E Is for...

Early Adventures 13.1

Released: 18 September 2019

Listened: 1/6/20

This story is from much later in Big Finish’s recording history, and it shows. Susan spends almost the entire story separated from the others, and Carole Ann Ford is starting to sound more like Old Susan than Young Susan. But the key point of this story is that it’s a superhero pastiche, specifically the X-Men. Doctor Who has always stayed away from superheroes in the past, but after “The Return of Doctor Mysterio,” it seems they’ve become fair game. From the extras, it seems like most of the creators (except the writer, of course) don’t realize just how much of an X-Men reference this story is, but if you’re at all familiar with Marvel history, the references stick out a mile. I think you could have gotten away with this story with different characters, possibly one of the modern series Doctors, but it just seems strange and out of place in the First Doctor era.