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"CATASTROPHIX – RAY RETURNS AND THE WORLD ENDS (A BIT)"

A split-timeline mystery, apocalyptic corporate greed, and the most charming mechanic in the universe.

Catastrophix serves as the central chapter of Past Forward, neatly sandwiched between the two halves of With the Angels, and it slots into that space with clockwork precision. Written by Lizzie Hopley, it’s a time-hopping tale of ecological disaster and corporate corruption, split across two eras and two stranded companions. Harry Sullivan finds himself in the 1970s Lake District, while Naomi Cross is stuck in the same place four decades later – only now it’s a ruined, dying Earth.

What caused the catastrophe? That’s the mystery the Seventh Doctor sets out to solve, hopping between eras with his trusty Vortex Manipulator and an old friend by his side: Ray, last seen revving her motorbike in Delta and the Bannermen.

RAY OF SUNSHINE

Ray is an inspired choice to return to the fold. Believably older, effortlessly confident, and still wielding spanners and sass with equal ease, she fits the story like a perfectly oiled cog. She doesn’t just tag along – she drives the story (and, at one point, a motorbike), jumping into the narrative with natural charm. Whether it’s helping a troubled farmboy or staring down UNIT soldiers, Ray keeps her cool and proves her worth. You can absolutely believe that she could become the Doctor’s next companion – in many ways, she already is.

Her new involvement stems from the Doctor’s investigation, not from nostalgia. He hasn’t come to recruit her – she just happens to get caught up in events. But by the end, it feels inevitable that she’ll step aboard the TARDIS.

FROM FARM TO APOCALYPSE

The other major player in this story is Madoc Howell, a boy in the past and a key figure behind the collapse of civilisation in the future. In the 1970s, he’s a bullied farm kid with big dreams and no one to help him—except Ray. In the 2030s, he’s the founder of Catastrophix, a ruthless luxury corporation that sells the super-rich an opulent lifestyle even as the world burns around them.

The horror here isn’t alien invasion – it’s economic disparity turned dystopian. Hopley leans into the critique of corporate greed, showing how a small, idealistic venture gets twisted into a monstrous global empire. It’s a natural continuation of the themes seeded in With the Angels, where wealth and control intersect in the most sinister of ways.

Madoc’s backstory adds a tragic dimension to his villainy. He’s not evil, just embittered and broken by a system that failed him. This sympathetic portrayal doesn’t excuse his actions but does enrich the character and deepen the moral complexity of the story.

A DOCTOR WHO DETECTIVE STORY

Unlike the usual “stop the villain and run” formula, Catastrophix unfolds more like a temporal detective story. The Doctor isn’t trying to prevent disaster – he’s working backwards to understand it. Armed with knowledge of the apocalypse, he tracks the rot to its roots. It’s a classic Seventh Doctor move: playing the long game, solving puzzles through time rather than brute force.

Sylvester McCoy shines in this role, offering a subdued but sharp performance. His Doctor is less the arch-manipulator here and more a frustrated problem-solver, trying to unravel a causality knot that may already be too tight.

HARRY, NAOMI, AND A GENTLE GOODBYE

After the emotional gut-punch of With the Angels, this story gives Harry and Naomi quieter farewells. They’ve each been transported to their own time – Harry to the past, Naomi to the future – and the Doctor’s role here is more about checking in and tying up loose ends. There’s no grand exit or teary farewell. They simply move on, having played their part in a greater story.

If anything, their subdued departure underscores how much the emotional climax came earlier. This story is more epilogue than climax for them, focused on resolution rather than drama.

TIMEY-WIMEY WITH CLARITY

Despite the dual timelines and cross-cutting action, Catastrophix is surprisingly easy to follow. Hopley’s script is clean and clear, with each character’s arc serving the broader mystery. The time-travel mechanics aren’t there to confuse – they’re there to illuminate. The structure mirrors the Doctor’s thought process, leaping between eras to find the thread that connects everything.

It’s not the most pulse-pounding story in the set, and the ending does fizzle out a bit after a strong build-up. But as a bridge between two major events, Catastrophix serves its function well – and lays solid groundwork for Ray’s return to the TARDIS.

📝VERDICT: 7/10

Catastrophix may not be the most thrilling story in Past Forward, but it is the most thoughtful. With its rich thematic resonance, clever structure, and the welcome return of Ray, it’s a satisfying middle chapter. The apocalypse-by-corporation plot is compelling, and Madoc Howell is one of the more layered antagonists Big Finish has crafted in recent memory.

Ray’s reintroduction is the clear highlight, stealing every scene she’s in and proving that there’s still room in the TARDIS for an old-school grease monkey with a heart of gold. While Harry and Naomi’s exits are underplayed, the story serves as a fitting pause between heartbreak and mystery.

With most Big Finish stories — and stories in general — I can explain relatively easily why something doesn’t work for me, where something went wrong. I can’t do so with this one. I really rather heavily didn’t enjoy it, but I also struggle to find the words to articulate precisely why I felt so actively disconnected from the material. It’s just simply a clunker of an episode, and I really don’t know what else to say about it. I will attempt to do so real quick, but let it be known that words fail me in describing why this one’s bad — it just simply is.

On paper, it’s essential. An interlude between both halves of “With the Angels,” Catastrophix has two distinct jobs: sort of write out Harry and Naomi and reintroduce Ray into the narrative. These are character based things, necessary for the narrative of With the Angels, and which are worth digressing from the main narrative in order to explore. The idea of positioning a story within a larger one is something that I don’t think Big Finish has done before, and I think this is a worthy time to do it.

The trouble is that Catastrophix seems uniquely uninterested in doing anything character-based, and is instead of a slower character piece, a fast-paced (bordering on the difficult to follow) hyper-active story involving the Doctor bouncing between time periods with Harry, Naomi and Ray, on the tail of disaster profiteers who have foreseen the end of the world thanks to the time shenanigans and wish to profit off of elite doomsday preppers. Catastrophix has nearly nothing in common with it, but it reminds me most of Survivors of the Flux, an episode that’s constantly rushing off to do a billion other things that have vague purposes rather than sit with our characters and how they feel for a moment.

Now that will probably begin to sound like a coherent critique that I have constructed, but frankly, I still don’t feel it quite accurately summarizes how alien and strange Catastrophix is as an episode. The episode still has character scenes. None of the dialogue in it is actually bad. The characterization is on the money — There’s never a moment where you pause and go “no, no, that’s not how you write ______!” None of the ideas are necessarily completely terrible either. The performances are all good enough — Sara Griffiths especially shines after years away from the role in ways that Big Finish returnees after a long absence don’t always do. And yet, despite all it’s actually decent qualities, of which there are many, Catastrophix fails consistently to make me care about anything that is happening, which is bizarre, especially considering how enraptured I was by “With the Angels Part One.” Catastrophix is just simply not good. And I wish to god that I could articulate exactly why.

It’s a fun little bridge story not quite as engaging as the first but Ray is reintroduced perfectly I love her instantly it’s like she’s never been away

Very timey wimey all over the place, and while it fits into the grand scheme of things its less engaging/intriguing compared to the first story in the set which was really phenomenal. Ray being reintroduced was lovely, I think she's going to be a great companion!!