The Doctor and His Amazing Technicolour Nightmare Coat

"We are criminals, Doctor."

Writer: Gary Russell

Format: Audio

Released: May 2023

Series: Interludes 05

Featuring: Sixth Doctor, Mel

Synopsis 

A loose thread on his spectacular coat ties the Doctor and Mel into complicated knots. With an obstreperous otter and assorted cloned bureaucrats on their coat-tails, they have to unravel a multitude of scams and schemes to get the Doctor's coat – and his TARDIS – back.

Verdict   

The Doctor and His Amazing was a decent story to continue the Interludes series and act as a nice addition to the Purity Unleashed third series of Sixth Doctor Adventures! I’m a massive fan of the Interludes because getting more stories in a boxset is something I’m always on board with as you really cannot beat a bonus adventure! This one didn’t really fit in with the continuity of the whole Purity arc and that was absolutely fine because a break is no bad thing. It is actually rather refreshing and felt like a bit of a smaller scale story where we could relax in terms of the stakes. I must say, I think the cover artwork for this story is glorious and really a fine use of colour for the word technicolour. It’s so simple but so effective because it’s not something we usually see. I’m a big fan of that. Now, something I’m not a huge fan of is the focus on the Sixth Doctor’s infamous coat. Yes it’s brash and bold but so is this incarnation of the Doctor and I think it suits him. It’s exactly what you would expect from that childish nature of the Doctor to wear something that can be flaunted like this. I think the negativity around the coat is old now. We’ve had a story in the Short Trips range in The Doctor’s Coat so I hope this is the last of coat-focused tales. It’s just not a strong enough grab for an entire story. This became slightly long at an hour in duration. Unfortunately, I also wasn’t a massive fan of Rosie Baker in the narrator role. I’m not entirely sure who she is but I didn’t think she was well suited to the story. Her lack of impression for the Sixth Doctor and Mel certainly hurt my enjoyment as it became so noticeable that this was just a reading of essentially a prose adventure. That’s not ideal in my opinion. I thought Kolpasha was a decent setting although the Doctor and Mel getting split up for so long is a bold approach and scarcely believable for the duration of three months as happened here. It was fun for Mel to have gotten a job and funds, and that was something she wanted to iterate to the Doctor. It was her money that she had earned. He seemed nonplussed about that and would happily spend it! The TARDIS being a shuttle ride away was good stuff and the funds were needed to travel there, and it’s always good when the Doctor is separated from the safety net of his ship. The confusion of the Doctor accidentally stealing the otter’s profits was a bit silly in my estimation. I did though like the Evenni and their economy centring around hijacking was brilliant. There’s a strong idea there that certainly warrants further exploration! I liked it a lot. I thought the way things ended was a little underwhelming as the money was just returned and Mel lamented on wanting to get rid of the coat. Overall, some decent ideas but perhaps not the right format and a tired focus. 

Rating: 6/10