Let’s welcome Miles Taylor aboard the TARDIS, as he makes his official debut as the Eleventh Doctor in the first boxset of this full-cast Big Finish range! Here he is joined by Jasmine Bayes as Eleanor Fong, who previously appeared in a minor onscreen role as Corporal Alice Sullivan in The Legend of Ruby Sunday/Empire of Death.
Released on 26th March, which happens to coincide with the 21st anniversary of Doctor Who‘s revival and The Doctor Who Companion‘s 10th anniversary, The First Question takes place immediately after The Wedding of River Song, with the Doctor faking his own death and Dorium Maldovar revealing the Question – hence the anthology title. While the Time Lord erases himself from the universe, he continues travelling alone without Amy and Rory in order to keep them safe; during his honeymoon with River Song.
We begin with The Final Cut, by Lisa McMullin (from a story by Max Kashevsky), as the Doctor arrives in Hong Kong, July 1990. But he is eleven years late upon meeting Eleanor, the CEO of Fong Enterprises, which provides Rememory electrotherapy services alongside producing TVs and VCRs. And you are in for a shock as power surges cause static creatures to appear and turn people into them.
As a British-born Chinese (BBC) person with relatives originally from Hong Kong, I couldn’t be more ecstatic about the diverse choices of locations and East Asian casting with Dan Li, Windson Liong, and Tuyen Do voicing several different characters. And what also makes it special is that the story is set in the same decade that I was born in, with VHS tapes being used to record bad memories via the Rememory machines (ie extracting specific memories from the human brain). A nostalgic but clever use of modern technology, far more sophisticated and engaging than The Idiot’s Lantern.
If the adrenaline-filled script wasn’t the only electrifying aspect, there’s also the creative development behind Eleanor Fong which Lisa McMullin explains:
“I was lucky enough to be gifted a brilliant new companion story for the Eleventh Doctor – and a glorious new companion. I’d love to claim credit for the creation of Eleanor Fong, but she is the brainchild of Max Kashevsky and I’m just her surrogate mother, if that’s not too weird an analogy! Logistical shenanigans meant I got to script her introduction as well as her third adventure – Geronimo!”
What I truly love about how Eleanor differs from other companions, in a positive sense, is that she’s an established CEO with an inquisitive personality, which Jasmine absolutely nails in her performance. There has never been a full-time companion from Hong Kong in Doctor Who before, so I want to say a huge, personal thank you to Max for devising her; the same to Lisa for fleshing out the concepts. And as Hong Kong is still under British rule in the story, I would highly recommend listening to my favourite Unbound audio, Sympathy for the Devil, which takes place during the Handover in 1997 (but in another universe).
In The Tourist Trap, by Beth Axford (making her Big Finish debut), the Doctor takes Eleanor on her first trip to Space Florida. But it’s not the same resort where he and Amy once visited. The beach frozen, no tourists present, just a chatty AI servant named Ray (David Kendal) in charge of the space station. Simultaneously, Captain Scrimshaw (Lucy Goldie) of Starship Scotland sends out a distress call as something mysteriously monstrous threatens to destroy all the crew and passengers on board.
The script delves into numerous nostalgic elements from the Eleventh Doctor era, which substantially expand on what Steven Moffat hinted in The Beast Below and The Big Bang. Not just exploring the abandoned Space Florida while putting Starship Scotland under siege, the Doctor and Eleanor’s character arcs also neatly weave together with the concepts by properly dealing with the repercussions of Series 6; something that the TV episodes notably lacked. Even the characterisation of Ray is marvellous, as I’ve been impressed with how the dangers of AI have been tackled in a number of recent Big Finish audios.
The third and final episode A Delusion of Witches, by Lisa McMullin, features the Doctor and Eleanor visiting Salem Village, 1692, during the witch trials. Mary Morton (Becky Wright) accuses 17-year-old Elizabeth Hubbard (Grace Darling) of witchcraft, and things are not what they seem involving the menacing Judge Crowling (Barnaby Edwards) who, in turn, is a genocidal bigot from the future.
It’s a stark contrast to The Witchfinders, but emotionally devastating along the lines of The Fires of Pompeii. That’s what I find most compelling about the script, especially the tearjerking closing moments with the Doctor and Eleanor. My knowledge of the Salem witch trials may be limited — plus, I was unaware of the Puritan minister Cotton Mather (Tom Kiteley) — but it didn’t actually occur to me until hearing the behind-the-scenes that much of the story takes place in a single location; therefore making it a pseudo-historical courtroom drama.
And in case you’re wondering why the guest characters don’t speak with American accents, it’s because Massachusetts was one of England’s colonies at the time before the United States was founded. It’s all about trying to maintain authenticity; director Nicholas Briggs explains that “they’re more likely to have spoken with an assortment of different, older English accents”.
Miles Taylor’s performance, throughout the boxset, doesn’t outperform Jacob Dudman at all. Every time I listen to both their uncanny impressions, I immediately picture Matt Smith. Equally outstanding! After enjoying The Eleventh Doctor Chronicles Series 7V arc (plus the bonus episode Broken Hearts), it feels refreshing that Big Finish has decided to fill in another gap for this era. Well, this year also marks the 15th anniversary of Series 6, so it’s definitely perfect timing! And if you would like to hear more of Miles voicing the Eleventh Doctor, I would highly recommend listening to the fan Short Trip audio Ex-Libris, by VocaLAB Productions (on YouTube and Soundcloud). It’s an absolute whopper!
While it’s a shame that The First Question is a download-only release, I’m very pleased that Big Finish has incorporated the range title into the cover artwork (which should’ve been done for all releases since 2023, with a recent exception being The Companion Chronicles: The Legacy of Time), alongside the upcoming Twelfth Doctor Adventures starring Jon Culshaw. But they should’ve used the logo with the “DW” icon for the alt version, like with 11DC Volumes 1 and 2. Nonetheless, I wholeheartedly recommend it as a starting point for anyone new to Big Finish. And whatever happens next for the Doctor and Eleanor, I hope they’ll encounter some familiar enemies in future boxsets – including the Daleks (specifically the multicoloured New Dalek Paradigm).
The First Question is available now from Big Finish, with The Final Cut excerpt also available as a free digital download.
