The Sacrifice of Jo Grant

Legacy of Time #3

Released: 17 July 2019

Listened: 6/8/21

“Legacy of Time” is one of the Big Finish anniversary sets that tries to include all the available Doctors plus Big Finish spin-off material. That means this story involves the Third Doctor (whose series was still relatively new) and UNIT plus modern-series UNIT, in the form of Kate Stewart and Osgood, with Jo Grant as the natural link between them. Which means that only half of this story takes place at this point in the timeline. The rest of it happens in the modern day, after Jo and Osgood have met and become friends (and visit a water park together!). Present-day Jo and Kate end up bounced back to the 1970s by a temporal anomaly to encounter the Third Doctor, while Osgood works the same problem in the present. The Doctor is close to a caricature of his persona from this period, being ever so slightly patronizing and kind of oblivious as he works the problem; he doesn’t recognize at first that Jo is 40 years older. Jo takes advantage of the opportunity to spend some more time with the Doctor, while Kate is torn over the decision of whether to call her father. There’s some serious timey-wimey going on that’s more new-series than Season 8, but that’s necessary for the resolution. Tim Treloar does his usual excellent job as the Doctor, and there’s a brief cameo by John Culshaw as the Brig. Because only present-day Jo appears in the story, Katy Manning doesn’t have to force her voice into a higher register, which she probably appreciated. It’s designed to make you feel nostalgic, and it does its job.