Start to Finish: 8.04 - Ghost in the Machine

Image (c) Big Finish Productions

Jumping ahead after our First Doctor double bill, we go to the Third Doctor, or at least his companion Jo Grant, in Ghost in the Machine, written by Jonathan Morris and directed by Louise 'Leela' Jameson. Damian Lynch provides able support to the inimitable Katy Manning.

The Doctor has wandered off while Jo was checking out the TARDIS wardrobe, only to turn up comatose in a sealed complex full of skeletons and weird sounds. On his body is the TARDIS log recorder with a note saying 'use me', so Jo does. As she begins to learn what happened from a recording made by Dr Ben Chikoto, however, Jo realises that things are not quite right. Recordings are not quite true to their original, and something else is present on the tape; something sinister and powerful in search of a voice.

I missed a trick listening to this on the way into work instead of the way home. In the dark. The conceit of recordings that change beach time you play them back, and which begin to answer when you talk to them is creepy as hell. There's something wonderfully Sapphire & Steel about the whole thing. Manning and Lynch each have to cover a range of voices, with both actors playing both Jo and the Doctor at points, and do so superbly, and the story does something that Big Finish have always done well by toying with the possibilities of the audio format.

Next up, we kick off the Chronicles fiftieth anniversary trilogy with the First Doctor and Susan in the aptly named The Beginning.