Doctor Who: One of the best audio stories is available to listen to for free
By James Aggas
Big Finish has given us many fantastic Doctor Who stories over the years. But perhaps one of the best is available to listen to for free right now.
There are a lot of great things to check out on Big Finish’s Soundcloud channel. Along with trailers for both upcoming and previous releases, the channel even features complete Doctor Who stories that you can listen to right now.
These include an edited version of Fifth Doctor story The Mutant Phase, as well as some completely original adventures originally included with Doctor Who Magazine. But perhaps one of the very best free stories that’s available to listen to – and, in fact, might be one of the very best Doctor Who stories that Big Finish has ever done – is Urgent Calls.
The story was originally released back in 2007 as a kind of bonus episode to the three-part I.D. by Eddie Robson. In some ways, I.D. was what you’d expect from a typical Doctor Who adventure. But Urgent Calls, on the other hand, takes a rather different approach…
An ordinary perspective
The story takes place entirely across phone calls between the Sixth Doctor and a completely ordinary woman called Lauren Hudson. They only meet due to complete chance, and a particularly lucky one, at that. But then it happens again. And again. And again…
I’ve enjoyed a lot of stories from Eddie Robson over the years, but Urgent Calls definitely has to be one of my favorites. It’s such a simple but brilliant idea for a story. We know that ordinary people get involved in the Doctor’s adventures on a regular basis. But this is a different take on that idea.
For one thing, the story is more from Lauren’s perspective than from the Doctor’s. We get a good idea of her personal and working life, as well as a sense of how dissatisfied she’s feeling. She tells a lot about herself to the Doctor over the course of this story, giving us a far deeper glimpse of someone who only briefly enters the Doctor’s life than we normally would get.
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Long distance
Another thing that stands out about the story is how it only takes place across phone calls, and as a result, Lauren never meets the Doctor directly. The series of seemingly random phone calls is all they have. So it’s a rather unique relationship that we’re given over the course of this single episode.
Lastly, I need to mention how fantastic Kate Brown is as Lauren. Being essentially the focus of the story, she’s given a lot to do when it comes to this character, even when it’s over just a relatively short space of time. But she plays the character brilliantly, making her feel grounded and real, which is exactly what you want from this story.
Urgent Calls is an absolutely brilliant little gem of an episode. It’s been available to listen to for free for several years now, but I thought that a story this good was definitely worth bringing to fans’ attention. A perfect example of why Big Finish tell some of the very best Doctor Who stories out there.
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Have you listened to Urgent Calls? Do you think it’s a strong story for the Sixth Doctor? What’s your favorite Doctor Who story that’s told from a distinctly different perspective? Let us know in the comments below.