Psychodrome

Fifth Doctor Boxed Set #1.1

Released: 12 August 2014

Listened: 12/26/19

In 2014, Matthew Waterhouse had been working with Big Finish on Dark Shadows, but hadn’t reprised his role as Adric yet, but was open to it. Before bringing Adric into the Main Range, they tested the waters with a boxed set. This story is appropriately set right after “Castrovalva,” and they make that obvious -- Adric talks about the Fourth Doctor, all the characters reference recent adventures, and really the whole theme of the story is about how these four people see each other, and how they feel about this new status quo. The characters get split up in pairs and then recombined, so that all of them have a chance to interact. Each character also encounters parody versions of how they see the other three, although that’s not obvious at first. The actual plot isn’t hugely important, as this story is distinctly about the character interactions, and it does the job well. The Fifth Doctor gets to use the sonic screwdriver in this story, one of the only times the Fifth Doctor can use it in Big Finish before it’s destroyed in “The Visitation.”