Doctor Who Review: The Eighth Doctor and Charley – Season 3 (Audio)

The Eighth Doctor and Charley are alone in a new universe in ‘Scherzo’. (Credit: Big Finish)

Their third season of audio adventures together isn’t as strong as their second. But does this season of the Eighth Doctor and Charley avoid becoming a complete disappointment?

Recently, I did an overview for the Eighth Doctor’s and Charley’s second season, and claimed it to be one of the greatest seasons ever made. I still very much believe that.

Perhaps what came next was inevitably going to be a disappointment. Especially as, just as Doctor Who had found the right mix of the very best of the Classic Series with a new fresh take, it then went so far in a new direction that it literally went into another universe.

What did this mean for the ongoing story of the Eighth Doctor? It meant that the series now had to rely on telling stories without many elements that the series had relied on for decades. No Daleks. No time travel. Not even a TARDIS. Essentials that the television series has always relied on a great deal, especially when it returned in 2005. In virtually the whole of Doctor Who lore, this was one of the riskiest decisions ever made. So how well did it work out?

For this season, overall, it’s genuinely hard to say. Compared to the previous two seasons, this one was much more inconsistent. Not to say it was completely terrible, far from it. But it seemed to range between incredible extremes.

The Eighth Doctor and Charley meet C’Rizz, as their adventures in the Divergent Universe continue. (Credit: Big Finish)

‘Zagreus’ seemed to have a real mix of good and bad things. It’s grown on me a lot over the years, and I love how it sets up a lot. Particularly the true start of the Doctor’s antagonistic relationship with Rassilon. When Twelve eventually told him the words, “Get off my planet” in ‘Hell Bent’, that was an incredibly satisfying moment to watch. That was partly because of Rassilon’s actions in this story, and how they affected the Doctor.

But at the same time, I definitely think ‘Zagreus’ could’ve been improved in a number of key areas. I think Zagreus himself was a disappointing villain, and some elements of the plot just didn’t work so well. It did push the series in a brand new direction and tried to do something different for the fortieth anniversary. For that much alone, it’s worth a listen.

After that lengthy introduction story, though? That’s when the extremes kick in. We have some major highs and lows in this season. The opening story, ‘Scherzo’, is an amazing two-hander, and one of the very best audio stories ever produced.

Then, right afterwards, we get ‘The Creed of the Kromon’. Very “traditional” and very dull, this is a story that feels like it could’ve been told in the original universe.

And then straight after that, we get ‘The Natural History of Fear’. In some ways, this also could have taken place in our universe, but that doesn’t matter. Because it’s far from traditional. It pushes the boundaries of what kind of story Doctor Who can tell. And it’s an absolutely brilliant dystopian story.

The season then ends with ‘The Twilight Kingdom’. Not exactly traditional, but still familiar. Closer to a mid-eighties story than an Eighth Doctor one, at least in tone. I liked certain ideas of it, but in some ways, it was too bleak for me. Particularly the presentation of the Doctor’s character.

Credit: Big Finish

Exploring the Doctor in a new universe also means exploring how the Doctor reacts to that. Like the quality of the stories themselves, this also varied quite a lot.

It was presented at its very best in ‘Scherzo’. Here, the Eighth Doctor was going through a whole range of emotions – anger, depression, fear, pain, despair. And he went through them all with Charley. It’s a mix of the worst emotions, but it works, and McGann portrays them all beautifully and passionately.

Later on, ‘The Twilight Kingdom’ explores how the Doctor’s feeling, but it’s more…subdued. This was a story that made me appreciate what it is I love about the Eighth Doctor. I love McGann’s Doctor in a variety of emotional states. He can be happy and childlike. Equally, he can be full of rage and darkness. He can be a whole range of emotions.

But I really didn’t like how he was here. Subdued. Disinterested. Feeling loss without his TARDIS and Time itself, but not expressing it fully. I want the Eighth Doctor to be able to express emotions, even the negative ones. Especially the negative ones. Paul McGann has been always been brilliant at portraying the darker aspects of the Doctor. But not displaying much emotion at all is a bad option to give him, I feel.

‘Scherzo’ and ‘The Twilight Kingdom’ are the only stories of the season that explored how the Doctor truly felt about living in a universe without time. ‘The Creed of the Kromon’ felt generic overall, and didn’t explore the Doctor too much. Or any of the main characters other than C’Rizz, in fact.

The Eighth Doctor and his companions find themselves in the middle of a war in ‘The Twilight Kingdom’. (Credit: Big Finish)

‘The Natural History of Fear’ was amazing, but the main cast was, due to the nature of the story, portraying other roles. As a result, we again explored very little of the Doctor’s character.

The Divergent Universe had always been an arc that I hadn’t been too keen on. I think it’s partly because it pushed the “current” Doctor’s arc forward in such a radical direction, when in my opinion it didn’t really need to. In his previous season, as I’ve mentioned before, the balance was absolutely perfect. It didn’t need to go in a new direction. Or at least, not to the extent that the Eighth Doctor was suddenly without so much of what makes Doctor Who what it is.

But in my re-listen of these stories, I’ve been seeing things a little differently. The Divergent Universe arc, like the plots of the stories themselves, could be seen as a huge experiment. A glimpse of Doctor Who without so many iconic things, but also an attempt at continuing the story without “baggage”. I’m still not convinced that it was successful overall, but the attempt at least is interesting to hear. And besides, as I’ve mentioned, both ‘Scherzo’ and ‘The Natural History of Fear’ are amazing to listen to.

I wonder how long the Divergent Universe arc was originally intended to last. I believe it may have originally been planned to go on for much longer than it did. At the very least, I’m certain that the final season of the arc wouldn’t have been released just a few months after its first.

But of course, major changes were taking place. This was the year 2004. Just a couple of months before this season was released, major news had been announced that the show was truly coming back to television. Obviously, this left the fans hugely excited, but it also meant something else – the Eighth Doctor needed to return home. More than that, his next season would, as the “current” Doctor, at least, be his last.

Next: Several Doctor Who Technologies That Actually Exist … Sort Of

How much would be resolved? Would the Divergent Universe arc conclude in a satisfying way? What would become of the Eighth Doctor? Would we possibly get a regeneration? So many questions, and we only had to wait a few months to get the answers…