The Eighth Piece

Doom Coalition #3.2

Released: 22 September 2016

Listened: 12/12/21

This story flips over to Matt Fitton, who serves up big, healthy chunks of plot, while still leaving a lot of mysteries. The TARDIS crew split up to search for more pieces of the mystery timepiece the Doctor found at the end of the previous story. Liv is in 15th-Century Prague, where there’s a prisoner and a clockmaker, both of whom know a good bit more than they should. The Doctor is in England, 1538, unfortunately falling foul of Thomas Cromwell, who imprisons him in the Tower. Helen is in Rome, 2016, using her connections to investigate a museum of unusual timepieces, which seems relatively safe…until it isn’t. In the time since the last set, Big Finish has gotten a bit bolder in using River Song, and she’s established herself as a part of this story. So she’s no longer avoiding the Doctor so strictly, but simply hiding her identity behind a “psychic wimple,” which is honestly as odd as it sounds, but it provides the needed excuse. Except River isn’t quite as much help as she was in the last story, and things get a little out of hand. For the first time in this series, a story ends on a hard cliffhanger, with everybody in mortal peril. Which would be annoying if the follow-up story weren’t just moments away.