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TARDIS Guide

Overview

Released

August 2013

Written by

Alan Barnes

Runtime

60 minutes

Time Travel

Past

Tropes (Potential Spoilers!)

Doctor under suspicion of murder

Location (Potential Spoilers!)

Earth, England, London, Scotland

Synopsis

1935: a message from a Time Lord in trouble sends the Eighth Doctor and Charlotte "Charley" Pollard to the streets of London's West End, in search of a mysterious alien adversary — unaware that something monstrous is already on their trail.

They soon discover that an insidious conspiracy is indeed at work, its tentacles extending the length of the British Isles. Proving its existence won't be easy, however, after a confrontation in a music hall ends up with the Doctor under arrest and Charley on the run, suspected of murder. All their hopes rest in a musical clue and a man named Hilary — neither of which are much consolation, with the two time travellers the object of a nationwide manhunt.

And all the while, the enemy aliens are drawing closer and closer still...

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3 reviews

This review contains spoilers!

Gosh, I could just listen to India Fisher all day.  Even in a fairly middling story her narration easily carried me through Enemy Aliens.  It was absolutely delightful hearing Fisher hum the William Tell Overture while telling the story and that gets into why her narration stands out and feels so special.  I do like this story overall, too, even if the pacing is kind of terrible and the story sort of falls apart after a while.

The Doctor gets arrested while Charley has to flee after they are accused of murdering a man.  She winds up encountering the mysterious and sinister Hilary Hammond.  He's extremely creepy but Michael Maloney gives the character a certain sense of charisma that again carries us through some of the more weaker and by-the-numbers style of the writing.  Then a random monster/alien shows up and Charley tames it with the William Tell Overture.

It's weird.  I'm not entirely convinced it works.  But, essentially, it was memorable and left a bit of an impression, which is a lot more than I can say of other entries in this particular range.  I do like how, for once, it really feels like the Eleventh Doctor's cameo was more relevant to the plot, setting everything up right at the start.  Plus, that cameo was yet another opportunity for Fisher to impress me.


dema1020

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smiths reference 👍


fifthdoctor

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A solid if unremarkable Eighth Doctor story. It concerns the Eighth Doctor and his companion Charley Pollard receiving a cryptic message from the Eleventh Doctor: the Doctor's future incarnation is in a pickle, and William Tell is the key to solving his predicament, but they must watch out for the 'enemy aliens'...

 

The Eleventh Doctor gets a little more to do in this beyond each Doctor simply finding recorded messages, which is nice; it's great to see him be a part of the resolution.

 

It's a bit of a slow story though, with most of the narrative occurring in the last fifteen mins; I like the ambiguity of the ending (which reminded me of the later TV ep Deep Breath), and the narration by India Fisher is brilliant, but I feel like the story could have kicked into gear sooner. It takes a very long time for the aliens to actually show up, and the whole plot with the Doctor and Charley being framed for murder doesn't really go anywhere.


WhoPotterVian

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