The Long Way Round

"The Doctor is a kind and decent man."

Writer: John Dorney

Format: Audio

Released: March 2021

Series: Eighth Doctor Adventures: Stranded 2.04

Featuring: Eighth Doctor, Liv, Helen, Tania, Andy

Synopsis

Something is wrong with Earth's future – so the Doctor decides to see it for himself. But very soon, the travellers are captured. Someone seems to know their every move. An interrogator wants answers, but do they even know the right questions?

Verdict

The Long Way Round was an excellent episode to conclude the second Stranded series of Eighth Doctor Adventures! It seems that the story being told for this umbrella title of the Eighth Doctor Adventures is going to be more spread over the four boxsets which is very exciting and it didn't matter at all that this didn't feel like much of a finale. It doesn't need to be in the second boxset of four. I thought going back to the future was a good move and I love the paradoxical nature of the story and the timeline that is being established. The links back to Divine Intervention were fantastic and I love that things are slowly beginning to have consequences. I adore anything we get with the Curator because of the mysteries and enigma associated with that character. Is he the Doctor from another timeline? A splinter? Bigeneration? It's all part of the fun and Tom Baker in particular brings a wonderful quality to the character. His discussion with the younger Gemma Houlbrooke was fascinating and I liked the revelation that this little girl was the same woman that was interrogating the Doctor and his companions in the alternative 2050. She was angered with the Doctor and the prospect of stolen identity for the Time Lord was awfully exciting. I get the sense that things were perhaps unfinished with that and the cliffhanger finish with Robin reemerging which didn't surprise me in the slightest, but the format of the episode was superb. We didn't have the Doctor arrive until after the forty minute mark and incredibly he wasn't missed in the slightest. Staying with one singular character as part of the interrogation for eight or ten minutes was brilliant. On paper, it perhaps sounds a bit boring but it was far from it. I think interrogation just works well as a story for the audio format. I could listen to that kind of dialogue all day and Gemma had an intriguing quality in her line of questioning. She had knowledge about them all already and her insistence for the record that they identified their names each time she returned was terrific. It became mundane and almost felt like a form of psychic torture. Andy was a fun way to start proceedings for this type of episode because as a policeman he was used to being on the other side. He didn't normally have to answer the questions and he was clearly uncomfortable with Gemma's knowledge about him. She knew about Gwen and Torchwood and the Doctor. Except she didn't have it all clear about the Doctor which was fascinating. Tania really put that fact home to her and she didn't enjoy Gemma's techniques at all. The way she reacted to almost having her birth name mentioned was a powerful moment and her speech about the power of a name and it being what you make it was brilliant. This was probably my favourite episode of hers so far. Liv tried to ascertain some control of things when it came to being questioned and Helen too was equally not taking it all that seriously. She tried to reason with Gemma but this version of her was difficult to come by. Liv being the one to almost break through after she heard about how Gemma had followed them but she never got noticed. Of course, the Doctor being the main event for the interrogation was expected and I liked how Gemma challenged him. She was boastful about being familiar with regeneration and it was good for her to follow up her earlier discussion with Helen about her being able to accept him in another body. She'd spent a lot of time with the Eleven so I'm sure the Doctor changing wouldn't be too difficult for her to accept! I liked how the Doctor was able to convince Gemma that it wasn't him that had created this terrible timeline, and that to prevent it she needed to let him and his companions out. When that did happen, Liv noticing the younger version outside the TARDIS after they'd landed back and interacting with her was a nice touch. I get the sense this is only the start of things though with Robin finding Gemma guilty in the alternate future, but for now this was a very strong finale! Overall, a terrific episode.

Rating: 9/10