Start to Finish: 3.08 - The Prisoner's Dilemma

Image (c) Big Finish Productions Ltd

The first Seventh Doctor Companion was released as a tie-in to the successful but woefully named 'event' series, The Key 2 Time, in which the Fifth Doctor once more pursued the Key to Time in order to fix the universe (having actually broken it in the first place). The series followed the Fifth Doctor and his companion Amy, an artificial lifeform sent to track half of the pieces of the Key; Simon Guerrier's The Prisoner's Dilemma features Amy's 'sister', sent to track the rest.

Ace has been arrested and is facing the erasure of all her memories; all that makes her her. She has a chance, if she and her fellow prisoner can work together. That other prisoner, however, has many secrets, and may be more dangerous than anyone Ace has ever met. This may be the story that Ace doesn't survive; after all, it isn't even her story.

The Prisoner's Dilemma hits us with a bait and switch right out of the gate, as Laura Doddington's as-yet-unnamed tracer (who will later become Zara) takes up the narration instead of Sophie Aldred's Ace. Aldred only comes in on the act in the framing narrative and the second half of the narration, which spits about fifty-fifty between the two.

There is a scene in here, the first of two within three stories, where a callous use of power causes carnage in a public space, killing families and children, which is something that hits a raw patch in me, more than ever since being a teacher and now a father. This probably colours my opinion somewhat, and is part of the reason that I couldn't get into Amy (renamed Abby to avoid confusion with Amy Pond) and Zara's spin-off series, Graceless. Zara is simply put an unlikable character, and while The Prisoner's Dilemma provides a good description of how she became that way, I am ultimately not interested in her story after this.

That being said, as a start of darkness this is an excellent story, in which Zara's malformed callousness provides a chilling juxtaposition to Ace's eternal optimism and selflessness. Aldred, as ever, brings an energy to the role which defies the years since first appeared in Dragonfire.

Next up, Anneke Wills' Polly takes to the stage of history in the Second Doctor play Resistance.