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TARDIS Guide

Overview

Released

Wednesday, June 17, 2015

Written by

Eddie Robson

Runtime

119 minutes

Time Travel

Past

Location (Potential Spoilers!)

Ravenna, Istanbul, Constantinople, Turkey, Earth, Italy

Synopsis

The TARDIS brings the Doctor, Steven and Vicki to the Italian city of Ravenna in the year 540 – besieged by the army of the celebrated Byzantine general Belisarius. Caught up in the fighting, Steven ends up on a boat bound for Constantinople, the heart of the Roman Empire.

Rescuing Steven, however, is the least of the Doctor's problems – because he shouldn't be mixed up in this particular adventure at all. Someone has sabotaged his own personal timeline, putting him in the place of his First incarnation... but who, and why? The truth is about to be revealed – but at what cost to all of the Doctors, and to the whole future history of the planet Earth?

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1 review

This review contains spoilers!

This is part of a series of reviews of Doctor Who in chronological timeline order.

Previous Story: Cuddlesome


This story is a nicely satisfying conclusion to the "Locum Doctors" trilogy. It technically builds off story beats from a range that I have yet to listen to, but it's not difficult to interpret what happened prior. I also found the ending a bit rushed, but aside from that there is very little to complain about and it was great to see Vicki and Steven again.

Maureen O'Brien and Peter Purves have great chemistry with Peter Davison, easily my favourite Doctor/Companion pairing from the trilogy. All that combined with a fun little romp that it feels like it could have been plucked straight out of Hartnell's tenure as the Doctor.

I enjoy that the each story in the trilogy evokes the era of it's respective companion(s).

  • 3's story is a military conspiracy embroiling UNIT, with the Doctor unable to get help from them, akin to Invasion of the Dinosaurs
  • 2's story is a cyberman base-under-siege, a story extremely common in 2's era, though I'd say that his story is most similar to The Tomb of the Cybermen
  • 1's story is a slightly-comedic historical that spans at the very least a few days in-universe, much in the vein of The Romans, even down to having a somewhat Roman setting.

I'll definitely be relistening to the first two installments in the trilogy at their respective places in 6 and 7's timeline. Overall this story in particular is a fun historical adventure that caps off a unique, genre-hopping trilogy.


Next Story: Fallen Angels


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