Doctor Who Audio Review: The Companion Chronicles - “The Perpetual Bond”

rating: 4.5

Big Finish€™s €œCompanion Chronicles€ line is an interesting beast. It was originally designed to give the actors who played Companions with the 1st, 2nd and 3rd Doctors (all played by Doctors who are, sadly, deceased), a way of being involved in the series. They started out as basically audio books being read by one, maybe two, actors. I had little interest in them at that stage. Since then, however, they€™ve expanded out, and while they still include only one or two actors, they€™re staged a bit more like the standard range of Doctor Who audios. In this case the companion being chronicled is Stephen Taylor (Peter Purves), an astronaut from some point in the Earth€™s future. He€™s a companion to the First Doctor, originally played by William Hartnell (1908 €“ 1975). He€™s joined in this particular audio by Oliver Harper (Tom Allen), a young bond trader (and no, that doesn€™t mean he trades Connery for Lazenby), who is being hunted by the police and is hiding a deep, dark secret. Our story begins not long after the deaths of Katarina and Sarah Kingdom, characters some people consider companions (I don€™t), who died in the €œThe Dalek€™s Master Plan€, as well as a character named Bert Vyon, played by Nicolas Courtney in his first role on the series (thus making him one of the only actors to have acted with the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th and 8th Doctors, as well as doing an audio or two with David Tennant). Both the Doctor and Stephen are depressed by the recent events, and so decide to pay a visit to London in 1966, hoping to find former companions, Ian and Barbara. Meantime, Oliver is working at his job in London when he gets a call warning him that the police are sniffing after him. He knows exactly why and knows that he€™s guilty. He decides to run for it, but then meets with his boss and is confused to see that the man suddenly has a head like a mushroom. The TARDIS puts down in a certain old junkyard, and Stephen and the Doctor leave to find Ian and Barbra. In the process, they, too, come across one of the mushroom aliens and soon meet Oliver, who tells them about the one he saw. They begin an investigation and soon find out that aliens have taken over the stock exchange, and are trading in a commodity too horrible to imagine€ This was a really well-done story and has completely redeemed the Companion Chronicles series for me (which, to be honest, I€™d never listened two beyond two stories I don€™t even remember at this point). The concept of aliens coming to Earth only for purposes of legal, legitimate trade is a very interesting one, and it€™s well executed here. It€™s especially nice, since it puts the Doctor in somewhat of a bind, as everything the aliens are doing is acceptable and valid under Galactic Law. I really enjoyed the setting and the way it was €œshown€ in the audio. It genuinely felt like the 1960s London I€™m familiar with from such things as Doctor Who and The Avengers, right down to bowler hats and umbrellas as weapons. And I can€™t say enough about the acting. Purves does an excellent job with a character who, until recently, he hadn€™t played since the mid-1960s. He also does a great job impersonating the First Doctor, right down to the occasional €œHm!€ and then end of a sentence. Really the only thing missing from the character are flubbed lines. As for Allen as Oliver, I liked him quite a bit. I know the character is only in three of the audios, but he€™s interesting, he€™s intelligent and he brings quite a bit of humor to the role. If I had any complaints, it€™s that I would have liked this story to be longer. It€™s only 60 minutes, and that just wasn€™t enough. Also, the ending seemed a little pat to me, and was telegraphed from some distance away. Still and all, this is the first Companion Chronicles story that I feel I can really recommend to people who aren€™t just hardcore followers of the series. It€™s not expensive, and it€™s extremely entertaining.