can really prepare you for what Scherzo gives