Start to Finish: The Three Companions

Image (c) Big Finish Productions Ltd

Marc Platt's The Three Companions was part of an experimental phase when Big Finish were toying with the format of their monthly Doctor Who releases. One experiment was the 3 + 1 format (a three episode main story plus a single episode 'short', usually linked either to the main story and to a loosely thematic series of shorts); this was another. Inserted in place of the usual 'making of' featurettes, The Three Companions was released in a dozen 10-minute segments, and later compiled as part of the Specials boxed set.

London is flooded, the world is mired in mould. Polly and the Brigadier are put in mind of their past adventures with the Doctor, but it is another companion who knows what is actually happening. Victorian pickpocket Thomas Brewster has run into trouble, and now the fate of the world - and the Doctor's TARDIS - hang in the balance.

Parts 1 and 2 of this three part story use a framing narrative of an email conversation between Polly and the Brigadier, connected owing to Jo Jones nee Grant's careless blog post (in The Doll of Death). It establishes Polly as a senior civil servant, which provides a bit of background for her ability to address world leaders in The Forbidden Time, and picks up the Brigadier post-Battlefield.

Part 3 shifts to a play with four cast members. Nicholas Courtney and Anneke Wills are joined by John Pickard as Thomas Brewster (not a favourite of mine, here or elsewhere) and Russell Floyd as alien wheeler-dealer GL (using the aliases Gerry Lenz, Garry Lendler and Gerard Lander in the three parts). For my money, this part is less successful, as Brewster is not really engaging as a hero or as an anti-villain, although GL's role is interesting, as an alien presence offering to help the Earth in exchange for fiscal remuneration.

As a single play, the episodic nature of the piece is somewhat against it, as the pace rises and falls for a dozen chapter breaks instead of three, but the first two parts stand well as Companion Chronicles. The third is weakened (for me) by the presence of Brewster, who seems to be channelling all of the least likable traits of companions like Adric and Turlough, and the fact that the melding of play and Chronicle formats results in a slightly stilted four-hander.

I'm going to take a break for a bit, having finished series 5 and the specials, and having a holiday booked for next week. I'll pick up when I'm back home with series 6 and portmanteau episode Tales from the Vault.