Synopsis: Doctor Who: Short Trips Monthly is a series of new short stories read by an original cast member.
Release #34 is an Eighth Doctor and Susan story.
Everyone Susan Campbell cared about has gone. Most of them died in the second Dalek invasion, and her grandfather never visits. She’s living in what used to be Coal Hill School, helping Earth rebuild again.
Then, one night, she’s called away to help with an emergency. A piece of appropriated Dalek technology is malfunctioning, and everyone’s afraid of what it might do…
This is just the first in a sequence of predicaments facing Susan – and the connection between them will shape the rest of her life.
Review: For this Short Trips entry, writer Eddie Robson relied on the poignant inexorability of Doctor Who’s internal logic. The Time Lords would draft Susan into the Time War, The Doctor would try to prevent them from delivering the call up message, and Susan would choose to serve rather than run.
Those fixed plot points never in doubt, the narrative is actually about everything Robson built around them. I adored the fact that Susan, still mourning the death of her son in the Second Dalek Invasion, was living at the repurposed Coal Hill School. I also loved the tree dedicated to the memory of Barbara and Ian.
The tour de force, though, was Robson’s marvelous inversion of Susan’s original departure from the series. This time, she shut the Doctor out and delivered the speech, which I’m still a bit teary over. Carole Ann Ford gave an absolutely superb performance with 54 years of power and character realization behind it.
- You can purchase Doctor Who: Short Trips: All Hands On Deck here.
Producer Ian Atkins
Script Editor Ian Atkins
Executive Producers Jason Haigh-Ellery and Nicholas Briggs
Written By: Eddie Robson
Directed By: Lisa Bowerman
Cast
Carole Ann Ford (Narrator)
- Story10
- Performances10
- Audio Production10
