Timejacked!: Flight to Calandra

"You're only hurting yourselves."

Writer: Matt Fitton

Format: Audio

Released: November 2021

Series: Twelfth Doctor Chronicles 2.01

Featuring: Twelfth Doctor

Synopsis

The Doctor's been timejacked!

Rookie Time Agent Keira Sanstrom needs the Doctor's help, and she's prepared to go to extreme measures to get it. Unwillingly whisked away from St Luke's University, the Doctor quickly discovers that being forced off Earth is only the start of his problems...

The Doctor wants a peaceful afternoon playing guitar in his study. Keira wants the Doctor to take her from Earth to the planet Calandra. Reluctantly, the Doctor agrees. But when they arrive, Calandra isn't how Keira remembers. Something's gone very wrong...

Verdict

Flight to Calandra was a very good and fun start to Timejacked! which is serving as the second series of Twelfth Doctor Chronicles! I think this is going to be a fun release and I was excited from the off by the idea of the Doctor being kidnapped and used for his TARDIS as a taxi service. Of all the incarnations, the Twelfth Doctor is the one I imagine not reacting well to that occurrence. There was no messing around as the story started with Kiera arriving to hijack the Doctor and make use of his TARDIS and I liked the later revelation that she was a Time Agent, something that didn't surprise the Doctor. Her intended destination of Calandra was intriguing and the civilisation that we arrived at was quite interesting. The Confused were a pretty sad story as we learned more about them and the nature of the name of the Sweepers just added to that. We were introduced to Vetch and Milla who were fun characters and completed the main cast of the story, and I was fascinated that Kiera's apparent aim was to bring the Doctor here to help fix what had gone wrong. I remain unconvinced that this wasnt some clever improvisation. Kiera caused a lot of trouble last time she was on Calandra by impersonating an academic student and went so far as to improve their transportation system. As a Time Agent, she broke the primary rule of interference and it ended up in quite the catastrophe. Doubles upon doubles of the inhabitants were being created and this was the result of Kiera utilising her vortex manipulator as she took it apart to try and bypass the limiters imposed on it. Calandra had perfected the ability of matter transfer so combining these elements ended in disaster. The more people were copied, the more zombified the resulting doppelgänger was. I thought that was a very fun concept. The fact they tried to occupy the space of the original person was amusing. Milla changing gears and attempting to shoot Kiera was a fun occurrence but the Time Agent was quick with her abilities and reversed well. I think she's a good character to compliment the Twelfth Doctor and it's nice for him to be travelling when he's supposed to be cooped up at the university. She dealt with Nardole in quick fashion too! The comment about the film Metropolis and the Doctor mentioning it actually being a Cyberman really intrigued me as I believe that's the basis of an upcoming audio in the second series of the Jenny series. Was the Doctor there too? Something fun to think about. Finding out that Milla was actually a doppelgänger wasn't too surprising to be honest, but it worked well and I liked how she was the first one to be replicated. Her original was dead and that caused issues, but the Doctor had worked it all out already and was quick to deal with the situation which I enjoyed. The way the next episode and the rest of the series was set up was fantastic as Kiera just wanted to get home, but a rogue Time Agent was on the loose and the timelines were disrupted on a scale of 90%. The TARDIS was stuck in a time fissure between Earth and Calandra, except when they arrived back in Bristol the cloisters were ringing loud and the city was gone. Everything was gone. A great cliffhanger to lead us into the next adventure and I really like how this series is a big story arc. An excellent approach for the Chronicles range. Overall, a terrific listen! 

Rating: 8/10