The Innocent

The War Doctor #1.1

Released: 14 December 2015

Listened: 8/28/22

This boxed set, “Only the Monstrous,” is the first writing Big Finish, and Nick Briggs specifically, did for the War Doctor, and it’s clear that they’re being very, very careful with how to portray him. This is the same Doctor we’ll see later in “The Day of the Doctor,” one who’s tired, weary down to his very soul, and no longer cares if he lives or dies. He claims to have done terrible things, but they’re in his past, and we don’t really know what they are. His reaction to being called by his name feels more earned here than it does in the “Begins” stories, because he thinks he really has renounced his beliefs. Of course, this is proper John Hurt, and with all deference to Jonathan Carle, there’s a very clear difference. Carle is gravely all the time, because it’s an impersonation, but Hurt is a master of his instrument. The gravel comes and goes; he can take it down to a whisper for effect, and when he shouts, which is rare, the character’s rage and self-loathing spills out in every direction. For a character who’d only appeared in one story, Hurt is in complete control. In this particular story, the Doctor is missing, believed dead, after doing something stupidly heroic, again, but may have disrupted the Daleks’ access to time travel. While he’s recuperating on a remote planet, he meets pseudo-companion Rejoice, who nurses him back to health. In return, he saves her planet from what seems to be a rather ordinary invasion force, basically doing what the Doctor used to do, but he finds no peace in it, because he knows he has to go back. And it’s Ollistra who’s going to insist on that, played here by the lovely Jacqueline Pearce. She’d reprised her Blake’s Seven role as Servalan for Big Finish before, and nobody can touch her when it comes to affable evil. Beth Chalmers’ Veklin also appears, but she’s an unfinished form of Veklin, just a caricature of the good soldier. Which is funny, because the character is much better fleshed out in stories that chronologically come earlier. Also, the Doctor doesn’t seem to know her, but I’m going to let that slide. I wasn’t sure if Nick Briggs could pull off a story that would capture the War Doctor properly, but this is very effective.