Peri and the Piscon Paradox

"I'm being hunted down by fish, and they're using nets to catch me!"

Writer: Nev Fountain

Format: Audio

Released: January 2011

Series: Companion Chronicles 5.07

Featuring: Sixth Doctor, Fifth Doctor, Peri

Synopsis

The Doctor and Peri journey to Los Angeles 2009 to do battle with a Piscon. His name is Zarl, and he's a fish of utmost evil.

Zarl is going to steal all the water of Earth and sell it to the highest bidder. Or blow up the San Andreas fault. Or the planet. Or something like that. He's a bit vague on that point.

Fortunately, to stop him there's help from an unexpected source: a future version of Peri. She knows Zarl's dark secret. 

But should the future Peri be on Earth at all? Something smells fishy - and it's not just Zarl.

Verdict 

Peri and the Piscon Paradox was an outstanding Companion Chronicle! It really was superb and has now joined Solitaire in a very exclusive club of audios from this range that have secured the perfect rating from myself. I've done a considerable amount of the stories from this audio range in a really muddled up order so for me to award full marks it must really have been special. It was unusual for the range in being over two hours long and having four parts and despite there only being two actors, it really did feel like a Main Range story. I loved the way the two discs were split up with the first and second parts being told through Peri during her time of travels with the Fifth Doctor whilst the third and fourth parts were from the perspective of an older Peri, whose existence was in question right from the word go. Peri finished her travels with the Doctor in complicated fashion in The Trial of a Time Lord but this audio intriguingly revealed that she didn't just stay as a princess. Peri was in fact assassinated during the events of the Doctor's trial and we now know that there are five different versions of Peri living out there in the cosmos! That's quite incredible really. I've sort of started where the audio ends but it hit such an emotional chord with me that I don't think I have any other choice. To discover that this future version of Peri suffered the same fate as Jamie and Zoe did in The War Games really saddened me. That story is my favourite of all time and the emotion behind the companions' departure has stayed with me for a long time. This future Peri only remembering the events of Planet of Fire was heartbreaking to hear, even if her description of events was brilliant. The role of the Sixth Doctor in the story was full of humour and I loved that he defeated Zarl pretty much straight after arriving on the scene. That meant that he had to keep his past unaltered by pretending to be him instead! We'd already listened to events unfold so to then be told that Zarl was actually the Sixth Doctor really did make me laugh. It was magnificent. Some of the dialogue the Doctor had to improvise was fantastic and I loved all the ways the Sixth Doctor was trying to lure the Fifth Doctor into killing him! It was purely ludicrous and that was marvellous. Nicola Bryant did a good job narrating and switching between her present and future self and although I didn't think her impression of Peter Davison's Fifth Doctor was all that good, the way she addressed it in the storytelling was outstanding. I really liked that so it didn't matter to me that Bryant didn't sound anything remotely like Davison. I was absolutely fine with it. The 2009 setting of Los Angeles was very good and I loved Peri's reaction to seeing the near future. That's one of the beautiful things about these audios is that you can accurately place Classic era characters in the present day. The End of the World was set only a few years from now and of course predictions weren't accurate but with the audios we can do it with ease and it's just wonderful. The reference to Doctor Who and the Pescatons was superb in giving a comparison of what the Piscon were like and although I haven't listened to that audio, I have read the novelisation. The other references to The Caves of Androzani, Vengeance on Varos, Timelash, Revelation of the Daleks and Mission to Magnus were excellent. I liked how the format of the story somewhat mirrored that of Project: Lazarus and I also liked that the cliffhangers were very good. Part two didn't really have one other than a foreshadowing of events to come on Androzani Minor and that in itself was great. Overall, an excellent audio that was full of both humour and emotion that was balanced beautifully. Quite a revelation about Peri!

Rating: 10/10