Cass: Vespertine

"A man who should be dead in a ship that should be lost."

Writer: Lou Morgan

Format: Audio

Released: January 2023

Series: The Eighth Doctor: The Time War 5.02

Featuring: Eighth Doctor, Alex, Cass

Synopsis

It's Cass's first trip in the TARDIS, and the Doctor is determined to make it one to remember. But when they arrive at a research base that shouldn't exist, built above a missing explorer's ship that should never have been found, it seems their visit's going to be memorable for all the wrong reasons.

Because deep beneath the ice, there's more than just a long-lost ship waiting for them...

Verdict

Vespertine was an excellent story to continue my way through the Cass fifth series of Time War era Eighth Doctor Adventures! This firmly served as the first TARDIS trip for Cass which was great and I'm loving that she is getting established as a fully fledged companion. It's clear that she is going to befall the same fate as Bliss when it comes to the Time War and the Eighth Doctor forgetting her, which was played on very nicely here. Alex is very much in on what has been happening and he knows that from what he saw in Hudson Sage's past that the Doctor there was also in the past from the current point in which he is travelling. That is obviously troubling to the Doctor as he would like to know why his memory has been altered and why he forgot ever meeting Sage in the first place. I think this being the first destination for Cass was marvellous and really felt like doing a traditional companion piece despite the Time War setting which was impressive. She had grown up on the story of Hudson Sage as her bedtime ritual so the potential of meeting him here was incredible. He was a hero, so finding out that he might actually have just been a scavenger was obviously detrimental to everything she thought she knew. It changed everything and that must be very tough to come to terms with. But she didn't have much of a choice! I again felt like Alex was something of a backseat companion here and that's not much of a surprise given that Cass is brand new (chronologically speaking!). She fared well for her first trip though, especially with her connection to events. Her immediate recognition of the Vespertine name was marvellous and she couldn't believe that the ship had actually been found at all. It didn't seem to add up with history and the timeline, but that's part of the fun with this setting. Rin was an excellent character in the episode who went through an awful lot emotionally! Her familial connection to Hudson was unexpected in being his great granddaughter, and her actually inadvertently being responsible for killing him was shocking stuff. She was genuinely unaware he was still alive in his wrecked ship and was trying to free him for closure, but she ended up causing things to go massively wrong. The beacon actually being a temporal disruptor was no good and the whole concept of just Sage's part of the deck being time locked was fascinating. That's a very intriguing scale when it comes to the lock and the fact time and history around it underwent consistent change and ageing is really intriguing. The research base itself as a whole was a strong setting and it always felt to fit with the temporally wrong theme. The Doctor pondering on what had gone wrong in Hudson's past to alter timelines was good, but the realisation at the end that he might have been the only one that didn't happen to was fun stuff. He was time locked after all! Overall, a really fascinating adventure and a strong exploration of the Vespertine and Cass's background as a child to really give her depth. A fantastic continuation. 

Rating: 9/10