Start to Finish - 'The Elixir of Doom'

Image (c) Big Finish Productions

A double-bill of Katy Manning in the penultimate installment of the original Companion Chronicles, as Jo Jones (nee Grant) joins trans-temporal adventuress and habitual drunk driver Iris Wildthyme on a bus ride to the golden age of Hollywood in search of The Elixir of Doom.

In Iris's rambling way, they begin the search at a party, then stumble into an investigation of the life of horror movie queen Vita Monet, with her five ex-husbands and her five iconic movie monsters. Could she be connected to a lizardman attack on the party, and why is Iris signalling from a movie screen in semaphore to accuse Monet of stealing from her? What is Iris up to if not maintaining the Web of Time and helping the oppressed? And is what is good always what is right? It would all be simpler, of course, if not for the presence of a certain dilettante fop in a green velvet frock coat.

The Elixir of Doom comes off as an oddly damning indictment of writer Paul Magrs' metafictional heroine, whose hard-living, hard-drinking ways are contrasted with a self-confessedly selfish drive to recover the elixir on the off-chance it might let her fight back the years, since she can not regenerate as the Doctor does. Of course, this is complete balderdash, since The Wormery introduced us to Iris's equivalent of the Valeyard, but then again Iris is a woman with at least three mutually exclusive origins. Overall, this is an okay entry into the series, and Iris's 4th wall breaking contributions to the narration aptly and amusingly call into question just who Jo is narrating to in her sections.

Just one more to go then, as the series closes with Second Chances.