The Runaway Train

"We're heading for a thousand foot drop into nothing!"

Writer: Oli Smith

Format: Audio

Released: April 2010

Series: NSA 10

Featuring: Eleventh Doctor, Amy

Synopsis

Arriving on Earth in 1864, the Eleventh Doctor and Amy must get a posse together to help them retrieve an alien artefact. The duo are chased across the Wild West by the alien race, their only hope of escape is catching the 3:25 train to Arizona.

Verdict

The Runaway Train was a great little audio adventure! With a move imminent from Bristol and my having conquered everything they had on offer in the library, I thought it was time to log into BorrowBox using my Cardiff Libraries account gained from dissertation research and I was thrilled to see what they had on offer for Doctor Who fans! The Eleventh Doctor Tales is something I've wanted for a long time and I'm so glad I can now do them all for free. There'll be a little bit of dancing around as I have previously listened to The Jade Pyramid, and it seem that things aren't quite in release order, but that's absolutely fine. Who wouldn't want to start with a story read by Matt Smith? He was absolutely brilliant as the narrator in this one and there really isn't anything like the Doctor being voiced by the actor who plays the character himself. He did really well in the other roles as well though and I quite enjoyed his American accent. He is certainly a man of many talents! I thought the setting of the American Civil War in 1864 was very good and I was glad to get good use out of what is a location of great potential. I am not the biggest fan of the Wild West, far from it in fact, but I actually found myself excited by the potential of this adventure. It worked really well and I really liked that Amy even dressed to suit the period. That doesn't happen perhaps as often as it should in historically set stories. She had a very good role as the companion in the story, with Smith bringing out her feistiness in impressive fashion. Some of the other characters were very good with Britt and Bernardo particularly standing out for me. The use of the train to Arizona was exciting and brought a lot of adventure to a story that can sometimes be difficult to stay concentrated on given the nature of its format. Whilst Matt Smith was wonderful, only having one voice tell a story can sometimes be a challenge from a personal point of view. That is especially so when it's a reading like this one. The Cei were an intriguing enemy and whilst they could have spoken a little earlier on, I liked the threat of the terraformer and the planet-wide scale of the danger. The Doctor was quick to make amendments to the terraformer using an inhibitor and the sonic screwdriver and reduced things to a much smaller scale. I think a little more on just how easily he was able to do that could have propelled this adventure into being even better, but it remained thoroughly enjoyable. The revelation that the train would one day head to Arizona, but couldn't because the track were incomplete was very humorous and the image in my head was from the third Back to the Future film with the DeLorean just picking up speed before the tracks finished. It was exciting and once the train was gone, 9 o'clock hit and the transformation began. With the reduced scale, there was a crater created and this became the farmland promised by the Doctor to his recruits at the start of the story. That was a nice touch and I enjoyed the end with the Doctor realising the paradox in place and that he now needed to go and set things in motion. Overall, a very good audio adventure!

Rating: 8/10