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TARDIS Guide

Review of The Secret History by thedefinitearticle63

19 July 2024

This review contains spoilers!

This is part of a series of reviews of Doctor Who in chronological timeline order.

Previous Story: Cuddlesome


This story is a nicely satisfying conclusion to the "Locum Doctors" trilogy. It technically builds off story beats from a range that I have yet to listen to, but it's not difficult to interpret what happened prior. I also found the ending a bit rushed, but aside from that there is very little to complain about and it was great to see Vicki and Steven again.

Maureen O'Brien and Peter Purves have great chemistry with Peter Davison, easily my favourite Doctor/Companion pairing from the trilogy. All that combined with a fun little romp that it feels like it could have been plucked straight out of Hartnell's tenure as the Doctor.

I enjoy that the each story in the trilogy evokes the era of it's respective companion(s).

  • 3's story is a military conspiracy embroiling UNIT, with the Doctor unable to get help from them, akin to Invasion of the Dinosaurs
  • 2's story is a cyberman base-under-siege, a story extremely common in 2's era, though I'd say that his story is most similar to The Tomb of the Cybermen
  • 1's story is a slightly-comedic historical that spans at the very least a few days in-universe, much in the vein of The Romans, even down to having a somewhat Roman setting.

I'll definitely be relistening to the first two installments in the trilogy at their respective places in 6 and 7's timeline. Overall this story in particular is a fun historical adventure that caps off a unique, genre-hopping trilogy.


Next Story: Fallen Angels