Blue Boxes

"He died from the sheer sound."

Writer: Erin Harakova

Format: Audio

Released: November 2020

Series: Short Trips 10.11

Featuring: Third Doctor, Liz

Synopsis

Death stalks the phone lines.

UNIT's been inundated with prank calls. Bored, the Doctor agrees to help Liz investigate. Quickly immersed in the world of phone line hackers, it is revealed that they're being killed, one-by-one. With the death toll rising, the Doctor will have to use all his cunning and wits to defeat a foe he can't even talk to.

He'll also have to use a blue box. Just not the one you're expecting.

Verdict

Blue Boxes was a fun little Short Trips audio! I was very excited by the prospect of a new Liz story as she is still one of my very favourite companions and we really didn’t, nor do, get enough content with her. She’s such a strong character and whilst that wasn’t fully showcased here, it was great to have her back. Starting things with Kenneth Widby was decent and I liked the idea of him reverse engineering phone networks and navigate by sound in order to infiltrate advanced networks, such as UNIT. This one felt very much like it could fit into Season 7 and we had the big shock with Widby being killed on the line by sound. That was quite disturbing and provided the impetus for danger. The idea of Liz asking the Doctor for help with prank calls was amusing because I could perfectly picture the third incarnation’s response to that. But he was bored so agree he’s did! I thought it was really nice to emphasise the admiration Liz had for the Doctor and what he was able to do in the scientific field, but I also feel that normalised her a little as a companion when I actually think she’s quite unique and stronger than a number of her counterparts. I thought Chung was a decent character and her being a useful contact on the phone phreaks was fantastic. I liked the name as a group for those responsible for the prank calls and their finding UNIT intriguing was not too surprising! The concept of the callers whistling to connect the calls and infiltrate the networks and take advantage of there no longer being physical operators and actual people in control was excellent. I thought it was clever and had a lot of potential. I must admit I was almost expecting the Wire or the Vardans to be behind it at one point! The Phreakers having the potential to overload the grid and cause chaos on a national scale was good and really provided that sense and scale of danger. The moment the titular blue box was referenced was terrific and it was so fun to hear the Doctor’s stunned reaction when that got name-dropped. Of course, Chung wasn’t referring to the TARDIS which was a clever way to title the episode, but actually a box that could simulate a/c 9 tones which were required to see of the threat. I must admit that the technical jargon went a little over my head, but Chung building one of the box after UNIT sourced the parts from Japan was logical and good story development. The dial into the Phreaker line was a great moment with them being all young and quite ageist when it came to older individuals using technology! That felt more modern than the 1970s. Finding out that Widby’s code name was Twilight was fun and I liked that Siren was very worried of his death and suspected UNIT orchestrated based on some network findings and have it covered under the Official Secrets Act. The Doctor working things out as the story proceeded was nice and I liked his efforts to explain block transfer computation and his experience on Draconia. He deduced that they were dealing with an Antiphon and I liked how that was an adaptive signalling device that would find alternatives if it couldn’t locate its receiver. Step in the Doctor and his TARDIS tinkering so common of this era and he thought this was what drew it in. The Antiphon thought the TARDIS was technologically advanced enough to help it, and the Doctor would be on hand to liberate it and return to the museum from where it came. It was good to have the anti phone tricked into believing the TARDIS was its receiver and eventually see it neutralised. That seemed to eliminate all danger before a calm conclusion with the TARDIS reading the Antiphon data in attempts to find out who it belonged to. It was a little bit of an underwhelming revelation as we found it was from a rock-based life form that had been wiped out, would never recover and it arrived in an asteroid breakup. Still, as a whole this was a decent little adventure! A good listen and credit also to Mark Reynolds as narrator. A fine job!

Rating: 7/10