Big Finish Productions releases the first Doctor Who audio drama in the Thirteenth Doctor Adventures series, starring Jodie Whittaker and Mandip Gill. 
Yasmin Khan is a woman who’s fallen to Earth again – at least for a weekend bachelorette party with her friends. Sure, she’s having to dodge persistent questions about where she’s been, what she’s been doing with her time, and the only answer that won’t have anyone questioning her sanity is simply “traveling”, but that aside, she’s looking forward to a weekend of relative normalcy. But then terrible things begin happening to her friends, and perhaps not surprisingly, the TARDIS appears soon afterward, with the Doctor escorting two new companions – a pair of chickens named Ian and Barbara – to this hen night (having perhaps neglected to double-check on what customarily happens on hen nights). An alarming body count begins to add up, and it quickly becomes apparent that someone among the attendees is not who they appear to be. But with Yaz back from having seemingly dropped off the face of the Earth, and her mysterious friend having just arrived in a box that literally appeared out of thin air, the two people most qualified to prevent the tragedy from continuing are instead the most obvious suspects.
written by Tim Foley
directed by Ken Bentley
music by Joe KraemerCast: Jodie Whittaker (The Doctor), Mandip Gill (Yasmin Khan), Jeremy Ang Jones (Mason), Anna Crichlow (Zoya / Kat), Mandi Symonds (Gina’s Mum), Daniel Walford (Daryl)
Notes: The Thirteenth Doctor Adventures take place between Revolution Of The Daleks and The Halloween Apocalypse, as Ryan and Graham are no longer traveling in the TARDIS, but Dan has yet to join the time travelers. The Doctor mentions prior battles between vampires and the Time Lords, chronicled as early as State Of Decay (1980) and embellished in later prose and audio fiction.
Review: It seemed like no sooner had Jodie Whittaker stepped out of the TARDIS on TV, she was ready to step back into it on audio, along with Mandip Gill – and that’s very welcome news, because it seemed like the thirteenth Doctor had an unfairly truncated era, cut short primarily by COVID, but arguably also cut short by the massive swing in viewing habits that came in with COVID and the sudden explosion in streaming services’ success. The Flux season had its moments, but it felt too much like an attempt to force the show to hew to the “season-long story arc” convention of much streaming storytelling, when at its heart, Doctor Who wants to be episodic – almost more episodic than anything else still on TV. The resulting season was muddled, and the victory lap of holiday specials in 2022, while a major improvement, only served to see out the thirteenth Doctor and her friends. Their time was cut short, largely by circumstances beyond the BBC’s control, that’s all there is to it. But Big Finish has a habit of not just bringing back the “underexposed” Doctors – think the sixth, eighth, and ninth Doctors – but making their new audio adventures a valedictory celebration of what made each of them so much fun on TV.
It’s no surprise that they’ve repeated this feat with Jodie Whittaker’s audio debut. The moment she’s heard again, she is the Doctor, as adorably batty and compassionate as she was on TV. While part of me smirks a bit at the fact that she has named her fowl friends Ian and Barbara, the rest of her return is just too spot-on to find fault. The thirteenth Doctor is back to stay. This is the superpower of Big Finish.
Tim Foley’s story is fairly simple and straightforward, taking its time to consider each of the characters as possible suspects and allowing the listener to ponder the possibilities. My early favorite for who was the disguised vampire was the most perversely funny choice – I was almost disappointed that I guessed the correct answer early on! In the meantime, the guest cast rises to the high-profile occasion, and nobody is a weak link. The real twist – the vampire elicits truth from its victims – is where things threaten to get daring: will the Doctor learn that Yaz is harboring the same kind of feelings that certain past companions have held for certain past Doctors? Will Yaz get even the tiniest hint of whether or not the Doctor reciprocates? Naturally things are left a bit on the safe side there – more for the sake of continuity than for skirting all of the attendant issues – but it was really the moment that brought me up short and had real suspense to it.
When Jodie turned into David Tennant in 2022, I sighed in resignation. I had tremendously enjoyed her turn as the thirteenth Doctor and, to paraphrase Tennant’s previous swan song, I didn’t want her to go. When I heard her first scene here, I realized how much I already missed this incarnation of the Doctor (and Yaz too, truth be told). Hopefully this line proves to be enough of a success for this “season” of audios to become an ongoing thing. I’m up for whatever combination of the “fam” Big Finish can bring together if it’s this good.
LogBook entry & review by Earl Green