Families: Stardust and Ashes

"I've lost everyone now."

Writer: Ian Potter

Format: Audio

Released: April 2025

Series: Companion Chronicles 15.02

Featuring: First Doctor, Susan, Ian, Barbara

Synopsis

Reflecting on all she has lost, Susan recalls a time long ago, when she and her travelling family were trapped, their lives at the mercy of a machine intelligence. But everyone can learn from circumstance and from those around them – even in the ashes of hope, we can sometimes see stardust. 

Verdict

Stardust and Ashes was another excellent episode to continue my way through the Families fifteenth series of Conpanion Chronicles! This was a really poignant and emotional tale and I think the bulk of that actually comes from the context of the narration rather than the story that Susan was actually telling. That was quite unique but I really enjoyed it. Susan is such a unique companion given her familial relationship to the Doctor and we can delve into two different eras of her character. It could be during the time she was travelling with her grandfather alongside Ian and Barbara (or earlier!), or post-The Dalek Invasion of Earth and her life with and beyond David Campbell. This story captured both brilliantly and I liked how its events were confirmed as being close chronologically to that departure. Of course, the context for Susan here as a much older woman evoked some strong feelings as she was still reeling from the events of Lucie Miller/To the Death and the second Dalek invasion. Susan had lost everything there with Alex dying and the Doctor lost his young friend Lucie too. This story for Susan can’t be too far removed from those events as her focus here was to scatter the ashes of her son. I wasn’t expecting that to be the point of the ashes word in the title! I thought Mr Perryman was a nice character and his understanding towards Susan was good to hear. He could see she was struggling and gave her the chance and room to breathe when it came to her feelings. She snapped at him about wanting to be alone but in reality she very much needed this talk. I thought her recollection of the story which formed most of the plot was great and I thought Qualia in particular as the ship’s computer worked well. Barbara’s reaction to realising they were talking to a computer was fun as it’s so easy to forget when she comes from. Technology was a strife less advanced in 1963 than it is now where AI is running rampant. I thought the twist on the computer telling the quartet to run was fun as it actually turned out they were on a 1km running track! Exercise in space wasn’t the route I was expecting the story to go down, but it worked rather well and was quite unique. Qualia needing to disinfect the TARDIS foursome was good and something so simple providing a strong threat and some lengthy tension regarding the security code for the door exit was terrific. It’s so often the ordinary that becomes the most dangerous. Captain Andrew’s having his voice into Qualia was good but finding his corpse provided some dark moments. It actually allowed Susan to show some maturity when it came to her returning to the scene to find Ian and the Doctor trying to use his handprint. The dusty description of his hand when it fell to the ground was  brilliant in its horror. Susan though tackled the situation well and was confident as she’d seen worse than an old corpse on her travels. It was good to explore that side of her on audio here as the television series perhaps didn’t allow that to a great extent. I liked how she acknowledged that she did want to move on with her life and despite being pushed out by the Doctor, she knew she needed to leave to grow as a person. And of course she did love David very much. I liked the reveal of the mayday being sent over two centuries ago and Susan’s subtle comments about someone mulling around for that long was fun stuff. Who knows how long she had left with a whole regenerative cycle! I thought the cliffhanger was good in revealing the other crew were dead and the way they fed instructions to Qualia to basically set it free from its programming was very good, if not a little simple. But it was exactly what was needed. It didn’t need to be anything more and it’s quite fitting that in a story with a computer intelligence that simple logic was the way forward. It knew the TARDIS quartet were guessing their way through but as long as they got the answer then the programming didn’t show anything wrong. The eulogy for Alex at the end as Susan let off his ashes within a firework was beautiful and this felt like such a motherly moment. It was a stunning way to end the episode and took the story up a rating for me. Overall, a fantastic listen!

Rating: 9/10