Stat to Finish: 5.07 - Peri and the Piscon Paradox

Image (c) Big Finish Productions Ltd

It's time, apparently, for another double-length Companion Chronicle, this time featuring the oft-maligned Nicola Bryant as Perpugilliam 'Peri' Brown, the world's least convincing American, in Nev Fountain's Peri and the Piscon Paradox.

Los Angeles, 2009, and the Fifth Doctor is chasing down Zarl, a malevolent fish man intent on stealing the Earth's oceans. He has the help of his companion, Peri, and unexpectedly of Peri's post-TARDIS future self, a successful talk show host. Looking back, the Sixth Doctor finds this more than a little strange.

A bit of a first here, as our second voice is provided not by a one-off character or additional companion, but by a Doctor. Nicola Bryant covers the Fifth Doctor (with an in-narrative note that it's not what he actually sounds like, just Peri doing a posh voice), but Colin Baker is on hand to provide the Sixth. Bryant, meanwhile, is also providing incidental voices and her own, older self, and to cover an obvious question, her American accent remains imperfect, but is a hell of a lot better than it used to be.

The first disc is narrated by young Peri as the TARDIS travels from Earth to Androzani minor. In it, the older Peri appears as a cool, tough alien hunter with big secrets. The second half is narrated by the older Peri, revealing that she is really a talk show host who only traveled with the Doctor once. Both halves start quite light, but end up somewhere darker, and the whole takes on the task of exploring what the character of Peri is really all about. As with some of the best of Who - and this is itself a pretty good entry into the Chronicles - Peri and the Piscon Paradox is a silly story with a surprising amount of weight behind it.

Next up, the Chronicles bring us their first all-original companion, as Tom Allen joins Peter Purves for The Perpetual Bond.