Some stories belong in certain mediums, and the second episode in Big Finish’s new Thirteenth Doctor Adventures series feels ill-suited for audio and destined to have been a comic strip.
The titles arrive four-and-a-half minutes in, and before then there are already two instances of Yasmin Khan (Mandip Gill) telling the Doctor (Jodie Whittaker) to cut down on the exposition and quips and get on with the high-stakes action they’re involved in.
Once she has someone else to converse with after the titles, the dialogue is a lot more natural and does a more effective job of worldbuilding than the Doctor reeling off info. But truly The Return of the Doctor, written by Rory Thomas-Howes, is reliant on Joe Kraemer’s music score far too often to support the production, and, in its absence, it can feel more like an audiobook than audio drama.
While the very early exposition makes for a not particularly convincing first four minutes, it does serve an important function of quickly introducing tension between the two main characters that then enables their own conversations to have more substance in the minutes after.
This whole story revolves around the tension between the two, first highlighting what potential sources of distrust or conflict they could have, then having the main ‘villian’ be a psychic influence that makes everyone more prone to blaming others and also leads to the Doctor living rent-free in everyone’s heads.
When stripped of that entity escalating things, the societies and people the Doctor saves and then immediately leaves actually would appear to be doing well if she were to check in again 10 years later. Given the episode title, it actually has little to tell the audience about such circumstances. The story is in fact ‘what if blame dominates all other reactions when a saviour’s assistance can only go so far?’
The Zaarians are aardvark-like people who are prone to being forgiving and peaceful, so it requires something that literally clouds their vision for their society to go downhill in the Doctor’s absence. And for them to be obsessing over the Doctor a decade later.
Putting the fact that most of the sources of drama in this stem from an infection rather than the consequences of the Doctor’s actions when they pick up and go after saving a planet, the arguments and distrust between characters brings lots of stuff to the surface that forces the Doctor to reflect and gives her a lot of good lines.
When talking about people waiting for her, she names some significant past companions and figures in her life who she failed after asking them to wait, which is a nice connection from this Doctor’s life to her past selves, and she also distances the ‘perfect policewoman’ Yaz from her by indicating she had a violent upbringing on Gallifrey that would make her an inherently violent person.
Unfortunately the high pace of the plot means that reflection is swiftly moved on from, and there’s one scene in particular which suffers. The Doctor is locked up, and she starts off with some unconfident, overly chatty exposition to herself before sounding more grounded and in control of her situation.
But before we can truly see how this incarnation handles isolation and being a prisoner, which is a great way of showing the different sides of her as in Revolution of the Daleks, instead she is saved after what feels like 30 seconds.
The cover for this release shows what a Zaarian looks like, and their striking visual design also feels perfectly suited to comics rather than audio.
Talpa and Vashir, the two Zaarians who work with the Doctor and Yaz to save the day, are played well and there’s a lovely use of sound effects to make their sound match their appearance if such a thing can be said of aardvark-like aliens.
While the Doctor does historically talk to themselves in comedic or chirpy tones when facing danger, in this story the seriousness in the Doctor’s dialogue needed to match how serious the setting and situation she faced to then sell that world to the audience. It contrasts heavily with the preceding episode, where the socially awkward and chirpy side of her personality totally suited that story.
With a simple plot, a resolution that is basically a bunch of public apologies, and much of the Doctor and Yaz’s conflict being induced by the alien infection, this story is definitely suitable for a young audience, and would probably be of more interest to them than adults.
Even though there is the much-needed conflict between the Doctor and Yaz in The Return of the Doctor, it’s mostly about general assessments of character and there is only one instance where Yaz really gets to take a personal dig after the Doctor values saving her sonic screwdriver over the risk of Yaz getting killed.
