beth chalmers stile my heart

9/10

Greatly enjoyed this one. I always get a kick out of the way Marc Platt writes Ace and Seven and their particular patter. Ace get's to be smart and richly characterized, and the Doctor gets to be tricky while still keeping his heart(s).

This story has a very pleasing amount of Stuff in it to me. McCoy's era of the TV series has a tendency to have a ton of different ideas and plotlines that all interlace, which can sometimes be very fun and entertaining, and sometimes get overwhelming (Platt's debut Ghost Light being a pretty good example here by most standards). I thought this one managed to keep the balance very well, with just enough Stuff to hit the entertainingly eccentric feel while keeping the conceptual clutter out of the way of the plot. Feels very pleasingly like watching an actual serial. Such a shame this one never got made, it could have been a wonderful departure for Ace.

(Although I think I still prefer their continued off-screen adventures)

I really enjoyed this one. I think it is great pay-off to the mysteries around what the Doctor was planning for Ace, even if it is strange for her to be a candidate for the Time Lord Academy. But Ace was always a strange companion, bizarre but firmly audacious about it in a charming way that only someone like Sophie Aldred can bring about. She is a treasure and I just love her in pretty much every story I've ever seen, and I think she really gets to shine here (all while Seven manipulates like crazy). Even her forgiving the Doctor for all this makes sense to me. An average companion would certainly (and perhaps rightfully) be leaving in a story like this (or not long after). Nothing about Ace is average though, and never has been, so her forgiveness feels right, especially considering how thoroughly aware she has been shown to be about the Doctor's manipulations. That and the stuff with the Ice Warriors kept me plenty entertained from start to finish, with excellent music and acting I really appreciated all around. Aldred and Slyvestor McCoy are always so good, but I found Beth Chalmers slow transformation into an Ice Warrior a lot of fun, too. A very enjoyable audio I found quite satisfying. It really feels like it brings a sort of closure to a lot of the dangling elements of late-era Classic Doctor Who and feels very much in the spirit of that content. So I can see it not being for everyone as there were pretty big plans with the Cartmel Masterplan that would have shaken the identity of Doctor Who up quite a bit, but this Lost Story, in my eye, works well in giving us a taste of that without going too far. I really liked this one and would recommend it to any fan of the McCoy era, though, one's mileage may vary quite a bit as it is clear from these other reviews this one is a bit polarizing.