The Blue Tooth

Companion Chronicles #1.3

Released: 19 February 2007

Listened: 5/26/21

This story is from the first set of Companion Chronicles, and that means a lot of firsts: The first story Caroline John recorded, but also the first Big Finish appearances of the Third Doctor, Liz, Benton, and Yates, although only Liz is voiced, obviously. It’s also the first opportunity for the Third Doctor to encounter Cybermen, which he never did on TV (although other spin-off media have added more encounters). Because Nick Briggs is voicing the Cybermen, there’s no second character like Companion Chronicles often have, so Liz is just telling the story to the listener in the past tense. It has some odd aspects to it: Liz doesn’t seem overly happy with UNIT, and is dismissive of their methods. She seems to be staying just because she likes the Doctor. She also states that she’s in her mid-20s at the time of the story, which may have been how she was presented on TV, but I find that hard to accept, given her advanced credentials. The writing is also a bit odd; the story is told in four parts, which is unusual for an hour-long story. But worse, Liz is a secondary character for parts of it, and even spends chunks unconscious or under mind control, which makes the narration awkward. It’s also a rather dark story, with lots of collateral damage, which makes some sense if this story was part of Liz’s decision to leave UNIT, but the stories aren’t usually this dark, especially after the new series premiered. If the title is supposed to be a direct reference to Bluetooth connections, the story doesn’t seem to know it (the Bluetooth protocol wasn’t around in the early 1970s), but there are small references to interference with electronic devices, so maybe it was deliberate. Without extras, there’s no way to tell. It’s not the strongest introduction to Liz, but coming in the middle, as it does in this project, it’s fine.