Big Finish: The Second Doctor Adventures: James Robert McCrimmon – Review

Following on from last year’s Beyond The War Games, the Second Doctor’s Series 6B continues with the return of a fan favourite companion and there’s no hiding who it is as Frazer Hines returns as an older Jamie alongside his old friend The Second Doctor, played once again by Michael Troughton who stepped into the shoes of his father’s role last year.

Luckily for us, Big Finish don’t make us wait for two stories till he gets reunited with Jamie, in the aptly named Jamie, by Mark Wright, we find our favourite Highlander in the dungeons of Edinburgh Castle experiencing visions of the past and potential future that he might have gotten to live had he not been forced to leave the Doctor at the end of The War Games and right off the bat, Frazer Hines puts in an amazing performance as the confused Jamie, sharing an excellent rapport with Daisy Ashford’s Elen, a nurse who is looking after him.

Jamie has a wonderfully sinister atmosphere, not surprising given that Mark Wright very often writes creepy Who stories for us to listen to, but there is the sense that the Time Lords are really keeping an eye on what the Doctor is doing. Thanks to the inclusion of the Celestial Intervention Agency agent Raven, who gets plenty more to do, the Doctor finds himself with a rather unwilling companion when she has to join him on this adventure.

Actress Emma Noakes does a brilliant job as the shady Raven and you never know if she’s going to hinder the Doctor’s investigations or help him, despite both their desired outcomes being the same thing. Wright seems to take great delight in writing for a Doctor who is no longer in control of his adventures and this gives the whole product a sense of real unease.

What I did like was that when the Doctor and Jamie are reunited in the second episode, there is little time for them to reminisce, instead things go from bad to worse and the pair have to quickly join forces to stop the forces trying to invade Edinburgh and trick Raven. The story is a little too fast-paced to allow them to reunite in a soppy way so Wright saves all that for the very end where Jamie gets to enter the TARDIS for the first time in many years.

After the pair trick Raven into allowing them to travel together again, she wastes no time in sending them to The Grove for Paul F. Verhoeven’s The Green Man. The Grove is a state-of-the-art medical facility in the far future, and the Doctor and Jamie are tasked with finding a Time Lord who has gone missing there.

Nigel Havers features as the villainous Overseer Fuller, who is in charge of The Grove and who puts in a surprisingly brilliant performance, ultimately proving to be far more of a monster than the actual Green Man. To any Who fan, the reveal of what the Green Man is won’t come as a surprise but it was nice to have the Krynoids come back even if it doesn’t really do much but lurk down corridors.

What really makes The Green Man work is getting to experience the chemistry between Jamie and the Second Doctor again and it feels like they’ve never been away. Frazer Hines and Michael Troughton share the same chemistry that Hines had with Patrick Troughton and in all honesty, no matter what you think of recasting characters, Michael does such a good job of playing the Second Doctor you wouldn’t really know it wasn’t Patrick saying the lines.

Where The Green Man doesn’t hit the same high mark as Jamie did was in its resolution which wraps up so quickly it renders everything that came before pretty inconsequential. But there is one final scene between the Doctor and Raven which really cements the Doctor’s new status quo, he might be cornered right now, but Raven and the CIA had better not let their guard down because he will break free when he gets the chance.

Closing out the set is Bob Ayres’ The Shroud which sees the Doctor and Jamie arrive on the planet Ninevah which has been plunged into darkness. While Jamie finds himself on the side of the planet’s inhabitants, the Doctor finds himself stuck with the supposed aggressors, The Squids. The inhabitants of Ninevah seem to think The Squids are behind the titular Shroud but the Doctor has different ideas.

Of course, the Doctor is proved right as Raven turns up and he deduces that the Shroud is a sentient Time Lord weapon, and Raven proves to be a very interesting character here as she is in a much more vulnerable position this time around. Not only did the Doctor threaten her at the end of the previous story, but now she knows that the Doctor could use the weapon to destroy her and Gallifrey if he wanted to. After four previous stories where she was in charge, it’s interesting to see her finally feeling a little scared and vulnerable as she has to face the consequences of Time Lord “ingenuity”.

The Shroud is a good little story if not entirely interesting but it doesn’t outlive its welcome at just two episodes in length. In fact, that is something that can be said for all these stories on offer, they are perfectly suited for the two-episode format that Big Finish has adopted for this new phase of stories.

As a result, James Robert McCrimmon is an interesting little set. It’s certainly not the best release from Big Finish this year but it certainly isn’t the worst, it feels entirely comfortable sitting in the middle, but it is a shame that we have to wait till next year to hear where the Doctor and Jamie are going from here. But if the “dark-horse” feel of this range is to be believed then the best is yet to come.

You can pick up Doctor Who: James Robert McCrimmon on CD (including digital) for £24.99 and on digital for £19.99 now from Big Finish.