Silver Medal

"The losers get hungry."

Writer: Tim Foley

Format: Audio

Released: December 2021

Series: Year of Martha Jones 1.02

Featuring: Martha 

Synopsis

Martha journeys to a forest camp, hidden from Toclafane patrols. It's somewhere she's been before with the Doctor, more than a century ago – where the silver mines held a deadly secret. 

The resistance are ready to risk everything, but there'll be no prize for second place.

Verdict

Silver Medal was a decent story to continue along The Year of Martha Jones. I like that the boxset is going to be a continuous anthology as we had Martha, Francine and Holly exploring a forest and whilst I am a fan of that, I think it takes away a bit from that Francine look in Last of the Time Lords if it turns out that over the course of that year she actually travelled with her daughter. Their meeting Jessie as the leader of the Hope resistance set up the story nicely and the Hope complex being gigantic seemed a little odd given the roaming Toclafane. I liked how Martha was immediately sceptical of Jessie because of the way members of the camp looked at her and there was an extremely secretive atmosphere within Hope. Marion was a nice character as the tech expert and I was intrigued by the mentions of an alien ally in the form of the Sovari, although they didn't really do much from afar which was a shame. I thought the story that Martha would tell on this visit being linked to the Nevada location was fantastic and it was fun that she and the Doctor had visited the setting in the nineteenth century. I really admired Martha's storytelling and recollection and it was nice for her to remember fondly the tumbleweed that past the TARDIS upon her exit. It was a proper Western! The specific location of Providence was good and I thought the humour of Baby Lizzie's accent was a nice touch and it was good to know that the residents of Hope could still have a laugh. Martha told of the mines and how they feigned being inspectors which was good and I liked the premise of something inside causing disappearances. I must admit, it's a little strange to have a story within a story but it worked as well as it probably could have. It's not an easy format. The threat of the Toclafane coming close to the camp was good despite the cloaking field protection and Jessie was a very strict leader. After a night of grace period, Martha, Francine and Holly were now subjected to the camp's rules of competition in efforts of productivity. Only the winners would eat. Ruthless. Martha explaining how every man in the mine had a silver lump and medallion near their fist was intriguing and when we got a description of silver creatures stomping, I was just waiting for the big Cyberman reveal. I thought the silver that crawled out of the walls would by Cybermats, but it never came which was disappointing and what I felt was being alluded to. Francine pounced on the story detail when the Doctor wasn't around Martha anymore which made me laugh, although I didn't understand the choice of a story where the Doctor wasn't around for a lot of it when the whole idea is to provide the world with hope in his name. Jessie seeing Martha as her competition was a strong development and I was fascinated by her plan to attack the main US base of the Toclafane after the Sovari warned of a solar flare that would provide a seventeen minute period where the Archangel Network would experience an outage. I thought that was good, but one line that I adored in the episode was Martha's comment about patience being mistaken for inactivity. I loved that. Jessie losing her own grandchildren and hearing a similar situation for Baby Lizzy in Martha's story was a powerful moment and it was no surprise she wasn't interested in the Doctor's story. The Argons being revealed as the silver creatures was a little bit of a letdown but they did sound interesting with their silver sentience. The camouflage of the Hope site being damaged and the natural threat of a bear stopping Marion getting to repair was good and realistic given the state of the world, and Jessie not wanting to reschedule her plan showed she wasn't the most temperamental of leaders. The plan to hide in the mine was good and Marion and Dustin finally rebelling against Jessie was overdue and a nice way to conclude. The goodbyes and Martha finishing the story to Dustin was a little awkward with the Doctor simply repairing the ship despite the deaths the Argons caused, but not everyone got that note about the Doctor and the story didn't seem to do that much good in the camp which was a shame. Finding out that it had never been cloaked at all was unexpected, and the arrival of a female villain at the end seems to have set up a good finale. They were her Toclafane, and now she was headed for a showdown in Vegas! Overall, some strong stuff but definitely a couple of weaknesses that held it back slightly. Regardless, a decent listen for sure.

Rating: 7/10