Travel in Hope: The Butler Did It

"You're going to unmask the killer."

Writer: James Moran

Format: Audio

Released: August 2023

Series: Ninth Doctor Adventures 10.02

Featuring: Ninth Doctor

Synopsis

The Doctor lands at a spaceship repair port on a dusty planet to tune up the TARDIS engines. But someone has poisoned an old friend of his, and now everyone at the station is a suspect.

It's time to round up the clues, get out the magnifying glass – or sonic screwdriver – and check the butler's alibi...

Verdict

The Butler Did It was a good little story to continue my way through the Travel in Hope tenth series of Ninth Doctor Adventures! I thought this was decent throughout and whilst the idea of doing a murder mystery story isn’t new, they’re usually fun stuff and can always be different with new characters and in this case a new Doctor. The Ninth Doctor seems perfect for this kind of story as he’s very much to the point and it doesn’t take him long to take charge. I do think more could have been done of the whole murder mystery in space thing, but the setting was fine and didn’t hamper the adventure. The arrival of Sita and Kiri was decent as the last two of their species was interesting, as was the Doctor knowing them of old and it being a considerable time since they had met. I thought that was a little off as they seemed to instantly recognise this incarnation of the Doctor and I’m just not sure that adds up. I appreciate that this entire run of Ninth Doctor stories on audio is set between the end of the Time War and Rose, but that’s not the typical narrative. How long could this incarnation really have been travelling solo? The Doctor was a bit of a fanboy for these two though as the last of their species because they’d seemingly done a lot of travelling and been everywhere to meet everyone! Of course that couldn’t be literal, but it showed the scale of their voyages and adventure. They certainly seemed like the Doctor’s kind of people. So when Kiri was poisoned it set in motion the plot to come, although I must say having a murder mystery when the victim actually survived took a bit of edge off in my opinion. I’d have liked to hear the Doctor angrier at the fact he’d lost a friend. I thought Myra was a magnificent character and definitely companion material. She built a really strong relationship with the Doctor and it really is a shame in this batch of stories that no matter how good the characters filling that companion role are, they’re never going to get the full invite on board the TARDIS. I thought the Doctor quickly bursting through his investigation was good for the pace of the story and he was confident in proclaiming certain characters’ innocence, but I do think a little bit more background would have helped us as the listener. I felt we needed to know a bit more about each character, and that might just have been because of the lack of visuals. My frame of reference for this story is The Unicorn and the Wasp and I certainly felt like I knew everyone accused much more than I did here which helped my enjoyment of the episode. As my rating reflects, this was far from bad and I did enjoy the Doctor trying to bring up the cliches. He was chuffed in the end that technically the butler did do it, but Tillier was a lot more than that. His motive was quite dark in having a side job of selling rare alien DNA, and it doesn’t get rarer than the last two of the species. So I don’t get why the Doctor’s DNA as the last Time Lord didn’t come into play. That was a missed opportunity that was begging to be included! I thought Myra referring to the TARDIS interior as being inside out was marvellous and another fine example of the companion qualities she would have. It’s always fun to get a new take on the bigger on the inside moment and that being taken away from the Doctor after the anticipation was nicely done. Overall, a good listen! 

Rating: 7/10