The Tertiary Console Room: Review - Doctor Who

‘Any more of us?'

'Just the three it would appear.'

'Well we must be thankful for small mercies, musn't we?

Well this is it. The first release from Big Finish which brought about the third phase of original Doctor Who stories on a regular basis in the form of audio stories, bringing the Fifth, Sixth and Seventh Doctor’s together for the first time and bringing Peter Davison, Colin Baker and Sylvester McCoy back to arguably their most famous roles once more. But on the basis of this story, it’s amazing to think how much the audio titles have progressed since this first release. The Sirens Of Time has a lot going for it. It’s the first ‘official’ performed Who since the TV Movie, and with the last three actors to play the role within the television series it promised much, but unfortunately it delivers little.

The stars of The Sirens Of Time are undoubtedly the three actors playing the Doctor. With no companions or special guest stars, the Doctors are allowed to come into the spotlight, and with the story structured the way that it is it allows each of them their own chance to shine before the fourth episode sees them all meet up. Sylvester McCoy is the first to appear and his performance in the first episode is steadfast to that of his performance on television. Peter Davison appears next in the best episode of the three, and whilst his voice has matured more than both McCoy’s and Baker’s (Davison was after all the youngest of the three to play the role, and it has been the longest amount of time since he played the part) it is still a good performance capturing much of the spirit of his onscreen performances, if not quite the exact sound. Colin Baker does well in his episode, although his character is far more relaxed than he was on television but this in itself is not such a bad thing. The scenes with the Doctors together during the fourth episode work well and it certainly sounds like McCoy, Davison and Baker all had a great time whilst recording these scenes in particular.

The essential problem with The Sirens Of Time is down to the script. Featuring more than one Doctor in one story has always proved a risky business in the past on screen and in print, with only a few of these past examples really succeeding in telling a strong story. Nicholas Briggs' play takes a rather interesting new technique of having the three Doctors’ participate in a single episode each with them all meeting up in the final episode. Although this sounds like a very sensible approach in theory, the result in practice is not as sound. By featuring each Doctor in a single episode it doesn’t give any of the actors the time to really reclaim their role totally, but more importantly, it damages the storyline overall.

The single episode approach essentially means that The Sirens Of Time sounds like a story with three first episodes, leaving the final fourth episode to progress and resolve the story all at once and this is where the story fails. By leaving so much to do for the fourth episode, it means the tasks that it needs to perform are so great that failure is inevitable, and even the interplay between the three Doctors which is wonderful to hear, cannot save this episode.

Individually the three episodes featuring each Doctor are quite good, with the Davison episode set on a ship torpedoed by a German U-Boat during the First World War being the stand out one. Although the same actors feature throughout almost every episode, this second episode is the one where they really come together well to form a really atmospheric piece of drama.

There are some performances amongst the cast of note in The Sirens Of Time, in particular Anthony Keetch as Coordinator Vansell and Mark Gatiss. Also present is Maggie Stables as Ruthley, who would become more famous as the companion of the Sixth Doctor, Doctor Evelyn Smythe. Her performance is quite good here, even if she is using a very strange accent. Sarah Mowat also puts in good appearance in her multiple roles throughout the episodes.

There is much to enjoy in The Sirens Of Time, but the enjoyment stems mainly from the quality of the performances of the players rather than from the story itself, especially during the final episode where all three Doctors are involved. The plot of Nicholas Briggs' script is what lets it down though. It is structured in such a way that in effect it has three part ones, no part two or three, and one part four which fails to perform the required development of the story to a satisfactory effect. This makes the fourth episode feel rushed (even despite the extra time that the extended CD version has) and from the storyline point of view ensures that The Sirens Of Time is unsatisfactory on this level.

But The Sirens Of Time marked an important point for Doctor Who, as it showed that it could work well on audio, and even though it would take Big Finish another story to get it completely right, at this point they were on the right track to producing superb Doctor Who audio dramas.