Once and Future: Past Lives

"I'm here to rescue the Monk."

Writer: Robert Valentine

Format: Audio

Released: May 2023

Series: 60th Anniversary 01

Featuring: Fourth Doctor, Sarah Jane

Synopsis 

The Time War. The Doctor has been injured and brought to a Time Lord field hospital. His body glows with energy, but this is no regeneration into a future form – instead, the Doctor's past faces begin to appear as he flits haphazardly between incarnations...

Staggering to his TARDIS, the Doctor sets out to solve the mystery of his 'degeneration'. Who has done this to him? How? And why? From the Earth to the stars, across an array of familiar times and places, he follows clues to retrace his steps, encountering old friends and enemies along the way. Tumbling through his lives, the Doctor must stop his degeneration before he loses himself completely...

Setting as his Fourth incarnation, the Doctor goes in search of the Monk, with a vague memory that he had something to do with his 'degeneration'. 

On Earth, the Monk is meddling, brining Sarah Jane Smith to the future UNIT HQ to steal a device for an alien race. The Doctor must help Kate Stewart and Osgood foil an invasion before he can confront the Monk about what he knows... 

Verdict 

Past Lives was a very entertaining start to the Past and Future anthology of stories celebrating the sixtieth anniversary of Doctor Who! Big Finish were always going to provide something exciting for the occasion and this was a fun start. I must admit that I have more questions than answers after listening but that’s absolutely fine and I’ll look forward to the new release each month as we head towards the actual anniversary. I thought the degeneration sequence at the start of the episode was good and it was lovely to hear a brief glimpse of the first seven incarnations of the Doctor. It was a little strange to quickly run through the First and Second Doctor, and we did get a couple of minutes with the Third Doctor as he realised that one way or another the Monk was involved in proceedings. I’m a massive fan of the meddling Time Lord and he was once again up to no good here which is always a delight. The Doctor indicating that he had knowledge of the degeneration he was undergoing, and it’s a concept I find fascinating. Whilst the voice we hear here is that of Tom Baker and the appearance is that of the Fourth Doctor, this would actually appear to be the Eighth Doctor reverting back through different incarnations whilst retaining his knowledge and mind. That’s really intriguing! That played a big part when it came to Sarah Jane featuring. I’m not sure the chronology of her appearance was the best choice in hindsight as her departure in The Hand of Fear is such a strong and emotional moment so to tread on that feels a little cheeky. The reaction of Sarah when she sees the familiar incarnation of the Doctor but then learns that it’s been an awful long time since he left her was brilliant though. That was a hugely powerful moment. The additions of Kate and Osgood from UNIT was brilliant and gave us a really whacky and fun quartet to kick off the celebrations. I was a big fan of how the Doctor reacted to learning that Kate was the daughter of the Brigadier and he also took a shine to the intelligence of Osgood. They’d get on splendidly. It was fun for him to compliment her celery stick and she seemed to know the exact order in which the Doctor regenerated! She knew he ought not to have had one yet on his attire. The humour that came from Kate and Osgood regarding the detection of an unidentified aerial phenomena above Glastonbury and it being the size of the twin was terrific. It did initially sound very specific! I thought the plot specific to this episode was decent involving the Hyreth, and whilst I did like that it had history with the Doctor, Sarah Jane and the Brigadier, I think it would be beneficial if that was a story that actually existed to experience somewhere. I’m never a huge lover of unseen events but for me the main story involved the degeneration so I was pretty fine with it. I did like the Hyreth acknowledging that Kate was an honourable enemy after their encounter with the Brigadier. I thought the audacity of the Monk to kidnap Sarah Jane was humiliations and it was nice to reference How to Win Planets and Influence People with Sarah recognising her captor. Osgood admitting that she took some of her work home was fun and raised an eyebrow from Kate! The idea of her cataloguing items from the Doctor’s time as scientific advisory was wonderful and the typical nod to the UNIT dating controversy was there as she had only gotten to 1974, but who knows what artefacts were stopped there! The conclusion was really well done with the Doctor realising the Monk wouldn’t be responsible for the degeneration, at least not this incarnation, with it being in his personal future. The tease of the Doctor seeking out his daughter now for some answers was fun and he really moved on quick from disabling the nanobombs! Overall, an entertaining start to the sixtieth celebrations!

Rating: 8/10