Question Marks

"Whether you remember or not is irrelevant."

Writer: Philip Lawrence

Format: Audio

Released: August 2011

Series: Monthly Adventures 150d

Featuring: Sixth Doctor, Peri

Synopsis

Five survivors of an unknown catastrophe wake to find themselves caught in an inescapable trap. But can the oddly-dressed man in the question-marked collar work out what's really going on before time runs out – for good?

Verdict

Question Marks was a great little audio to round out the one-hundred-and-fiftieth Monthly Adventure from Big Finish! This has been a strong and really consistent volume of four stories and I'm glad things concluded in a strong manner, despite my desire for a more traditional four-part adventure instead of four singular outings. Now, I don't think anything presented in this half an hour was terribly original as we have definitely had examples of the amnesia story before, but the characters here were what made it work and made for a very enjoyable listen! I liked how there was very little indication of an identity for the characters present so the Doctor's attire coming into play was glorious. I thought it was terrific to have him dubbed as Question Marks and it was certainly more alluring and just interesting than Peri's rather bland moniker of Mysterious Woman. That was so bland! Arnie was a really nice character to put alongside Peri and it seemed that before the memory loss had occurred that it was these two who enjoyed some sort of relationship. Arnie clearly hoped that was the case and it seemed like Peri wouldn't be against it either, but of course as things developed it was revealed that Peri and the Doctor were the strangers. There were hints throughout that everything was not as it seemed which were good and the Doctor boasting clearly superior intellect was a fine highlight. Even without knowing who he was, the Sixth Doctor got to display a level of brass arrogance which was delightful. Destiny Gray made for a brilliant captain and I thought Mr Stone rounding out the group made for a very strong cast. Stone's annoyance at not being accepted as having the command and the Doctor getting that instead was great stuff, and I thought the whole setting worked well with the potential of a very dangerous lava threat. That explained the heat and why communications were thwarted. The slow disappearance of individual characters was excellent and immediately led to something more being at play, and the truth of what led to the memory loss was clever. They were all just copies of a dodgy transmat and with Jameson being the one to make the sacrifice, everybody was actually already safe and sound on the outside. But the Doctor and Peri had traced the copies who should only have lasted for mere seconds, but here they were believing they were real and having feels. It was a fine injection of emotion to proceedings as Destiny, the last to go, refused to believe she was a copy. I thought the Doctor explaining his travels and confirming that the events of this anthology occurred in chronological order for he and Peri was nice and some really good continuity. The ending being done on a question as Destiny disappeared was a nice bit of final impact to what turned out to be a strong finale for the collection! Overall, a great little adventure. 

Rating: 8/10