What Just Happened?

Stranded #3.4

Released: 2 December 2021

Listened: 1/3/22

It wouldn’t be an Eighth Doctor box without a twisty story from John Dorney, and that’s exactly what you get here. This story is told in reverse order, with each scene followed by Paul McGann saying a variation of “Five minutes earlier…” The production really leans into it, with the recording starting with the credits, then the closing theme. This also makes discussing the plot impossible without spoiling, so I’ll summarize by saying that the TARDIS crew, minus Tania, track down the source of humanity’s extinction, and join up with some rebels to find and stop the false Doctor. The question is, did this story need to be told in reverse order? As much as I love John Dorney stories, I’m not sure that it did. The theme of this one is “consequences,” and small decisions make big ripples, but that’s true of a ton of Doctor Who stories. It’s somewhat interesting to see the effects before the causes, but I don’t think there was any surprise or heightened tension as a result. In fact, some reveals were less effective because of the reverse order. In addition, such a story is plot-focused by necessity, so there really can’t be a lot of character development. It’s a reasonable setup for what I assume will be a big finale in box #4, and it does leave a character in jeopardy, but I’m not sure this writer’s experiment really works.