The Revolution

The New Adventures of Bernice Summerfield #1.1

Released: 13 June 2014

Listened: 3/3/21

The boxed set starts off with a Nev Fountain story, and as you might imagine, it’s completely off the wall and ridiculous, as Benny’s stories sometimes are. There’s a planet of absolute science, where even questioning scientific principles is a crime, but also a native population who have their own religious mythology, which Benny has been called in to disprove, but she won’t. The Doctor walks into all this and starts acting rather silly, as a result of being drugged, which allows him to channel the goofy Doctor of his first season while still fitting into the logic of the larger series. Benny even tries to get rid of him, reasoning that she’s about to have an adventure involving things the Doctor doesn’t approve of (sounding very River-like in the process), but fails. The way it all wraps up is amazing in its audacity, both that Fountain thinks he can get away with it, and the fact that he succeeds. And then there’s an abrupt shift in mood as the Doctor returns to his usual personality and announces that Ace is in trouble, leading into the next story. For my first venture into Benny stories proper, I’d have to say I enjoyed it, although it wasn’t what I was expecting.