The Scorchies

"Twinkle, twinkle, little death. Time to draw, your last breath."

Writer: James Goss

Format: Audio

Released: March 2013

Series: Companion Chronicles 7.09

Featuring: Third Doctor, Jo, Brigadier

Synopsis 

The Doctor, his companion Jo Grant and the Brigadier face their strangest case yet - a Saturday night TV show that has been invaded by aliens that look like puppets!

The Scorchies want to take over the world. They want to kill the Doctor. And they want to perform some outstanding showtunes. Though not necessarily in that order...

With Jo caught inside The Schorchies Show, can she save the day before the planet Earth falls victim to the dark side of light entertainment?

Verdict 

The Scorchies was a very good little audio adventure! It was ridiculous and barmy right from the start and that's actually where most of its quality came from. It was incredibly different to what I've been used to over the past ten day with Torchwood's Miracle Day series but when I had the opportunity to purchase the download of this story for just £2.99 from Big Finish, I just couldn't resist. It's a bargain price for an audio and as part of the recent monster offers (that's not monster as in incredible price drops), I purchased two further Companion Chronicles which I'm sure I will get around to blogging in due course. But for now it was all about Jo Grant and I liked how the audio just got straight into the story and didn't mess around. Well, there was quite a lot of messing around actually but that was what the story was all about. The Schorchies were absolutely ludicrous and that's what made them brilliant. The audio itself being presented as a television show was fantastic and the way they brought in the opening credits was superb. Some of the songs that featured would rival anything that we heard in Doctor Who and the Pirates as the lyrics were just magnificent. The cliffhanger managed to be hilarious whilst proclaiming that the Doctor was dead. The Scorchies had mentioned the Master, Daleks and even Gell Guards as people who had attempted to kill the Doctor but they stated that it was they who had shot him dead. They were all very convincing about it but in a comedic way, it was later revealed that the Doctor was not dead. UNIT's involvement in the story was not expected based off the CD cover but it was absolutely warranted! A deadly television show. You might say this is the Classic era's take on The Idiot's Lantern. It was very focused on television which I thought was terrific, especially for a story (probably) set in the 1970s. I remain to be convinced that the Scorchies would get their show on the BBC though, especially at the time of day in which it aired! It seemed a bit more suited to something like breakfast time on ITV. But I guess they're always going to mention the Beeb when it comes to television references in a Doctor Who story. Speaking of references, as well as the aforementioned monsters that got a mention we also had nice referrals to the Autons and the Ogrons. The former particularly made me laugh as it was the subject of a very funny line in one of the Scorchies' songs. The Scorchies themselves were very interesting with the individuals very well portrayed by both Katy Manning and Melvyn Hayes. Professor Baffle really was quite baffling which was great. Mr Grizzfizzle was quite interesting as well thinking he ran things until the revelation about Baffle occurred. All the talk of reversing the polarity got a bit confusing but I think confusion was exactly what this audio wanted. Amble the Ugly Doll and Cool Cat were also terrific. I was very impressed with Katy Manning's narration of the story and considering she's the opposite gender, her impression of Jon Pertwee's Third Doctor was fantastic. She brought her own character of Jo back to life wonderfully as well and she really is a tremendous actress. The story was simply barmy and she absolutely suited it. Overall, a big change from what I've been recently blogging but it's good to be back doing Doctor Who, even if the Doctor appeared in a cameo role. Ludicrous, but very good.

Rating: 8/10