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| Image (c) Big Finish Productions Ltd |
Yet more First Doctor, as The Companion Chronicles closes out one of its occasional linked trilogies with the third and final appearance of Tom Allen as 60s city gent Oliver Harper, in Simon Guerrier's The First Wave.
The Doctor, Steven Taylor and Oliver Harper will go to the planetoid Grace Alone. They know; they've seen the records. But what is it that will happen there, and can that fate be averted once revealed?
So, elephant in the room (and by the way, spoilers), The Eternal Bond and The Cold Equations introduced Big Finish's first officially gay companion, and The First Wave kills him off. It's a thing, but it isn't all that much of a thing. Harper's run was limited by the need to fit in between the death of Sara Kingdom and the introduction of Dodo Chaplet, which is barely a story break, and a heroic end is more fitting to the character than wandering off somewhere.
Allen portrays Harper as a bright, determined man, unwilling to give up without a fight, as a counterpoint to Steven's depression in the wake of the loss of Katarina, Brett Vyon and Sara Kingdom, and if the trilogy has a significant flaw it is that Harper's death seems almost enough to push Steven over the edge. The two companions have a good chemistry, however, vital in the absence of a separate Doctor, and their story has been involving. It's sad to see Harper go, but interesting to see his death worked into the Doctor's transformation from disinterested wanderer to benevolent interferer.
In a lighter mode, the next story follows from the plot of a certain stage production, with Dr Who uber-scribe Terrence Dicks' Beyond the Ultimate Adventure.
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