Big Finish, The Early Adventures
This story takes place in the tunnels of a world being mined for arkinite, I believe it is. The Doctor puts his Earth Examiner badge to good use here, as they’re far in the future. And this planet’s interior is slowly flooding and the miners are disappearing at a rapid rate in this supposedly uninhabited planet. For me that was the biggest stumbling block. For technology in the 58th Century, how can they not detect a huge amount of aliens deep in the planet? Or did they just not want to? The species is most definitely sentient but communicates with emotions more than words, plus they can see the future. Or at least the possible futures.
There is a lot of fighting for Jamie and Ben to do. And Elliot Chapman does a great job at acting at being Ben, as he has so far. All of the acting is up to the usual fantastic Big Finish standards, even the scene chewing of Richard Tipple by Alistair Petrie. It’s all very well done, even with the Doctor missing for a full episode after he’s taken by the aliens underwater. He does find an alien to communicate, called Orthogna, but it takes some cunning and work to get the situation under control.
The only other problem I have with this is the lack of realization that “so many people” have gone missing (they never say the actual number). The numbers have been hidden but what about the people they work with? They really thought it just meant more money for them so they say nothing? EVERYONE? They must choose the most corrupt people only for the mining jobs in the future. If it’s that disturbing of a number and I can’t imagine the staff is being replaced at that steady of a rate, then how is the mine even able to function? It’s a bit of a mystery to me.
Anneke Wills (Polly Wright/Narrator), Frazer Hines (Jamie McCrimmon/The Doctor), Elliot Chapman (Ben Jackson), Alistair Petrie (Richard Tipple), Debbie Chazen (Dr Goro), Matilda Ziegler (Chatura Sharma)
Writer: Simon Guerrier
Director: Lisa Bowerman
Release: October 2017