Audio Review: Doctor Who: Cobwebs

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Doctor Who: Cobwebs by Jonathan Morris

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I don't generally rank the Tegan/Turlough/Nyssa TARDIS team as one of my absolute favorites. I think that "crowded TARDIS" lineups are generally difficult to write for - it takes a very strong writer to give all four leads something to doe, especially if there's any kind of substantial plot or character development. Plus, when I was a young fan, I tended to have an antipathy for companions who weren't enthusiastic about travelling through time and space or who had ulterior motives, which made Tegan and Turlough both problematic for me.



Having said all that, this play made my fannish heart do somersaults of glee. It was just really a treat to hear this lineup together again after so long. And as Big Finish has often done before with not-particularly-favorite characters, this play shows Tegan and Turlough at their best - undeniably their flawed, quirky selves, but somehow endearing rather than annoying.



In story terms, the plot takes a stack of Doctor Who cliches (the secret research base controlled by a megacorporation of dubious ethics, the paranoid security officer, the intelligent computer having a mental breakdown) and wraps them up in an intriguing time-travel paradox. The scientist in me was a bit annoyed at the rather absurd portrayal of how biomedical research is conducted, but that quibble aside, I thought the story worked very well.







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