The Girl Who Never Was

Main Range #103

Released: 3 December 2007

Listened: 9/4/21

Having written out C’rizz, now it’s Charley’s turn. She’s still upset from the last story and asks to go to the R101 crash site, but the Doctor takes her to the Singapore Hilton instead, except in 2008 by accident. Turns out there’s a good ol’ temporal anomaly nearby, linking 2008 to 1942, and Charley agrees to hang around long enough to investigate, which gives her a chance for more new-series-style snarky banter. There’s quite a bit of timey-wimey going on, with a lost ship and some Philadelphia-style experiments, as well as mysterious characters with suspect identities in two different time zones. There’s a Cyberman on the cover, but when they actually show up, the story slows down a good bit, as they go about their usual business of converting people and getting stuck in logic problems. They’re not really central to the story, just a plot device to cause a sense of urgency. In fact, the timey-wimey doesn’t really resolve as well as it was set up, but that’s OK, because Charley gets an emotional departure. Be sure to stick around past the credits for the coda. If you’re following Charley’s timeline, from here you go back to “The Condemned” in the Sixth Doctor’s era. But this project follows the Doctor’s timeline, so it’s farewell to Charley (although not quite India Fisher).