A Song for Running

Subscriber Short Trips #2019-4

Released: 10 December 2019

Listened: 1/7/23

This is one of those stories where the Doctor helps a child to help a lost alien. They’ve done that sort of thing before, but it seems a bit odd coming from the Twelfth Doctor, given his past difficulties in understanding children. It almost seems more like an Eleventh Doctor story, with the Doctor being unusually candid with the little girl, and talking about Susan. Perhaps that’s why he put her photo on his desk at St. Luke’s. Anyway, the plot itself isn’t anything spectacular, but the way it’s told is quite different, with the little girl hearing the alien in the form of a song. Stephen Critchlow is the narrator, and while he does a rather good Twelfth Doctor, he also has to portray a little girl and a high-pitched alien, neither of which are really in his wheelhouse. It’s good enough, for what it is.