The Locked Room

"A chance to say goodbye."

Writer: Simon Guerrier

Format: Audio

Released: June 2015

Series: Companion Chronicles: First Doctor 1.04

Featuring: First Doctor, Steven

Synopsis

Steven Taylor left the Doctor and the TARDIS to become king of an alien world. But it's now many years since he gave up the throne and went to live in a cell in the mountain, out of sight of his people. He's not escaping his past – quite the opposite, in fact. As his granddaughter, Sida is about to discover...

Verdict

The Locked Room was an excellent audio adventure to conclude the first volume of First Doctor Companion Chronicles! It also served as a fine finale to the older Steven trilogy that started with The War to End All Wars and The Founding Fathers and I really liked that this was a Companion Chronicle that didn't take the form of Steven recounting a previous adventure with the Doctor and instead kept us with the narrative point of view that we had come to learn and know from the two aforementioned Chronicles. It was excellent to have Sida in a lead role again here and she really does shine as the daughter of Steven. I was intrigued to find that this story picked up after the previous episode some three years following Sida's inauguration. That had been quite the time jump and I was also fascinated to learn that Steven's age was close to a century! I'm very envious of that and I'd certainly be happy if I reached that age! Steven talking his way into getting Sida inside the locked room where she could learn all about his government money spending was a lot of fun, especially when she had made a big point of all of the meetings she had scheduled. She freed her grandfather an hour, but now she wouldn't be outside of the locked room until morning. Discovering that Steven had been enacting a long-thought plan to reunite himself with the Doctor was fantastic and I love the idea of him wanting to be with him again, even in his old age. The connection that came with Sida making contact with the Doctor and almost bringing him in was thrilling and the emotion in her grandfather's voice was palpable. It showed how much he wanted to be with him again which was nice and he felt something different to the jar-Doctor that he felt such distain for. I loved the idea of setting this story mid-The Tenth Planet for the Doctor and as he was dying, his mind was being sent across the cosmos where Steven could link with him. Of course, there was something more at play but as well as battling Cybermen, the First Doctor had a lot going on before he regenerated when we consider this coupled with Twice Upon a Time! He really didn't want to regenerate, did he? The Doctor explaining his predicament to Steven was intriguing and I was fascinated that again the Doctor seemed to be deciding if he was going to regenerate. He didn't explain the process which was good, but Steven having trust in the Doctor that he could save himself if he reached the TARDIS was wonderful. I was a big fan of the cliffhanger with the emergence of a Vardan and I really think they are an underrated enemy in Doctor Who history. I think there's so much potential with them and their return here was full of great stuff. The emotion that came with finding a survivor from the events of The First Wave was brilliant and Steven was quite saddened to find that Oliver seemingly had died for nothing. The little flashback sequence was also a nice addition and I also loved Sida's monologue at the start of part two where she reeled off all of the lost endured by Steven on his travels with the likes of Katarina, Brett and Sara getting a mention. Finding out more about his daughter Dodo's death was also a big shock as he seemed to have been the one to give the order, with only almost-certain knowledge that she had died or turned anyway. I couldn't do that without full certainty, so it was clear why she was such a sore subject for him. The ending was magnificent with Sida tricking the Vardan into the jar-Doctor and Steven helping both return to Earth to try and save the Doctor's life was terrific. Overall, a really great adventure!

Rating: 9/10