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Doctor Who spinoff review: Jenny: The Doctor’s Daughter (audio)

By James Aggas

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Georgia Tennant returns to a role she last played ten years previously in Jenny – The Doctor’s Daughter!

(Photo credit: Jenny/Big Finish Productions.

Image obtained from: Big Finish Productions.)

The long awaited audio spinoff series Jenny: The Doctor’s Daughter has finally been released! Does it live up to expectations?

It’s been just over ten years since we saw Jenny fly off in her rocket at the end of The Doctor’s Daughter. Since then, we’ve heard very little from her. Even in expanded media, she’s only recently shown up in the comic event The Lost Dimension.

While that was an enjoyable multi-Doctor story, it did mean that Jenny’s story was only barely explored. She certainly wasn’t the main focus of the event.

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Thankfully, Big Finish have come along to change that. Not only has Jenny returned with a lot more focus on her. She’s even got her own spin-off series, with Georgia Tennant herself reprising the role!

Ever since it was announced last year, fans have been eagerly anticipating Jenny: The Doctor’s Daughter. It looked set to be a different kind of spinoff, and explore a character that had barely started on television. Has Jenny’s return been worth the wait?

Jenny

One thing that instantly leaps out about this series is how much more fleshed out Jenny feels as a character. When she was first introduced, she was still learning. So while Georgia Tennant gave a great performance, we found out very little about her character beyond being a soldier and “the Doctor’s daughter”.

Thankfully, this is far from the case here. Giving her own series seems to have done Jenny a world of good, as she’s no longer just learning things from her father. Instead, she’s learning to enjoy the universe on her own terms.

Set some time after The Doctor’s Daughter, but not too long, Jenny is still eager to see as many new worlds and aliens as possible. However, while she has a bold and optimistic attitude, she’s not unbearably naive, either. Which is good, as the same can’t initially be said of her new companion, Noah.

After more than a decade, Georgia Tennant finally reprises her role of Jenny in her own series. Has it been worth the wait?

(Photo credit: Doctor Who/BBC. Image obtained from: BBC Press.)

Noah

Essentially filling the role of the companion, he’s even more new to the universe than Jenny is. While a mystery is presented about his character and where he came from, the character is interesting in his own right.

Unlike Jenny, he is rather naive, at least initially, and is likely to trust anyone. Thankfully, it’s not long before Jenny takes him under her wing, and helps him to understand the universe better.

In terms of character development, the overall arc of this first box set is Jenny and Noah’s early adventures together. Particularly how much their friendship grows. Each of them develops significantly over the course of the series.

At the start of Jenny, Noah is as brand new to the universe, and far too trusting as a result. But by the end, he’s considerably more cautious. Especially of his best friend and her need for adventure! (He really does suit the role of companion rather well.)

At the same time, Jenny grows to be more like her father. The more evil and danger she encounters across the universe, the more she loves confronting it. She hopes to see her father again one day, but for the moment, she’s just going to enjoy what the universe throws at her. In a way, she’s kind of like the Doctor starting from scratch, which really works well for her character.

Now that we’ve taken a good look at how the main characters are in this series, how are each of the stories in this box set?

(Photo credit: Jenny/Big Finish Productions.

Image obtained from: Big Finish Productions.)

Stolen Goods

Beginning with a very quick recap of who Jenny is and how she came to be, Stolen Goods then leads into a brilliant meta-reference that many fans will surely appreciate.

After that, we get to hear her own theme tune. Interestingly, it has echoes of the theme for Doctor Who, but it’s also very much it’s own thing. Like The War Master‘s theme tune, it’s a good reminder of how similar the character is to the Doctor, while also reminding us of the key differences.

As for the episode itself? It gets the series off to a really strong start. It’s a nice light-hearted opening that is very reminiscent of Russell T Davies’s opening episodes for Who. It helps that the first villain Jenny comes across is the completely amoral Garundel.

Garundel

Garundel is an absolutely brilliant character. A very slimy toad-like creature (he prefers to be thought of as a salamander, but seriously: look at that cover!), Garundel is only interested in one thing: profit. And he has absolutely no scruples in getting it.

This isn’t the first appearance of Garundel. The character has also appeared in two Seventh Doctor audios: Black and White and Starlight Robbery. This is a great introduction to his character though, and his previous encounters with the Doctor are hardly mentioned.

Still, it’s nice to begin Jenny’s own series by having a nice little tie-in to the rest of the Big Finish universe. (In fact, it’s not the only reference to other Big Finish stories to feature in this box set. But we’ll get to that later.)

Stolen Goods is a really strong and fun start to the series, and sets the tone and the characters just right.

(Photo credit: Jenny/Big Finish Productions.

Image obtained from: Big Finish Productions.)

Prisoner of the Ood

Possibly the best episode of this box set, Prisoner of the Ood is a fresh take on the classic Doctor Who alien.

Set in an ordinary English street on modern day Earth, we see the Ood in a very different setting. And once again, we see them killing innocent people. But are they once again possessed by an evil force? Or is there another reason for what they’re doing?

Prisoner of the Ood is an interesting puzzle box of a story. You think you know where you are at the start, but the story keeps changing. There are a lot of twists and turns throughout, but John Dorney has played very fair. He’s included a lot of clues throughout of what’s really going on. Clues that are highlighted upon a second listen.

Believable characters

But it’s not just the mystery that makes this episode such a great listen. It would’ve been dramatically unsatisfying otherwise.

What also makes Prisoner of the Ood so great is the number of fantastic characters that populate its world. All of them feel real and fleshed out. (Particularly to this writer, who’s from Essex, where this story is set. Trust me, there are definitely a lot of streets like the one featured in this story.)

So when they start getting killed off, you feel a lot of sympathy for many of the victims. It’s quite an achievement, especially as we don’t get to spend much time with them.

Arabella Weir in particular is fantastic as Angie. A brilliant comic actress, Weir brings a lot of sides to someone who somehow gets involved with Jenny’s adventure. She really helps to make the character feel both real and hilarious, and works really well in the story.

A fantastic casting choice by Big Finish for this particular character, and just one of several reasons why Prisoner of the Ood is such a great listen.

(Photo credit: Jenny/Big Finish Productions. Image obtained from: Big Finish Productions.)

Neon Reign

Neon Reign is an episode that packs a lot into its story. Christian Brassington is a relatively new writer to Big Finish, but this episode perfectly fits Jenny’s series. In some ways, it’s light and fun, but somehow, it also features a lot of weighty issues, too.

The core of the story is feminism. Jenny comes across a very cyberpunk society where women are second-class citizens at best. While men sit at home in a drugged up stupor, women work all day, every day. It’s a very bleak, dystopian world. And one that Jenny plans on bringing down.

Brassington has made sure to get the balance just right with this script. While balancing weighty and dark issues such as drugs and oppression, he also makes sure to include fantastic dialogue and thrilling heroics.

He even manages to tie Jenny to another Doctor Who spin-off series featuring a key female lead. I won’t say how, particularly since if you haven’t listened to both, you won’t catch it anyway. But it’s great how throughout Jenny’s own series, it gets the right balance between being a great jumping-on point and tying in to a larger world.

Dark and yet still capturing the fun spirit of Jenny, Neon Reign is a strong writing debut from Christian Brassington. It’ll be interesting to see if we can expect more stories from him in the future.

(Photo credit: Jenny/Big Finish Productions.

Image obtained from: Big Finish Productions.)

Zero Space

And here we come to the finale of the series. Once again, we have another new writer to the world of Big Finish with Adrian Poynton. And once again, we get a pretty strong script.

Poynton’s been very clever in that he’s written a story with a large cast of characters, but only requires just a couple of guest actors. This will very likely ensure that Big Finish will use him again at some point!

The story focuses on clones, but what it’s really about is legacy. What do children think of their parents? How do they live up to them? Once again, Jenny focuses on interesting issues while telling a good science-fiction story.

What leapt out to me the most about this episode was how much it focused on Jenny, particularly how she feels about being the daughter of the Doctor. This episode more than any other explores that, especially towards the end.

It’s fitting that this kind of exploration is saved for the last episode. Especially since what’s made Jenny such a great character in this series is that she’s not just “the Doctor’s daughter”. She shares a lot in common with her father, but she’s also very much her own person, with her own strengths and flaws.

But now that we’ve seen so many other sides to her, it’s nice that the final episode addresses her family. Particularly about how being the child of the Doctor continually inspires her to do good in the universe.

An open ending?

If there’s a small criticism I have for the final episode, it’s how many loose ends are left. While it’s understandable to leave it open-ended enough to allow for a sequel box set, it would have been nice to have had at least one major thread resolved by the end.

However, as I’ve said, this is a very small criticism. Overall, this is a very enjoyable story. In fact, the whole box set is a great collection of episodes.

When Jenny: The Doctor’s Daughter was first announced, I wasn’t sure if it was going to be my cup of tea. Like I said, Jenny’s first appearance wasn’t exactly my favorite episode.

But once again, Big Finish have created another great new spin-off series. One that’s lighter in tone than others and focuses on telling fun stories. But at the same time, it also deals with weighty issues and themes throughout.

If you’re a fan of the character, this is definitely recommended. If you’re not, but enjoy great stories, this is still highly recommended. A brilliant new start to Jenny’s own series.

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Have you been looking forward to listening to Jenny: The Doctor’s Daughter? Have you listened to it already? What were you thoughts on it? Would you still like Jenny to return to the TV series one day? Let us know in the comments below.

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