Respond to All Calls: Girl, Deconstructed

"Houses aren't haunted, people are."

Writer: Lisa McMulin

Format: Audio

Released: August 2021

Series: Ninth Doctor Adventures 2.01

Featuring: Ninth Doctor

Synopsis

Marnie is missing. But she hasn't run away, as her dad fears – Marnie is still very much at home. But not quite as she was.

The Doctor joins forces with Missing Persons detective Jana Lee to help solve the mystery of a girl who's gone to pieces.

Verdict

Girl, Deconstructed was a great story to kick off Respond to All Calls comprising the second series of Ninth Doctor Adventures! It really is still a treat to have Christopher Eccleston at Big Finish reprising his role as the Ninth Doctor and I love the idea of this series being isolated adventures with a theme running through them. What better theme is there than the Doctor responding to a call to help? This particular call came from beyond the normal plain of existence which was really interesting and that forming the backdrop to quite the disaster in Dundee was excellent. Although it wasn't really explored, having an adventure set in Dundee was quite unique and I'm always a fan of venturing out of the traditional likes of London. I thought it was also a lot of fun to have the year be established as 2004 and having this set prior to Series 1 which was of course based in 2005 was brilliant. It was such a simple thing but it was really effective in establishing this as a kind of Series 0 alongside the modern reboot. It was good to have the Doctor as a Detective Inspector and his relationship built with Jana Lee was fantastic. As the Missing Persons detective I thought she was a really strong character and I really liked her interactions with the Doctor. They made for a good pairing. Having them tackle the missing case of Marnie as a sample of the 61 teenagers that had suddenly vanished from the Scottish town worked well and it provided us with an interesting and emotional attachment. I thought the explanation for the disappearances was intriguing with the Serapheem being an interesting species. The Doctor knew about them and they were actually what he was tracking. Learning of their installer migration and the fact they were very light was fascinating and I enjoyed the idea of Earth being a service station on their migration path. They picked up on thoughts which was good and them taking a literal approach to so many teenagers wanting to run away and leave was terrific. I thought that worked very well and explained well why it was all teenagers that had disappeared. However, in their efforts to fulfil the wishes they inadvertently abandoned those they scooped up because they were too heavy to take, but they were left deconstructed! Hearing all of this with Marnie as the primary example was a good format to take which I thought worked in a positive way. Jana learning about time travel and in quick fashion was marvellous and I liked how quickly she was agreeable to its potential existence. Her own connection to events through Douglas in the abandoned and supposedly haunted house was excellent. Douglas was her childhood friend who had gone missing and this was his house, but he'd been lost in deconstruction for twenty years and was well past the twenty-four hour window of restoration. That was some strong emotional attachment. The Doctor utilising the TARDIS console extension was fun and it was great that Marnie was risking her life, whatever she had left of it, to get back to normal and restart life with her dad. Overall, this was a strong adventure and a great listen!

Rating: 8/10