The Old Rogue

"He's rather good with canines."

Writer: John Grindrod

Format: Audio

Released: August 2011

Printed in: Short Trips 4.04

Featuring: Fourth Doctor, Romana II, K9

Synopsis

Romana and the Doctor pay a visit to Arkinen, Destroyer of Galaxies, who is working in a cafe in Catford.

Verdict

The Old Rogue was a decent story to continue my way through the fourth volume of Short Trips from Big Finish! This series and range during the first four series of releases is a little hit or miss but this one is certainly on the better side of the middle ground. To be honest, not an awful lot happened but at just sixteen minutes long that’s not much of an issue. This really did feel like an epilogue to a story we hadn’t seen but at least we did get flashbacks. I thought the cafe setting in Catford was unique and worked well enough for what the story was trying to tell, and I liked the real life nature of it. It’s something that’s relatable. The image of Romana watching The Jeremy Kyle Show in that cafe was wonderful and honestly I’d be more than happy to get an entire Short Trips audio that purely consisted of her commentary on that infamous television show. It’s not one that I’m a fan of, but it must be so alien to Romana and more on her reaction would have been a big benefit. I liked that K9 featured alongside the Doctor and Romana here as he really does add a lot. He’s so good at injecting comedy out of nothing and his logical way of thinking is just fun. I’d advocate for more K9 whenever we can get it. The concept of him being spray painted and having a ball kicked at him was a little sad, but the robot dog retaliating by setting the football on fire was tremendous! Something that was so simple but so effective. The Doctor arriving at the cafe with all of the bravado of his fourth incarnation was good writing and the performance from Louise Jameson was stellar as you might expect. She’s wonderful and would anyone know the Fourth Doctor better? I’m not usually a fan of when stories like this feature an actor that isn’t one that was part of the TARDIS team, but in this case it worked for me because the story was told from the perspective of Arkinen. His position as an emperor and causing destruction for kicks was good, but where we catch up with him here he’s already been defeated. I liked the flashback sequence to the end of a previous adventure where the Second Doctor and Jamie defeated him by trapping him on Earth and causing him to switch bodies with Sid, a mere cafe owner. That was the titular rogue which was fun and not what I expected a story to be named after! A cafe is good though and it’s a name that works. I appreciated the flashbacks and the allusions to other incarnations checking up on Arkinen was fun. However, we needed a little bit more of a threat for this story to get a higher rating as it did feel like aftermath. If we had met Arkinen previously in that Second Doctor meeting then I think it would have been better, but it was still entertaining and an intriguing look into the life of the Doctor catching up with his actions and ensuring that things were still as he left them. It was decent that Sid had now taken on the role of Arkinen and had turned his species into peace loving people and statues were now made of the former ruler. Overall, a decent little listen! 

Rating: 7/10