Gobbledegook

"Books are sacred."

Writer: Frazer Lee

Format: Audio

Released: April 2023

Series: Interludes 04

Featuring: Fifth Doctor

Synopsis 

Chief librarian Velar's beloved books are being returned with their text completely garbled at planet Batear's largest library. Batearian books are living things, organically linked via the ancient cave system where they are shelved. Unless Velar's old friend the Doctor can detect a pattern in the chaos, Batear's entire cultural history will become gobbledegook!

Verdict 

Gobbledegook was a good story to act as the opening Interlude adventure from Big Finish this year! I’m a huge fan of this new additional bonus range and getting any extra stories as part of a release or boxset is always welcomed in my book! Obviously, they’re essentially a longer version of a Short Trip adventure given their style of being narrated and only having one actor, but that’s absolutely fine! It’s a welcomed addition to the vast array of content out there and it’s an interesting one here to have the Fifth Doctor travelling solo. In terms of on screen continuity that shouldn’t really be possible but here it seems that his normal companions are off another adventure or simply enjoying a quick break. That’s not unprecedented at all and it’s nice to think that companions can have their own lives on board the TARDIS. It really is rare to get this incarnation of the Doctor alone so I enjoyed having him explore here, but I have to say that I didn’t think much of Dan Starkey’s impression. His narration for the story as a whole was very good but I couldn’t help but think his take on the Fifth Doctor sounded more representative of the Second Doctor. I could hear what Starkey was trying but the inflexions and mannerisms felt more Patrick Troughton than Peter Davison which was a shame. I felt that quite early on and from there I just couldn’t shake that in my listening of the adventure. It didn’t feel authentically Fifth Doctor which was a shame as I rather enjoyed the story! I was not expecting it to feature Velar after the significance he played in the Conflicts of Interest opener of Friendly Fire and his death. It was great continuity and it rounded out the boxset nicely for the latest batch of Fifth Doctor Adventures! It was good to know that the Doctor had met Velar before in a previous incarnation. I loved that he described the Doctor’s regeneration as shredding his skin which was a great analogy for the process! The Doctor even acknowledged that which I appreciated. I liked the focus on books and education in the story with a number of books in the library either going missing from their shelves or just being full of the wrong words. That was clearly problematic and it was where the story got its name as a number of books simply had their words in a jumble. They’d all became gobbledegook! I thought that was fun to deal with and the Thewth as the culprits were decent. They didn’t seem to provide much of a threat and I quite liked how simple the resolution to their problem was. They were a race that had lost their language so enlisting the help of Velar and his students meant that they could transcribe the Thewth’s alphabet and give them back their language and from there their memories and culture. It was quite a nice conclusion really! It was quite the virus on Show but by the end everyone went their separate ways in neat fashion and all was resolved! It was good that Velar might actually join the Doctor in the TARDIS moving forward, but I sincerely doubt that we’ll actually get any further stories featuring them! Overall, a decent story.

Rating: 7/10