Saving Time: A Beginner's Guide to Monsters (and How to Slay Them)

"Defeating monsters is in my DNA."

Writer: Rochana Patel

Format: Audio

Released: October 2024

Series: Jenny - The Doctor's Daughter 3.02

Featuring: Jenny, Noah

Synopsis

Escaping the 20th century, Jenny and Noah arrive in a medieval monastery under siege – from monsters lifted from the very pages of the Bestiary the monks are working to create.

How can they possibly defeat creatures of myth and legend? With griffins, manticores, and unicorns on the loose, Jenny needs to learn fast...

Verdict

A Beginner's Guide to Monsters (and How to Slay Them) was another great episode to continue my way through the Saving Time third series of Jenny - The Doctor's Daughter! This followed the very solid opener that was Florence O'Connor and the Sandwich of Doom in being something of a more traditional episode if that is even possible in this spinoff series. Jenny was very much written in the mould of the Doctor which I thought was impressive but this was certainly the most she has ever acted like or alluded to her father. I think it was a fun aspect for her to be looked on relatively strangely by the fact she didn't have a mother. That's still intriguing to think about and it really is brilliant to think just what consequences come from The Doctor's Daughter's conclusion. Jenny was openly referring to herself as a Time Lord which didn't feel quite right but I loved the audacity and brashness she was showing throughout the episode. Again, I wasn't so sure about the JANIS as the acronym for what she was hoping to be her own time and space machine, but it certainly did beat Noah's suggestion of having him at the start of the pair being named. It didn't quite having the same ring to it in the form of a NAJIS. It was pretty silly stuff but it worked. I thought some of the old terminology that Jenny was using and tapping into methods more renowned by her father was intriguing to hear, and it was just incredible to hear her casually dropping in that she was reversing the polarity when it came to the time portal. I thought the links across time here were quite random but having Jenny interact across the thirteenth and seventy-second centuries was good stuff! It was really interesting and was quite the way to get out of 1997. I liked that the COLT-5000 seems to have finally been dealt with as far as Jenny was concerned and the way she was bragging to Noah about how she had stopped it at the start of the episode was terrific, that was of course until she was reminded of their predicament of being stuck at the end of the twentieth century. I thought the book as a means of getting out of time was not something I was expecting, but I enjoyed it and especially when it came to the insinuation at the end that Jenny and Noah had been used by a familiar face. A blue face. I might as well discuss that here as it is very exciting to have the prospect of Dorium Maldovar encountering Jenny given his relationship with the Doctor. He's more associated with the Eleventh Doctor so to have him interact with his daughter is bound to be good stuff! I also like the wider continuity in the options being Dorium or Glyce. It seems we're on a slight delay before we fully meet the much promoted big bad of the series. Could Dorium be connected there? I wouldn't be too surprised! I thought the title of the story was fun and Jenny reading from that book within the episode was terrific. She consumed the content of the book in incredibly quick fashion just like her father did in Rose amongst others. I liked that and it's fun to think that this ability was passed down. Jenny recalling her soldier past was excellent and I liked how she recalled kissing a boy on her first day alive to get his gun. I really liked it, although Noah wasn't all that fussed in being referred to as a sidekick! But this adventure was what Jenny was literally born to do as my quote suggests and she tied everything up rather nicely! Overall, a really fun episode! 

Rating: 8/10