The Queen of Clocks comes from a special series from Big Finish pairing Classic Doctors with monsters from Modern Who. A series that began as one of Big Finish’s earliest releases featuring Modern Who elements after they were granted the licence to use Modern Who in their production line. The premise of the series is self-explanatory, four stories featuring four different Classic Who Doctors going up against monsters that they will later encounter. The stories themselves feature a lot of what we already know about said monsters but the best stories of the series also add something new that portrays them in a more interesting light. Most fans will agree that Modern Who doesn’t have the most impressive lineup of original monsters, the only real successful ones being the Weeping Angels, but a lot of that admittedly comes from either being serviced in poor stories or not being used to their full potential. This series has certainly helped portray such underserved monsters in a more positive light. The best of the entire series being this very story where the Sixth Doctor and Mel are trapped in a colony kingdom that’s besieged by droids that run on clockwork and are having to hold out until midnight when the droids reset themselves.

As it’s her first appearance in these reviews I may as well talk about our companion of the story Melanie Bush. A companion who had a very unusual introduction. During Season 23’s Trial of a Time Lord, after witnessing the death of his companion Peri, the Doctor is then called on to deliver his defence. His evidence being an event in his own future during his travels with a companion he is yet to meet. By the end of the Season, Mel gets directly involved in the trial and helps the Doctor defeat the Valeyard before departing with him. After that, with Colin Baker’s firing, we just jumped straight into her and the Seventh Doctor meaning we never get to see how Mel first met the Doctor, or even given any proper time to settle in with this new companion who they pretty much plonk into the show after the seemingly harrowing death of Peri the previous episode. That would be bad enough, but unfortunately Mel’s negative reputation comes from the fact that most of her dialogue consists of screaming!!!

In her very brief stay on the show they have her scream so many times to the point where it practically became a bad punchline, they even tried to get her scream to match the cliff-hanger sting in one episode, and they once filmed her screaming right beside Sophie Aldred (Ace) who was suffering from a headache at the time of filming (and you can tell from her expression). Then as abruptly as she entered the show, she leaves just as suddenly and out of nowhere! She literally just says “I guess I’ll be off now” and that’s it!!! There’s no reason behind it, no build-up, no indication, she just walks off and joins space conman Sabalom Glitz much to the Doctor’s approval (not caring that Glitz had sold his entire previous crew into slavery!). Since then, she’s returned onscreen a number of times in just the last couple years alone, first in a cameo from The Power of the Doctor, then appearing for a more prominent role in The Giggle during the 60th anniversary specials (which makes her the only companion to be present in two regeneration scenes for the Doctor, barring The Stolen Earth) and more recently appearing in the two part finale to Series 14 alongside Ncuti Gatwa.

All the negativity around Mel’s original run in the show was in no way Bonnie Langford’s fault, she had the misfortune of coming in when Classic Who was its lowest point. Thankfully in the years since with Big Finish and even her recent onscreen returns, they’ve done a great job in wiping the stink away and I’ve really grown to like Mel over the years, funny how not having her scream all the time can make all the difference!

Onto the actual story itself, despite featuring clockwork droids and the cover featuring the ones from Girl in the Fireplace, they’re not necessarily like the clockwork droids from Girl in the Fireplace or even Deep Breath. The two main elements they keep from those episodes are the clockwork motif and the fact that they’ve patched bits of the colonists onto themselves while the last survivors barricade themselves inside the castle. What starts off as a usual base under siege with the Doctor and Mel trying to rescue the last remaining colonists who have a strange obsession with clocks and time, turns into quite an emotional story as the climax just hits you with this massive gut punch twist that leaves both the Doctor and Mel visibly shaken, a twist that heavily relies on the clockwork gimmick the droids have. Honestly the ending of this story is what earns it a spot in the best Sixth Doctor stories I’ve ever heard from Big Finish, the story itself up until then is solid enough but that ending just takes it to a whole other level. And it gets even better (depressing) afterwards when they track down the son of the colonist’s leader and they finally see the full picture of everything that happened whilst telling him what became of his mother. It’s a slow burner but the payoff is so sudden and so impactful that it’s well worth the listen.