The End of the Beginning

Main Range #275

Released: 16 March 2021

Listened: 8/6/21

This is the final Main Range story, so it’s a multi-Doctor story like “The Sirens of Time.” However, because it was recorded in lockdown and Sylvester McCoy was mostly unavailable, the Fifth, Sixth, and Eighth Doctors are featured, with the Seventh turning up at the end. The Fifth and Sixth Doctors get their own single-part stories (with Turlough and Constance respectively) which I’ve covered in their sections. The Eighth Doctor and Charley’s single-parter is “Night Gallery,” in which the Doctor stops off in London, 1999, to check up on a vampire he defeated in 1969. The vampire has been behaving himself for 30 years, but told his story to someone else, who went off and became a vampire himself, and he definitely isn’t behaving. And of course Charley stumbles right into him. It’s not a particularly memorable story, and the Doctor having a vampire for an old friend is a bit of a stretch, although he’s a pretty good character. In the end, the Doctor gets his hands on another data crystal, which brings the Death Lord to snatch them up. In the last part, “The Lost Moon,” surprise! The Death Lord isn’t the bad guy after all; he wants to help, by uniting several Doctors to stop their old teacher from unraveling the universe. Unfortunately, it’s kinda bland and pro forma after that. There’s a little bit of Doctor meet-and-greet, but no real bantering, just a mutual appreciation society. Even the companions don’t really have much to say to one another. The Seventh Doctor pops in at the last moment, but even that is fairly dull. I know it’s hard to write a compelling multi-Doctor story, and harder still to record one in lockdown, but this story was rather disappointing.