The Widow on the Moor

"The prison knows we're trying to get out."

Writer: Una McCormack 

Format: Audio

Released: May 2017

Series: Ninth Doctor Chronicles 1.02

Featuring: Ninth Doctor, Rose

Synopsis

Emily and her sisters once told each other fables of warring kingdoms: wicked princes, noble dukes, and their battling armies. Now she wanders the moors of her childhood alone, remembering those tales. The TARDIS arrives amid a strange civil war, with prisons made of glass and cities stalked by terrifying beasts. As windows open between worlds, stories and storyteller meet, and Rose comes face to face with Emily Bronte. 

Verdict

The Widow on the Moor was another decent story to continue along my listening of the Ninth Doctor Chronicles! In saying that though, I can't help but feel like I wanted a little bit more. As my rating reflects, this was a very solid adventure and at this stage I'm really glad to just get anything new with Christopher Eccleston's incarnation of the Doctor. However, I think the lack of familiar actors hurt this story a little bit and with both Adam and Jackie to come, I think it would have been better to have one of them here rather than having them back to back at the end of the boxset. But hey, maybe that's just me. I was glad to have the Ninth Doctor reunited with Rose and getting an extra story with purely that pairing was terrific, especially as she wasn't featured in The Bleeding Heart as it was set prior to her debut in Rose. I have to say, I wasn't thrilled with Nicholas Briggs' attempted impression of the companion and he sadly just made her sound like a generic chav which was a big shame. I was very glad that we did get some Rose, but I just felt he didn't do her justice. It would have been much better to just say Rose's dialogue in the same way he was narrating. Despite that, I think the Nicholas Briggs take on the Ninth Doctor is growing on me in a big way and I really was quite impressed with his impression here. It definitely like the Ninth Doctor which was very important. I also commend Una McCormack on the feel of the story and how it seemed to fit seamlessly into the Series 1 era. It was very well suited. Emily Bronte appearing was a very good inclusion, although I think she would have been better suited in a pure historical. It didn't quite feel right to have her on an alien planet, even if it did perhaps links with Wuthering Heights. The humour at the end in the TARDIS with Rose mentioning the film rather than the book was terrific. I loved the idea of a glass prison that was perhaps sentient and the whole concept behind the glass in the story was very good. I enjoyed the character of Julius for the most part, but I do think there could have been quite a bit more about the civil war. We only really got a line or two background and that wasn't enough to fully gauge my interest. The war between Julius and Drake was good and I liked how it was concluded, but I think the audio would have been more effective if the civil war the Doctor and Rose landed in the midst of was more familiar, historical or not. Ada was another good character and her likeness to Emily was an intriguing element of the story. I liked the use of the windows being a way from the planet to Earth during the time of Bronte, but I didn't feel like they were used to their fullest potential. There definitely seemed like there was more that could have been done with them. Considering this was set during a civil war, I think a few more action scenes would have added to the excitement of the adventure. The characterisation of the Ninth Doctor was good and his bemoaning the fact that Rose wasn't staying where he wanted her to was great. That really doesn't ever get old. I also loved the line where the Doctor asks, "hey, who turned out the lights?" which is surely a nod to Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead. Some coincidental foreshadowing perhaps? That's the benefit of writing for a past Doctor when you can have fun like that. Overall, this was a decent adventure but it just felt like it could have been ever better.

Rating: 7/10