Doctor Who Review: Doom Coalition 2 (Audio)

Doctor Who: Doom Coalition 2 featuring the Eighth Doctor and Paul McGann, coming in May 2016.

(Credit: Big Finish)

The Eighth Doctor returns, with old friends, new enemies, and even his future wife, as his latest series Doom Coalition continues!

When Doom Coalition 1 was released in October last year, it had a lot to live up to. Following on from the popular series Dark Eyes, the Eighth Doctor’s next series had to match the high quality and epic scope of its predecessor, while also presenting a brand new start for fans old and new. Overall, as I wrote in my review last year, I quite enjoyed the first box set of Doom Coalition, although I did feel that the new series was still finding its feet. Has the second box set improved on things established in the first?

Absolutely. In fact, this latest box set comes across as a lot more confident and fleshed out than the first. One reason for this is that there’s a stronger arc in this set. While the first box set had a slight thread with the Eighth Doctor deliberately chasing after new Time Lord villain the Eleven, with one or two episodes, that thread only seemed to have a small impact on a couple of the episodes’ plots.

In this set however, actions in one episode lead to major consequences in the next. Overall it ties together better as a whole, while still allowing each episode to be distinctive in its own way and give us plenty of variety in storytelling that makes Doctor Who so great.

The opening episode, ‘Beachhead,’ sees the Doctor and his friends arrive in a town that he’s visited once before, in a previous and unknown adventure. Because of something vital that the Doctor missed on his last visit, however, he’s got a very old enemy to face: the Voord.

This is a great opening episode, as it reminded me very strongly of New Series opening episodes, particularly those of Russell T. Davies’s era: a modern day Earth invasion story with a strong human element, and just a few hints of what’s to come. I especially liked how the Doctor had to face the consequences of his earlier mistakes, even the ones we didn’t know about before.

It’s also nice to hear more from the Voord. Originally appearing in the 1964 story ‘The Keys of Marinus,’ they’re a great villainous race that have been rather overshadowed by the likes of the Daleks and the Cybermen.

As such, they haven’t appeared on TV since, although they have appeared in other media such as comics and audio before, including 2014’s First Doctor story ‘Domain of the Voord’ (a rather fantastic adventure that’s a perfect fit for that era). It’s really fun hearing the Eighth Doctor face them, and I’d love to see them face the Doctor in the TV series again at some point.

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The next episode, ‘Scenes From Her Life,’ is something of a puzzle box story, starting out as very surreal, particularly with the clearly insane characters Lord Stormblood and Lady Sepulchra. I really don’t want to say too much about this one, as I don’t want to ruin the experience of letting it unfold for the listener, finding out piece by piece what’s really going on.

I will say that I really loved the idea of the setting of this story. Like the Eleven, a Time Lord villain whose previous personalities are all in his head, and a key enemy of Doom Coalition — it’s an idea so good and so obvious, you wonder why it hasn’t been done before, especially in the TV series.

It’s also great for exploring some key mythology, and the character of Caleera was a brilliant inclusion, as you find out more and more about her past. Her dialogue with new companion Helen Sinclair and how they have both been held back by their societies was really great characterisation that I especially loved, and it helped to flesh out both characters just that little bit more.

Next: Page 2: River Song

‘The Gift’ sees the Eighth Doctor return to an all-too familiar location: San Francisco, the place where he was “born,” albeit 93 years earlier than the events of the TV Movie. I really liked this episode due to how it combined a major historical event such as the 1906 earthquake — with the horror and drama which a disaster like that would naturally bring to a story — while telling a great little sci-fi story that acts as an allegory for greed and how destructive it can be.

I also really liked a lot of the characters in this story, particularly those whose lives have been ruined by being in possession of the mysterious “Gift,” and it just worked really well as both a historical drama and character study.

The final episode, ‘The Sonomancer,’ takes a while to get going, as it’s set entirely on a brand new world, and as such needs time to establish a lot about both the world’s society and what exactly is going wrong. But once it kicks off, it never lets up.

One reason for this is the return of the Eleven, as we find out more about what his plans for the Universe really are. Another reason is that the Eleven isn’t the only danger that the Doctor has to face, as we’re introduced to “the Sonomancer.” I’m not going to say who or what that is, only that it’s really nicely built up over the whole set of episodes.

But what really makes this episode extra special? River Song.

This isn’t the first time that we’ve heard River and the Eighth Doctor in the same story (they appeared together in River’s own series The Diary of River Song back in December), but that doesn’t stop it from being incredibly exciting, for several reasons.

For one thing, River realises very quickly that the wrong Doctor has shown up, and as such, has to avoid meeting him at all costs. Hearing River trying to do that while also trying to find ways of helping the Doctor and his friends makes for some really great drama.

But what also makes it so great is that it sounds like this is River’s first near-encounter with the Eighth Doctor, and as such, she’s learning a lot more about him, in terms of both this incarnation specifically and in general.

It’s actually really wonderful listening to River finding out major things about her husband about which she had no clue. In some ways, it’s almost like hearing the reaction of someone, who’s only watched Doctor Who through the New Series, try out a Classic story for the first time and hear them discover whole new things about the show.

Frankly, after years of seeing River being cocky with the Doctor and hearing her tease him about knowing more than he does, it’s wonderfully ironic to hear her being shocked by revelations in an adventure with an earlier incarnation!

With Big Finish‘s Eighth Doctor stories, there’s usually been a certain trick to them in that they tend to feel closer in tone and style to the New Series than to the Classic. At the very least, they’ve felt like a nice bridge between the two, going for larger and faster paced adventures while still being set in a universe pre-Time War for the Doctor.

River’s presence, however, is a reminder of how much McGann’s Doctor isn’t of the New Series era. He’s been through a lot, but there’s a lot more that he has yet to face — major events that would define him in his later lives. You don’t expect such a huge clash between the Classic and the New eras to work so well, but River Song in an Eighth Doctor story works wonderfully well, especially with how naturally it works as part of the story. It’s another sign of just how much more confidant the writers and makers of Doom Coalition have become with this second box set.

Next: News Roundup, March 17th, 2016

Building on the best of the first box set while at the same time greatly improving on it, Doom Coalition 2 really shows what the series is capable of, and leaves you hanging for the third instalment.

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