A very strong start to the fourth 9DA box, this is a story about a future funeral parlor that provides a unique service to its rich patrons in offering a simulacrum of their departed loved ones for a limited time on the day; essentially, the dead can attend their own wake. The Doctor comes to visit at the behest of the deceased, a noted galactic animal conservationist who knew he was dying from a fatal disease and had many corporate enemies. Only, his simulacrum doesn’t remember The Doctor, or his former assistant Sasha Yan, and then the robotic Attendants start electrocuting people. It’s a pretty great standalone low-stakes adventure very much in the style of S1, and it succeeds at it! Good sound design and pretty decent music. Some minor nitpicks, it probably doesn’t need to be a full hour, a bit of trimming might have helped the pace, and Juliet Stevenson is perhaps chewing just a little bit too much of the audio scenery, but I thought this was a fun and engaging bit of Ninth Doctor audio drama, nicely written by David K Barnes. 4/5

The Ninth Doctor #15

'Old Friends: Fond Farewell' (2022) from The Ninth Doctor Adventures: Series 1.

A pretty good concept here, with a funeral home that can recreate a person to attend their own funeral, very kind of Moffat vibes there. The mystery of Flynn Beckett's missing memories is a good one to unravel, and I think I enjoyed this a fair bit. I was unfortunately listening to it while a little stressed at work, and was pausing it quite a lot, so the flow of it didn't quite make it all work for me, but I don't think that was the fault of the story, and regardless of that I think I'd call it one of my favourites from these 9DAs.

The exploration of the dubious and compelling idea of “Fond Farewell” funerals was expertly handled. I loved that there were no clear heroes and villains. Everyone had a clear, believable and relatable motive - a feature missing from most science fiction.

David K Barnes has written very few Doctor Who stories, but both of the two I've listened to have been COMPLETE bangers. Like, holy s**t, this story is truly something else. This story is absolutely ingenius.

S.

It’s got an intriguing premise and I like Flynn’s character a lot, but the overall plot is slow and kind of predictable. No more malfunctioning killer “helper” robots please.