The Anachronauts

"You'll soon never have even existed."

Writer: Simon Guerrier
Format: Audio
Released: January 2012
Series: Companion Chronicles 6.07

Featuring: First Doctor, Steven, Sara

Synopsis

An experimental timeship smashes into the TARDIS, and the crews of both ships wake up on a desert island. Has the TARDIS been destroyed? And why doesn't the Doctor want to escape?

Then, Steven and Sara find themselves on the wrong side of the Berlin Wall in 1966. And their only way back to the TARDIS is to betray the Doctor.

Verdict

The Anachronauts was a very good audio adventure to continue along my Companion Chronicle listening of Sara Kingdom's stories! This one was double the usual length and was just a standard story rather with both Jean Marsh and Peter Purves performing which was a delight. It was essentially an Early Adventure before the range was launched. I liked how things started pretty much straight after The Feast of Steven instalment of The Daleks' Master Plan with him remembering Christmas Day fondly. Things went sideways very quickly as something crashed into the TARDIS! That was exciting for this era and something the First Doctor never really came up against. That was terrific. I thought it was intriguing for Sara and Steven's potential love interest with each other being so openly talked about here and it was nice to get some development in Sara's character and time as companion. I'm all for that given the gap available for her time as a companion based upon the novelisations of Mission to the Unknown and The Mutation of Time. After the TARDIS crashed with another ship, we were introduced to an interesting dynamic with the trio meeting the Time Pilots on a deserted island with no sign of the TARDIS. Seeing how much the ship meant to the Doctor was fantastic, especially for the first incarnation and how recently he'd departed. It was all he had. The food machine showing up was good though and I liked how for Sara that confirmed the TARDIS's destruction. Natalie Lang was a decent character and seeing how much her war with the Wall of Noise had impacted her was quite powerful. I liked Sara drawing parallels between times, even though these Pilots were from far in advance of her own time. The concept of the Time Sprite was great and I liked how the Doctor refused to accept its existence. It was just a Gallifreyan fairytale with one supposedly in the heart of every TARDIS. I liked that idea a lot. I thought the shift in predominant between parts for Sara and Steven worked well and kept things fresh and it was good to get their respective perspectives on some elements of the story's events. When the Sprite hit and caused damage, she felt that her war was not over and was against the Doctor as it seemed like he had controlled it. That was far from the case though, with Sara breaking her arm and Steven ending up getting shot at the first cliffhanger! The description of the Time Sprite was very good but I felt it shifted quite suddenly to being referred to as a she. The idea of everything on the island just being a distraction and make believe construct was an unexpected development, but I'm not a massive fan of that plot twist. It's why Last Christmas doesn't resonate greatly with me. The Doctor considering that the emergency systems of the TARDIS came into effect to contain the blast of the crash was great and it had been healing them whilst also keeping the Doctor busy in the process. I thought that was a very fun consideration. The ship certainly knew its pilot well! Natalie thinking she would be able to pilot the TARDIS was very intriguing, especially with it claimed that she recognised some of the controls! That took us to another blackout with the companions then waking up in 1966 Berlin on the wrong side of the Berlin Wall. Quite the jump and contrasting setting! I loved the description of Berlin with some of the sites such as Checkpoint Charlie and the Brandenburg Gate being mentioned. It's one of the best cities I've visited as a tourist so I listened on fondly there and loved the setting. Placing the companions, from an age far in the future, at a time they would consider primitive and during the Cold War was excellent and worked well. I definitely preferred the second half to the first. They were cut off from the Doctor and I loved how they were suspected as spies from the Western side of the Wall. Rukell helping Steven escape from confinement and providing false papers was a lot of fun, but they were soon caught once again. Steven and Sara offering up futuristic information as their way to bargain for survival was brilliant and I thought the idea of using their knowledge of Pluto no longer being designating a planet, something that wasn't the case in 1966, was terrific. The reaction of the Russians in wanting to downgrade a US-discovery was marvellous! But again, Steven worked out that everything they had experienced was all like a story. Sara considered it was a result of them changing time by giving the foreknowledge which seemed logical, but sadly wasn't the case. This was all fake too, constructed from Steven's memories of Berlin. Even Sara was a fake because he'd never told her of his confinement we know of from The Chase and the Doctor had not yet given his speech on altering history. I liked how the threat allowed the Doctor and his companions to collectively come together in mental state and work out how to fix things, allowing them to undo the Time Pilot damage to the TARDIS quite quickly. It was a good way to end with the Doctor abandoning the Time Pilots on a planet where there was no war. That seemed quite apt. Overall, a great story!

Rating: 8/10