Resistance

Companion Chronicles #3.9

Released: March 2009

Listened: 9/26/20

This story is a bit of a throwback at this point in the project. This is the first story that Anneke Wills did for Big Finish as Polly, so it has a lot of tropes common to earlier stories. It’s a true historical, for one thing, set in Vichy France in 1944, as the Doctor and Polly encounter the French Resistance, helping to smuggle French loyalists and foreigners out to Spain. Ben and Jamie get written out fairly early, and stay gone for most of the story. In a later Companion Chronicle or Early Adventure, they probably would’ve gotten their own plotline, because there’s a story there. In particular, though, this story focuses firmly on Polly, and she spends a lot of time pondering her role on the team, and not really liking the answers she comes up with. Big Finish has done a good job rehabbing her character, as they’ve done to other classic characters, but in this early story, it feels a bit defensive. Polly’s got plenty of agency, though, as the story turns a bit personal for her and she takes decisive action independent of the Doctor. Anneke Wills does a fairly good job playing the Doctor, Ben, and Jamie, but she shares the narration with John Sackville, so she doesn’t have to work for the full 60 minutes. It’s a decent enough story, if a slightly awkward fit in the project from Polly’s point of view.