CC3.7: The Transit of Venus

An Expanding Universe, Part 3: The Companion Chronicles
In 2007 Big Finish, a company best known for their audio dramas with the Fifth to Eighth Doctors, started releasing a new line in a new style: the Companion Chronicles. These were stories of previous Doctors seen through the eyes of the companions. They had a second actor providing some of the voices, so they weren't quite audiobooks; but they weren't full-cast plays either. As time went on they experimented with variations on the theme such as two-hander drama, a third voice, or a new companion; but the majority stuck with this basic format.

Most of the Companion Chronicles also have an explicit framing sequence, partly to account for the fact that the narrator is much older now than when the main adventure was taking place. Sometimes these are closely integrated with the tale, sometimes not. The Transit of Venus barely has one at all: Ian is telling the story to someone unspecified at some point after he finished travelling with the Doctor. I can picture him sitting in a comfortable armchair in his study at Cambridge University, sipping a glass of something red. It's enough.

Many releases have a bonus interview at the end with the people who were present for the recording. This is useful for someone like me, putting information as well as opinion into the entries. This time around I learned that the story was recorded in the 45th anniversary year, and was the first time Ian had returned (although William Russell had played another character in one of the audio dramas); and that Jacqueline Rayner was deliberately emulating the style of Marco Polo, keeping it as true to history as possible. I think she succeeded.

So far this is the only Companion Chronicle I've seen to have separate episode titles, and there was only just enough material (including the Expanding Universe section above) to fill the requisite three entries. In future I'll decide on a case-by-case basis whether or not to split coverage.

But one slight problem is that, with some of the stories, I'm not sure if I'll know whether they have individual titles or not. Big Finish now offer the stories for download, somewhat cheaper than the CDs; and I recently sold a bunch of Who material to raise money for a download subscription. By starting with CC5.6, Quinnis, I managed to get six First Doctor stories in a 12-release subscription, plus some others I particularly wanted; but the only indication of episode titles for The Transit of Venus was in the CD booklet, which you don't get with a download! Wikipedia doesn't list them, and neither does the TARDIS Index File. Ah, well; I'll probably find the information somewhere, even if I have to (gasp!) ask.

Speaking of the TARDIS Index File, it's entry for this story suggests that it doesn't really fit between serials G and H. All I can say at the moment is that it certainly fits after The Sensorites; I'll judge next time whether it flows properly into the next televised episode.

Anyway, I've been really pleased by this release, and look forward to Ian's next outing.

Published:
Date: January 2009
ISBN: 978-1-84435-356-9

Rating:
7/10.

Next Time:
Back to the TV series with A Land of Fear.