Doctor Who: The First Doctor Adventures: The Living Darkness from Big Finish Review

The Living Darkness will be Big Finish’s only release in the New First Doctor range for 2025, and author Jacqueline Raynor has decided to reunite companion Steven Taylor with the First Doctor with some Dodo thrown in for good measure!

This is a release that is steeped in 1960s nostalgia and filled with references to the First Doctor’s era, some of which I didn’t see coming including the inclusion of a creature/character from The Daleks’ Master Plan which I don’t remember at all, despite only have just listened to the audio for that story!

Raynor starts off spooky with Steven waking up in a dark room with the ghosts of his past coming back to haunt him, in this case, it’s the spirit of his deceased daughter named Dodo, before becoming a much more traditional Doctor Who outing for this cast of characters. It’s a very emotional coda for this era set towards the end of the First Doctor’s era onscreen with an aged Steven Taylor, played with gusto by Peter Purve, and Dodo, played again by Lauren Corneliu, deciding to leave, presumably, the next story, The War Machines. And Stephen Noonan is on hand again as the First Doctor, easily settled into the role now.

It’s a shame then that the main plot does play second fiddle to the nostalgia trip, but it does throw up some compelling ideas and allows for some brilliant character moments through the six-episode runtime.

The Living Darkness definitely belongs to Peter Purves, who easily steals the show from the other leads. And that’s not a bad thing, it’s brilliant that an actor like Purves can do that, and he easily balances Steven’s age and desire for adventure perfectly. Once the action starts, you forget this is an older Steven and not the youthful character who protected the Doctor in the 60s.

His performance is familiar enough to know this is the same character, though one whose life after the Doctor was marred with pain and loss. And you don’t need to have heard his later Companion Chronicles entries to understand where Steven is now in his life, as Raynor makes sure to explain it in a way which doesn’t need hours of previous listening.

Stephen Noonan is on fire here, too, as the First Doctor. I’d been a bit reluctant at first with his interpretation of the Doctor, not because of his performance, but because of the way the Doctor was written. I found it hard to hear all these Hartnellisms when they were done as a joke and not because of how ill Hartnell was towards the end. Thankfully, that’s toned down here, and that allows his performance to elevate a lot more than his previous outings.

Also, pairing him with one of the original actors, like they had done with Maureen O’Brien in Fugitive of the Daleks, allows him to really pull his weight and make his take on the First Doctor feel that much more authentic.

And although Lauren Cornelius is only in the final couple of episodes as Dodo Chaplet, she, too, gets some great material with Raynor giving Dodo a reason to want to leave the next time she arrives back on Earth. We find her contemplating life without the Doctor and how much she has grown up since she stumbled on board the TARDIS by accident at the end of The Massacre. Her exploration is a lot more touching than one might first think, and it gives her a real reason to want to leave rather than the lazy writing she got in the 1960s.

Overall, The Living Darkness is a massive 60s nostalgia trip. But while that means the story takes a back seat, that isn’t too much of a bad thing, given how the story doesn’t feel like it would fill the six-episode runtime otherwise. The sidelining of Dodo and the drawn-outness of the plot at times does mean this isn’t the strongest of all the First Doctor Adventures, but it’s a really good time and is a strong story in its own right, made even better by the welcome return of the best 60s companions.

Doctor Who: The First Doctor Adventures: The Living Darkness is available on CD and digital download now from Big Finish.