Skin Deep

Lady Christina #1.2

Released: 23 August 2018

Listened: 5/21/23

If you’re going to be faced with following a strong John Dorney story, a good strategy is to have an even stronger James Goss story. Big Finish likes to rely on crossovers when they can, and honestly, putting Lady Christina together with Sylvia Noble sounds like a terrible idea on paper. But this is James Goss, and just about nobody writes Sylvia better, whether for good or ill. Sylvia is catty and short-tempered, shallow and grasping, but she does love her father, she doesn’t like to see people suffer, and her feelings can be hurt. One of the central mysteries of the story is whether Christina actually likes Sylvia, or is she just using her to get something else? The answer, wonderfully, is more complicated than a simple yes or no. It turns out that not only can Christina get under Sylvia’s skin, but Sylvia can get under Christina’s, and that’s an impressive feat. We also get Christina’s Dad in the bargain, and we find out a big pile of family secrets that suddenly make Christina a lot more sympathetic. It almost feels like a cheat, but Goss pulls it off really smoothly. Oh, and there’s some waffle about aliens invading by way of a face cream that makes people younger, but that’s just bog-standard Doctor Who stuff, really. The character work here is first-rate.