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“SCAREDY CAT – ECHOES OF GHOSTS, GENES, AND MISSED POTENTIAL”

The Eighth Doctor faces dark science and haunting whispers in Big Finish’s shortest Main Range story—and one of its most undercooked

Originally intended as part of the Divergent Universe arc, Scaredy Cat was hastily repurposed after Big Finish chose to wrap that storyline sooner than planned. The result is a story that feels more like a fragmented echo of a larger idea than a satisfying standalone tale. At around 75 minutes, it’s the shortest Doctor Who Main Range release to date—and unfortunately, its brevity leaves many of its intriguing ideas half-baked and unresolved.

A PLANETARY PARADISE TURNED EXPERIMENTAL HELL

The TARDIS arrives in a two-planet system where Endarra, a once-protected world left untouched by its sister planet Caludaar, is now being violated by scientific experiments. Professor Arken, the lead scientist, is an unpleasantly ambitious figure whose morally repugnant goal is to isolate a genetic “evil gene” through grotesque experimentation on the native, monkey-like Endarrans. The ethical implications are horrific—and promising—but the story never explores them in much depth.

It’s classic Doctor Who material: warped science, colonial guilt, and an endangered species caught in the crossfire. Yet Scaredy Cat doesn’t dive far enough into these themes to give them weight. The set-up is efficient, but the story rushes through its concepts, leaving most of them thinly sketched.

GHOSTLY WHISPERS AND A GIGGLING GIRL

Atmosphere is one area where Scaredy Cat initially excels. The repeated appearances of a spectral girl and the ghostly refrain of “scaredy cat” are classic haunted-house flourishes that suggest something eerie and layered. There’s a genuine chill to these early sequences, suggesting a psychological horror in the vein of Chimes of Midnight. Sadly, the setup is far more effective than the payoff.

As the story unfolds, the giggling ghost-girl becomes less spooky and more of a distraction—one of several promising ideas that lose impact in the final act’s noisy chaos.

A VILLAIN WITH A VISCERAL EDGE

The most successful element of Scaredy Cat is Eunis Flood, a sinister prisoner whose moral ambiguity adds a welcome wrinkle to the narrative. Is he a mass-murdering maniac, or a political scapegoat? Charley’s brief dilemma about whether to trust him is compelling, though like much else, it’s abandoned too quickly. Once Flood reveals his true nature—twisting radiation into a weapon and mentally torturing his captors—he becomes a memorably vicious antagonist. His scenes in Part 4, filled with mental torment and gruesome violence, are viscerally effective, even if they descend into a lot of screaming and psychic shouting.

THE DOCTOR, C’RIZZ, AND A RUSHED MORAL DILEMMA

C’rizz is once again given something meaningful to do, showing initiative when he and the Doctor travel into Endarra’s past to investigate the girl’s origins. A potentially powerful moral dilemma arises: should they give a dying population a cure and risk altering history? The Doctor warns against interference, but C’rizz defies him, believing it’s worth the risk. It’s a fascinating moment—one that could have anchored the story thematically—but instead, it’s resolved in minutes and never properly revisited. A great concept, brushed aside for pacing.

CHARLEY AND THE FORGOTTEN SUBPLOTS

Charley Pollard, usually so central to the Eighth Doctor’s audio adventures, is criminally underused here. Beyond her brief scenes with Flood, she’s relegated to the sidelines with little impact. Similarly, several intriguing subplots fizzle out entirely—the madness among the Endarrans, the mysterious fate of the first colonists, and the ecological revenge of a dying world are all abandoned or resolved with disappointing simplicity.

📝VERDICT: 59/100

Scaredy Cat is a frustrating missed opportunity—an audio drama brimming with eerie setup, dark ideas, and twisted morality, but one that rushes through every concept it introduces. Eunis Flood is a striking villain, and the early haunted atmosphere holds promise, but the story’s short runtime, retooled structure, and weak second half leave most of its threads dangling. The result is a tale that feels less like a satisfying story and more like a half-remembered dream of one. Worth a listen for completists and fans of the Divergent Universe team—but don’t expect anything fully formed.

This audio doesn't have a plot to speak of, just eugenics. Probably one of the most openly racist pieces of doctor who media I personally have experienced (though I admit there are big swaths of classic who I have yet to watch). The only good things here were C'rizz's hints of character development in his going against the Doctor, and that one clip of Paul McGann definitely moaning like he's in pain and not for some other reason.

The Monthly Adventures #75 - "Scaredy Cat" by Will Shindler

There are some stories out there that get a bad rap because they’re “nothing special” and are called “boring” and “uninspired” because of it. And whilst there are some egregiously generic pieces of tripe out there, I’m going to stand up and say there is nothing wrong with the 7/10, with the fine, with the slightly formulaic, with the a-bit-forgettables. One of these stories was The Twilight Kingdom, a perfectly fine and very classic Who feeling story from the start of #51-100 that I defend in my review as a perfectly apt bit of Doctor Who. Scaredy Cat is that story’s writer - Will Shindler’s - second outing, and is equally, if not more maligned. I sat down, prepared to defend another just alright story but what I got was something I probably should’ve expected.

The worlds of Caludaar and Endarra neighbour each other, the former habited, the latter a world where all human life is banned, left to run its natural course: untainted. But when the Doctor arrives, he finds a research team on the planet, and with them the root of all evil.

(CONTAINS SPOILERS)

Scaredy Cat really disappointed me because Will Shindler had won my trust with The Twilight Kingdom and then let me down; this story really is as bad as everybody says - a confused mess of a script with an absolutely baffling plot. Shindler does have some talent that carries over from his previous work, especially when it comes to imagery. The visuals this audio conjures up are great; whilst the actual concepts anchoring this story vary, things like the natives all chanting “scaredy cat” in unison is really cool. If nothing else, it’s nice to have some fun moments.

On top of that, I think this is a relatively strong cast, even if the characters feel somewhat generic. The only performance I’d call weak would be Galayna because it’s so obviously a grown woman speaking in a high voice and not a child but other than that, our actors are on top form, especially Flood, who, whilst I have issues with him as a villain, is made an enjoyable character by Michael Chance’s performance.

But what exactly have we got other than that? Besides some superficial qualities, this story is mostly the same as The Twilight Kingdom: just kind of fine. The story is paced well, there’s a good mystery and resolution, everything here seems a;right but there are a few things that completely derail it. For one, Shindler seems to have come up with a truckload of completely unrelated ideas and has just thrown all of them at the wall. For one, we have weird experiments trying to remove the “evil gene” from people (so, basically just The Mind of Evil), and also a plot about the planet being alive and harmed by a plague four million years ago, and also a plot about a random serial killer getting psychic powers. They don’t go together at all and only serve to muddle the script.

And for all these ideas Shindler had, it didn’t seem to save him from a good amount of cliché. All the conflict this story tries to conjure up and all the “character development” it tries falls absolutely flat on its face, which is a problem that The Twilight Kingdom shared. For one, the Doctor and C’rizz go back in time to when a colony on Endarra was wiped out by a man-made plague and perhaps the most predictable thing possible happens. Say it with me now, C’rizz wants to save the people but the Doctor can’t because of the web of time blah blah blah. It’s not even necessary for the plot, it’s just shoved in unceremoniously. This trope is really grating on me now, the Main Range loves it and really you can only do so much with it. 

Other than this, we have Charley being really easily manipulated, some attempted follow up on C’rizz being a murderer but not really and some kind of shaky moral ambiguity with the whole Doctor not even thinking twice about letting a genocide happen. All in all, this is just a naff story, through and through. It bites off way more than it can chew, nothing lands and it all feels so utterly insignificant. It’s thankfully very brief - the shortest Monthly Adventure in fact - and so there’s also very little to say on it. Will Shindler’s never come back, and frankly I’m not too upset about that because this was just through and through a crap time.

5/10

Pros:

+ The imagery and ideas are fantastic

+ Most of the cast is on top form

Cons:

- Throws too many ideas at the wall

- Horribly clichéd

- Any character conflict is forced and unnatural

i enjoyed this story. it had some really interesting concepts, and reminded me a lot about the Gaia hypothesis. seemed very in tune with the moral dilemmas of an 8th Doctor story. I’m just loving him and these characters, man

MR 075: Scaredy Cat

Well I was going to make a joke about how this was the shortest main range, but f**k THAT. WHAT THE FUCKING f**k WAS THIS. Nope, absolutely not. I am not having the Doctor become a Nazi, thank you very much.

Most of what happens here does not matter. I mostly checked out through it. They land on a planet that is supposed to be uninhabited only to find scientists doing experiments or some such. There's native life on the planet that they're experimenting on and an evil psychopath mass murderer in the closet who they're also experimenting on. Whatever.

The main thing that pissed me off here was when the Doctor went back in time to find out what was happening. They had seen a ghost girl on the planet so The Doctor and C'Rizz went back four million years to find out what happened. There was a colony of millions of people on the planet that was wiped out by a disease. The Doctor could easily make an antidote to this disease and C'Rizz begs him to help these people, but HE FUCKING REFUSES??!?!?!?!? Nope. Nope nope nope. f**k this. I'm out. This is f**king disgusting.

Indeed, not only does he refuse to save millions of people from dying, because it would create a time loop where they don't come back in time to find out what happened in the first place, he actively PREVENTS C'RIZZ FROM HELPING. C'Rizz tries to save these people by giving them the antidote, but the Doctor MAKES SURE THAT WHAT HE GIVES THEM ISN'T ENOUGH!?!?!?!?!?!?!?! This is the Eighth Doctor. ACTIVELY trying to make sure a genocide happens. Yeah f**k you. Nope. This would be the Doctor who regularly tries to save as many people as possible. He would never, NEVER let millions of people die like this. He would fight to save them, no matter what it took. C'Rizz and Charley need to leave and run away as fast as possible after this. This is just like at the end of Medicinal Purposes when Evelyn should have left and never come back, but even worse. The Doctor didn't just kill one person here, he actively killed MILLIONS of people here.

He then goes forward and shows C'Rizz what he's done. The piles of dead bodies and the one little girl who was immune to the disease, now being forced to live on a pile of corpses. This is beyond evil. And then the story has the gall, the absolutely sheer FUCKING NERVE to do the "C'Rizz is a murderer/no he's not/yes he is" routine that we've done a thousand times already AFTER HE TRIES TO SAVE PEOPLE FROM THE DOCTOR'S GENOCIDE. The Doctor later says that these people dying was a bad thing. f**k the f**k off you EVIL EVIL piece of s**t. And then the Doctor says that C'Rizz isn't a murderer. Like he has any right to say that. He has no right to judge C'Rizz, nor the serial killer. He's done far, FAR worse than either of them in this story.

Nope. f**k this. f**k everything this stands for. This is, like Medicinal Purposes, the logical endpoint of the evil ideology that runs through Doctor Who like a cancer. I wish that I could operate on the whole franchise and remove it. This is the Doctor standing in the face of the holocaust, in the face of the Atlantic slave trade, in the face of every gruesome mass murder, extinction, and genocide in history and saying "No, all of you MUST suffer and die to preserve history as I remember it." It's the ultimate expression of this evil and it needs to end. I will never tolerate it and will always call it out whenever I see it. f**k this story and the person who wrote it.

This is actually the worst audio I've ever heard.

The epitome of middle-of-the-road, it's boring, overly reliant on uninteresting lore drops, does nothing interesting, tries nothing interesting, but at the end of the day, it fills the time and nothing in it (perhaps other than The Doctor referring to Davros as a "cripple") made me hate it in any way. It's really just sort of there.
I got the sense that it was trying to me an homage/adaptation of The Silence of The Lambs, because, well, it lifted a scene directly from the film, but as I have not seen it, I can't comment on whether it succeeds in that endeavour, or is even attempting it.
One of the more negative parts for me is that Paul McGann, who usually gives amazing performances, kinda seems like he's phoning it in at certain parts, which is always sad to hear.
The ending is predictable, if overly convoluted, and nothing about the setups paying off is satisfying because of said convolution.
The story "attempts" to continue C'Rizz's "arc" by having the same scene we've had. What? 7 times, now? And it's about as interesting in this story as it has been the past 6-or-so times. Dear lord, I hope they do something with him. At some point. Ever. At all. Like thinks of an arc. Or a point. Or something. Anything at all. I'm not picky. But, please just not this "You're a killer" "Yes, I'm a killer" "No, you're not a killer" scene again, anything but that!
Frankly, the best thing I can say about this story is that it doesn't overstay its welcome. The writer realized how much story they had to tell, and ended it at that without dragging it out to 2 hours for the sake of format.

5/10

Why does everyone always dunk on this one? It's got almost everything you could want in a good doctor who episode - an interesting setting, a creepy atmosphere, a moral dilemma based off of time travel, and development for C'rizz. I've seen reviews saying that the main cast are off their A-Game this week and I couldn't disagree more - the team felt like a team here a lot more than they did in a lot of divergent universe stories. (That yowl from Paul near the end when he was being tortured by Flood caught me way way off guard!)  Eight was wonderfully eldritch here, and having C'rizz - the more overtly alien of the pair - questioning him was a neat parallel. Charley sadly didn't get as much to do this ep, which I've gotten the vibe will become a theme in this stretch of main rang stories, but it wasn't glaringly obvious here.

The idea of a planet having a subconscious is tried and true, but it being a creepy little girl singing nursery rhymes is a fun new take on it. Flood was a fun villain and a definite highlight - despite being your garden variety murderer, the actor playing him was clearly having a good time. Planets being more malleable early in their evolution is really cool; concepts that even the Doctor doesn't want to mess with always hit different.

Overall a really fun episode with a cool mystery and good development for the rest of the team. Scaredy cat! Scaredy cat! Scaredy cat!