Waiting for Gadot

"Extinct? They can't be!"

Writer: John Dorney

Format: Audio

Released:

Series: Short Trips: Rarities 

Featuring: Fourth Doctor

Synopsis

"A roaming alien doctor – I can smell a series in this!"

EarthCom cameraman Marsh is a man on a mission: to film some incredibly rare wildlife on a remote world. But life on this planet is both busier and quieter than expected: and it holds Marsh's future in its grasp...

Verdict

Waiting for Gadot was a good little story to continue my sporadic way around the Short Trips range of Rarities! This was another fascinating adventure that absolutely whizzed by but I guess that should come as no surprise considering the duration was barely twenty minutes! There's not a lot of time to play with there when you have such a short story but when I noticed that the author was John Dorney, I knew we were in same hands. He is such a prolific writer when it comes to the audio format and whilst there wasn't too much in terms of high profile stakes or whacky story arcs in this one, it was still a very solid tale. It's a rarity to have the Fourth Doctor travelling solo because there's so little time on screen where that could have been the case. He's never without a companion which considering he's the longest tenured Doctor is an impressive stat, but Doctor Who and the Face of Evil retconned Robot so I don't see why there couldn't be some moment where he dropped a companion off somewhere before returning later. Maybe a little line to establish that would have been beneficial here for the timeline and establishing just when in the chronology of the Fourth Doctor this adventure takes place, but it's not a big deal. If this was most other incarnations it wouldn't matter because there's ample opportunity for many of them to be travelling solo, but not the Fourth! That's why I'd have liked just something. I thought the main character of Marsh was really solid and I liked how he was a committed cameraman for EarthCom. There were some slight resemblances to Sarah Jane when it came to his character and attributing her journalistic tendencies and passion to his for capturing images and video was really strong. I admired him for his passion. I thought the Gadot sounded pretty interesting and definitely worthing of snapping an image because of the scarcity of them being in the wild. The fact Marsh actually wanted to capture them during their mating process was certainly unique! Is this subtly a story about alien porn? Of course I'm going a bit cynical and snide there but it's not far off! The rarity of a species is good to explore and the Doctor being on hand with his superior knowledge was almost a slap in the fact to Marsh. He thought this strange man was not human given the way he referred to people and him explaining how the Gadot were extinct seemed entirely impossible. And yet here the Doctor was revealing that they'd been extinct for a decade but given their scarcity in the public eye, it was not yet realised what had occurred. That's quite a sad realisation to be honest yet it somehow has a semblance of beauty attached. Marsh was understandably shocked and as the final stages of the audio went on, he grew increasingly angry at the Doctor which was a little bit of a surprise. I liked that he saw the TARDIS but his resentment for everything that had happened and his search was understandable but I think a tad misplaced. Overall, an interesting little story that probably deserved a bit more time to expand and explore! A very strong listen though.

Rating: 7/10