The Widow's Assassin

"This is nonsense."

Writer: Nev Fountain

Format: Audio

Released: October 2014

Series: Monthly Adventures 192

Featuring: Sixth Doctor, Peri

Synopsis

Once, long ago, in a land of monsters and corridors, a fair maiden was captured, and placed in a deep sleep. 

She was used to being captured, and she had a hero who rescued her on just such occasions. But this time the hero never came. 

And the fair maiden slept on. 

Eventually, a King rescued the maiden, and made her his bride, which many wise old women might tell you is just another way of capturing fair maidens. 

And still the fair maiden slept on. 

Then, the hero had another stab at rescuing the maiden from her prison, but he was too late. And, more importantly, he had forgotten the rules of fairy tales. 

He didn't slay the dragon.

Verdict

The Widow's Assassin was a decent story to continue my way through the Monthly Adventures! I must admit that when I took a glimpse and saw that this story was featuring the Sixth Doctor and Peri, I didn't think it would be events after Scavenger with the cliffhanger of Flip apparently plunging to her death. That remains unsolved and ambiguous which I'm not entirely sure I'm a fan of, but at the same time after all of the recent hints that the Doctor wants to be reunited with Peri I'm glad that he got there. Of course, ever since Peri and the Piscon Paradox her timeline following the events of The Trial of a Time Lord has become a little shrouded and multiplied, so the depiction here was quite something! I must say, I enjoyed this adventure and I'm glad that we do have Peri back in the TARDIS for more adventures with the Sixth Doctor,  but this did feel a tad convoluted and slightly too long. There was an awful lot going on! With the constant body switching, that was a little difficult to follow at times in the audio format. And I don't think Colin Baker's take on being inside Peri's body was too flattering with that accent! I thought there was probably also one too many twists but they were fascinating. Peri actually being Lord Kyiv was great stuff and I liked that the Doctor tested his suspicions by making a false reference to the Monoids. If only they had! I'd love to hear or read that encounter should it happen. I am a huge Peri fan and her departure as companion has always left something of a sour note for me, so to prolong her adventures is exciting and it also opens things up as now we don't know how this Peri departs! I'm looking forward to her getting closure and perhaps a more deserving send off. One element of the story that perhaps goes under appreciated is the relationship between Guard One and Guard Two. They're magnificent and definitely provide some good humour as well as a lot of emotion at the end with the former's death. Even there, he wanted Two's child to be named after him. Good humour there. I thought the true villain of this piece actually being Mandrake was very unexpected, but I did like the history with the Doctor. The cliffhanger felt slightly underwhelming given the lack of knowledge we had, but it being the greatest enemy the Doctor could face as it was the essence of loneliness was intriguing. The Doctor's loneliness nonetheless! That's quite something to tackle, but it was done pretty well. The Doctor seemingly being imprisoned for five years was a big shock to me and Peri definitely felt different and more matured at the start when it came to her feeling exasperated at the Doctor leaving her with Yrcanos. The Doctor though equally knew something was up with her companion as he even felt it was odd that she would agree to marriage after such a short time. Peri believing the events experienced for much of the story was actually a dream worked well, and it was always going to lead to shared humour when she realised that wasn't quite the case. Peri longing after information about Flip was good and I'm keen to explore that further moving forward. I do hope the Doctor attempts to save Flip, but for now he's rather happy to be reunited with Peri. The true article at last. I obviously have foreknowledge of what kind of adventure comes next so I appreciated the loose reference to The Dalek Invasion of Earth in the Doctor saying that he always goes back. I do hope that happens for Flip. She just felt like she was getting started. Back to the story at hand though and there were some strong elements with the likes of Wolsey and the Baron, but there was a bit of a mix of sci fi, humour and romance when it came to Dirani in particular. She was a good character, but she went missing for probably too long. Overall, it's good to get Peri back but the body shifting wasn't wholly for me and this was a tad overstaying in its welcome. Regardless, a decent listen! My quote is no accident.

Rating: 7/10