Assassin in the Limelight

Main Range #108

Released: May 2008

Listened: 6/28/20

This story features a number of flashbacks to Robert Ross’s other two stories, with Dr. Knox from “Medicinal Purposes” and the Indo from “Pier Pressure.” However, he never wrote for Big Finish again, so these characters don’t reappear. It takes place in Washington, DC in 1865, on the day of Lincoln’s assassination. However, Knox aims to prevent that, and the reasons exactly why he does so are mysterious for most of the story. Although it seems like this would be a dark story, much like the other two, there are many elements of comedy here, starting with Knox pretending to be Oscar Wilde, and attempting to present The Importance of Being Earnest 30 years too early, and various other snarky comments from both the Doctor and Evelyn. I suspect an American writer wouldn’t play the Civil War and Lincoln’s death for comedy, but it’s a British show, so we roll with it. The American accents aren’t terrible, since they’re all played by actual Americans this time, although they tend to be over-enunciated, but that’s almost always the case at Big Finish. Evelyn seems to have a much better understanding of the Web of Time here than she did in “100,” although she’s not above trying to make strategic changes. I can see where they were going with larger mythbuilding on this one, but the whole is less than the sum of its parts.