The Night Witches

"She's made us into a bomb!"

Writer: Roland Moore

Format: Audio

Released: September 2017

Series: Early Adventures 4.01

Featuring: Second Doctor, Polly, Ben, Jamie

Synopsis

When the TARDIS materialises north of Stalingrad in 1942, the Doctor, Jamie, Ben and Polly are captured by the Night Witches, an all-female unit of flyers tasked with disrupting the German forces nearing Moscow.

They suspect that the travellers are spies – part of the Germans' Operation Barbarossa. Despite their pleas they are locked up while it is decided what to do with them.

Polly, however, is receiving strange looks from the pilots and clearly unnerving them. When the TARDIS crew discover why this is, it becomes clear that they're about to get far more involved in the war than they could possibly have imagined.

Verdict

The Night Witches was an excellent way to kick off the fourth series of the Early Adventures! I’m a sucker for a pure historical and getting it here was fantastic. It almost didn’t feel like one with the whole doppelgänger element of the story, but with no alien interference I always think things seem a bit more genuine and realistic. There’s only so much meddling throughout history that can occur as the result of extraterrestrials! I must admit that I didn’t know much at all about the Night Witches prior to listening to this story but I thought the educational elements were incorporated really well so it didn’t matter if you were a listener like me that wasn’t very knowledgeable on the titular subjects. That’s always a benefit of a historical tale. I liked the continuation from The Yes Men in the range with the references and having Polly this time piloting the TARDIS. The concept of the Doctor teaching his companions how to fly the TARDIS is great fun and just nice. Why wouldn’t he try and get them to learn? It would be pretty beneficial in several circumstances for sure, and it proved pretty important at the end in proving Polly’s identity. I loved the way the doppelgänger element was foreshadowed for the Doctor too as we know that The Enemy of the World is a pretty notable tale in the Second Doctor’s era, and specifically mentioning that when one meets their doppelgänger one of them usually dies was brilliant. I liked the hints of what was to come in both this story and the aforementioned Season 5 tale. I really enjoyed the dynamic of the Second Doctor, Polly, Ben and Jamie with Anneke Wills doing a tremendous job as the lead narrator and Frazer Hines filling in fantastically as the Second Doctor. I do think this quartet is my favourite for this range. The Night Witches were fascinating to explore and I loved how the Germans had given them their names because of them coming quiet in the night. Ben getting the explanation of the TARDIS translation here was good fun with them speaking to Russian women and whilst their use of the language was good, it clearly wasn’t their natural tongue and that led to them being accused as spies. I thought Tatiana was a fun character in being Polly’s doppelgänger and it was great to actually get a different actress to play her. It certainly helps to differentiate characters and you can get away with another cast member here with the audio format. That’s a strong use of the format. Nadia was an excellent character and she turned into quite the villain at the end! She was unable to explain how the Doctor and company came to be there so that meant they were spies by default. I’m not convinced she believed that, but that’s the instruction she gave. Her attempt to use Polly’s likeness to Tatiana to help sell the Night Witches name was incredible by sacrificing Polly but then having the true pilot emerge seemingly from the beyond. That was rather incredible. I loved it. I thought Lilya was a decent character to compliment the set and her role in the conclusion was fantastic. With Tatiana trying to claim to be Polly to get out of the war alive, she was deemed a traitor and Nadia wanted her dead. Except despite Polly being left by her doppelgänger in German territory, she’d fought her way back and actually helped Tatiana! The pair made it difficult to differentiate which was which version, and that meant Nadia would just shoot them both after a good standoff. The Doctor realising Tatiana wasn’t Polly was amusing because it really was so obvious. Lilya being the one to shoot Nadia dead was good and that meant now that Tatiana could run away as she’d hoped to do. Overall, a superb story!

Rating: 9/10