The Oncoming Storm

"I'm an alien not a wizard."

Writer: Phil Mulryne
Format: Audio
Released: January 2016
Series: The Churchill Years 1.01

Featuring: Ninth Doctor, Churchill

Synopsis

Late 1939. Britain faces the might of Germany. Winston Churchill serves as First Lord of the Admiralty. But Churchill soon finds himself facing a more immediate threat than the looming Nazi menace. A 'Stone' with the most mysterious properties is discovered in the Thames' sands, and soon oddly spoken soldiers are creeping round London ruthlessly trying to acquire it. Who are they? Can Churchill and his new secretary Hetty Warner defeat them? And what about the man in the battered leather jacket that Hetty meets? Churchill feels sure they can rely on the Doctor to help them! Except that this Doctor seems to want to stay hidden in the shadows...

Verdict

The Oncoming Storm was a brilliant audio adventure and a great start to the first volume of The Churchill Years. This has been a release I have been very interested in for two years now but with the vast amount of stuff out there, it has never seemed to be top of my purchase list. However, that all changed recently when I incredibly discovered it in a charity shop for just a tenner. I was hardly going to let that one slip! I liked the format and it really did feel like a Companion Chronicle with Churchill telling the tale of the first time he encountered the Ninth Doctor. The lack of Christopher Eccleston didn't really hurt the story too much but I did feel that Ian McNeice could have done a little more to try and capture the personality and likeness of this incarnation of the Doctor. The descriptions of him were good though and I liked how the focus was on his leather jacket. Hetty was a wonderful character and I really enjoyed her relationship with both the Doctor and Churchill. That's quite the pair of imposing figures! She stood her ground well and aided the efforts very nicely. The RATS were an intriguing enemy and I liked how this story, presumably set prior to the events of Rose, dealt with some fallout from the Time War. The concept behind the augur's stone was very good and I liked the idea of the Time Lords using something that would enhance intelligence in the latter days of the Time War to try and save Gallifrey from perishing. The Doctor firmly stating that he was on nobody's side was excellent and I really enjoyed Churchill's reaction to knowing that he was present. He placed an enormous amount of trust in the Doctor's abilities and knew that things would work out okay. Churchill himself was written very well and I very much enjoyed how stubborn he was. The RATS being an artificial intelligence searching for an intelligence augmentation was terrific and the Doctor's likening it to a scarecrow searching for a brain was superb. I really liked that. The Doctor knew that the AI would not be able to handle it though and was trying to prevent a massacre but that would prove futile. Hetty took matters into her own hands and grabbed the stone and the power she felt was almost instantaneous. Churchill's description of how she shared the intelligence levels of the Doctor at this point was fantastic and I thought the way it brought the conclusion, which was swift but great with the demise of the RATS, was very good indeed. Overall, I thought this was a brilliant start to the boxset and I really am looking forward to the rest of the series!

Rating: 9/10