The Jabari Countdown

The Seventh Doctor: The New Adventures #1.3

Released: 15 November 2018

Listened: 8/20/22

This one is also by a one-time Big Finish writer, Alan Flanagan, and it’s also a “what’s going on?” kind of story. The TARDIS lands on the outskirts of WWII, where a bunch of ordinary British citizens with unusual mathematical skills have been recruited to a deserted island for a mysterious purpose. Exactly what that purpose is, who’s behind it, and what they really want is all part of the mystery, complicated by the fact that all the secondary characters are keeping secrets as well. Which means the Doctor doesn’t have any time to be enigmatic, because he’s too busy trying to figure stuff out. It hinges on a bit of code-breaking that doesn’t quite work for me. It’s the sort of puzzle that’s intended to be clever, but is really kind of random, so the payoff isn’t all that impressive. The secondary characters are all well-drawn, though, and the spooky environs are well described, so it’s not a bad story.