Pop-Up

"Make it stop!"

Writer: Dave Curran

Format: Audio

Released: May 2011

Series: Short Trips 3.03

Featuring: Third Doctor, Jo

Synopsis

Jo Grant takes pity on a tiny advertising robot from the Epsilon Cluster with disastrous consequences.

Verdict

Pop-Up was a fun little Short Trips adventure! It seems such a long time since I have blogged anything from the first four series of Short Trips and whilst the range has come on leaps and bounds in the decade or so since this volume was released, it was nice to go back and listen to a shorter take on the Doctor Who story. Even for the Short Trips range, this is a short adventure at just sixteen minutes but when times are busy this works out as a nice little thing to be able to quickly listen and blog. I was doing some research on my blogs and this volume and it's incredible to think that it has been seven years since I blogged the preceding story in the boxset of The Five Dimensional Man. Time really is flying as that just doesn't seem like it should be possible! It's a mad stat that the stories comprising this release will have covered such a long period of time and I honestly wouldn't be surprised if that happens again on the other side. Although, with a baby very close to being born I think it's likely I will be in need of smaller length stories! This one was a lot of fun and just an enjoyable little listen and a lot of that had to do with Katy Manning's narration. She really is a fantastic actress and I was pleasantly surprised with how much I liked her impression of Jon Pertwee's Third Doctor! I had to take a step back for a moment and realise what I was listening to as it was very impressive. Her shift into full on Jo mode was also wonderful. I liked that we had a story focused on advertising as I think that's clever theme for an adventure to focus on giving everything that comes with it and consumerism. I thought it was quite a fun idea to have the TARDIS systems infiltrated by the micro servo robots and making them all spurt out advertisements for a number of different things. It was a nice touch to have Florana advertised which was great continuity for the Third Doctor era, and I also loved how the TARDIS food machine was even impacted. I'm a big fan of continuity like that. This story worked well for the Third Doctor and he was a great incarnation to have given the frustration that was needed to be shown by the Time Lord. He wasn't best pleased to have his TARDIS systems infected so to speak! There was a decent amount of excitement in the audio given how quickly the servo robots were able to act and spread, but the resolution in defeating them ended up being pretty simple with the Doctor essentially pressing the off switch on the TARDIS. That in itself seems like a dangerous concept, and that moment of silence was unmoving, but in the end it was relatively simple and that's what you want in a Short Trips story like this one. There just isn't enough time to have anything overcomplicated or fleshed out. But for this one while it lasted, it was solid and a lot of fun whilst not being anything overly special! 

Rating: 7/10