Murmurs of Earth

"This is the extreme edge of the Solar System."

Writers: M Deacon, J Middleton and C Wraight

Format: Audio

Released: May 2011

Series: Short Trips 3.06

Featuring: Sixth Doctor, Peri

Synopsis

Peri's life is in danger when she and the Doctor land on a planet populated with mysterious holograms...

Verdict

Murmurs of Earth was a decent story to conclude my incredibly sporadic listening of the third volume of Short Trips audios! I have something of a love-hate relationship with the first four series of this really good range as I just think the stories are almost too short despite the name of the range. This one in particular was definitely on the more positive side and I was delighted right from the off to hear that Colin Baker was the narrator. It’s always good in my book to have an actor that is one of the main characters in that role and it doesn’t get much better than the Doctor himself. I thought his impression of Peri was rather humorous and I get the impression Baker had a bit of fun in taking on that challenge. She was very important to the plot and what we had was very intriguing. The somewhat feisty relationship with the Doctor and Peri was presented well here and whilst it wasn’t as obvious as was presented on television, tapping into the softer side of the sixth incarnation was good in limiting that. Baker revels in that and he really has had a new lease of life at Big Finish that has essentially redefined his Doctor. That’s some achievement and this is another little addition here. I thought the idea of the Doctor taking Peri to the Oort Cloud was good and whilst she wasn’t exactly thrilled at first, when she found out she would be the first human being to set eyes upon it her mood soon changed. Being given that opportunity is almost unfathomable but it must be incredibly exciting! The TARDIS being at the edge of the Solar System was exciting as the unknown nature of that was really fascinating. With the Doctor’s assurances that no life could be in existence here, with not even a robot survey for another century with this being 2199, it was obvious that there would actually be life! And I say obvious in the best way. It was fun for the Doctor to be wrong. I thought the Sentinels were a decent enough alien race and their kidnapping of Peri was something that really angered her, as you would expect. She was referred to as an abomination which was more fun and I could just picture her reaction to that. The Doctor could explain that the Voyager probes had limited information on the discs and that meant the information the Sentinels had was limited including the way they greeted them. That was really interesting. I do think we’ve had a few too many sentinels in Doctor Who now but I did think they filled the role well enough. Where I think this story perhaps lost a rating was by how it seemed to just fizz out at the end. I think the issue with some of these Short Trips is that the stakes never quite feel high enough so things just calmly conclude without too much impact. I think that was definitely the case with this one which is a shame. As a whole though, this was a strong listen! 

Rating: 7/10