Doctor Who: Shadow of Death (Destiny of the Doctor 2) [Audiobook] [Audio CD]

A new Doctor Who talking book from the bbc. Second in the 'Destiny of the Doctor' series of Doctor Who talking books. These are being released at the rate of one a month, and they tell an all new story for a different one of the Doctors on each occasion. There is though a linking theme which we are promised will all come together in the end.

The format of these is a story that is complete on a single cd. It's basically one long episode with no breaks other than the usual cd chapter ones. Minimal sleeve notes give copyright details, advertise other bbc Doctor Who product, and contain a few bits of info about the particular era of the show from which the story comes.

The cover shows the Doctor and main companion of the story.

It is narrated by an actor who appeared in the show at the time. They read the story in the third person and do all the voices save one, which is done by a guest actor.

'Shadow of Death' is a Second Doctor story. It is read by Frazer Hines, who played his companion Jamie on tv.

The story sees the TARDIS land on a very strange planet. Which is in the shadow of a pulsar. Which emits a very strong gravitational pull. There is an abandoned city. Statues of people in spacesuits. And the survivors of a human expedition sent there to study it.

Something has happened to people they came there with. There is a very strange force indeed on the planet. Which spells danger for the surviving humans. Plus the Doctor and his friends...

As anyone who has heard Frazer Hines other Doctor Who audio readings will know, he does an amazingly good version of the Second Doctor's voice. Which really does sound like Patrick Troughton. He also reprises Jamie's voice effortlessly, so it really does feel as if you are listening to something from their tv era. The story fits it as well. Being a strange world with minimalist settings and a small cast of characters, being stalked by a monster.

The sound design is appropriately eerie and does help to create the feeling of such an alien world.

The explanation for what is taking place here is quite clever, and there's some good real science involved, but you will need to think carefully to get your head around it at times. Whilst in some ways it doesn't feel like anything we haven't seen or heard before, it is creepy and effective. With a pretty decent resolution. Which does nicely serve to highlight how alien the Doctor is.

There is one scene which does develop the ongoing plot that is moving throughout all of these. A very interesting scene it is. Slightly reminiscent of something that happened in the first story. But it adds in a lot more detail which does make the bigger picture slightly clearer. And very intriguing with it.

This is a decent listen and one that also develops the ongoing story very well. If you liked the first story in this series then this is well worth getting. You could probably get into easily enough without having heard that one, though.But it might, in the long run, be better to start at the beginning.

Shadow of Death, a new Second Doctor adventure from Big Finish, embraces and builds on some of the classic tropes of the Second Doctor's era, as well as referencing some of the new series work of Steven Moffat. The narrative takes the form of a classic Troughton base under siege story, and the compression of the situation and small cast of characters result in a pleasingly claustrophobic tale. Following an emergency landing, the Doctor, Jamie and Zoe arrive in a mysterious base on a deserted planet orbiting a pulsar, which exerts a gravitational force strong enough to distort time. In a nod to the multicultural base crews of the 1960s, they encounter the mittel-European-accented base leader played by Evie Dawnay (audibly wearing go-go boots and a space miniskirt) in the tradition of didactic dollybirds Miss Garrett and Miss Kelly. However, the deserted planet on which they find themselves is not as deserted as it might appear...

The play combines the `base under siege' setting with some timey-wimey antics in the manner of Steven Moffat, making it curiously reminiscent of William Hartnell's 1965 serial The Space Museum, as well as drawing on other situations from Moffat's work which echo Silence in the Library. With its spacesuited explorers and their base on a strange empty planet with a lost civilisation, it is also reminiscent of the set-up for The Impossible Planet, but diverts off in a quite different direction. Narrator/performer Fraser Hines recreates Jamie's wide-eyed chippiness well, and does a really sterling job on imitating Patrick Troughton's Second Doctor, with much throat-clearing and a good approximation of Troughton's vague air of extemporising many of his lines. Simon Hunt's largely ambient soundscape has moments of doomy expressionism which nicely complement the more functional sound effects sketching the base background. Without giving too much away, there are tense scenes when Jamie and the Doctor encounter the shadowy enemy, and an intriguing conclusion which hints at giving the Second Doctor an air of vulnerability. The denouement however is dramatically something of an anticlimax, but sets up a plot arc to come.

'Shadow of Death' is the second title in AudioGO and Big Finish's 50th Anniversary series 'Destiny of the Doctor', taking the form of a brand new adventure for the Second Doctor, Jamie and Zoe, in which the TARDIS lands on an outpost amidst an abandoned city on a world orbiting a Pulsar, which has the extraordinary power to affect time. In much the same way as the previous release, 'Hunters of Earth', evoked the spirit of the show's first episode 'An Unearthly Child', 'Shadow of Death' very much has the feel of a story from the Troughton era, with its 'base under siege' idea and the creeping menace of the titular shadow. Of course, there's more to it than that, but to go into any more detail regarding the plot would serve to spoil things somewhat - suffice to say, it's a story which explores the Doctor's unique relationship with time, and where nothing is quite what it initially seems.

The format for this series is that of an enhanced audiobook, with a main narrator accompanied by an actor in a supporting role. Frazer Hines narrates here, and I couldn't think of a better choice to handle this release - not only does he handle the job of narrator well, he also plays something of a dual role in the acting department, effectively playing not only the part of Jamie McCrimmon (his TV character, and the Second Doctor's longest-serving travelling companion) but that of the Doctor himself. Hines provides an uncanny performance which perfectly captures the spirit of the late Patrick Troughton, and given that this is very much a Doctor-centric story, it very much works to the benefit of the finished product. In fact, at certain points, I managed to forget that I wasn't listening to Troughton himself in those scenes. That, combined with the excellent sound design, really helps to cement the Troughton era feel in one's mind when listening. It's a slightly shorter story than 'Hunters of Earth', running to just under an hour or so, and the story didn't quite grab me as its predecessor had, but it was still an hour well spent, and I'd imagine essential listening for those with a particular fondness for that era of 'Doctor Who'. There's also a scene which ties into the 'series arc', which is rather intriguing, and gives the impression that 'Destiny of the Doctor' could be going somewhere very interesting indeed.