Doctor Who Review: The Companion Chronicles 7.06 - "The Child"
rating 3
(WARNING: Significant spoilers follow!) Leela (Louise Jameson) has had an interesting story arc within Big Finishs line of Doctor Who stories. Shes a featured player, along with Lalla Ward as Romana and John Leeson as two versions of K-9, in the Gallifrey series, shes recently started to appear alongside Tom Baker as the Fourth Doctor in his series of stories, and shes had a very fascinating set of stories within the Companion Chronicles series. This is the latest chapter in that Companion Chronicles series. To recap: Leela apparently somehow survived the Time War mentioned extensively in the new series. But during her time on Gallifrey, shed aged very slowly, and as soon as she left, she began aging at the rate of one year per day. Eventually, she wound up dying. Parts of this story take place after her death. In this story, we have a young girl named Emily (Anna Hawkes) who has an imaginary friend named Leela that tells her stories. Leela tells her a tale of an adventure with the Fourth Doctor where the two visit a giant art project that takes up an entire continent. Think Christo only on a bigger canvas. While there, they find that things arent as they should be, and theres a menacing woman of glass who has plans for them. This story held my interest from the start to the endof part one. When part two began, my interest started to drift, and by the time it was done, my thoughts basically were Oh, were finished? Ok, then. Now this isnt to say its a bad story or anything like that. No, the setup was great, butI dunno. Something about it just completely shut down my interest in part two. That said, Jameson was her usual excellent self as Leela. She does a wonderful job swapping between the version of Leela who is fresh off her homeworld and doesnt even understand the concept of art, and the Leela who has lived a long life and has since died. Or something. Apparently. Jameson also does an excellent job channeling Tom Baker, something that seems to work better for her now that shes been performing alongside him in the Fourth Doctor Adventures. Hawkes also does well in a largely undemanding role. I sense that larger things are in store both for her and for the character of Emily, who clearly has A Background we shall probably explore at a later date. Now to address one of the usual questions with any of these audios: is this a good one to start with if youve never heard any of the audio stories before? In a word, no. It builds up way too much on the previous Leela Companion Chronicles stories and even I, whove listened to all the previous ones (though, it must be said, not in the right order), had a tough time keeping up with whats been going on with her character. I even had to go so far as to look up her biography online to see what exactly happened. So, no, dont start with this one. You can start with The Catalyst and work your way over from there. If you do, youll at least have a few good stories to listen to, and you might enjoy this one far more than I did. Next time, William Russell and Carol Anne Ford return as Ian and Susan in The Flames of Cadiz!