The Sirens of Time is a very interesting audio, that might be a bit hard to understand at times but is pretty enjoyable anyways.

The story is split into four parts. First one story for each of the three Doctors that share this story, and then one that is shared by all three of them.

 

The Seventh Doctor

The first Doctor that is shown during this adventure is the Seventh Doctor which at first seems confusing, because he is the oldest of the latest of the three incarnations shown in this audio. Later in the story this question luckily gets resolved. 

In this part of the audio, the Doctor ends up on a planet on which he saves a girl with the name Elenya. On this planet he also meets an old hag, and an old man that is a prisoner there. With this begins his adventure to find out what is going on on that planet, while an assassination attempt is made on the prisoner. This story seems to end in the middle of the story as the assassin opens fire on the Doctor, the prisoner and Elenya. This story was pretty interesting, although I think the ending was a bit abrupt and it takes one out of the story a bit, but that is kind of what is wanted so that is okay anyways.

 

The Fifth Doctor

In this there is the setup of what seems to be another story, this time with the Fifth Doctor in the lead. This story is set on a submarine. The Doctor meets another girl (Helen) and they get picked up by a German submarine and taken as prisoners. Here the Doctor gets in trouble multiple times because a crewmate got possessed by the Timelords and tried to kill him for a reason unknown to the Doctor. The story ends with the Doctor finding his TARDIS again, which he had lost when the submarine sank the ship he had landed on. This story thread was interesting but in my opinion not as good and enjoyable as the first one. The mystery of the first part is still kind of lingering in mind while it sets up and the new struggle is a bit boring at points, especially as the Doctor gets attacked for a reason that I think isn’t too logical, especially since this behaviour didn’t continue on the later storylines.

 

The Sixth Doctor

The last of the one Doctor stories is set on a cruiser on which a group of ambassadors look at an unexplained phenomenon. There the Doctor meets a waitress that he thinks looks very familiar to him, that he still can’t place. Due to a case of time distortion everyone on the ship besides the waitress (Elly), and an android pilot everyone is aged to death rapidly. Once again the timelords try to make contact with the Doctor, this time through the android, but Elly shoots it under the guise of protecting the Doctor and herself. During this whole situation the Doctor frees the Temperon, a being that was trapped in the moment of his death. This is the point at which this story ends. This one was enjoyable. In my opinion it was not quite as good as the first one, but it was a lot better than the second one. The overarching plot seems to thicken, while at the same time not really giving a solution to the mystery of what is going on yet.

 

All Three Doctors and the Overarching Story

At the very beginning of the whole audio there is a small prelude for the overarching storyline, we hear about a situation on Gallifrey that is explained as Gallifrey being invaded. The only hint to the source of the situation is a residue of artron energy that is hinting at the Doctor. 

Later during the second storyline, the Timelords we heard in the prelude (Vansell and the Lord President of Gallifrey) appear once again, this time they are trying to stop the Doctor, Vansell doing it by making a crewmember attack the Doctor. 

Then Vansell is acting one last time in the third story as he finds one last nexus point to stop this situation, but even this time he isn’t successful. 

This is the last we see of Vansell until the end sequence after everything gets resolved when they show that now time was rewritten and the start sequence has never happened after all.

These little story beads that are shown throughout the story that set the mystery of the situation up some more are pretty interesting. While listening to it the first time one is pretty in the dark about what is going on and how it relates to what is going on and this makes the beads even more interesting, especially since they are pretty short and vague. One problem I have with this part of the thread is that I think it is kind of weird of Vansell to attack the Doctor in one situation, and just try to warn him in another when the situation on his site has actually even worsened.

 

Now to the plot of the last part. Now the Doctors arrive at Gallifrey and set out to figure out what is going on. They once again meet the girl they had met earlier and figure out how all three, Elenya, Helen and Elly are the same person. The Timelords were used as an healing/energy force and Lyenna (the last name she used) asked the Doctors to end it all by stopping the situation from happening at all. This is just a ploy to get the Doctor under her control though. In the end the three Doctors stop the whole situation by going back to the beginning of the whole issue, the seventh Doctor helping Elenya and let the situation play out without the influence of the Sirens of Time. This part solves the whole situation in an interesting way. I really like the solution of the mystery of what exactly is going on, I still think that out of the four parts of the story it is definitely the weakest.

 

General Thoughts

I really enjoyed this one. The different storylines that seemed to not be related but actually were, are a great type of storytelling. That might get a bit confusing at times, but in the end solve the whole situation in a way that feels a bit boring for the situation that they were in close to the end. But in this case this didn’t take too much away from the story, the way to the end is great and that is enough, for this to be enjoyable. The last part of the story when the Doctors meet might be a bit confusing at times and the plot at that part is a bit convoluted but the whole thing is still very much interesting. While I do have some problems that I mentioned a bit earlier in this, it was still very much enjoyable and didn’t take away too much of the story.

 

Memory of my First Impression

 

Here I am going to put some thoughts I remember having when I listened for this the first time.

1. This story is quite confusing, and I didn’t really understand what was going on. (This actually didn’t change until this last time listening to it.)
2. Especially in the last part I was kind of confused on which Doctor was speaking when, but that was mainly because I hadn’t yet watched/listened to any content about any of the Doctors and so wasn’t really familiar to the different voices of the Doctors (I kind of just heard three generic male voices back them and had no idea who they were if I hadn’t heard them in a couple minutes)
3. Even though I had these problems I still very much enjoyed the story back then.