Doctor Who

After 10 years (or whatever), it’s time for Charley Pollard to leave the Big Finish range. The premier eighth Doctor companion (and possibly best companion of all, depending on who you talk to), with The Condemned she became the premier audio sixth Doctor companion as well.

So, there was obviously some anticipation as to how the final stories of the Charley/Sixth Doctor arc would play out and how she’d be written out of the series again. With the Sixth Doctor not knowing she would travel with him in the future, what would the cunning denouement be, we all wondered? Would she go without the issue being addressed? Would there be some clever bit of temporal mechanics? Would there be soul-baring and a frantic attempt to save the day?

We were all agog, since the Sixth Doctor/Charley pairing was actually very good. Ah, Charley: how we’ll miss you, you were more or less the one thing that kept me listening to these, although given the groundswell of support for these reviews – thanks guys – I won’t be quitting after this one and will be sticking with the main Whο range at Big Finish for the foreseeable future at least.

But after Patient Zero by Nick Briggs proved to be such a dud, hopes weren’t high that there would be a great conclusion to the arc, particularly when Paper Cuts proved essentially to be Charley-free. Twats.

Now we’re here, and Charley’s off. How did they write her out, I hear you ask?

Bollocks. The exact same way they did in The Girl Who Never Was except not as well. Spoilers ahoy.

Continue reading “Review: Doctor Who – 126 – Blue Forgotten Planet”