Whispers of Terror

Main Range #3

Released: November 1999

Listened: 5/4/20

Time for a trip way back to the beginning. This is Nicola Bryant’s first Big Finish appearance as Peri. It’s pretty clearly set in season 22, as there’s plenty of bickering to be found. Like some other early Big Finish stories, it leans very hard into the fact that it’s an audio story, with a monster that’s essentially sentient sound, a plot point that hinges on one character being blind, and a whole pile of audio-recording jargon and trickery. It gets bogged down a little by the Doctor being extra bombastic, and a lot of speeches about democracy vs. authoritarianism, which are pretty thinly disguised commentary on current politics (which, from 1999, pre-War on Terror, is almost funny). For her part, Peri gets to take action and scream in terror in about equal measure. Most of the cliffhangers feature discordant sonic attacks, so beware of that when listening. It’s clearly early days, but not bad for all that.