Wirrn Isle

"I've come to know the cold."

Writer: William Gallagher

Format: Audio

Released: March 2012

Series: Monthly Adventures 158

Featuring: Sixth Doctor, Flip

Synopsis 

The year is 16127. Four decades have passed since the colonists of Nerva Beacon returned to repopulate the once-devastated planet Earth – and the chose few are finding the business of survival tough.

Far beyond the sterile safety of sanitised Nerva City, transmat scientist Roger Buchman has brought his family to an island surrounded by what they once called Loch Lomond, hoping to re-establish the colony he was forced to abandon many years before.

But something else resides in the Loch. A pestilent alien infestation that the Doctor, beaming in from Nerva City, remembers only too well from his time aboard the Beacon...

The Wirrn are back. And they're hungry.

Verdict 

Wirrn Isle was another great adventure as I continue my way through Big Finish’s Monthly Adventures, concluding a really strong trilogy for the Sixth Doctor and new companion Flip. The prospect of the Wirrn returning was good stuff and I liked the early mention of Nerva City as we were introduced to the family of Roger, Veronica and Toasty after they had started a new colony back on Earth now it was habitable again. The arrival of the Doctor and Flip via transmat was entertaining and the latter was still clearly in her early days as companion as the transmat experience made her vomit. She was also complaining of the bitter cold with the setting being a Scottish island and a mere -15 degrees. That’s certainly another level of cold! The heated coat was more than enough to bring her back to a normal temperature. The situation on Earth was pretty bleak on humanity’s return as resources were scarce and the advance colonist party had vanished. The Doctor finding them in the pantry as husks was pretty brutal and how close everyone was to eating porridge that actually turned out to be Wirrn mucus was quite something! It was enough to make you feel sick on a morning listen before work. Paul was a good character as the head of the colony program and I enjoyed hearing his message that explained the situation. The cliffhanger of part one with Flip crashing as she headed for the transmat system worked well and that was coupled nicely with Roger sneaking around on the communication line with someone hidden on the other end. He was up to no good. The threat that came from Flip literally being stuck the ice and having the very dangerous threat of being frozen to death was sublime. That felt very real. The man on the communicator turning out to be Iron wasn’t much of a surprise once we learned of the fact that Roger and Veronica had lost their son, but the way he taunted Flip showed he wasn’t how they remembered their little boy. It had been fifteen years after all! What Flip thought of as branches in the ice being very different indeed was fun as they were actually Wirrn trapped under the ice! They’d been there for two decades and explained the four hundred life forms that Roger found on the map. The story from Roger where he explained to Toasty that he actually planted his son’s jumper on the ice so Veronica actually thought he had drowned. That was pretty cruel. Roger being a transmat scientist expert following this because Iron had actually been beamed inside a Wirrn was not something I anticipated! It was a fascinating concept though. He now believed he could get his son back at the transmat station but needed Toasty’s DNA to help, and she was almost destroyed when she vanished in another strong cliffhanger. Flip being transmatted to Nerva city was good and I liked that Sheer and Dare became noticeable characters from there. Iron taunting his dad over the fact he wasn’t saved was pretty brutal before the Doctor was able to shut things down and ensure Toasty was okay. Roger’s DNA not being a match was a great twist as Toasty was actually Sheer’s daughter! That explained why he cared so much about her. Iron killing Roger really saw the Wirrn within him coming through and the threat of thousands of copies being delivered across the world through the transmat was a big one! A solid cliffhanger. I enjoyed that the Wirrn were taking over the city and the pun line of Wirrn business was pretty creative. I didn’t hate it! I liked the use of electricity against the Wirrn and the threat of the next use of transmat killing whoever used it was shocking. The Doctor despised that. His plan to melt the loch was pretty large scale and overloading the transmat worked well as all of the Wirrn copies were beamed to the loch to then have it freezes again. The significant element was that the eggs were not transmatted with them so both sides would now have to broker a peace. I wasn’t so thrilled with that ending as it felt a little incomplete, but as a whole this was a really strong audio adventure!

Rating: 8/10