The Truth of Peladon

Peladon #4

Released: 28 January 2022

Listened: 2/6/22

I’m placing this story here, because the Doctor is solo, and seems rather stern, but he’s not yet fallen into despair. He also seems to spend quite a bit of time in this story. From a storytelling perspective, this Tim Foley story is drastically different from the others. It’s very small and tight, with the Doctor trying to win over Arla Decanto, a seamstress, and slightly influential figure in Peladon’s trade class. She’s played by Meera Syal, who played Nasreen Chaudry in “The Hungry Earth” and “Cold Blood,” but this is her first Big Finish appearance, and she’s magnificent. The Doctor is really playing a long game here, setting things up slowly to change the mind of one person; it’s more Seventh Doctor than Eighth, really. Except that early in the story, he displays the bubbly side of his personality, and proves remarkably good at being an apprentice tailor. We’ve heard of the Doctor doing things like that off-screen before, but normally when we actually see him trying to blend in, he’s a colossal failure. It’s nice to know that he really can pull it off if he wants. The politics are kind of off-beat in this one, as the Doctor is working very much from the outside, rather than having the monarch’s ear as he normally does. As a result, he seems very short with Arla, sometimes downright angry, which is unusual for him. It’s tough to figure what Big Finish meant here, because Peladon is often used as a stand-in for Earth’s political problems, but things don’t seem to get any better after the Doctor leaves. Maybe it will this time? As an individual story, it’s quite strong. As the closing story of the boxed set, it just offers more questions.