The Destination Wars

First Doctor Adventures #1.1

Released: 25 December 2017

Listened: 1/10/20

The first thing I notice with this series is the voices. None of the actors are attempting to imitate their predecessors, but to capture the spirit of the characters. Jamie Glover does that reasonably well, I think, but Jemma Powell and Claudia Grant especially are emphasizing their RP accents, which makes Susan sound like a parody of herself, sometimes. David Bradley is definitely playing his own version of the First Doctor, which is a reasonable substitute, but it’s noticeably different. The writing also changes the characters somewhat, emphasizing some of their characteristics at the expense of others. The Doctor in particular is supercilious to the humans, and quicker to argue than William Hartnell’s was. Ian seems to have been toned down a bit, in order to give the others more “hero time,” which is probably to the good. This story features James Dreyfuss as the Master, presumably the “first” version of the Master. He’s more of a “suave” Master than the later “insane” Masters of TV, somewhat like Delgado, with some clever phrasings. There’s rather more use of time travel, and of the Fast Return Switch, than normally would have happened in the First Doctor era, but this story seems to be straddling the line between a traditional story and the style of the new series.