Essa é a história mais repugnante e NÃO Doctor Who de todos os tempos, o pior é todo esse desastre é inteiramente maquiado em uma típica história natalina aconchegante com trilhas sonoras bonitas e emotivas. Seguindo um sinal de socorro, o Doutor, Steven e Sara se deparam várias vezes em vários Natais com um jovem garoto - Quando nos aprofundamos em seu personagem, descobrimos que o menino tinha um irmão gêmeo que morreu de leucemia que se resultou em sua mãe se drogando para se matar, e seu pai fugindo de casa. Conforme a história progride várias revelações são nos apresentadas trazendo explicações aos seus pontos de interrogações - A parte repugnante está em sua conclusão, onde temos o Doutor levando o irmão doente do garoto a sua TARDIS, ele acaba morrendo nos braços de Sara Kingdom em Marte. A partir disso o Doutor tem a ideia de trocar os irmãos, para ficar mais fácil de entender vamos intitular cada um deles com uma letra:
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Irmão "A" (o que estava vivo)
Irmão "B" (que morreu)
*lembrando que eram irmãos gêmeos
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Como o Irmão "B" estava morto nos braços de Sara Kingdom, o Doutor tem a ideia de enviar o Irmão "A" momentos antes dos pais deles saberem da morte do "B". A ideia é que o irmão "A" se passe, finja ser o Irmão "B" assim escondendo de seus pais a morte de seu irmão fazendo os acreditarem que ele não morreu, ou seja, ficam dois Irmãos "A" só que um deles se passando pelo "B". O pior é que, quando paramos para pensar um pouco...Percebemos que claramente o escritor implica que a fonte dos problemas da família, do fato da mãe ter se drogado, de seu pai ter fugido de casa, a fonte desses problemas é a morte do pobre doente garoto. Então para resolver isso é só ignorar a morte do garoto substituindo pelo seu irmão gêmeo. Isso é extremamente bizarro, errado, NÃO Doctor Who e de muito mal gosto, nenhum Doctor teria essa tal atitude. Eu sinceramente desconsidero totalmente essa história.

The premise of this sounded rather dopey, but it actually works rather well. The ending is incredibly bittersweet and actually made me cry, which I was by no means expecting. It shows, however briefly, a real soft side to the First Doctor that I appreciated.

This is a Christmas tale, originally written as part of the Short Trips: Companions collection (the story very much focusses on Sara Kingdom).

It also ties rather nicely into the 2017 Christmas special, Twice Upon a Time which featured the same historical event which forms part of this story – the Christmas Day 1914 truce between the British and German forces and the resultant football match.

The Little Drummer Boy is set in the ‘gap’ between episodes 7 and 8 of The Dalek’s Masterplan which Big Finish have exploited as an opportunity to give Jean Marsh’s Sara Kingdom a new life as a ‘proper’ companion.  The trilogy of Companion Chronicles featuring her are excellent and this early Short Trip is just as good.  I know a few fans have issues with adventures being squeezed into tiny gaps of the TV series’ narrative (such as all the stuff with 5th Doctor, Peri and Erimem being slotted in between Planet of Fire and The Caves of Androzani) but for me, it’s one of the wonders of Doctor Who – that we can have fun with the TV narrative to explore characters and give us more adventures to enjoy (and Twice Upon a Time continues this tradition by creating a whole new adventure for the 1st Doctor between individual scenes of a TV story).

The story actually flits between a few time zones but the one afforded the most time is the WW1 battlefield where fighting has stopped and the men sing carols and play football.  Steven joins in the game whilst the Doctor enjoys some time pretending to be a minister from the War Office.  Sara, meanwhile, talks to the eponymous drummer boy, Robert, who it soon becomes apparent is travelling in time.

The way he is doing this is slowly revealed and, at one point, I assumed it was going to be a human TARDIS like Compassion.  It turns out, however, to be other technology from another race.  The tale ends in a rather bittersweet way with the boy being returned to his own time.

This audio version is one of the Short Trips Rarities which are basically releases which were, originally, exclusive to subscribers but have now been put on general release.  It’s a lovely reading by Beth Chalmers (although her Steven is inexplicably more Cockney than Peter Purves ever was).

What a perfect short trip I feel this is the story where Sara fully joins the tardis team as she’s very prominent in this story and also this story makes me CRY like no body’s buisness

Hey, remember that 60s Christmas special no one really liked or cared about? Wanna give it a direct sequel?

I have no idea why anyone would’ve uttered those 2 sentences, yet here we are. “Little Drummer boy” is a direct follow-up to the feast of Steven. In fact, it uses “Feast” as a direct jumping on point.

We start at the end of Feast, where the party of Doctor, Steven and Sara enter the Tardis and celebrate Christmas with all of you at home. After the celebrations, the Doctor puts the tardis in random destination mode to shake off the Daleks and keep the Terranium safe.

Except something is wrong. Their destinations are not random. Sure, the place and time are different. But they keep arriving on Christmas day. Every single location is a Christmas, whether it be 1982, 2069 or the famous 1914. This is too much of a coincidence.

Another oddity arrives when a young boy shows up at the different Christmases. Always the same age. Always the same boy. It turns out the young boy is a time machine in disguise. Inside him is a 30-year-old man in a comatose state, wired up to the time machine. He has been spending his entire life experiencing Christmases from within the time machine.

The man, Robert, lost his twin brother to leukemia when he was young. People around him had a hard time with the loss, making his current life absolutely miserable. By pure chance, Robert found the time machine and decided to travel to the only time everyone was happy: Christmas. Every Christmas.

But of course, the Doctor can’t just leave a young child travelling through time willy-nilly. Suddenly, Robert takes the Terranium from the Doctor, and turns back into his 8-year-old self. This offers a solution, as he can now take the place of his twin brother and become the twin, making everything allright.

It's a great bit of storytelling. Bittersweet. It uses what came before and adds layers and layers to it, while also hitting that emotional core. All in 30 minutes. But while pacing is tight and snappy, it does come a bit short in the conclusion. The sudden use of the Terranium to de-age Robert is pure magic without an established base. And the sudden solution from the doctor also feels a bit too unnatural from a man who still very clearly wants to keep time in check to some degree. It’s the only part of the story that’s a bit flimsy, though.

Character wise, there isn’t much. There’s a fun scene with Sara having a hard time talking to children, which is fun. But that’s about all we’re really giving. Could’ve been a bit more, especially considering how new Sara is.

But besides those 2 points, it’s really well written and a joy to listen to. This belongs to one of the better Christmas specials within the show. I just wish it had gotten 10 more minutes or so to flesh out the ending and maybe the origin of the found time machine. Still, definitely one I will put back on next Christmas, and I recommend you do too.