Doctor Who Audio Review - The Companion Chronicles - 'The First Wave'

rating: 3.5

So here we are, part three of an unofficial trilogy featuring Stephen Taylor (Peter Purves), and Oliver Harper (Tom Allen). It is, sadly, the last story with Oliver, at least so far. Time will tell if the powers that be find a way to bring him back; and believe me, I hope they do. Our story opens with the TARDIS arriving at Grace Alone, a small asteroid. They didn€™t particularly want to go there, but in the previous story, the Doctor learned that they were accused of some sort of crime on the asteroid, so he takes everyone there with the plan of creating false records to leave in the computer memory banks. Things don€™t go as planned, of course. When they arrive, they find the crew dead, and learn that a telepathic alien race known as the Vardans (previously scene in the Fourth Doctor story, €œThe Invasion of Time€), are the ones who have killed the crew. These begins are electrical in nature, and came to investigate after picking up signals from Earth. Soon the Doctor is apparently dead, and Stephen and Oliver are on the surface of the planet, trying to get help, but to no avail. They get captured and the Vardans make it clear that none of them are going to leave alive€ I listened to this story a few days ago, and then tried to give myself time to absorb it and sort out what I thought about it. I think in the end that I liked it, but I feel that it€™s the weakest of the stories in the Oliver trilogy. First, the Vardans never really struck me as terribly interesting. The idea of an electrical species has potential, but it doesn€™t really come out here. To be fair, they were so uninteresting that I didn€™t even realize they were the villains in €œThe Invasion of Time€ until it was pointed out to me. Second, part of the joys of the Oliver stories has been in the way he interacted with the Stephen, and there wasn€™t quite as much of that this time as there was in the previous two stories. They€™re both there, they do things, they talk, but it just didn€™t work as well as it did previously. Lastly, I€™m not pleased with the ending. Yes, it€™s something that was in keeping with the sort of outcomes that happened a lot during the First Doctor€™s years, but that doesn€™t mean that I have to like it. I will say that overall I feel the Oliver stories were quite good and quite entertaining. The revelation about his past, and what crime he was wanted for, was especially fascinating, as that was something that could not be explored on the show back in 1966. Also I found the character himself to be just really entertaining and he€™s someone I would like to have seen (well, heard), more of. All that said, I cannot recommend this story if you€™re just listening to it on its own. It really does require that you hear the first two in the series. But if you€™ve done that, this is certainly worth hearing, despite its flaws.