Landbound

"They felt I shouldn't be interfering in the affairs of others quite so freely."

Writer: Selim Ulug
Format: Audio
Released: December 2017
Series: Short Trips 7.X

Featuring: Third Doctor

Synopsis

He was the captain of a ship once. Since being stripped of his authority, he is lost. Landbound. Then he meets a kindred spirit, a man who has also lost something.

In a small seaside town, both Ronald Henderson and the Doctor want to move forward, but one of them must first come to terms with his past...

Verdict

Landbound was a decent little audio story which saw me return to the Short Trips range for the first time in quite a while. I think my last audio from the series was Little Doctors back in around 2015 so it's fair to say that it has been rather a long time since I gave the range a listen. I am excited by the upcoming releases that feature the Meta-Crisis version of the Tenth Doctor and there are other stories that I want to take a listen of but I just haven't got around to purchasing yet. There's just so much content! The story was an interesting one and at 37 minutes long, I thought it was considerably longer than some of the audios in the range I have blogged in the past. However, one reason why I perhaps put off listening to the range is the fact that there is just one actor. On this occasion it was Nicholas Briggs and whilst I had no issue with his performance whatsoever, it's quite difficult to just listen to one actor for the entirety of a story. Even with the changing impression it's quite hard to devote time and admiration to the adventure but that's just the nature of the range. I thought it was clear that this story, the beginning of it at least, was set shortly after Doctor Who and the Silurians with the reference to it and that's a very intriguing point in the life of the Third Doctor I think. The story bared some similar comments from the Doctor to what I recently heard in Old Soldiers and I liked how he likened Ronald Henderson's position to his own. Henderson had been dismissed from his captain position on his boat and with the Doctor having recently been put on trial and exiled by his own people in The War Games, he could relate to his situation. The Doctor hearing about what had happened on Henderson's ship was interesting but I did think that he identified the species that devoured the metallic structure a little too easily. The Third Doctor definitely seems like the incarnation best associated to being in a pub so that was a nice inclusion. Once the Doctor left, I absolutely loved the development of him returning to see Henderson following the events of The Three Doctors when he regained control of the TARDIS. He visited again following Jo's departure in The Green Death which is brilliant to see just how much that exit affected him. I did quite like that the Doctor showed Henderson the TARDIS and the moment his ship was destroyed just to prove that he was exonerated of any blame. Overall, a decent and poignant adventure! Not bad for free.

Rating: 7/10