Operation: Hellfire

Third Doctor Adventures #6.2

Released: 14 May 2020

Listened: 6/12/21

Now we reach the point in this era where the Third Doctor Adventures series kicks in, which means the stories are longer, and more like what would have been on TV at the time. This particular story comes from later in that series, though, when Big Finish was feeling more confident in what they could do, which means a story set in WWII, because the Third Doctor never had a historical, which in turn means pulling in Ian McNeice to play Churchill again, because apparently he always says yes. It’s not quite a true historical, because the TARDIS currently isn’t working, so the Time Lords send the Doctor on yet another mission, to steal a Gallifreyan macguffin that could mess up the course of the war. However, the main point of the story is around British disinformation efforts during the war, and a cult of British, fascist devil-worshippers who are trying to work for the Axis cause, but may have been caught up in a German disinformation effort. Writer Jonathan Barnes manages to keep you uncertain about which characters are actually trustworthy, which is good, because there’s not a ton of action. There is a vein of humor, though: A Venusian aikido fight that sounds pretty funny on audio, plus the Doctor’s line when he’s about to be killed in a demonic ritual: “We’ve all got to make sacrifices in wartime.” On the whole, it’s reasonably good for a historical.