Echoes of Extinction

📝7.0 = ENJOYABLE!

Time Lording through time and space, one victory at a time!

VICTORY XI

The first Big Finish audio in the Time Lord Victorious event is Echoes of Extinction, which consists of two half-hour parts: the first with Eight and the second with Ten.

The first part sees Eight arrive at an undisclosed location, coming face-to-face with a creature forced to kill anyone it meets: an imprisoned woman and her jailer robot. He soon begins investigating the creature’s purpose and abilities. This first half of the story is pretty meh on its own, but Pau McGann is great, and Paul Clayton provides a superbly compelling performance as Edwards, the robot jailer turned servant.

The second part picks up during the Tenth Doctor’s travel home from the Dark Times, as he joins an expedition to the long-dead world sometime after the Eighth Doctor has left it. David Tennant slips back to his old role effortlessly, and the 30-minute story builds tension. It also shows how the Doctor has learnt his lesson from the Time Lord Victorious business, which is why it's satisfying to listen to it at this point. The guest cast is superb, especially Burn Gorman and Arthur Darvill. This part is simple but pretty exciting once the Network is fully unleashed.

The Eighth Doctor story is a cool little "you're trapped in here with me/I'm trapped in here with you" type story, with a really enjoyable robot character and Dame Kathryn Drysdale to boot. The Tenth Doctor story is a bland space opera that might have made half of a good TV episode.

A fun if somewhat simplistic narrative. It packs an impressive amount of content into what is essentially two half an hour stories, and the robot antagonist, who has been driven mad by psychic voices in his mind, calling for him to kill people, is a pretty fascinating character.

Paul McGann and David Tennant give two of their strongest audio performances here also, as they perfectly evoke their respective incarnations. It's just a shame they couldn't find a way for them to meet up, and experience the audio's plots together.