The Big Blue Book

The Eighth of March #1.2

Released: 8 March 2019

Listened: 2/12/21

This is an entry from the “Eighth of March” boxed set for International Women’s Day. As a result, Ace and Benny appear, but the Doctor only has a small cameo. They’re both undercover at a university, and have been there for a while, Bernice as a professor, and Ace as a member of the cleaning staff. The Doctor intended it to be a break, but Ace has been on the lookout for strange stuff, and finds it when Benny vanishes. The story by Lizzie Hopley is a bit on the strange side, with alien criminals who turn people into books. There’s also a secondary character who hangs out with Ace, but he’s not given enough time to develop. The story feels like it’s a bit compressed and rushed, like it was a four-part story squeezed into an hour timeslot. Ace gets more to do than Benny here, and although she keeps getting suggestions that she’s not as bright as the other characters, she’s the one who figures out most of what’s going on and what to do about it. This suggests that she’s got a greater experience with the weird than she would have earlier in her life. Unfortunately, due to the audio nature of the story, she spends more time talking to herself than she probably would in other circumstances. It’s a fine story for what it is, but doesn’t advance either character much.