Timejacked!: Split Second

"History is colliding all over the place."

Writer: Lou Morgan

Format: Audio

Released: November 2021

Series: Twelfth Doctor Chronicles 2.02

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...

Oh dear. That wasn't meant to happen.

Verdict

Split Second was another good little episode to continue the Timejacked! second volume of Twelfth Doctor Chronicles! After a fantastic cliffhanger at the end of Flight to Calandra, and a quite incredible synopsis given its simplicity, this was actually a bit of a complicated jaunt. It was fun to develop the relationship between the Doctor and Kiera further and the surroundings of what should have been 21st century Bristol were very much of the unknown. A wall was built around the city and there was a mix of steam transport, Calandran space stations and even mammoths! Time was very broken thanks to the actions of Kiera's meddling. She had actually resulted in the vortex being fractured and now there were a number of splinters coming off the main crack which was a fun concept. The idea of the vortex being impacted like this was exciting because of the potential calamity it could cause, and the basis for the episode was soon set with the hunt for anomalies. I like this approach on paper but when it comes to a 55-minute audio, I think seven anomalies was way too many and really limited how high I could rate this story. It was certainly fun, but there was just too much going on or not enough time staying in one location. I would have loved to have the Doctor and Kiera exploring France in 1346 but instead we were barely there five minutes. I think the approach would have worked well as an entire boxset instead of a single episode. The description of time being represented as colours was fascinating and looking at the splits and needing to close them provided the incentive for the rest of the audio. The second anomaly took us to the V&A intergalactic spaceport in Dundee which was a unique location to say the least, but again we just didn't explore it for one enough. Kiera objecting to the Doctor's plan of sealing the small splits first was good and a great way for him to extort his authority as the Time Lord versus the Time Agent. The North Ice Station was a good location for the third anomaly and the issue of Kiera dropping the locator in misty surroundings was great, but given the nature of the story and time constraints it was fixed too soon to have a big impact. I loved the idea of visiting prehistoric Ethiopia for the next anomaly and having the threat of a mammoth directly here was excellent. The Doctor feeling vibrations of tremors in time itself was brilliant and I liked how he knew there were bigger ones yet to come. New Ground was the best location for sure and I liked the character of Pennou as the tour guide. There were so many things dotted around that were out of their time, but the focus on the statue that the Doctor had sene before and it depicting the destruction that was coming today was superb and a great introduction of action. It had vibes of The Fires of Pompeii with Kiera wanting to save Pennou, but that just couldn't happen. We were soon taken to Bath in 1830 at the height of the Season which is something I would love to have seen given I spent three years in the city for university and fell in love with the place. The focus on Bath Abbey was excellent and I loved being able to fully picture the scene given my knowledge of the square where it is located. Kiera being tasked with saving the world was good and I liked how the split was located around the side of the Abbey, which was falling apart. Havilland was an intriguing character for her brief appearance and I get a strong sense that there's more to come from her as she seemed more than she appeared. The Doctor advocating the use of grenades was a fun shift from the norm, and Kiera going to the future of Earth where there weren't even ruins must have been daunting. But there was someone or something alive and moving in the split, which I'm looking very forward to exploring in the finale! They headed back to Calandra at the origin point of all going wrong, but now nobody remembered Vetch. Just what had changed? A decent cliffhanger! Overall, another fun listen!

Rating: 7/10