Penny Wise, Pound Foolish

"It is my job to warn you about that hole."

Writer: Foster Marks

Format: Audio

Released: August 2011

Series: Short Trips 4.02

Featuring: Second Doctor, Jamie, Zoe

Synopsis

Showing too much interest in a mining operation on an almost deserted planet leads the Doctor and his companions into danger.

Verdict

Penny Wise, Pound Foolish wasn’t the greatest of Short Trips adventures to conclude my listening of the fourth series unfortunately! At long last, I’m delighted to have got up to date on this early era of a range that would grow into being something excellent. There are numerous gems in this range but there are only a few in this era of four boxsets of pretty quick adventures. This one again was only sixteen minutes long but it didn’t really need any longer because not much happened. Not much at all. I think the plot is incredibly basic and not exactly exciting, but at the same time I can’t say there’s anything particularly terrible in the audio. It’s just rather bland and passes by which is a shame. One big positive is the talents of David Troughton on display in the narrator role. Of course, Patrick Troughton is long gone so cannot reprise his iconic role as the Second Doctor but having his own son step into the role isn’t a bad replacement! He does the job really well and whilst I did think it wasn’t quite up to the standard given by Frazier Hines in numerous Big Finish releases, it’s still an admirable effort and definitely still feels authentic. That’s important. His take on Jamie was very good too which was a nice bonus, but there wasn’t much of an opportunity for an impression of Zoe as she hardly featured. She was described  as a pretty girl and a quick example of her intelligence was given but other than that she may as well have not been there which is a shame. When you have a companion with intelligence on par with the Doctor I think it just has to be taken advantage of but I didn’t get that feeling here. The basic premise of the story sounds a little comical on paper with the Doctor and his companions investigating a large hole in the surface of the planet and then falling down it. Whenever a hole was mentioned, it was clear that would be the direction. It was a little silly and even when they descended I never got a strong feeling of them being in mass danger. Jack was nothing more than an average character too which was a shame and I thought his deep and booming voice was a little unmatched to the narration perspective that opened the story. His efforts to warn the Doctor, Jamie and Zoe about the hole and its dangers felt awkward but he’d done his job fine. But it was all just a bit weird and uneventful. Jack was then trying to get the Doctor and his companions away and wasn’t shy in trying to kill them, so I really appreciated Jamie’s comment at the end when Jack was threatened of being eaten to just let it happen. That was brilliantly Jamie and did make me chuckle on the train. It was a rare shining light though and Jack’s fate of entrapment anyway wasn’t much of a solace for him. Overall, not wholly bad but not a lot to entice or keep me interested in. 

Rating: 5/10