An action-packed ride that captures the listener right from the beginning.
The Doctor is peacefully minding his time being a professor on Earth when a student appears and orders him into his TARDIS. After shooting his guitar into small pieces, she then orders him to take her to a distant planet by name. The Doctor soon realises that this is no ordinary student angry about their marks. The chain of events that follows could unravel all of time unless the Doctor can fix it.
Jacob Dudman brings his best Peter Capaldi impression on his second major outing as the grumpy Twelfth Doctor and, like his impressions of both the Tenth and Eleventh Doctors, is more than up to the task. Unlike the previous volume, this is a full dramatization rather than a narrated story and it is all for the better.
Ostensibly, Timejacked! is a three-part adventure involving the Doctor and his kidnapper Keira Sandstrom- played with wonderful relish by Bhavnisha Parmar (herself recently seen alongside the current iteration of the Doctor as played by Jodie Whittaker). Keira is a time agent who makes a big mistake on the planet Calandra which causes cracks in time to open up. She is determined to fix things up but it soon becomes apparent that this is no small fix. What follows is a fast-paced frolic through a number of locations with the listener barely able to keep up. The scripts by Matt Fitton and Lou Morgan are extremely well done with the Twelfth Doctor’s many moods captured perfectly and the sense of urgency never waning. It is only after the climax that we really get to slow things down. There is a beautiful message imparted by the Doctor at the end that we all make mistakes—it is how we deal with it that shows others who we truly are.
Director Helen Goldwyn has assembled a wonderful cast who are all excellent in their roles. These include Hannah Genesius (Milla), Charlie Hamblett (Vetch), Holly Jackson Walters (Havilland), George Naylor (Attis), and Harley Viveash (Pennou). Goldwyn keeps the action and tension rolling along well and is aided by the excellent sound design of Lee Adams and the wonderful music score written by Ioan Morris. There are bonus interviews at the conclusion of each episode and there is also a suite of music from the story included as extras. It is great to see that Big Finish are getting back to recording in their regular studio again after nearly two years of home studios.
Unlike other recent releases, this is a perfect jumping off point for new listeners of Big Finish who are fans of the more recent television series of Doctor Who. It does not require any back knowledge of previous Big Finish adventures and it finishes without a cliff-hanger so the story has a proper end.
Reviewed by Rodney Hrvatin
Twitter: @Wagnerfan74
Distributed by: Big Finish Productions
Released: November 2021
Approx RRP: $37 CD, $17 Digital Download
This review is the opinion of the reviewer and not Glam Adelaide.
More News
