Doctor Who review: Last of the Romanovs explores a dark moment in history

The second story of Doctor Who: The First Doctor Adventures: Volume 4 has the TARDIS team arriving shortly before a horrific moment in history in Last of the Romanovs.

After facing the Daleks once more in Return to Skaro, Doctor Who: The First Doctor Adventures: Volume 4 continues with Last of the Romanovs. This is the “pure historical” half of the box set – the story that’s set in a key historical period in Earth’s history, with no science-fiction elements other than the time travelers themselves.

For this story, writer Jonathan Barnes has placed the TARDIS team during a particularly dark time in Russia’s history. They’ve arrived during the final days of Nicholas II, the last Tsar of Russia, when an extremely horrific crime is about to take place…

Last of the Romanovs is a particularly dark story for the TARDIS team, but fittingly so. Not only is it focused around a terrible moment in history, but it’s also extremely reminiscent of other historical stories from the same period. While stories like The Romans and The Myth Makers went for more of a comedy angle, we also had stories like The Massacre and The Reign of Terror, which didn’t shy away from the more violent and turbulent periods in human history. Naturally, Last of the Romanovs feels like a great tribute to those classic stories. But it also makes sure to add something new, too.

The cast of Last of the Romanovs: (L to R) John Albasiny, Jamie Glover, Jemma Powell, George Weightman, Claudia Grant, Leighton Pugh, Dan Starkey, and Alex Tregear.

Image Courtesy Big Finish Productions

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Exploring the Doctor

In his many Sherlock Holmes stories for Big Finish, Jonathan Barnes has always been keen to explore certain gaps. Not just in terms of canon, but in character development, too. What lead to Holmes’s retirement as a consulting detective? How did he feel after he had beaten Moriarty, his greatest ever challenge? These are the kinds of questions that Barnes explores in his Holmes stories, and he explores similar questions with the Doctor.

David Bradley is given a lot to work with here, and he performs it extremely well. There are many great moments throughout this story where the Doctor faces far more horror than he’s used to. More than that: he’s forced to ask himself if he wants to continue playing by the rules or if he thinks it’s time to start getting involved. It’s a key moment for the Doctor that’s perfectly handled, thanks to the subtle writing of Barnes and Bradley’s strong performance.

Complicated characters

But it’s not just the regulars that stand out in this story. Barnes has made sure to write the key historical characters in a three-dimensional way. This is especially true of those who commit such terrible acts.

The standout performance for me was Dan Starkey as Yakov Yurovsky. He’s a man clearly dedicated to his cause, and he’s willing to commit terrible acts in the name of it. But he’s also a man who believes he’s doing the right thing, at least in the long term. He’s an interesting man, and Starkey – who’s perhaps best known to fans as the hilarious Sontaran Strax – gets to perform a radically different, darker and more grounded character, and he does it rather well.

While it doesn’t deal with the lightest or most comfortable of subject matter, Last of the Romanovs is still another strong entry in The First Doctor Adventures, and rounds off the fourth volume of the series nicely. It’s going to be a long wait for the next box set.

Are you a fan of the pure historicals? Do you enjoy Doctor Who more when it explores the darker periods of history? Let us know in the comments below.