The Night Witches

Early Adventures #4.1

Released: 14 September 2017

Listened: 5/9/21

Despite the title, there’s nothing supernatural going on in this story; it’s actually a true historical. It takes place in Russia, near St. Petersburg, during WWII, and the title refers to a group of women aviators, who flew crop-dusters and other old planes against the Germans. (The Night Witches are historically accurate, but the individual characters are invented for the story.) Which is pretty cool, except that when Polly turns out to be an exact double for their best pilot, they suspect the TARDIS crew of being spies who want to replace her. And Polly’s double happens to be a skilled mimic, so the law of plot convenience says that at some point she’ll replace Polly. For what it’s worth, the story doesn’t draw out the threat of the Doctor taking the doppelganger along and leaving Polly behind; the Doctor’s too smart for that. The rest of the story involves the usual mistrustful commanding officers, imprisonments, escaping, and trying to get back to the TARDIS. Polly doesn’t get to play action hero, but she does spend some time by herself lost in a nasty storm, without needing to be rescued, so that’s something. Ben gets a bit of a love interest, but just enough for the others to tease him, not an actual relationship. As pure historicals go, it’s decent, and somewhat dark, but not quite so bleak as historicals often are. It does end with the Doctor and friends essentially bailing in the middle of a pitched battle, which is unusual for them, but the Doctor is pretty clear that they can’t interfere in WWII, so it kind of makes sense.